Once We Were Brothers (36 page)

“I heard the sounds of cracking wood and smashed ceramics, and knew that the soldiers were tearing up the vestry.

“‘This is an abomination,’ Father Janofski hollered. ‘You are defiling holy ground. You are all committing mortal sins.’

“‘Spare me your superstitions, Priest. What is at the back of this closet?’ he said, and I heard hollow, knocking sounds. ‘Tear it down,’ he said and I heard more sounds of cracking wood. Moments later, I heard the fat man’s sickly laugh and his comment, ‘Why, look at this. These must be stairs to heaven, only they’re going the wrong way, eh Manfred? What will I find down there, Priest? Do you suppose Beethoven is giving a piano recital in your hidden cellar?’”

Ben stopped his narrative. He stared into the fireplace and breathed deeply. His jaw was tense and it quivered. His hands closed into fists, opened and closed again. He began to talk in monotones, a few words at a time. “This was a day the demons scorched the earth.”

Ben started to rock slowly, back and forth. Catherine walked over and put her arm around him. He spoke softly. “Soon I hear the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. My father and Father Janofski are prodded into the nave, pushed ahead by the tips of rifle barrels, soldiers at their backs. They are followed by more soldiers, their helmets held in place by leather chin straps below their tightly closed lips. They show no emotion. They obey blindly. They are pawns of the devil. Slowly, the two Gestapo officers in their black leather trench coats walk into the sanctuary. In their hands, they have visas, travel documents and identification papers seized from the basement. They look around the church interior and take in the scene. They laugh – a jackal’s laugh from hell itself.

“‘Where are the rest of your holy people, old man?’ the tall one says to Father Janofski. ‘Where are your women in their black sheets? Where are the brides of Christ?’ He points at Sister Mary Magdalena. ‘Summon the rest of your flock. I want everyone here, in this room. Now!’

“Soon all of the nuns, Hannah, my mother and Lucyna are collected and they huddle together in the nave. They are all frightened. I can’t let Hannah face this ordeal without me. I walk quickly to her side.

“‘Who is this?’ The fat one points at me.

“‘He is the caretaker,’ Father Janofski answers. There is no fear in his voice. He is solid and secure in his beliefs. He will not back down. If this is his moment, he will go out proudly.

“We are told to sit in the pews while the Gestapo and the soldiers search the church. They smash statues with their rifle butts. They kick over altars. They defile the church. We are guarded by four young soldiers. Father Janofski tries to converse with them in German. He tells them they are desecrating a house of God, that it is an apostasy. They pay no attention to him. We sit silently for quite a long time and then we are ordered to rise and walk to the front vestibule.

“Finally, a voice behind me says, ‘Are you now a convert, Ben?’

“I spin around and look directly into the steel eyes of Otto Piatek. He shakes his head at me as a parent would to a disobedient child. ‘Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. You should have stayed in Zamość; you should have obeyed the rules. I warned you.’

“‘Stayed in Zamość to be slaughtered? Transported to Belzec to be gassed? Is that what I should have done?’

“He shrugs and slaps a riding crop against his black pantaloon, a mannerism he must have picked up from Dr. Frank. Turning to the SS guards he says, ‘Take them all out into the yard and shoot them.’

“‘Wait! Wait!’ I scream. ‘How can you do this? These are your parents. Hannah is like a sister to you. These nuns are all good people. What have you become?’

“‘These nuns,’ he sneers, waving his arm at the sisters huddled together, ‘have been helping this criminal priest to violate the law. As to Abraham Solomon, he’s your father not mine and he’s an enemy of the Reich.’ He turns to my father. ‘What did you think would happen when you were caught forging documents,
Abe
? Did you think you’d get a medal from the Fuhrer?’

“My father, pinning his hopes on the belief that there remains a vestige of filial affection, takes a few steps slowly toward Otto, past the Gestapo officers who have deferred to Otto and are now smiling. He is halted by the point of a soldier’s bayonet. ‘Otto,’ he says from several feet away, ‘this is not the boy I knew. This is not the man we raised you to be, the man who stood shoulder to shoulder with us on Belvederski street. The Otto Piatek I know has principles and compassion. He is intelligent and honorable.’

“There is a moment of hesitation, a touch of softness in Otto’s steely mien and he waves the soldier away. ‘Let him come.’

“My father approaches on tentative steps. ‘Please, Otto. Leah brought you up with love and kindness, she nurtured you. Don’t repay her with cruelty. And the children, Ben and Hannah…’

“Otto curls his lip and leans into his words. ‘Do you remember when you stood in my office and I asked you to bring Ben to me, that he was killing German officers with his band of freedom fighters? It was the day you came to beg for the life of Weissbaum the doctor. You refused me then, didn’t you?’

“My father stands mute.

“‘Didn’t you?’ he screams.

“My father hangs his head, as I’d seen others do, hoping that contriteness will be perceived as apologetic, that Otto will be satisfied to have made his point and that humiliation will engender a less severe response. ‘I begged for the life of my friend, a good doctor. I stood solid for the life of my son, as I would have done for you, Otto.’

“‘Really? Then get down on your knees and beg me. Beg me for the life of your wife and children.’

“My father drops to his knees. He will do anything. ‘Please, Otto,’ he says with tears in his voice, ‘please don’t hurt Leah and the children.’ He looks up at Otto. ‘This is an opportunity for you to stand on the side of goodness. Let them live.’

“Otto looks around the church. The Gestapo officers and the uniformed soldiers are staring at him, awaiting his decree of life or death. Otto locks eyes with the Gestapo. Then he turns to look at my father, still on his knees, pleading for his family.

“Slowly and calmly, Otto places his jackboot on my father’s shoulder and kicks him over. He lies sobbing, cowering on the stone floor. ‘Please, let them live,’ he cries.

“‘You Jewish slime, you are where you belong, on the floor, on the bottom of my boot.’

“‘Otto,’ I say quietly, a few feet behind him, ‘The war is almost over. The Allied armies are closing in from every direction. The Russians have taken Zamość. It’s only a matter of time until they’re in Berlin. You know it’s true. Then all of you will be held to account. If you have no regard for your family, think of yourself. What will you say to the Allies when Germany is vanquished? This is an opportunity…’ I am slapped in the face with Otto’s riding crop.

“‘Shut up,’ he says, and he turns to me, inches from my face. ‘Always the smart one, the privileged one, who could talk his way out of everything. Not this time, Ben. Now it’s the son of a woodcutter, not the coddled child of Jewish wealth, who’s calling the shots. You are an enemy of the Reich in a time of war.’

“‘Then take
me
, shoot
me
, do anything you want to me –
I
was the one who left you in Izbica. I was the one who joined the freedom fighters. Let Hannah and my parents and these good people go. Please, Otto.’

“‘Please,
Hauptscharfuhrer Piatek
,’ he says with a grin.

“‘Please, Hauptscharfuhrer Piatek,’ I repeat.

“‘Very touching, Ben. You’re breaking my heart.’ He turns to the Gestapo and the assembled guards and holds out his hands in a begging gesture. ‘I’m moved by his emotional appeal. Load the nuns and the other women into the trucks and drive them to Auschwitz. Maybe Mengele has use for them.’ Turning back to me he says, ‘There, you see, I let them live. I’m a humanitarian. I have compassion and goodness.’ Slapping his leg and walking to the door, his voice echoing off the walls, he says, ‘Hang the priest from the bell tower so all of Poland can see this papist traitor.’ Turning his head in the direction of my father lying on the floor, he says, ‘Shoot the forger in the courtyard.’ Pointing at me, he says, ‘Bring him along. He has information.’

“‘NO!’ I scream. I am berserk. I see only Otto. I lunge for his throat but something hits me in the back of the head and I black out.”

Catherine froze. She swallowed hard. Her nails dug into Ben’s shoulder. “Did he do it? Did he shoot your father?”

Ben nodded.

“Oh my God, he shot your father! And he hanged Father Janofski?”

“From the steeple.”

“Were your mother and Hannah and all of the nuns sent to Auschwitz?”

“They were.” He paused to rub his eyes. “I regain consciousness in time to see them herded into the trucks. I am tied and my hands and legs are bound. I scream and I feel the steel toes of German jackboots slam into my ribs and my back as the truck drives away.

“But Otto isn’t finished with me. He saw the forged identity papers and he knows we are tied to the resistance. He is determined to get the names of our connections and is prepared to flay me open if that’ll do it. I am driven to some building in Krasnik where I am tortured for the names of my contacts. For three days I am interrogated. They strip me naked and spray me with a hose. They burn my chest with cigarettes. They break my jaw with a nightstick. They hold my head back and force me to look at pictures they’ve taken of Father Janofski hanging from the church tower and of my father lying in his blood on the church steps. And at the end of each session they throw me into a locked storage closet.

“But they never break me. I have no reason to go on living and no amount of pain or threats can induce me to talk. I welcome death. At the end of the third day, Otto receives an urgent message that the Germans are pulling out of Krasnik in advance of the Russian army. He spits on me and tells his adjutant, ‘Take this
Saujude
to Majdanek. Maybe they can get him to talk before he dies.’ So I am dragged from the building and driven to Majdanek. I arrive there in July 1944.”

Listening to the narrative, Catherine’s breaths are short and shallow and catch in her throat. It takes effort for her to speak. She shivers. “Yet…you survived.”

Ben shrugs. “They didn’t have time to kill me. Majdanek was liberated by the Russian army on July 23, 1944, shortly after I got there.”

“I have to stop,” Catherine says. She quavers unsteadily, like a vase in an earthquake, teetering on the edge. She clenches the sides of her wool skirt and squeezes until her hands are white. “I have to stop now.” And then her walls crumble.

“I’m sorry,” Ben says, wrapping his arms around her and smoothing her hair as she cries onto his shoulder. “I…it was all part of the story. It was the end of the story. The last time I saw Otto Piatek. I’m sorry. It’s taken a toll on you and I’m sorry.”

“I had to know. I needed to know.” She sits up and looks into the tearing eyes of Benjamin Solomon. “Tell me again, Ben. Tell me you’re sure. Tell me that Rosenzweig is Piatek.”

“I’m sure.”

She grabs a handful of tissues. “We’ll have a meeting – Liam, you and I – and we’ll get this case going, I promise you. I will help you bring this man to justice. I won’t rest until it’s done. What was it you said with your freedom fighters? Never surrender?”

Ben nods. “
Nigdy się nie Poddamy
.”

III. The Lawsuit

Chapter Thirty-six

Chicago, Illinois December 2004

Liam and Catherine spent all Sunday and the better part of Monday converting her aunt’s former sewing room into a litigation office, a “war room” as Catherine called it. Reams of paper were stacked in the corner. A dry-erase board stood on an easel along the wall next to the fax/copier. A bookcase held pens, Post-its, envelopes, file folders and other supplies.

Liam sat cross-legged on the floor and struggled with the assembly of a hutch-style computer desk purchased earlier in the day from an office supply store. He grumbled loudly. “The least they could do is design these parts to fit together without gaps. The damn sides aren’t even square.”

Catherine smiled.

“I went out to Dubrovnik’s Saturday,” Liam said, twisting an Allen wrench. “I thought I’d have a little talk with Stefan, but he was gone. The house was empty and a For Rent sign hung in the window. A neighbor told me that the family went back to Croatia. She forwards his mail to a Zagreb post office box.”

“Did you find out anything about the Camry that was parked outside our house?”

Liam nodded. “It’s registered to a Carl Wuld on West Argyle. I haven’t yet had an opportunity to do a search on him. And I’m trying to follow a lead on the car. I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about the great stakeout on Piatek’s house in Cleveland.”

“In fact, Jenkins called yesterday. He told me that Jeffers left a message that no one has been seen in the Cleveland home for a couple of weeks. They continue to watch the house. They’re sure they’ll catch Piatek soon.”

“After they locate Amelia Earhart? Doubt there’s anything to it, but I’ve got a contact in Cleveland. Let’s see what he can find out. On a more realistic note, I’m working on a few ideas. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but a couple of them might pan out.”