by Robert Elmer
"But do you know what, Pastor?" He rested a hand on Steffen's shoulder. Wolfschmidt's hand felt like a talon, digging into his flesh. "I don't believe a word of what you're trying to sell me. Not a word. At least not until you demonstrate your good faith."
As Wolfschmidt continued Steffen did his best not to flinch or cry out in pain.
"Ah, but even so you're a very lucky man. Did you know that? God must be smiling down on you right now. Because here's what's going to happen. You're going to walk out of this building a changed man. In your sermons you're going to tell your people to obey the proper authority, just as you said.Because we'll be listening very carefully, you know. We'll also arrange for those introductions. Just keep in mind, you're so much more useful to your people alive than . . . well, you understand the alternative, don't you?"
Steffen nodded and Wolfschmidt finally loosed his grip, then stepped to the door and barked for the guards to rejoin them. They'd apparently been standing just outside the door, waiting.
"The cuffs!" he said, gesturing toward Steffen's wrists."Remove them now, and escort him outside. I want this man released immediately."
The soldiers obeyed, snapping open the cuffs. As Steffen rubbed his wrists Wolfschmidt took something else from the corner of his desk and tossed it at Steffen. His wallet!
"We're not thieves," Wolfschmidt told him. "And my men don't accept bribes."
Steffen didn't dare mention what else he might call the guards who then pulled him out of the office— but not before Wolfschmidt asked one last question.
"Pastor!" He commanded them to pause. Steffen couldn't bring himself to turn, but waited stiffly at the doorway. "I'm surprised you didn't ask."
"Pardon?"
"The girl, of course." He laughed. "You didn't ask what happened to her. I assume that the size of the risk you took for her means something?"
Steffen still didn't answer, and Wolfschmidt laughed once more.
"Never mind. Just remember that her fate may now be determined by the degree to which you cooperate. You understand my meaning."
Steffen closed his eyes and sighed. Oh, he understood the threat, all right. But was it genuine? He didn't want to find out.
The guards shoved him down the hall on their way to the multiple checkpoints and the one way through the wall that surrounded the dull gray prison building. He ignored the chill of walking through so many soldiers, wondering if he would actually make it out, or if he would still be shot in the process.But without further ceremony he found himself outside just a few moments later, blinking at the sudden freedom, and shivering at how close he'd come to death.
Lord, did you not notice? Did you not see?
He looked back at the surrounding wall, which he had only ever seen from the outside before. Up on the third floor he imagined the prisoners left behind, and Lars Hansen, still waiting in his cell, waiting to be beaten once more, waiting to die. A Mercedes with blood-red swastika flags on the front bumpers whisked past him, stirring up dead leaves and leaving Steffen coughing at the exhaust. But no one noticed him now, and no one came running through the checkpoint to drag him back inside.
So he hurried away, along Vigerslev Allé in the general direction of Sankt Stefan's, feeling now as filthy on the inside as he did on the outside. He crossed the rail line to the nearby Enghave station, while his head still throbbed in pain, now worse than ever. He tried to forget what he had just done, knowing that he could not. And still he wondered.
What had they really done to Hanne?
27
SOMEWHERE IN SOUTH GERMANY
MONDAY MORNING, 11 OKTOBER 1943
Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp,
which turned my life into one long night.
—ELIE WIESEL, IN NIGHT
For the first few hours Hanne could have pretended she was on holiday, taking the train south—despite the black cloud of despair that threatened to envelop her with every passing hour. And when the little dark-eyed girl sitting next to her in the train's second-class seating began crying once more, Hanne wanted nothing more than to join her. Instead, she swallowed back her own tears and tried to smile.
"I'm Hanne," she said. "What's your name?"
At first the girl wouldn't look up, but she finally admitted her name was Bela.
"Well then, Bela, wouldn't it be fun if we could go to Paris? Or how about Rome, or even Jerusalem? I'll bet you've never been to Jerusalem before, have you?"
The little girl stopped sniffling long enough to shake her head.
"My papa told me about Jerusalem," the girl finally replied."It's far away, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is. But I'd very much like to see it, someday. It's a city for Jews. King David's city! We could walk through the streets together on the way to the grand Hurva synagogue.Can you imagine? We'd pass shops filled with spices from all over the world, like mustard and cinnamon and paprika." She sniffed at the gritty coal fumes drifting in from the cracked window. "Can you smell it?"
The little girl smiled for the first time since they'd been herded into this car at København's train station, even as she coughed.
"I smell it," replied the girl. She hugged a worn little knit doll to her chest as she listened. "Tell me what else we see."
"And here's an old Arab man with a donkey, selling olivewood, and there an ancient oil lantern from the court of King David himself! Oh, and look! Do you see the ancient wall from King Solomon's temple? We think we have old buildings here in our little country, but just think how old is the Western Wall! This is where Jews come to remember—and to pray."
By this time the girl had closed her eyes as the train rocked on, and Hanne thought she could see the trace of a smile on her lips. The girl's mother nodded her tired thanks and tried to quiet a baby in her arms who had been fussing most of the way. Hanne had seen no sign of the father, and was reluctant to ask. She sighed as she closed her own eyes for a moment, allowing her mind to drift to thoughts of how Steffen had bravely made a place for refugees in his church basement, and how she and Steffen had driven to the coast together in the ambulance. She held fast to the memory and kept a hand on her little travel bag—all she now truly owned in this world. Fortunately, that included the book of poems Steffen had given her.
But the peace lasted only another five minutes or so, when the train jerked to a stop and the mother held her two little ones close. Bela woke with a start, looking wide-eyed and puzzled.
"Don't worry," Hanne whispered to her. "You just stay close to us, and we'll all take care of each other, yes?"
German guards at either end of the closely packed passenger car came to attention, as if they knew what was coming next.
"Everybody out!" yelled the guard at the front of the car."Bring all your things. Hurry! Schnell!"
"Here," Hanne grabbed one of woman's suitcases. "Let me take that for you."
"Oh, no," replied the woman. "We can handle it. You have your own bag. We can handle it."
"I'm sure you can. But mine is of no consequence. A man packed it, so it weighs next to nothing."
Well, perhaps she should have explained that. But the little bag contained little in the way of truly useful items, aside from the book Steffen had given her. No clothes or food, for example, just two bars of soap, a couple of hand towels, a comb, two men's shirts... Fortunately her gray hand-knitted sweater kept her warm enough—for now.
"Where are we?" wondered the young mother, probably not expecting an answer. By this time the little girl was clinging to her mother's arm, looking more terrified than ever, and Hanne could not blame her. Hanne checked outside to see only a darkened train yard crowded with the hulking shadows of freight cars and flat cars, engines and tracks. In the distance a ring of thin men in tattered overalls huddled around a tiny flicker of a fire.
"I'm not sure where we are," she answered, "but my guess is we're not in Danmark anymore."
A chill ran down Hanne's neck when she saw a sign— Flensburg—and she knew th
en they had crossed over Danmark's southern border into Germany. She could have expected to come this far south eventually. She just wished someone could give them a better answer about what was happening. No one had spoken to them since København, many hours ago.
The carload shuddered and threw several of the older people to the floor with a screech. Hanne reached down to help one old woman to her feet again, and the prisoners milled toward the exit as the guards yelled and prodded them. Why such a hurry?
"Pardon me," Bela's mother asked the guard standing at their exit. "But could you please tell us where we're going? I need to find a place for my children to get something to eat, and then a place to sleep."
The broad shouldered young man only grunted and kept the crowd moving with a baton.
"Did you hear me?" The woman tried again, motioning with a hand to her mouth. Perhaps her grammar school German wasn't understandable. "Something to eat?"
Outside, a wide path had been cleared between two rows of guards, several of which held back snarling, snapping German shepherds—not the kind of dog anyone would want to pet. Bela gripped her doll even more tightly and walked between the uncertain protection of her mother on one side and Hanne on the other.
Steffen, thought Hanne, if only you knew what was happening to us. Are you praying for me, the way you said you would?
She hoped so. At the same time, she wondered what had happened to him—what the Germans had done to him when he'd come out of the cottage to save her, to buy her freedom, even. Had he really thought the Germans would agree? Poor brave, foolish Steffen! She was not at all sure he would be able to talk his way out of trouble this time, especially not after the brutal blow to the head he'd received from the German soldiers who had surprised them on the beach.
Oh, Steffen. It was all my fault. If you hadn't tried to help me.
Above them, bright floodlights lit the way, giving the damp, rancid-smelling train yard an unearthly glow. The confusing part was, their path seemed to end at the open side of a cattle car, its doors slid open wide like the mouth of a giant fish ready to inhale Jonah.
"Everyone inside!" yelled the guards. They allowed their dogs to lunge at the cringing people on the sides of the crowd, sometimes tearing clothes and occasionally tearing flesh.Most of the women now cried in fright, and the children along with them. The men tried to shield their families with suitcases and outstretched arms, while the dogs and their soldiers kept this little stream of Danish Jews moving toward the gaping maw of the cattle car. Hanne held on to the woman's suitcase in her left hand and little Bela with her right, with her own small bag under her arm, until they had reached the car and clambered inside.
The stench that greeted them revealed the fact that this car had obviously not been cleaned since its previous occupants had been transported, probably from the farm to the slaughterhouse. Hanne wondered if theirs was the same destination.
"Why are they doing this to us?" sobbed Bela's mother, and no one could give an answer. She couldn't sit down, either, even if she had wanted to, as more and more people packed in behind and around them.
"Mor!" cried Bela. Hanne wanted to cry out to her mother, too. Instead she held on as the doors were unceremoniously slammed shut, plunging them into a darkness broken only by cruel, bright needles of light broken off from spotlights outside and left to shatter on the huddled heartbreak inside. Hanne still tried to understand the brutal outpouring of hatred that had swept them to this place, but could not. Crying subsided into low moans and unending sobs, while a group of the men recited the kadish prayer.
"Yit'gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba," began the oldest man in their group, his gray beard bobbing with the ancient words of mourning.
May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified in the world that He created as He willed.
Hanne followed along silently as she had at the funeral of one of her mother's friends the year before. The words gave way to numb exhaustion as Hanne hummed some of her favorite Tommy Dorsey tunes, passing away the next several hours until the train finally jerked and they were on their way once more.
"Here, you sit on the suitcase." Hanne eventually carved out a space for Bela. "Your mother and I will keep you from falling."
Which was no easy task, with all the rocking and jerking as they headed south. They held on, through stopping and starting and unending hours and hours that no longer resembled anyone's holiday—pretend or otherwise. They had not even a bucket or a hole in the floor, and so the relentless press of people soon grew unbearable. Only one young man by the doors, one of the last to be forced aboard, had found a small knothole in the siding, and so announced the cities and towns as they continued their hellish journey southward, through the night and all through the next day.
Schleswig and Neumünster, Hamburg and Hannover, Magdeburg and Leipzig. They saw the signs flash by in a blur.And finally, by misty sundown of the following night, when all the words had been long ago spent and Hanne could no longer swallow from thirst and bitter exhaustion, the boy at the door raised his weak, hoarse voice.
"I don't think we're in Germany any longer."
"What? How do you know? Let me see." Another young man pushed him aside to look for himself. The others only stood with glazed expressions as they heard the news that they had crossed over into Czechoslovakia, for now the signs in passing train stations no longer bore German names, but even more strange, unpronounceable ones like Krásny Les and Ústí nad Labem. By that time Hanne had fallen to her knees, as they took turns standing or leaning against one another, as they were able. Many were not, and Hanne feared the weak and the old would not survive such a trip. But then their transport jerked to a stop once more, and after a moment they watched the doors slide open to a scene much like the one they had left behind.
They stood and stared, still clinging to one another, afraid to move, unable to move. Hanne blinked at the light, wishing for blindness so she might not see what awaited them.They had passed through to another country, but they had not escaped the familiar shouting of German soldiers and the barking of their dogs.
Only this time Hanne could not move as quickly as she had before, and she would not leave Bela and her mother behind, despite yells and prods.
"Out! Out! Out!" The soldier would not understand how faint his screams now seemed as Hanne helped Bela clamber down to the muddy rail yard at Bogosovice, marked by a crooked sign on a dingy shed with broken windows that passed for a train station. Never mind; Hanne avoided looking at the guards and hurried to follow the others away from the station and down a dark trail, perhaps as wide as a country lane and just as rugged.
A cold drizzle had filled puddles and quickly soaked everyone to the skin as they paraded into the night, but this time Hanne did not waste the energy to ask where they were going. Despite the cold and the rain she tilted her head back in the autumn night for just a moment, knowing that stars still shone somewhere above the low, pregnant clouds. And if they did, perhaps so did hope.
"Move on!" yelled another guard, proving to Hanne that they did not possess the ability to speak in a normal voice. So they moved on, shoulders slumped against the rain.
"Don't let your doll get wet," Hanne told Bela. "We want to keep her nice and clean, don't we?"
Poor little Bela was so far beyond answering, or even walking. So Hanne summoned more strength than she knew and hoisted the little girl to her back as they walked down a muddy lane lit only by the flashlights of their guards. A young boy just ahead of her stumbled and fell with a cry, face-first, into the mud. Without hesitating, a guard (not a German soldier, this time) snatched him up by the collar like a sack of potatoes and shouted at him in Czech. Despite not understanding a word he said, no one seemed to have the strength to argue—or even to think of escaping into the night. They simply shuffled through mud toward a distant walled city lit by the occasional trash fire belching foul smoke into the night. Hanne's legs would surely not move unless she commanded each step, and as the soles of her shoes grew
more and more caked with mud, a Czech gendarme motioned for them to hurry along.
After all they'd been through? But he looked right through her as they were herded through a dimly lit gate in the castlelike walls, past a double checkpoint of barbed wire fencing and grim-faced gendarmes wearing old-fashioned rounded helmets with visors and double-breasted coats with rows of brass buttons and shoulder pads that looked like something out of the last war. One of them, a barrel-chested man with a stony expression and a gray moustache, motioned for them to set down their luggage and continue on to several tables set up in the shadow of an empty city street, where it was darker and even more desolate than Hanne had expected.Portable spotlights hanging from wires stretched overhead gave the area the look of a deserted carnival, and they cast ghostly shadows as they swung in the cold wind.
But Hanne and the others were not the only ones in this strange, haunted village. From somewhere the music of a string quartet broke the eerie silence, making Hanne wonder if it might be a recording somewhere.
But no—in the shadows of a covered entryway four musicians huddled with their instruments, swaying slightly as they played a dark, intricate melody. Beethoven, perhaps. Hanne could never be sure with this kind of music, only that the four played as one, that they played with great talent and without looking at any printed music in front of them.
"What a nice welcome," said Bela's mother, as they walked by. But these street musicians didn't seem to know anyone else was there, which gave Hanne a strange, dislocated feeling.She looked up at a second story window and saw a hollowfaced ghost of a child staring until he was pulled back into the shadows and disappeared once again.
"Look!" Bela saw the face as well and pointed. "Who's that, Mor?"
