The French Promise (20 page)

Max swallowed. It was hard to read that this was her first and last communication
with him. She was his main connection to his father and clearly someone who not only knew him intimately but loved him, too. She didn’t need to say it – her affection came through despite her carefully worded letter. But he understood her reluctance to start a relationship with her former lover’s son.

There was obviously pain behind this letter and he was now in the unenviable situation of having
learnt something that could bring significantly more suffering to the Ravens.

A tattoo suddenly sounded on the door. Nic. Max opened the door and his friend triumphantly held up a bag of food.

‘Welcome home. I figured you’d be starving.’

Max grinned. ‘Tell me you’ve got beer,’ he said.

Nic twisted to proudly show that each of his jacket pockets was stuffed with a steinie of Kronenbourg. ‘Only
the best Alsace can offer.’

‘Ah, now you definitely deserve the beautiful Swiss chocolates I’ve brought home for you.’

Nic gave a whoop of pleasure. ‘Let’s eat.’ He bustled in and made himself comfy, wasting no time devouring his hot sandwich, bulging with meat and mustard.

Max opened their Kronenbourgs and didn’t bother with glasses.

‘I see you’ve read the letter from Australia.’ Max nodded while
he chewed. ‘So, did she tell you to go to hell?’

‘You can read it,’ he said, pushing the letter forward. ‘But don’t get sauce on it.’

‘I can’t read that writing. Precis it for me.’

Max obliged, summarising the contents of Lisette’s letter; although Nic did know a lot of the background, Max joined the dots for him.

‘I’m trying to decide whether to take it any further,’ Max finished, licking
his fingers and reaching for the serviette.

Nic gave him a rueful look. ‘What can you possibly gain by reopening the wounds she’s spoken of?’

‘Nothing, I suppose,’ he answered, sipping on his beer. ‘I admit she’s been frank and certainly addressed all of my questions.’

‘Yes, and no doubt in the good faith that you’d respect her wish to be left alone now.’

Max glanced out into the dark midwinter
night. It would be daytime in Australia – midsummer. The lavender would likely be harvested, he thought absently, while somewhere deep inside he resented Lisette for having a moving picture of his father in her mind’s eye.

‘It’s just that she can hear his voice if she wants to; relive his touch, recall his smile. I’ve got nothing but other people’s memories of my father to draw from.’

‘What do
you want me to do, start playing a sad violin? I’ve always known my father and hated him for how he hit my mother. Plenty of people have lived with their fathers and barely know or understand them. You might be the lucky one, Max; you can make up your own perfect father in your mind.’

‘You’re too cynical, Nic.’

‘Far from it. I’m just a realist, while you’re a romantic and
can afford to be that
way because of your family. What are you hoping to achieve? That woman has given you everything she knows and now she’s asked you to leave it alone.’

Max picked up his notebook and waved it absently. ‘I can’t leave it. There’s more,’ he admitted.

‘More what?’

Max sighed. ‘I’ve discovered something and I think it needs to be shared.’ He stared at his scrawled notes.

April 1943. Photograph
of Gestapo Kriminaldirektor Horst von Schleigel in the gardens of the villa with Rudolf Hoss, SS Kommandant of Auschwitz and his family.
Wife – Hedwig
, Max had written, followed by the names of the five children, although only four were present in the photo. He wondered if the fifth, the eldest, had taken the photograph.

Max remembered how he had stared at the photo. Apart from the uniforms
it could have been a happy family snap. And yet the mild-looking man in the SS uniform was the world’s most notorious architect of mass murder with, by his own admission, 2.5 million people dying on his orders. Another million or so died because of the conditions in which he personally and ruthlessly forced them to live. Max had read that Hoss had been commended in an SS report the following
year for his dedication to his work and refinement of methods; it was Hoss who had pioneered the use of Zyklon B when sulphuric acid had not been efficient enough to kill en masse, and he who had put forward designs to kill in groups of two thousand rather than two hundred. It sickened Max, but then he had the luxury of insight and far more information than perhaps someone like his father.

Maybe
people like Hoss and von Schleigel were the reason Kilian had been linked to the assassination plot? It was a
comfort and Lisette’s letter had made Max like his father all the more.

He glanced again at his notes.

The villa where the photo had been taken was in the Auschwitz compound and just beyond its walls towered the ever-smoking chimneys of the crematoriums. He hadn’t been able to
come to terms with the smiling faces in the photo, particularly the Kommandant’s wife, who looked like any other proud mother. Hedwig Hoss had either been sadistic or dim enough to be oblivious to the pain, suffering, cruelty and carnage going on outside her home.

He’d found a picture of Rudolf Hoss, taken four years later to the month, moments before the Kommandant’s execution on a special gallows
erected for the purpose not far from his proud wife’s pretty garden and right outside the gas chambers. Curiously, the grim photo had made Max feel more empty. Justice looked to be served but one man’s life, taken swiftly, against the cruel physical and mental suffering of several million, was not enough.

‘I found a photo of von Schleigel,’ Max said. ‘An official head-and-shoulders shot that allowed
me to put a face to a name. I didn’t expect to achieve much more with him and had turned my attention to the family Bonet.’ He shrugged. ‘It is a Jewish name, you’re right, and I figured while I was at the Federal Archives, I might as well look up their details.’

Nic sighed. ‘You’re going to tell me now that you found the Bonet family, aren’t you?’

‘I found only two names: Sarah and Rachel. Their
prison numbers corresponded so I have to presume they were sisters, and their dates of birth tell me they were in their twenties.’

‘Go on then. Tell me everything,’ Nic said, sighing again.

‘According to the records, they both died of heart failure … on the same day. All those murdered by the gas chambers “died of heart failure”, according to Nazi records.’

Nic winced. ‘Bastards.’ He
moved closer to the small fire, staring into its orange glow, and his silence let Max press on.

‘I found the Nazi mug shots of the sisters, taken on the day of their arrival at Auschwitz. Both had newly shaved heads and large, dark eyes.’ What Max didn’t admit was that even bald, Rachel was pretty and her sorrowful gaze hurt his heart. She had died not far off the same age as he was now. He couldn’t
imagine how frightened she must have felt, how brave these two sisters must have needed to be. He imagined them holding hands, facing their end courageously; it was intolerable, and Rachel’s front and side mug shots came to represent for him every one of the millions of souls lost. He shook his head helplessly. ‘Sitting there amongst the records, Nic, I felt guilty on behalf of the world that
knew about this but did nothing.’ Nic brooded by the fire but Max could tell he was paying attention. ‘So I went in search of any other reports relating to that day in May 1943. I don’t know why – I just needed to and had nothing else to do – no other leads. I thought it would somehow show respect for Rachel and Sarah Bonet.’

The staff at Das Bundesarchiv were brilliant, he recalled, especially
how they never once questioned why or what his interest was. The team simply set about helping.

‘But there was nothing special about May 18, 1943, it turned out,’ he said, sadly. ‘It was just another hellish, hopeless, death-filled day at Auschwitz.’

Max then told Nic that one older staff member suggested another approach. ‘… And that’s when she suggested I hunt through the witness accounts.’

‘Witnesses?’ Nic said, looking blank. ‘To what?’

‘A lot of witness reports were made up as survivors recalled daily life in the camps,’ he explained. ‘The Nuremburg Trials set much store by these witness accounts. Anyway, with help and over the course of the day I finally came across an eyewitness account of the day Rachel Bonet died. It was dated October 1947 so it was over four years
later when retold. Here, can I read my notes to you?’

Nic shrugged. ‘You might as well – now you’ve got me hooked.’

‘
My name is Alicja Zawadski
.’ Max pronounced her name with difficulty.
‘I am thirty-four years old and I was born in Poland.
She now lives in Brooklyn, New York and is a teacher of music,’ Max explained. ‘
I was made a prisoner in Poland in 1942 and taken to the Oścwięcim camp in
November. I worked at the Buna factory as a manual worker
.’ Max checked his notes. ‘That’s a chemical factory.’

Nic nodded. ‘Go on.’

Max returned to the letter he’d copied. ‘
The camp provided slave labour, hired out to the factory. Later, when it was discovered I had been a professional musician, I was put on milder work routines around Birkenau so that I could play in the camp orchestra,
where I made some friends, even though it was not wise to do so.
’

It made heartbreaking reading once again as Alicja’s words outlined the harsh work, the constant humiliations, regular beatings and pitiful offerings that the camp authorities called food. According to Alicja, people became ill almost immediately after taking the soup and, once weakened, other problems began to kill them.
She explained the unbearable living conditions and named hostile Polish
kapos
who made
their fellow prisoners’ lives even more miserable, if that were possible. She even named the chief German physician who signed off on the selections of people no longer fit to work, explaining that these took place daily at roll call and often occurred randomly again in the afternoon.

Nic had become
transfixed as Max read aloud.

‘All right, listen to this,’ Max warned. ‘
We knew they were being killed off. One random selection I recall vividly occurred one late afternoon as we played for the returning workers. I can remember the date very well for that was the day they took my closest friend, Rachel Bonet.
’ He looked at Nic in triumph, tapping his notebook for added weight before continuing.
‘
She was twenty-six and healthier than any of us, for she had been chosen to teach the Hoss children their music. Her shaved head had frightened them and her dirty clothes had offended the household, so Rachel had been allowed to grow her hair and wash regularly
.’ Max’s voice intensified, excited again by what he was reading. ‘
The family’s residence was a villa on the compound. Rachel said the
gardens were incredibly pretty. Whatever food she could secrete from what the family gave her, she would share out amongst the band members and her elder sister, Sarah, whom she waited for every day, while we played horrible, merry music at the entrance of the main camp. This particular day Sarah did not return from her work at the factory. And I recall our shock when Rachel’s name was suddenly called
during selection. It didn’t make sense, for she was one of our best and youngest players, plus her role for the commandant’s family seemed important. I remember that a smallish man – he was Gestapo and recently arrived into Auschwitz – was walking the camp that day. Rachel
was scared of him. She told me his name was Horst von Schleigel.
’

Max had to stop reading his notes to savour the
moment of awe again. He’d trembled when he’d first read this witness account as the former Polish prisoner delivered not only Rachel Bonet but also the despised Gestapo Kriminaldirektor to him.

‘Are you okay?’ Nic asked, flicking him a glance.

Max realised his voice must have been shaking. ‘Yes, sorry, it’s both horrific and exciting, don’t you think?’

‘History so often is,’ Nic admitted.

‘It’s
like unravelling a mystery … All of the characters are connected but only we have the benefit – because of time and the German obsession with records – to see them all at once and how they connect.’

‘Finish it,’ Nic said, as though tasting something sour.

Max continued Alicja’s story.

‘
Rachel had met von Schleigel in the Hoss villa and he had asked her questions about her brother. Rachel had told
me about her family. The brother had been a lavender grower in Provence but he’d disappeared on the day the family had been taken. His name is Luc Bonet; I remember this because we shared details about our families in case either of us survived and could help each other’s kin with information. She was proud of Luc, close to him, and he was all that was left to her other than Sarah. Rachel told
me that von Schleigel had been searching for a man called Bonet, a known Resister from southern France. She was fiercely proud that one member of her family might have eluded the Nazi round-ups.

‘It was von Schleigel who’d had her name called out by the guard that day. She handed me her violin and told me to be
strong. I recall that the Gestapo officer spoke a few words to Rachel before
she climbed into the truck. Rachel snapped at him and whatever she said unnerved him because he blinked a lot and his monocle twisted. I recall that clearly. I wanted to cheer but I lacked her courage. And then she was gone.

‘I knew she had been killed. Our captors brought the trucks back from “Selections” and inside were the clothes of those who had been taken away. I saw her red headscarf
lying in the back and knew she would never wear it again.’

Max stopped reading and looked intensely at Nic, whose good humour of earlier had evaporated.

‘What do you want me to say, Max?’ he asked, sounding heavy-hearted.

‘Alicja’s Zawadski’s survival and her recollection of that day have given me another critical piece of the jigsaw. A chilling one.’

Nic sighed. ‘Max, leave this alone.
I just don’t see what you think you can achieve. These people have all presumably moved on in their lives; they’re not chess pieces to play with, no matter how exciting you find their history. You’ve found out what you wanted to know about your father. To dig further is plain macabre and not going to bring happiness to anyone. I feel sickened just listening to that account.’