DEKEL, LUCETTE MATALON LAGNADO SHEILA COHN (20 page)

HEDVAH AND LEAK STERN: When we left Eastern Europe for Palestine, we went from one war to another war, from the Nazis and the Communists straight into the arms of the Arabs.

We sailed to Haifa from Marseilles in 1948. But when we arrived, we couldn’t get in because of the war. And so we were forced to sail all around Egypt, to Alexandria and Cairo.

In Alexandria, the Arabs learned there were Jews on the boat. They wanted to board and kill us all. We had to stay locked up inside our cabins for fear of being slaughtered by the Egyptians. The captain told all the passengers that as long as we stayed locked up, he would protect us. But if we dared to venture out-even to the deck-he could not be responsible for our safety.

We continued sailing around the Levant. We went to Beirut, back to Egypt, and finally to Haifa, which allowed us to enter.

We had expected to find the “land of milk and honey, “-but there was no milk and no honey, only more war.

We were placed in an orphanage for girls in Tel Aviv, where they found us jobs in a factory. The fighting made us very nervous. There were no shelters. These were hard times.

We were happy to be in Palestine, of course. But together with the happiness was a deep sense of sadness, of mourning for everyone who wasn’t here with us.

We were alone, the two of us, in a strange country. We felt very broken down. We longed for a family.

Before Mengele left Sterzing for Genoa, his old Gunzburg chum Hans Sedlmeier canLe to see him with news from the family. Karl Mengele, who had finally been released from the internment camp, sent money to help his prodigal son get through the difficult weeks and months ahead.

Mengele Sr. still doted on his oldest boy. He didn’t want his son to lack for anything while on the run. And throughout the years to come, it would be Josefs father-using Sedlmeier as a preferred intermediary-who saw to it that the war criminal was well cared-for in his exile.

A benevolent, even humanitarian, streak was surfacing in Karl Mengele.

Perhaps it had always been there. For not only did he take care of Josef, he also became Gunzburg’s favorite and most generous philanthropist. After the death of his parsimonious wife, Karl Sr.

sponsored many charity fund-raisers. He got into the habit of placing large sausages in the windows of the ‘homes of Gunzburg’s impoverished residents. And long after World War II, when the Mengele name had come to symbolize evil the world over, the death-camp doctor’s father was the most venerated and venerable man in his town.

That he was Gunzburg’s largest employer certainly did not hurt his high standing. But Karl Mengele clearly possessed a munificent spirit. It harkened back to the early years when he had sought to give his sons cars and fine clothes over his wife’s objections and contrary to her penurious inclinations. In the past, he had had to keep his generosity in check to avoid enraging Walburga. But now, she was no longer around to raise a fuss. More important, the elder Mengele shrewdly recognized how useful it was to appear civic-minded, if only to counter the barrage of negative publicity about Josef that persisted through the years.

Although Sedlmeier had been Jose s childhood friend and schoolmate, it was out of respect for the elder Mengele that he devoted so much of his energy to aiding his war-criminal son. Years after Karl Sr. died, Sedlmeier continued to keep a watchful eye on Josef, visiting him regularly in his South American hideouts and making sure he had money to live on.

For their Italian reunion at the inn, Sedlmeier brought, in addition to cash and family greetings, another wonderful surprise: a package containing scientific slides Mengele had gathered at Auschwitz and sent home for safekeeping. Mengele was delighted. They would be useful in the laboratory work he hoped to resume in Argentina.

Carrying the money and his precious box of slides, Mengele proceeded to Genoa, where he was met by yet another guide-“Kurt” in the novel.

Plump but agile, Kurt was a nervous creature who quickly tired of the hero’s haughty airs and prima donna attitude. At one point, Andreas complains that he has not yet explored the lovely Mediterranean city, or even seen the

“Mare Nostrum,” as he pretentiously

“You are not exactly a harmless tourist,” he snaps at his emdite charge.

EVA MOZES: Before we left Romania, Miriam and I wanted to go back to our native village and visit the cemetery where our grandparents were buried. But the villagers were very hostile. They were attacking former landowners-and our family had been one of the wealthiest in the town. I could not even go back to my village to see it one last time.

In Genoa, the first order of business was to get Mengele a fake passport from the Swiss consulate. The fact that he already had an International Red Cross ID made this very easy. The ID card was viewed as a legitimate document by the Swiss government, which used It as a basis for giving war refugees legal passports. Using this route, many Nazi war criminals were able to exploit the humanitarian instincts of the International Red Cross and Switzerland to obtain the necessary documents to flee Europe. Of course, neither entity knowingly helped Nazis evade justice.

At the Swiss consulate, Mengele was certain the attractive wide-eyed clerk was staring at him: Did she recognize him? Although the woman’s demeanor was professional and she seemed eager to help, Mengele feared she had guessed his true identity. Occasionally, she would look up from her papers and smile at him. It was an innocent gesture, and quite possibly due to the fatal attraction Mengele always held for women. But it was enough to make the former death-camp doctor lose the poise and proud manner that had so irritated his Italian guide.

Mengele now sought to get the formalities over with as quickly as possible.

His worst suspicions seemed confirmed the next day, when Mengele discovered the passport she had issued him was useless. Purposely or unwittingly, the smiling clerk had stamped the date he applied for the papers on the line marked “expiration date.” This meant the passport had expired the previous day. Mengele was sure it was a trick.

But he went back to the consulate and was relieved when another clerk willingly issued him a valid passport without any questions.

The memory of the consulate clerk haunted Mengele for years thereafter.

He kept seeing her vague smile, her eyes that seemed to see right through him. Over a quarter of a century later, he was able to vividly conjure her for his novel.

Next came the mandatory physical examination at the harbor. A Croatian doctor performed the examinations and administered the required vaccines. For a few extra lire, the doctor obligingly backdated the certificate of innoculation by two weeks, to enable Mengele to obtain an exit visa. Mengele had to undergo another physical exam at the port. There, he noted the disgusting habits of his professional colleague. The Croatian doctor used the same instruments again and again, paying no heed to the dangers of transmitting infection.

The veteran of Nazi death-camp infirmaries, where knives were used instead of scalpels and patients were left to shiver and die on bare planks of wood, was appalled at the lack of sanitation at the port of Genoa.

The last item Mengele needed to escape was an exit visa. Mengele’s Genoan contact had planned to bring his application to the attention of an Italian official known for his kindness toward refugees-especially those who exchanged money for his favors. But by a twist of fate, the man was away on holiday. Mengele’s ship, however, was set to sail in just three days. In the novel, the vessel is called the North Queen, startlingly close to the actual name of the ship Mengele boarded: the North King.

JUDITH YAGUDAH: It was the great exodus out of Europe.

Mother and I finally got our visas. We took a train to Constanza, a port on the Black Sea, and then we boarded a ship.

Thousands and thousands of Jews were using the same route.

EVA MOZES: It took nearly two years, but at last, all of us-my twin sister, my aunt, my uncle, and I-finally received our visas. We quickly made arrangements to sail to Palestine from Constanza.

We started packing furiously. Tables, beds, clothes! We were going to wrap everything we owned and take it with us.

But then we were told we could take only fifty kilos of belongings.

Everything else was to be signed over to the Romanian government.

And then, when we got to the ship, we learned we would only be able to board with the clothes on our backs. Our ship was built to hold a thousand people-instead, three thousand were to be crammed in.

I wore three dresses, one on top of the other. Miriam, too.

We had come back from the camps with nothing, four years before, and now we were leaving with nothing.

In the novel, Andreas awkwardly tries to slip the official in charge of granting exit visas twenty thousand lire. But the functionary will not be bribed, and starts questioning Andreas closely. When Andreas tells him he is from a small town in the South Tyrol, he is openly skeptical. With a flick of the wrist, the official dispatches Andreas to jail.

In real life, Josef Mengele did spend several weeks inside a Genoa prison-the only punishment he ever received for his murderous deeds.

The man who once condemned thousands to a fate far worse than an Italian prison cell felt he would go mad. He paced up and down, raging like a wild animal, according to his novel. Gone was the controlled camp doctor who calmly went about his duties sending people to die with a smile. At no point did it occur to him that his imprisonment might be a punishment for his Auschwitz crimes. Indignation, not remorse, was Dr. Mengele’s only emotion.

In an ironic turn of events, several of Mengele’s prison peers were drug addicts and cripples and a host of other “inferior beings” whom he would have swiftly dispatched to die in the crematoriums-or to be tortured in his laboratory-in former years. There was a dwarflike, handicapped street musician and a doctor who was a morphine addict.

When the doctor began showing withdrawal symptoms, shaking and crying until he cut himself breaking a window. Mengele watched and didn’t even try to help. The addict was simply another defective human being responsible for his plight, not worthy of care or compassion.

The weeks Mengele remained in jail seemed an eternity. But at last, the friendly Italian bureaucrat his contact had tried to reach earlier returned from his holiday. Apprised of the situation, he quickly set Mengele free-and even apologized to the war criminal. Mengele was able to board the ship whose sailing had somehow been miraculously delayed.

Thanks to the corrupt official, his ticket was even upgraded from tourist to second class: This was just a small way the Italian government showed how sorry it was for Mengele’s unfortunate detention.

Mengele’s escape from Europe belies all the exotic theories that existed for years on how the Angel of Death had eluded capture. There was no sophisticated Nazi network in operation to ferret him out to safety. He was not aided by the American government or any of its intelligence agencies. The Vatican had no apparent role in his flight.

Like so many other war criminals, Mengele simply paid a series of accomplices with no particular affiliation and took advantage of the International Red Cross.

In chaotic postwar Europe, with thousands of refugees and displaced persons in need of false papers, there were many men like Nino and Kurt around willing to help-for a fee. Even the high-level Italian official who released Mengele from jail was probably not linked to any nefarious underground Nazi brotherhood. Rather, he was simply used to getting paid generously for his services. Ultimately, petty corruption inside the Italian bureaucracy was what saved Dr. Mengele, even after he’d finally been caught and placed behind bars.

By the time Mengele set sail for Argentina, he was no longer quite as confident as when he’d first made the decision to leave Germany.

In the course of the long transatlantic voyage, he learned it was not going to be easy to start anew. His German credentials were not enough for him to practice medicine in Argentina: He would need to get recertified, a process that meant going through school again, possibly for many years.

Yet when the North King sailed into the bustling harbor of Buenos Aires, Mengele felt some of his old optimism and boyish excitement return. It was that feeling of endless possibilities that had graced his youth in Gunzburg, rekindled by the charm of the new land, a sense of hope as heady as the scent of a summer night on the Plaza.

EVA MOZES: It was early in the morning when our ship approached Haifa.

We watched the sun rise over Mount Carmel. It was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen.

Most everyone on the boat was a Holocaust survivor. We all stood up and started singing

“Hatikvah,” the Jewish national anthem.

We hugged and kissed each other. We felt at last we had come home.

seven.

FUGITIVE’S IDYLL VERA GROSSMAN.

After leaving our parents, Olga and I were taken to a convalescent home in Ireland. It was located in an old castle, not far from Dublin.

It was a beautiful castle-really beautiful-just like in the movies. It even had a moat.

There were fields all around, miles and miles of green fields. I remember picking wild apples from trees, and strawberries from strawberry fields. I had never tasted strawberries before.

They fed us constantly. After the war, my sister and I were skinny and undernourished. We had problems with our lungs. I became very friendly with the cook. She was a big fat woman, and I remember hugging her, and clinging to her apron.

I loved being inside the kitchen, loved the way it smelled. All my life I had been hungry, and for once I was getting more than enough to eat.

Many of the other children there were Holocaust survivors. Some had spent the war in hiding. Olga and I were quite popular. We were nicknamed “the twins.”

I got a reputation as a real mischief-maker. I led the other children.

At night, we would put sheets over our heads and wander around the castle, making believe we were ghosts.