“‘May I come in, please, Mr. Solomon,’ she says softly. ‘I need to speak to you.’
“Father brings her into the living room and introduces her to the group. Ilse is unnerved. She doesn’t expect to encounter so many people. She backs up a step or two, pulls my father’s sleeve and leans over to whisper to him.
“‘I really shouldn’t be here,’ she says. ‘May I speak to you in private?’
“‘Whatever you have to say to me you may say to all of us. This is my family.’
“She looks around the room, at each of us, and realizes she has no choice. She removes her cloak and hands it to my father. Her surprise visit knocks Otto a bit off- balance. He is mute as he stands and offers his chair. Everyone is quiet. Why does Ilse come to speak to my father? We haven’t seen her in over a year. As far as we know, she’s still working for the Nazis in Germany.
“‘You must let me take Otto back to Germany,’ she says. ‘And as for you and your family, you must leave Poland immediately. You don’t have much time.’
“She says this like a pronouncement. It’s a fait accompli. Like she knows what’s best for us and she’s made the decision and we should obey without question.
“But Otto says, ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’ve just finished school and I’m preparing for the university.’
“Ilse pauses. She purses her lips and ponders whether or not she should continue. Finally she speaks. ‘Let’s not deceive one another, Mr. Solomon. I have no love for you or the Jews. I care only for my son. I also know you have no reason to believe that I’m telling you the truth but be assured I’ve come here at great personal risk.’
“My father stands in the center of the room with his arms crossed on his chest. ‘I think you should leave now, Mrs. Piatek. Otto is free to make his own choices. We heard what you had to say. Certainly Otto may go with you if that’s his wish.’
“‘Why would I go with her?’ Otto says. ‘Everything I care about is here in Zamość. Thanks to you and Aunt Leah, I have the opportunity to go to the university and become a professional. I’m going to stay here, in Poland, where I belong.’ He walks over to my father. They stand side by side, two strong men, standing tall. And I’m so proud.
“Ilse scoffs. ‘Listen to me. You are all fools. Poland is history. Germany will overrun Poland within months.’ She waves her arm at all of us. ‘If you insist on staying here, you’re already dead.’
“‘Oh, such nonsense,’ Dr. Weissbaum says, passing it off with a shake of his head. ‘This is just more German arrogance. We are not Austria. Poland will live for a thousand years.’
“Father, as usual, is more prone to reason and he responds with diplomacy. ‘We’ve listened quite regularly to Hitler’s broadcasts. We’re trying to be ready for any eventuality and this is a situation we continually reassess, but right now things are stable here and the children are preparing to enter the university in Lublin.’
“Ilse wrings her hands and begins to sob. ‘There will be no university. There will be no Poland. Why won’t you listen to me?’ Her emotional breakdown softens the timbre of the room and melts some of the antagonism. Mother hands her a tissue, but Otto is unmoved. He shakes his head and starts to leave the room. Father stops him.
“‘Mrs. Piatek,’ Father says, ‘we’ll listen to you but I’d like to know what brings you to our home on this particular day? You’ve been absent from Otto’s life for so long and Europe has been on the brink of conflict for many months. So why come to Poland at this time and why do you say you’ve come at great personal risk?’
“‘I’m here to save my Otto,’ she says through her tears, ‘and to make amends. None of you can know the anguish of abandoning your only child. Six years ago, I had hit the bottom. I fled from my senses. I left the only thing I loved and returned to Germany, to the home of my relatives. After a while, they helped me find work as a secretary for the National Socialists.
“‘I worked my way up the ladder, doing whatever I had to, and was eventually assigned to Reinhard Heydrich. I’m sure you know who he is. Well, I am his personal secretary. I get information every day, tiny swatches you understand, but I put them together and when I do...all I can say is: it’s urgent to get Otto out of Poland.’
“Otto doesn’t buy into her remorse. ‘Uncle Abraham asked you: what is your great personal risk?’
“She looks directly at my father. ‘If I am discovered here, if Reinhard had the slightest idea that I came to Poland, I would be tortured for the information I gave you and then killed. Without a second thought. And so will all of you if you stay here.’
“‘What do you know, Mother, about the Nazi plans for Poland?’ asks Otto.
“‘I should not say, both for your protection and mine.’
“‘Then get out.’
“She begs, she pleads, but Otto is steadfast and refuses to listen unless she is willing to divulge what she has learned. Finally, in her hysteria, she relents.
“‘In April, I helped prepare some of the documents which were later called Case White. They were top secret and I did not see them all, nor have I seen them in final form. But I know that Case White calls for a surprise invasion of Poland with sudden, heavy blows. The high command of the Armed Forces, the OKW, has been instructed to draw up plans to carry out the operation at any time after September first.’
“We are all stunned. ‘That’s two weeks away,’ Father exclaims.
“She nods. ‘Hitler’s waiting for Stalin to assure him that Russia won’t come to Poland’s aid. Reinhard believes that assurance will come next week. Ribbentrop is in Moscow now. There are telegrams daily. Hitler expects a non-aggression pact to be signed and announced by next Wednesday, and if it is, Poland will be history by the end of September. Otto, please, you can’t be here when the bombs fall. As for you, Mr. Solomon, I am indebted to you for the kindness you’ve shown to my son and so I warn you to get out of the country. You’ve seen the fate of Jews in German occupied lands.’
“‘I’m not going,’ Otto says. ‘If they come, I’ll stay and fight.’
“Otto’s rebuff is too much for Ilse. She covers her face with her hands and weeps loudly.
“‘Where can we reach you, Mrs. Piatek?’ Father says. ‘Let us all think about what you’ve just said.’
“She jots a Berlin address and phone number on a piece of paper and leaves. Two weeks later, before the sun rises on Friday, September 1, 1939, a million and a half German troops cross the Polish border in the most ferocious, deadly attack ever known to man.”
Chapter Fifteen
Chicago, Illinois October 2004
On the corner of Belmont and Western, next to a shopping mall built upon the grounds of the old Riverview Amusement Park, sits a glass and concrete structure housing the Chicago Police Department’s 19th District, Belmont District. Liam entered a little after noon and made his inquiries at the front desk.
Walking out to greet him, a plainclothes detective said, “I’m Jack Quinlan. How can I help you?”
“Liam Taggart,” he replied, shaking Quinlan’s hand. “I called earlier about the burglary at Ben Solomon’s apartment.”
“Right. You’re the PI.”
“I’m also a friend of Ben Solomon.”
“Well, come on back and I’ll grab the file.”
Quinlan’s desk sat near the windows, one of a dozen desks in the common area on the second floor. He opened a metal file cabinet, took a manila folder back to his desk and spread out the papers.
“B n’ E of an apartment on Bittersweet,” he read from the report. “Nothing missing but some papers. This is not your high priority crime.”
“It is to me. We think it has larger implications.”
Quinlan studied the pink carbon copy. “No prints. No lab work. Nothing.”
“I’d like to find the guys who broke in. I’ll help any way I can.”
“Listen, Mr. Taggart, and I don’t mean any disrespect, but right here in the Nineteenth we had twelve hundred
burglaries and four thousand thefts last year. And that was an improvement over the previous year. I don’t know what we can do. I’m not going to canvas over a petty burglary.”
“Do you care if I look into it?”
“Suit yourself. Until I get a complaint.”
Chapter Sixteen
On Monday morning Ben knocked on Catherine’s open office door and held up a bag of doughnuts. He waved it back and forth, smiling and lifting his eyebrows.
“Look what I brought you: food for thought,” he said.
Catherine smiled. “And here are my thoughts: you’re a bad influence.”
They walked together to the conference room where Ben set the bag on a side table. Catherine examined the selections. “Mmm. I love maple frosted.” She put the doughnut on a napkin and took her seat at the end of the table. She took a bite, picked up her pen and signaled for Ben to begin.
Zamość, Poland 1939
“That first day of September 1939, the Germans attacked Poland from the North, West and South, destroying everything that lay in front of them. Their tanks and bombs did not reach Zamość that day, but news of the invasion did, arriving through radio broadcasts. Everyone took to the streets. Even though it was the Sabbath, newspaper boys were on the street hawking extra editions. All that night there were meetings among the community leaders. My father didn’t come home until morning and that was to take us to the synagogue.”
“May I ask a question?” Catherine said. “Friday you told me that Ilse revealed the existence of Case White, which I understand was a top secret document.”
“True. And you want to know why my father didn’t immediately inform the Polish government?”
“Exactly.”
“He did.”
“Oh? They didn’t listen to him?”
“In the days before the invasion, rumors were as common as butterflies and just as diverse. Hitler was cleverly giving speeches about peace-loving Germany and protecting borders. Our politicians wanted, needed to believe in peace. Father gave Ilse’s information to our local senator, who sent it on to Warsaw, but nothing came of it.”
“Your father apparently believed it. Why did your family stay in Zamość?”
“That’s a good question. Why did any of us stay? Obviously, if we had known the future, we’d have left. But, as it was, our destiny was uncertain and abandoning one’s roots without anywhere to go is a leap into the abyss. As I mentioned to you at the restaurant, no rational person could have conceived of the unbounded evil, of the genocide and the slaughter.
“For Poland, even at the eleventh hour, there was reason to hope. We knew that Britain and France had warned Germany not to threaten Polish independence. England had sworn to use all of its power to defend Poland in the event of a German attack. I guess we all believed the world would not permit Germany to annihilate a peaceful country.”
The conference room phone buzzed and Catherine excused herself to take a phone call. Solomon refilled his tea and stood by the window, gazing into the grey October sky.
“It was sixty-five years ago, Hannah,” he said softly to the window. “So many years ago. Remember? It was a gloomy, cloudy day just like this one. The world was coming apart, but we had each other, and we had plans to escape.”
“I’m sorry,” Catherine said from behind. “Did you say something?”
Ben shook his head and took his seat at the table.
“That was a call about this morning’s court appearance,” Catherine said. “It’s been continued. So let’s make an effort to finish your story by the end of the day.”
Ben nodded. “After Sabbath morning services on September 2nd, the men assembled at the town hall to be given defense assignments. Otto and I built embankments with sand bags. Some built bomb shelters, some laid traps in the forest. In retrospect, we were foolishly naïve to think we could even put a speed bump in the way of the German advance, but our mood was optimistic, full of youthful exuberance, and we worked throughout the day and well into the night.
“Hannah and the other girls brought us sandwiches, and told us how proud they were of their Polish soldiers. Otto and I sweated in the September sun, side by side, cursing the Germans and everything they stood for, swearing upon our souls to defend our motherland.”
“The same Otto who would later…” started Catherine.
“The same. Elliot Rosenzweig. Piatek. Whatever you want to call him.”
Ben paused, with a look of disgust, and took a sip of tea.
“Two days later, the first of the refugees began arriving in the pre-dawn hours. Just a few at first, some pushing carts loaded with their clothes and possessions, or their babies in quilts. By midday there was a steady stream. They spent the night on their way to Eastern Poland and the Russian territories. From them we learned about the horrors of the invasion and how we were hopelessly overmatched.
“You know, Catherine, ‘blitzkrieg’ means ‘lightning war.’ Germany unleashed 1200 war planes. Bombers, fighters. Much of our air force never got off the ground. We had thirty-five divisions against a million and a half well-armed troops. In short order, the Polish Army was decimated.
“To put this all in perspective, in 1939 Germany had 2.5 million well trained ground troops. England had a small professional army. The U.S. had less than 500,000 ground troops and would not reach 1.5 million until mid-1941. Poland had less than 300,000 land troops which were initially called the frontier defense force.
“Germany’s defense budget for the years immediately preceding the invasion exceeded $24 Billion. By contrast in the four years before the invasion, Poland had an aggregate defense budget of substantially less than one billion. Poland had a single mechanized brigade, while the Germans committed six Panzer divisions, which were combined with motorized infantry and motorized artillery.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know the difference between a brigade and a division,” Catherine said.
“Generally speaking, a military division has between 10,000 and 30,000 men. It’s made up of regiments or brigades. A brigade could be between 3,000 and 5,000 men. I only bring this up to point out the enormous disparity in the strengths of the two armies. Germany went through Poland like a hot knife through butter.
“Krakow fell in seven days, and we knew that the bombs would soon come to our town. The Polish defense plan was based upon the expectation that England and France would provide a second front. Our only hope was the West. Every day we heard reports that England and France were sending troops. One afternoon, Otto ran up to our bunker shouting that 60,000 English troops had landed in Danzig. Of course, it was only a false rumor, nothing more than a wish.
“On September 9th, again on the Sabbath, the bombs began to fall on Zamość. We were on our way to our synagogue when we heard the drone of the Stukas and the thunder of the bombs. Hundreds of dive bombers strafed the streets, bombs fell everywhere, like a meteor shower, destroying buildings, shops, churches and schools indiscriminately. On Harowajszowska Street, in a poor neighborhood, a bomb exploded on a synagogue and hundreds of worshippers were incinerated.”
“Was there no defense for Zamość?” Catherine said.
“We had practically nothing to use against aircraft or armored vehicles. People gathered their hunting rifles and shotguns. We were throwing pebbles at the apocalypse. The bombers flew at us without any countermeasures. It was target practice for them.
“One Stuka flew very close to the ground, maybe to see the fear in the eyes of the people he was slaughtering, but his wings clipped a steeple and his plane twirled and crashed in a field. The pilot was thrown from the cockpit and lay in a potato farm, broken and bleeding, awaiting his turn in line at the gates of hell, when one of our elementary teachers, Mr. Kazmierecz, reached him. ‘We’re not soldiers, there’s no army here,’ he yelled at the dying pilot. ‘Who are you trying to kill?’ And with his last breath the pilot answered, ‘Poland.’
“People scattered in every direction, many of them to the woods to hi
de. But for me, all I could think about was Hannah. I had to get to Hannah. I dashed through the rubble in the streets, past the frantic women and children who ran every which way ducking their heads, past the injured who lay bleeding. And the noise – the screams, the bombs, the planes, the guns – it was deafening. I found Hannah outside the school, grabbed her hand and ran back to my house. If this was to be the end of the world, we would face it together. We held tightly to each other as the bombs rained on Zamość.
“Five days later the German Army rolled into Zamość without any resistance. We watched their black convertibles, their tanks and canvas-covered trucks from our living room window. My mother and father cried.”
Chapter Seventeen
Chicago, Illinois October 2004
The uniformed doorman, behind his granite counter in the lobby of the Bittersweet apartment building, pursed his lips and shook his head. “I don’t know of anyone going up to Mr. Solomon’s that day except you and the lady. But this is a busy place. We got a hundred sixty units here. I can’t remember every visitor who comes in. And people could get buzzed in when I’m not at the desk.”
“It would have been before eight p.m. It could have been any time in the afternoon. Were there any unusual visitors that day, anyone who wasn’t a guest – maybe a delivery man?” asked Liam.
“Nothing that sticks out in my mind.”
Liam looked around the lobby. A bank of steel mail boxes lined the west wall adjacent to the glass entrance door.
“I assume the door to the elevator lobby is always locked?”
“Right. Either a tenant or I would have to buzz you in. Of course, the residents all have keys.”
“How does someone get in the back door?”
“By the loading dock? Only the maintenance guys open the door. I suppose there are times when it’s open and somebody could get through, but the door from the dock to the apartment elevators is always locked.”
Once We Were Brothers Page 8
