by Bodie Thoene
THE ZION COVENANT BOOK 6
WARSAW REQUIEM
The Zion Covenant Book 6
Bodie & Brock Thoene
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Copyright © 1991 by Bodie Thoene. All rights reserved.
Cover illustration copyright © 2005 by Cliff Nielsen. All rights reserved.
Edited by Ramona Cramer Tucker
Designed by Julie Chen
Published in 1991 as Warsaw Requiem by Bethany House Publishers under ISBN 1-55661-188-9.
First printing by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. in 2005.
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the authors or publisher.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
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Printed in the United States of America
11 10 09 08 07 06 05
7 6 5 4 3 2 1
John Wayne once said to us,
“A person is lucky if he can count all his true friends on one hand. . . .”
This book is dedicated to Ramona Tucker,
who is thumb and forefinger of our right hand . . .
friend and editor from way back yonder in the last decade of the last century,
and now way into the next!
Kinda like Ruth and Naomi, eh?
Or maybe Buzz Lightyear? “From Infinity to Beyond!”
Mona, wherever we’ve traveled in the last umpteen years,
you’ve been there . . . loving us, praying for us,
looking out for us and our kids, our stories and our work.
You are cherished.
It’s written on the contract of our hearts!
Prologue
January 19, 1991
All the reading lamps had gone out, leaving the cabin of the jet muted by the soft twilight of recessed lighting.
Through the small window of the El Al passenger plane, the stars above the Mediterranean seemed hard and cold, unblinking in the thin atmosphere of thirty-five thousand feet.
David Kopecky stared out across the moonlit wing, watching as a red light winked on and off with a steady rhythm. Closing his eyes for an instant, he remembered his own longing as he had watched lights like this pass over the night sky above Russia. Always he had craned his neck to watch, dreaming of the freedom that must surely lie at the end of the journey. He had imagined men and women encased in the sleek silver cocoon of a passenger jet high above his head. Where are they going? he had wondered. And how are they so privileged that they can leave Russia?
The freedom, the flight, the tiny red beacon on the wingtip had always been for others, not for David Kopecky. Not for his wife, Eva, who slept soundly against his shoulder. But on this night, all his dreams and years of longing had at last made him one of those much-envied travelers.
He was sixty-three years old, and this was his first trip on an airplane. But he was unafraid. His son, Mikhail, had embraced him and begged him to reconsider, to think of the missiles that exploded in Tel Aviv. Was it not possible that one of those missiles might strike the plane before it landed? Could they not delay just a little while after so many years of waiting patiently?
Gas masks.
SCUD missiles.
The cheers and threats of men like Yasser Arafat and Faisal Husseini as explosions rocked the civilian sectors of Israel and sent Israelis running for sealed rooms.
“What kind of life is that?” David’s son had asked him. Certainly remaining in the Soviet Union was a sensible option now that there was a war going on.
David had patted Mikhail on the cheek and replied quietly, “We are not flying into a new war. We are simply continuing our journey into a very old war.”
David did not need to remind his son that Arafat and Faisal Husseini were both blood relations of Haj Amin Husseini, the Muslim leader in Jerusalem who had blocked the immigration of Jewish refugees from Europe before the Holocaust. Mikhail knew well enough that the same family that had terrorized the Jews of Palestine in the time of Hitler was still in the business of terror, still claiming to be the voice of the Palestinian Arabs.
The old war had continued without a break in stride, even after Hitler had perished and the courtroom of Nuremberg had pronounced the last sentence against the mass murderers of the Reich. But the terror of the PLO did not seem so dark as the future David saw for the remaining Jews of Russia and Europe. He felt the evil stir again. Once again he had seen the banners at public rallies declaring: JEWS TO THE OVENS! FINISH WHAT HITLER BEGAN!
The banners, the whispered words and the shouted slogans were being accompanied by blows. In Europe men were beating Jews, murdering Jews because they were Jewish. Again. Once again.
“You must come soon to Israel, Mikhail,” David had pleaded. “You and Ivana must bring the children and come join us in Israel as soon as your papers are in order.”
Mikhail’s eyes had betrayed his skepticism. What man would take his wife and children into a land of sealed rooms and gas masks and falling debris?
It was natural that his son would feel that way. After all, David had not spoken to Mikhail of the horrors that had happened in Poland. He had not told his son that he was Jewish until the first breeze of freedom had given him some hope. And then the letter had come from Israel, written in Polish. For the first time in fifty years, David Kopecky learned that he was not the only survivor of the once proud family of Rabbi Aaron Lubetkin!
My maiden name is Rachel Lubetkin. . . . Grew up in Warsaw . . . My family perished in the occupation. My youngest brother, Yacov, survived and is here in Jerusalem with me. . . . our brother David Lubetkin possibly rescued by a Polish family named Kopecky . . . Could you help us locate . . .
Thus the deception of over fifty years had ended. Only his wife had known, and she had kept silent, guarding his secret, guarding his heart.
He smiled and caressed her cheek. She sighed in her sleep and shifted slightly in the cramped seat. She was not Jewish, and yet here she was beside him, leaving her son and grandchildren behind in Moscow to start over again in besieged and troubled Israel.
She too felt the hot wind of violence that had sprung up in the Soviet Union. She had left Russia for the sake of her son and his family. “To pave their path,” she had whispered through her tears. “If we do not leave, then they will not leave. Mikhail will come. He will bring Ivana and the children if we are there.”
In that moment David realized that he had married the bravest woman in Russia. Like his own mother, he had married a woman who loved her child enough to give him up in order to save his life. “Mikhail must come! There are gas masks for the Jews of Israel!”
David looked around the crowded cabin of the plane. Men and women and children of all ages slept, leaning on one another in awkward positions. Are they dreaming sweet dreams, David wondered, or the nightmare memories that come to me when I sleep? He dared not sleep among these strangers for fear of crying out and waking with a start as his mind carried him unwillingly back to Warsaw—to the old war, to the fall. There were no gas masks for the Jewish children of Poland. The flight of refugees was not on bright silver wings but within a thick, black cloud of fear. The roads were blocked by an en
dless mass of people—women and children, old men, weak and feeble. The very rich and the very poor mingled together in a groaning tide. That day Polish Gentile and Polish Jew marched together. They marched away, somehow believing that they were fleeing from Death. And yet for anyone who looked closely, it was plain to see that Death was marching along patiently beside them.
Even now, as David Lubetkin Kopecky gazed out over the wing of the passenger plane, he could remember the drone of Stuka engines as they swung over the long columns like vultures. The road had erupted. Villages collapsed. Smoke had drifted across the gentle landscape as if to obscure the retreat of the helpless. David had seen those same images replay in his mind when the first news footage of Kuwaiti refugees had been broadcast. Not running into a new war. Simply continuing the endless journey. . .
David had no fear of coming face-to-face with an Iraqi missile. No, that was not the nightmare that woke him from his sleep. The terrible dream that haunted him was the memory of that first moment when this very old war began for him. That day when he and Samuel had left for school. When the bombs fell, there was no shelter to run to.
It had been 6:30 in the morning. Hundreds of children laughed and talked as they clattered over the cobbled streets toward the school air-raid shelter. Then there came the high, useless howl of Warsaw sirens as the bombers began their Blitzkrieg on the far end of the Jewish section of town.
In that moment childhood was irrevocably destroyed. Screams were drowned by the whistle of bombs as children ran away from something that could not be outrun, toward a safety that did not exist.
The bigger ones ran faster. Little ones like Samuel were knocked down and trampled. David had thrown himself over his little brother and kicked back the rush of panicked feet. He had stayed with Samuel and so had not died with the others who reached the school just as the first bombs crashed through the roof.
That day David had lain in the street beside Samuel and wept at the whistle of falling bombs. He had cringed at the roar of explosions, the grumble of collapsing walls and gutted buildings. Gottman’s Department Store. Menkes’ Bakery. An apartment building. The Foundling Home. The school . . . Blasts shook the foundations of Warsaw. Buildings puffed out and then tumbled down onto the sidewalks all around the two brothers.
And then came the silence—an eerie and profound silence, disturbed only by the sobs of David and Samuel. The shattered bodies of playmates littered the street. There was no more childhood. No more illusions. All dreams vanished forever in that moment.
When it was over, only David and Samuel had survived the bombing of that street. Together they groped their way back through the debris to the frantic embrace and cries of joy waiting at home.
And that was only the first day of the war!
He remembered his family: Mama, named Etta. She was beautiful and good. Papa, Rabbi Aaron, wise and strong. David’s sister, Rachel, at thirteen, was a duplicate of Mama. And baby Yacov. Little Yani, they called him. Could that little one be fifty-six years old now, with children and grandchildren? How could he ever bridge the gap of a lifetime of believing they had all died in the bright red ditches of Poland?
Always that first day, the first attack, was the memory that wrenched David from his sleep with a scream of terror. But they had all survived that terrible moment. David lived with indelible images of horror that in the light of day seemed far worse. And yet the hardest memory of all was the one that had blasted away his innocence forever.
And now he was going home once more to see his family. Little Yacov. Rachel. Beautiful and brave Rachel. They were alive! The children of Aaron and Etta Lubetkin would once again embrace one another in joy!
Over fifty years had passed, and still the whistle of bombs might mar their reunion. But at least now there were gas masks for Jewish children.
1
When a Sparrow Falls
May 30, 1939
Karl Ibsen repeated the date three times in order to remind himself that all days were not exactly the same. There was a world beyond the dark confines of his cell where dates meant something more than burned oatmeal for breakfast and thin soup sipped from a dirty tin bowl.
He had counted the days of his imprisonment by scratching rows of tiny notches on the bricks of his cell. Like a calendar, each month was represented by a brick. Six bricks were filled. He carved another notch on the hard red clay of May.
Somewhere it was spring, with flowers blooming in gardens and couples sitting together at sunny tables in sidewalk cafés.
“It is spring,” he said aloud.
As if in answer to his words, a tiny bird fluttered to the bars of his high, narrow window and perched on the ledge. It carried a fragment of string in its yellow beak. Only a sparrow, the kind of bird Karl’s father had paid him to shoot with a slingshot in the family peach orchard many years ago. Karl had been paid one pfennig for every ten sparrows he killed in those days. His heart was filled with remorse as he eyed the tiny brown creature and prayed that it would stay to keep him company. The killings were clear in Karl’s memory as the bird cocked its head curiously and gazed down upon this man in a cage.
One thousand sparrows fell to my slingshot. I bought Harold Kiesner’s old bicycle with my earnings. Forgive my cruelty, little bird . . . and stay.
The sparrow shuddered, dropped its string, and hopped three steps before disappearing off the ledge with a momentary flutter.
“Gone,” Karl said aloud. And then he groped for the words in the gospel of Matthew. The ones about the sparrows . . . something about God caring even for sparrows, knowing when even one sparrow fell to the earth!
Like a knife in his weary heart, he thought about the Thousand and wished he had known then how much more precious they were than the used bicycle! What he would not give to have even one little bird perch on his window ledge now!
But Karl had nothing to give, and so such thoughts were useless. He stared at the barred fragment of blue sky as though his longing might bring the sparrow back. The sky remained as empty as the window ledge.
Karl sank down onto the dirty straw and stared at his calendar. Brick by brick he kept a mental diary of the gray days he had passed in this prison.
Four and one-third bricks had slipped by since the Gestapo agent named Hess had threatened to harm Karl’s children if the pastor did not bend his beliefs to the Nazi will. Karl had not yielded in all that time. He was certain now that his children had somehow eluded capture by the Gestapo, or Hess would have made good on his threat to use Jamie or Lori against him. Perhaps then I would have broken. Ah, Lord, you know how weak I am. I could not remain steadfast and be forced to watch . . . if they hurt my children.
His gaze skipped back to the notch that marked the day he had heard that his wife had perished in prison. Helen . . . Helen . . . it must be lovely where you are now. I don’t begrudge you that, but I am sorry I can’t see it with you.
Other marks represented days on which news of a less personal nature had been passed along to him. This litany of Nazi victories in nation after nation had been intended to convince Karl that there was no use in one Christian pastor holding out when the whole world capitulated to the Führer’s iron will!
Seventeen notches into the January brick, Denmark and the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania signed a nonaggression pact with Germany. These tiny nations gave their pledge that they too would look the other way, no matter what else happened in Europe!
“Why do you not see, Prisoner Ibsen, that the Führer has been given a free hand? Do you think it matters to any country that one insignificant man remains stubborn in his beliefs?”
One the first mark of February, the government of Czechoslovakia ordered all refugee Jews to leave the country within six months.
“The Czechs have at last come to their senses about the Jews. That leaves only you. Prisoner Ibsen!”
On the twenty-second notch, the German-American Bund of Fritz Kuhn held a demonstration of twenty-two thousand strong in N
ew York to block additional immigration of refugees to the United States.
“And who do you think will speak for you if you continue to speak up for people no nation will have? Troublemaker! You are despised and forgotten here! Confess your wrongmindedness, and come back to your own people, who will forgive you and welcome you!”
With March, the rains had come through Karl’s cell window on a strong, cold wind. And with the wind had come news that made him tremble for Jamie and Lori!
On the fifteenth mark of March, the German Army had swept across the line of the Sudetenland, which France and England had offered Hitler in Munich to save the peace. All that remained of the Czech nation had been swallowed up by Germany in one unresisting bite. That night the prison guards were exultant. Hitler himself had ridden into Prague and spent the night at Hradcany Castle! The swastika flag waved proudly over Old Town Prague. German soldiers danced on the Charles Bridge as the Führer’s voice rang through the streets, announcing that Czechoslovakia was now under the “protection” of the Third Reich. And not one shot was fired. Not one German soldier fell in battle.
“Now you will see, Prisoner Ibsen! You will see what will happen to those refugee Jews of yours! Now you will see!”
Karl had continued to carve away the days. At night he lay awake and dreamed of Lori and Jamie running from the Gestapo, who smashed the Protestant soup kitchen in Prague. Karl had told his children to flee to Prague. He had sent word ahead to the Refugee Relief Committee to warn them that his children were coming. And now Hitler slept in Hradcany Castle! Those refugee Jews who had been ordered out of Czechoslovakia in February were fleeing for their lives to escape the force that had hounded them throughout central Europe. Karl prayed that Jamie and Lori were not among those masses of desperate humanity.
