Gertruda's Oath: A Child, a Promise, and a Heroic Escape During World War II (8 page)

“You think Mother will let me bring him home?” he asked.

“No, Michael,” replied Gertruda. “You know she doesn’t like animals.”

“Too bad,” said Michael. “He’s so sweet.”

They got up and walked off but the dog followed them. Gertruda waved him away firmly. He tried to ignore it, but she was more stubborn. At last, the dog withdrew sadly, his tail between his legs, and slowly crossed the street. A trolley approached and the driver rang the bell to warn the dog away from the tracks, but the dog didn’t pay attention to the danger. Michael gripped Gertruda’s hand in fear and shouted to him, “Watch out!” The dog didn’t move any faster and slowly crossed the tracks, the trolley coming closer. Michael quickly dropped Gertruda’s hand and ran to the dog. The trolley honked again. Michael jumped between the tracks and picked up the puppy.

Gertruda shrieked in terror. She swooped down on Michael and started pulling him from the path of the advancing trolley. The dog wailed and escaped from the boy’s arms, while the trolley hit
Michael’s knee and threw him onto the street. A burst of blood stained his trousers.

Gertruda anxiously bent over the child, who was groaning in pain. “Please, God, help us,” she sobbed. She pictured Michael’s mother getting the news of her son’s injury and holding her responsible. How could she bear the thought that she had been negligent in taking care of the child she loved so much?

The trolley stopped and terrified passengers surrounded the nanny and the injured boy on the pavement. Somebody made his way over. “I’m a doctor. Let me through,” he called. He was a young man, simply dressed. Gertruda whispered a prayer as he examined Michael. The doctor quickly took off his own shirt, tore it into strips, and used them as bandages to apply pressure. Then he picked Michael up and ran a few streets to the nearby hospital, with Gertruda hurrying along behind him. He took the child into the emergency room, called for doctors, and rushed to the operating room with them. The operation took a long time, and Gertruda kissed the doctor’s hand when he told her that Michael’s condition had improved and he would certainly recover soon and return home.

“Are you his mother?” he asked.

“No, I’m the nanny.”

“Go home and tell his parents,” he said. “I’ll stay with the boy until they come.”

In fear and trembling, Gertruda walked to the Stolowitzky house and told them what had happened. Lydia was shocked, but Gertruda’s fears were groundless: Lydia didn’t say a word about Gertruda’s responsibility and didn’t throw her out. She only asked her to come with her immediately to the hospital. When they got there, they found Michael sedated and the young doctor standing next to him. Gertruda told Lydia of his devoted care.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” said Michael’s mother.

“There’s no need to thank me. I only did what I had to,” he said, and left before she could say another word.

Lydia and Gertruda sat by Michael’s bed all night. The next morning, when the child opened his eyes and smiled wanly, the young doctor returned. He patted Michael and promised he would soon get out of the hospital.

“What’s your name?” asked Lydia.

“Joseph Berman.”

“You must be Jewish,” she said. “So are we.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“God sent you to us. You saved my son. Thank you.”

When Michael was released from the hospital two days later, Gertruda put him to bed. Emil found out Dr. Berman’s address and Lydia drove with him to the doctor’s house. They came to a lovely apartment house downtown and climbed up to the third floor. A brass plate fixed to the door said:
DR. JOSEPH BERMAN, SPECIALIST IN LUNG DISEASES
.

The doctor’s wife opened the door to them. Sounds of children playing came from the apartment and she looked inquisitively at the refined woman and her uniformed chauffeur.

“Is the doctor at home?” asked Lydia.

“Yes. He’s with a patient now. Come in, please.”

They sat down in the corridor across from the doctor’s treatment room. An old man came out soon after, followed by the young doctor, who was amazed to see the visitors. Lydia stood up and handed him an envelope.

“That’s for you,” she said.

He opened it and found a large sum of money.

The doctor shook his head.

“I didn’t treat your son for money,” he said quietly.

She felt embarrassed.

“But that’s your work … you’re entitled to payment.”

He gave the envelope back to her.

“That wasn’t part of my work,” he said. “I was glad I could help.”

It was hard for Lydia to understand why he refused her payment. Never had anyone refused money from her.

“Nevertheless I want to reward you for what you did,” she insisted.

He smiled. “Your thanks are enough, madame.”

She quickly put the envelope on the nearby cabinet and hurried out the door.

Karl Rink entered SS headquarters with mixed feelings. He knew that Unit Commander Schreider wouldn’t bother to summon him if he didn’t have a good reason. Karl straightened his black uniform, tightened his swastika armband, and tried to guess what his commander might say to him.

The building was humming with uniformed men running around in the corridors and congregating in groups. He knew most of them and exchanged greetings.

In the anteroom of the unit commander’s office, Schreider’s third in command, Kurt Baumer, gave Rink a friendly smile. Baumer was Rink’s close friend, his only friend in the SS. The two of them had lived in the same neighborhood as children and had come a long way to reach their present positions.

“The commander is expecting you,” said Baumer.

“What does he want?”

“I have no idea.”

Baumer led Rink to Schreider’s big office. On the wall was a large photo of Hitler and the swastika flag hung behind the desk.

Karl straightened up, raised his right hand, and shouted “Heil Hitler!”

Schreider sat up in his leather chair and returned his greeting with raised arm. He was stocky and bald, with a tic in the corner of his mouth.

“Leave us alone,” he said to Baumer.

“Karl Rink.” He addressed his underling in an official tone. “You’ve been with us now for seven years, correct?”

“Seven years and two months.”

“You’ve won a lot of praise, Rink. I’ve read the reports on your activity, your devotion to the Führer. There are good chances that you’ll be promoted and given more responsibility.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

“But I wanted to clarify a few things. First of all, I got a report on the activities of our men in the retaliation we carried out against the Jews. Among other things, I was told that you didn’t really take part in the operation.”

“I was there.”

“You were. But what did you do?”

“I participated like everybody else.”

“It was reported to me that you stood aside, didn’t beat up Jews, didn’t smash shop windows. Why?”

“I did my best,” said Karl quietly.

Schreider didn’t take his penetrating eyes off him.

“Your wife is Jewish, Rink, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And I assume you’ll tell me that has nothing to do with your standing aside in demonstrations against the Jews.”

“It has nothing to do with it,” Karl lied weakly.

“You live together or apart?” Schreider wanted to know.

“What do you mean, Commander?”

“You know, of course, that the Nuremberg Laws annulled all marriages between Aryans and Jews. In fact, you’re forbidden to be married to a Jew.”

“I know.”

“They tell me that you continue to live with your wife, against the law.”

“Correct.”

“Rink,” the SS officer continued, “our Führer is leading Germany and the whole world to a new age. Revolutionary changes are in process. We need good men who will give a hand and carry out the exalted mission assigned to us. We need you, Karl.”

“I’ll carry out every order, sir.”

Not a muscle moved in Schreider’s face.

“Of course, it’s clear to you,” he said harshly, “that you’ll have to decide between us and your wife. You can’t be faithful to the party and to the Jews at the same time. You have to separate from her.”

“She won’t get in the way.” Karl Rink tried to persuade the commander. “The fact that my wife is a Jew has never stifled my devotion to our ideal.”

“Look, Rink,” hissed Schreider, “so far we haven’t pressed you because we thought you’d come to the right conclusion by yourself. Now you have to decide: either her or us. There’s no other possibility.”

“May I ask something?”

“No.” Schreider’s patience ran out.

“I need a little more time.”

The commander glared at him.

“A loyal SS man,” he said, “has to be able to sacrifice everything for the Reich. We expect only one thing will be important to our
people: victory. Family may not be the top priority for an SS man. Are you clear?”

“Yes,” muttered Rink.

“When will you divorce her?”

“Soon.”

“That’s not good enough, Karl. Get divorced this week.”

Rink stood helpless, desperately seeking an answer.

“This week,” Schreider repeated the order. “Understood, Karl?”

Karl Rink rode his motorcycle aimlessly in the wet streets of the city. He didn’t hurry home. He needed time to think, to decide, and it was hard, harder than any fateful issue he had ever confronted in his thirty-eight years. He loved Mira, and yet he felt loyal to the SS. There were many things in the organization that he loved, other things he didn’t like, mainly the treatment of the Jews. In the SS, they preached the purity of the Aryan race morning, noon, and night, blamed the Jews for all the troubles afflicting Germany. Newspapers described the Jews as abominable leeches sucking the blood of the Germans. He loathed those attacks, but still believed they were merely pitfalls on the way to the goal. His problem was that his loyalty to the party was as strong as his love for his wife. He was unhappy that Schreider had wrung a promise from him to end his marriage within the week. How could he part from Mira after such a happy life together?

When Karl came home, Mira was sitting in the living room, listening to an opera on the radio. Ever since she had been fired, she hadn’t been able to find another job. No one dared hire Jews anymore.

Mira lowered the volume and looked up at her husband. She waited for him to tell her about the meeting with Schreider.

He dropped onto the easy chair across from her.

“Schreider gave me an ultimatum.” The words broke in his mouth.

“Let me guess: he told you to choose—me or the party.”

“Yes, that’s what he said.”

“I warned you it would be that. What did you tell him?”

“I said that you won’t get in the way of my activity.”

“That convinced him?”

“I don’t think so.”

“He wants us to get divorced?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you decide?”

“I said I’d do it, but I didn’t mean it.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means that I have no intention of getting divorced.”

“What will happen if Schreider discovers the truth?”

“I hope he won’t.”

Karl got up and paced around the room.

“The party is important to me, Mira,” he said after a long silence. “The party is my future, the future of all of us, Germany’s future.”

“Your party will bring down a disaster on all of us.”

“You’re wrong, Mira.”

She sighed.

“You’re
wrong, Karl, not me.”

The rainstorm in mid-June 1939 collapsed trees and made roofs fly in the poor neighborhoods of Warsaw. As always, it also disrupted
phone lines. Nevertheless, through the deafening beeps and static of the phone in his office, Jacob Stolowitzky could hear a woman’s distant voice sobbing in despair.

He clutched the receiver in his clenched fist and put it tight to his ear. After a long moment, he managed to identify the voice. It was the wife of the manager of his plant in Berlin.

“Try to calm down,” he said. “I don’t understand a word.”

Her weeping slowly subsided.

“The SS arrested my husband yesterday,” she groaned. “They’re holding him in jail and won’t release him.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a Jew, Mr. Stolowitzky. That’s what he’s guilty of.”

Stolowitzky turned pale. The arrest of the manager of his big steel plant in the industrial area of Berlin had come at the worst time, in the middle of negotiations with the railroad company of France about supplying hundreds of miles of railroad track. Only the German factory could quickly provide such big quantities of track. Any disruption in the operation of the plant was liable to undermine negotiations with the French. Suddenly, the enormous profit of the deal seemed uncertain.

“Where is your husband?” he asked.

“I have no idea.”

Stolowitzky gave her a few words of comfort and called the German Ministry of Defense. He had good friends there, senior officials he did business with. He often traveled to Germany to meet them and entertained them in the best restaurants. He was sure they could help him now.

He managed to reach two of them, but this time they treated him coldly.

“The Nazis are running things now,” they said. “You’ll have to talk with them.”

“I’ll leave for Germany today,” he said eagerly. “I’ll meet with anybody I have to to release my manager.”

“Not a good idea for you to come now,” one of them advised him before he hung up. “Germany today is no place for you. Remember that you’re a Jew. They’re liable to arrest you, too.”

Jacob Stolowitzky walked around his office helplessly for a long time. It was hard to plan his next steps.

The phone rang. The wife of his plant manager was back on the line.

“Mr. Stolowitzky,” she said in a choked voice. “The SS came back to the factory today and threw out everybody with Polish citizenship. Ordered them all back to Poland.”

Stolowitzky was proud of his Polish engineers. He had chosen them carefully and sent them and their families to Berlin. Without them, he knew, his plant faced a total shutdown.