Black Cross (13 page)

He watched SS Sergeant Major Gunther Sturm strut before the ragged assembly, his face clean-shaven for once, his lank blond hair combed across his bullet-shaped head. The shoemaker saw that the screeching of the infant annoyed the sergeant to no end. He had studied Gunther Sturm for two years, and could easily imagine the thoughts churning behind the slate eyes:
How did that brat’s whore of a mother slip it through the selection net? Under her skirts, no doubt. The Auschwitz SS stay drunk and the prisoner Kommandos are lazy. How the hell do those laggards expect to win a war when they can’t outsmart one crafty Jewess
? Sturm’s growing frustration was of great interest to the shoemaker. On any other night the sergeant would have walked over and strangled the infant on the spot. But tonight he did not. This fact told the shoemaker something.

Tonight was special.

He studied the impressive display of force assembled to insure that tonight’s activities — whatever they might be — proceeded in an orderly fashion. Eighty storm troopers of the SS
Totenkopfverbände
— Death’s Head Battalions — stood stiffly at attention in their earth-brown uniforms, rifles at the ready in case some witless newcomer should make a dash for the wire. They were backed up by Sturm’s beloved German shepherds — canines carefully bred with wolves to enhance their killing instinct — and also by the two machine gun towers at the forward corners of the camp.

A slamming door heralded the arrival of Sturm’s immediate superior, Major Wolfgang Schörner. The senior security officer of Totenhausen marched smartly across the snow and stopped two meters from the shoemaker. Unlike the Death’s Head guards, he wore the field gray uniform of the Waffen SS. He also wore a black patch over his left eye socket — a souvenir from his participation in the bloody retreat from Kursk, the turning point of the war in Russia — and a Knight’s Cross at his throat.

Though only thirty years old, Schörner understood instinctively the dynamics of intimidation. Prisoners were forbidden to move during Appell, but the entire mass of bodies had drawn back slightly at his approach. With his good eye Major Schörner inspected the front line from end to end, looking for something or someone the prisoners could only guess at. Few had the courage to return his probing stare.

One who did was the shoemaker.

Another was a young woman of about twenty-five, a Dutch Jewess by the name of Jansen. Unlike the shoemaker, she had her entire family with her: husband, two small children, her father-in-law. The shoemaker had seen them arrive on yesterday’s train. The woman’s head had been shaved, but her large brown eyes flickered with a quick intelligence that had long since faded from the eyes of most of the other camp women. The shoemaker admired her bravery in returning Schörner’s gaze, but he knew that it was hollow. She had no idea what lay in store for her family.

The shoemaker did. He didn’t need to hear the whispers of the Poles. During the afternoon he had seen SS men taking great pains to avoid the area of the gas storage tanks behind their barracks. Obviously some new and potent poison had been pumped into the tanks from the laboratory. Yes, tonight there would be a selection. And selections were the exclusive province of the Herr Doktor.

“Excuse me, sir,” the young Dutchwoman whispered in Yiddish. “I am Rachel Jansen. How long must we stand here in the cold?”

“Don’t talk,” said the shoemaker, keeping his face forward. “And keep your children quiet, for their sakes.”

“No talking!”
Sergeant Sturm shouted. At the sound of his voice the German shepherds burst out barking.

The shoemaker looked up at the sound of another slamming door. SS Lieutenant-General Herr Doktor Klaus Brandt, Commandant of Totenhausen Camp, stood before the rear door of his quarters wearing his elegant pale gray dress uniform. The tunic was immaculate. With a slow, purposeful tread he walked toward the Appellplatz and his assembled prisoners. It always intrigued the shoemaker to watch this man. Not only was Klaus Brandt exactly his own age — fifty-five — but to his knowledge was the only concentration camp commandant who was also a medical doctor. This had been tried once before, at a different camp, but the chosen physician had made a muddle of the administration. Not Brandt, though. The balding, slightly podgy Prussian was an obsessive perfectionist. Some believed he was a genius.

The shoemaker knew he was insane.

The commandant’s SS uniform also signaled that tonight was a special occasion. Klaus Brandt considered himself a doctor first and a soldier second, and on most days wore his white lab coat over a business suit. He also insisted that he be addressed by his subordinates as
Herr Doktor
rather than
Herr Kommandant
. Of course he might be wearing the uniform simply to keep out the cold. The shoemaker could not remember a wind like this for many weeks. Earlier he had seen SS men building fires beneath their vehicles to keep the motor oil from freezing in the crankcases.

When Brandt came within ten paces of the line, Sergeant Sturm snapped to attention and yelled: “All prisoners present, Herr Doktor!”

Brandt acknowledged this report with a curt nod. He examined his watch, then leaned over and spoke quietly to Major Schörner. Schörner checked his own watch, then looked toward the main camp gate forty meters away. One of the gate guards shook his head in reply. Schörner looked questioningly at Brandt.

“Let us begin, Sturmbannführer,” Brandt said.

Major Schörner signaled Sergeant Sturm with a flick of his head. Sturm marched toward the far end of the line and began pulling men from the ranks. The shoemaker saw immediately that this selection was different from all others he had seen. The criteria for selections were usually self-evident — sometimes certain adult men were selected (those of a certain approximate weight, for example) other times women having their menstrual cycle. Never had the shoemaker seen more than ten adults selected at one time, and for a simple reason: Brandt’s testing chamber had not been designed to handle more.

Also, the usual procedure was for Brandt to walk along just behind the sergeant, approving the selections or, in rare cases, granting an on-the-spot dispensation. The Lord of Life and Death at Totenhausen savored his divine authority. But tonight Sturm was snatching men from the ranks with hardly a glance. Already thirteen stood under guard apart from the main group. With a chill of foreboding the shoemaker realized that all thirteen were Jews. Had his turn finally arrived?

His hands trembled. None of the Jews looked over fifty, but who knew? He saw the Jansen woman lean out of the line to try and see what was happening. An SS private stepped forward and shoved her back. Five storm troopers converged as Sergeant Sturm waded into the ranks to collar a reluctant prisoner. A hysterical wail echoed up the line, forcing the dog handlers to restrain the German shepherds.

The shoemaker began to pray. Nothing else would do any good. He had made his mistake years before, when he refused to flee from Germany with his wife and son. At least they were safe now, he thought — he
hoped
— safe in the Promised Land. Palestine. He was certainly luckier than the Jansen family on his right. Tonight the old grandfather would lose his son, the young wife her husband, and the children their father. He saw panic in the woman’s eyes as she sought some means of protecting her husband. There was nothing. This was Nazi Germany, and Sergeant Sturm was getting closer.

“You!” Sturm snapped, pointing his finger. “Out of the line!”

The shoemaker watched a forty-year-old clerk from Warsaw shuffle out of the line and join the doomed men huddling in the center of the frozen camp yard. Rosen was his name, but no stone would ever mark his remains—

“You!”
Sturm bellowed. “Out of the line!”

From the corner of his eye the shoemaker saw the young Dutch father turn and look into his wife’s face. His eyes showed no fear for himself, only a withering guilt at leaving his family to suffer without his protection, however meager it might be. Their two children, a tiny boy and girl, clung to the hem of their mother’s gray shift and stared up in mute terror.

“Austreten!”
Sergeant Sturm barked, reaching for the Dutchman.

The young man raised one hand and tenderly touched his wife’s cheek. “
Ik heb er geen woorden meer voor
, Rachel,” he said. “Take care of Jan and Hannah.”

The shoemaker was German, but he knew enough Dutch to translate:
I have no more words, Rachel
.

As Sergeant Sturm’s hand closed on the young Dutchman’s sleeve, a white-haired man bolted from the ranks and threw himself at Sturm’s feet. The shoemaker cut his eyes up the line. Forty meters away Major Schörner was engaged in conversation with Dr. Brandt. Neither had seen the movement.

“Spare my son!”
the old man begged in a whisper. “Spare my son! Benjamin Jansen begs you on his knees for mercy!”

Sergeant Sturm waved away a storm trooper who was hurrying over with a dog. He drew his pistol, a well-oiled Luger. “Get back in line,” he growled. “Or we’ll take you instead.”

“Yes!” said the old man. “That is what I want!” He rose to his feet and capered like a madman. “I will serve just as well!”

Sturm shoved him back a step. “You’re not what we need.” He pointed his pistol at the son. “Move!”

The elder Jansen’s right hand burrowed inside his coat pocket. Sergeant Sturm pressed his Luger to the Dutchman’s forehead, but the wrinkled hand emerged from the pocket holding something that flashed like stars under the arclights. The shoemaker heard Sturm catch his breath.

The Dutchman’s palm was full of diamonds.

“Take them,”
Ben Jansen whispered.
“For my son’s life.”

The shoemaker watched Sergeant Sturm’s face go through several changes of expression. He could hear the thoughts turning in the sergeant’s brain. Who else had seen the diamonds? What were they worth? A small fortune, by the look of them. How long would he have to carry them before he could hide them in his quarters?

“They’re yours,”
the old man whispered, pressing the gems toward Sturm’s pocket.

The sergeant’s left hand closed over the diamonds.

The shoemaker cringed. He knew what would happen now. He saw Sturm’s finger tighten on the Luger’s trigger—

“What is the delay here?” asked a sharp voice.

Sergeant Sturm froze as Major Schörner leaned over his shoulder.

“Yes,” said Doctor Brandt, who had walked up beside Schörner. “What is the problem, Hauptschärführer?”

Sturm cleared his throat. “This old Jew wants to take his son’s place.”

“Impossible,” Brandt said in a bored voice. He turned and stared impatiently at the front gate.

“I beg you, Herr Doktor!” Jansen implored. The old man had been astute enough to pick up on Brandt’s preferred title. “My son has young children who need him. Herr Doktor, Marcus is a lawyer! I am but a tired old tailor. Useless! Take me instead!”

Klaus Brandt pivoted on his heel and regarded the old man with a sardonic smile. “But a good tailor is infinitely more valuable here than a lawyer,” he said. He pointed to a nearby prisoner’s tattered shift. The skin beneath it looked blue. “What need has he of a lawyer?”

With that, Brandt turned and moved a few steps up the line.

Benjamin Jansen stared after him with wild eyes. “But Herr Doktor—”

“Quiet!”
Sturm roared, reaching for Marcus Jansen, who had knelt beside his children.

The old man shook as if from palsy. He reached out and caught the back of Major Schörner’s gray tunic. “Sturmbannführer, take half the diamonds! Take all of them!”

Schörner turned back with narrowed eyes. “Diamonds?”

“I’m ready,” said Marcus Jansen. The young Dutchman stepped resolutely from the line. His wife crouched and hugged her children, hiding their eyes.

Sergeant Sturm grabbed the lawyer and jerked him away.

With a wild shriek Ben Jansen clenched both hands into fists, took an uncertain step toward Major Schörner, then lunged to his right in the direction of Dr. Brandt.

The shoemaker felt something inside him snap. Despite the risk to himself, he threw his right fist and caught Ben Jansen on the side of the jaw. The old Dutchman dropped flat on his back in the snow in the same moment that the shoemaker whipped back into line and stood rigidly at attention.

It happened so fast that no one knew quite what to do. Sergeant Sturm had been a fraction of a second from shooting the old man. Now he looked uncertainly from the shoemaker to Schörner, then to Brandt, who had turned to see what was happening. Marcus Jansen stared in horror as Sturm’s pistol hovered above his father’s head.

The sudden blast of a car horn saved Benjamin Jansen’s life. Its blaring echo reverberated over the snow like a royal clarion.

“It’s the Reichsführer!” shouted Sergeant Sturm, hoping to turn all attention toward the front gate.

For the most part he succeeded. But while Klaus Brandt hurried toward the gate with an honor guard of SS troops, and the shoemaker wondered if he had actually heard the word
Reichsführer
, Major Wolfgang Schörner said in a soft voice: “Open your left hand, Hauptscharführer.”

“But the selection!” Sturm protested. “I must finish!”

Schörner’s hand closed around Sturm’s thick wrist. “Hauptscharführer, I order you to open your hand.”

“
Zu befehl
, Sturmbannführer!” Sturm’s voice was tight with fear and anger. As the roar of engines drew nearer, he opened his hand.

It was empty.

Major Schörner stared into the hand for a moment, then said, “Remain at attention, Hauptscharführer.”

Without hesitation Schörner reached into Sturm’s trouser pocket. A pained expression came over his face. He dug in the pocket, then removed his hand and opened it inches from the sergeant’s face.

The diamonds glittered like blue fire.

“I thought we had settled this issue,” Schörner said quietly.

Sturm lowered his eyes. “We did, Sturmbannführer.”