The German Suitcase (14 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“Dr. Jacob Epstein may not be Dr. Jacob Epstein?! What the hell does that mean?!” Tannen erupted after Stacey briefed him on her meeting with Adam. He was standing on the putting green that ran beneath the windows and struck the ball in anger. It skimmed across the AstroTurf and ricocheted off the baseboard.

“It’s killing me too, boss,” Stacey replied, eyes widening as the ball flew past her. “I’ve got a huge soft spot for the old guy; but I’m playing devil’s advocate, now, okay? I mean, something isn’t right, here. Like Adam said, it’s weird.”

“He’s weird!” Tannen erupted again, tossing the putter aside. “He has no proof of anything. How do we know the other guy, with the same number tattooed on his arm, isn’t the imposter? If there is one!”

“That’s exactly what I said; but we can’t just ignore this.”

Tannen’s eyes were popping behind his tortoiseshell frames. “Why not? We’re on the verge of launching a hot ad campaign for an important client and your boyfriend’s going to fuck it up!”

“Not if it turns out he’s wrong. But if we launch, and it turns out he’s right, we’re screwed…big time.” She picked up the golf ball that had rolled to a stop, nearby, and deftly placed it in Tannen’s outstretched hand. “…Quadruple bogie for sure.”

“Damn,” Tannen mumbled, seething with frustration. “As much as I’m amazed by, and count on, every little twist and turn that quirky brain of yours takes, this is infuriating beyond words.”

“I know. I’m sorry. If I hadn’t spotted the suitcase in the—”

“Furthermore,” Tannen charged on, “Your degree and boyfriend notwithstanding, you work for an ad agency not
The New York
fucking
Times
!”

“You’re right; and I don’t need to be reminded,” Stacey replied contritely. “But it doesn’t mean we aren’t morally obligated to find out the truth.”

“Morally obligated? Who do you think you are, Beate Klarsfeld?”

“Who?”

“She’s a Nazi hunter. She and her husband. I’m pretty sure they’re the one’s who blew the whistle on Kurt Waldheim.”

“The U.N. guy?”

“Yeah, not to mention former President of Austria,” Tannen replied in condemnation. “The slightest hint of scandal—this kind of scandal—has the power to destroy not only Dr. Epstein, but Sol and his company, not to mention this one. The campaign is the least of it.”

“That’s why we need to get into it. We can’t just blow it off.”

Tannen conceded the point with a grudging nod. “Just remember, as the gang in legal would say, ‘You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.”

“I know. Adam wants to get it right too. I know he does; but he smells a story, here—a hot one; and he’s digging. He’s not just going to roll over and—”

The intercom buzzed, interrupting her. Tannen stabbed at a button on his console. “What is it Astrid?” he asked, sounding annoyed. He groaned at the reply, then glanced to Stacey and, with a sarcastic cackle, said, “The devil’s advocate and the devil…”

Stacey looked puzzled. “Adam? What’s he doing here?”

“I’ve no doubt he’ll tell us,” Tannen retorted, pressing the intercom button again.“Send him in.”

The door half-opened. Adam slipped through it into the office. “Sorry, but as Stacey knows, no phones, no emails, this story is mano-a-mano only.”

Tannen nodded. “No problem. We were just into a little mano ourselves.”

“Tell me about it,” Stacey chimed-in. “What’s up?”

“I took your advice. Soon as you left, I started digging deeper into that CD. Much deeper.”

Stacey winced. “Why am I getting the feeling this is about to get worse instead of better?”

“Do I look like I’m delivering take-out?”

“Shit,” Stacey groaned. “Now what?”

“The luggage tag,” Adam said, sounding vindicated. “According to the archivist’s report, it has an address in Vienna written on it, along with what seems to be a passport number, and Dr. Epstein’s prisoner ID number.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Stacey said, going to work on Tannen’s keyboard. “Give me a minute…”

“I saved you the trouble.” Adam handed her two printouts. One was a close-up of the prisoner ID number, A198841, tattooed on Dr. Epstein’s forearm; the other was a close-up of the luggage tag. Creased, and darkened with age, it had a metal grommet at one end through which a twisted wire that secured it to the handle of the suitcase was threaded. “Look at how the numbers are written. They’re the same on both.”

Stacey swept her eyes over the printouts, then handed them to Tannen. “He’s right, boss. Look at those sevens, they’re exactly the same…”

“And the eights,” Adam prompted. “Like you said, they’re infinity symbols turned on end.”

“Those aren’t sevens, they’re ones,” Tannen said, unimpressed. He uncapped a pen and jotted the numeral seven on the printout. He used three strokes, not two, and emphasized the last one. “That’s a seven. The Europeans make that little crossbar to differentiate between sevens and ones. Take it from me. I lived there for five years. The bottom line is there’s nothing unique about that handwriting. Could be one person, then again it could be two or even three.”

“Let me see if I have this right,” Stacey said, assembling the pieces. “Not only do we have the same number tattooed in different handwriting on two Auschwitz prisoners, one of whom we’re certain is Dr. Epstein; but, if Adam’s right, we also have numbers written on Dr. E’s luggage tag in the same handwriting as his tattoo. I get that right?”

Adam nodded. “Looks that way to me.”

“Whoever wrote out the tag also tattooed Dr. E?” Tannen challenged.

Adam nodded again. “Yeah, I know it’s weird, but it—”

“No it isn’t,” Stacey interrupted. “The Nazi freak at Auschwitz who tattooed the ID number probably had a pile of blank luggage tags on his desk and filled it out at the same time.”

Tannen pondered it for a moment, then nodded in concession. “Not bad, smarty pants; but in fairness to Adam, and leaving no stone unturned now that he’s set off this earthquake, didn’t Dan Epstein say the writing on the tag looked like his father’s?”

“Yeah, but he also said that he wasn’t sure. That it changes over time, and…”

“Yeah, yeah he did, and it does,” Tannen conceded.

“Going with it for a minute,” Stacey went on, her eyes narrowed in thought. “If it is Dr. E’s handwriting on the tag. We’re saying…what? He tattooed himself?”

The furrows in Tannen’s forehead deepened. “Why the hell would he do that?”

“I can think of a reason,” Adam replied. “He did it because he wasn’t Dr. Jacob Epstein…but wanted to be.”

Adam’s remark struck them all with surprising force. Even he hadn’t realized the implication until he said it; and the three of them were stunned to silence, trying to come to grips with it.

“He’s some kind of Holocaust wannabe?” Stacey finally said with a skeptical frown, snapping them out of the trance. “I don’t get it, Clive. I mean—”

Tannen’s cell phone rang, interrupting her. He plucked it from his desk and glanced at the display. “Hold that thought. It’s the boss.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The Military Garrison at KZ-Dachau was staffed by more than twelve hundred SS officers and enlisted men. Four times the size of the prison camp, its acres of barracks also housed the troops who were constantly rotating through the SS Training Center. Its stately houses with fine lawns and picket fences—along with its shops, post office, movie theater, restaurants and community center—gave it the look of a quaint village. It even had its own, professionally run, highly discrete, and extremely active SS brothel.

Captain Max Kleist, M.D. knew of the large number of military personnel stationed at Dachau; and when he first saw his orders, he thought he was being assigned to its military hospital; but the commandant’s ruthless briefing and Lieutenant Radek’s horrific orientation made it clear that the Jew-lover’s assignment would be—as Major Steig had threatened—cruel punishment; and Max knew, that he would soon be on the ramp making Selections.

Radek’s tour had concluded in an Officers Housing Unit where Max’s quarters were located. Officers were assigned to individual rooms with pictures of the Führer and Reichsführer above the desk that was opposite the bed and wardrobe. Max wasted no time emptying his duffel and storing his things. His 35mm Leica was among them. When finished, Max ignored the commandant’s decree, and went in search of a telephone to call his parents and, perhaps, get some news of Eva and Jake; but camp personnel with access to phones refused to violate the restriction, warning him, sternly, against doing so.

Haunted by the inhumane prison conditions and cruelty he had witnessed, Max went to the camp’s library and took out a book on medical ethics he had read as a student. It was written a hundred years earlier by Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, one of Germany’s great physician-humanists. Max spent the next few days immersed in its essays on the sanctity of life, and began writing a letter to his parents about his unnerving experience. His appetite had waned, and he went to the Mess Hall during off-hours, avoiding contact with Radek and other officers. As instructed, he checked the duty roster, often. Each time, the space next to Hauptmann M. Kleist had been blank; but this afternoon, written in a precise hand, Max saw: On The Ramp. 18:00.

The rest of the day was filled with gut-churning anxiety which was exacerbated by his concern for Eva and Jake. The image of Eva’s face, there-and-gone between metronomic sweeps of the Volkswagen’s wiper stayed with him as he donned his winter gear and left the barracks to take-up his post. The Luger he had been issued felt out of place on his hip as did the riding crop clutched in his gloved fist.

Searchlights atop the guard towers swept in wide arcs sending shadows across the grounds. The temperature had dropped and each bootstep ended with the crunch of frozen snow. Max exited the Main Gate and trudged up the ramp onto the platform that ran between the railroad tracks and the rear of the administration buildings. An incandescent glow came from their curtained windows warming the winter light. Max looked to the horizon where the streaks of polished steel converged, still thinking about Eva and Jake who, while Max was waiting in frigid darkness for a train to arrive at Dachau, were doing the same at Kaizenbad Station in Mittenwald.

Another SS officer came trudging up the ramp onto the platform, pulling Max from the reverie. Like Max’s, his uniform had captain’s insignia and a caduceus. He made no effort to acknowledge Max and, chin raised to the wind, stood at his selection station, waiting for the train. Soon, the shriek of a whistle broke the wintry silence. The two men turned, making eye contact. The other officer broke it off, quickly. Max thought he looked familiar; but his face had been masked in shadow, making it hard to be certain. Max hesitated for a moment, then crossed the platform. “Otto? Otto Kruger is that you?”

The officer turned to Max and glared at him.

“Otto!” Max exclaimed. He was so relieved to see a familiar face, that he was oblivious to the painful intensity in Kruger’s eyes. “It’s been a couple of years, hasn’t it? The day after graduation, we were—”

“Max,” Kruger hissed through clenched teeth. “You know what we do here?”

Max took a step back and nodded grimly.

“Then shut up and do it,” Kruger said in a tense whisper as the headlight of a thundering locomotive, pulling a line of freight cars, sent shadows streaking the length of the platform. The massive engine came to a stop with the painful screech of grinding steel. It was still belching smoke and hissing steam when the spotlights began slicing the night in narrow, blue-edged shafts.

With drill team precision, a squad of SS guards, armed with rifles and truncheons, marched a group of prisoners onto the platform. The Sonderkommando as these groups were called—literally, special command—were made up of prisoners who knew how to wheel and deal within the camp system to survive, and were deemed trustworthy by their slave masters. During Selections, the Kommando, in their striped prison uniforms, did the actual dirty-work under the direction of the guards who were loath to have physical contact with the arriving prisoners. On the Sergeant’s order, two of them unlocked the door of the first freight car and rolled it back revealing the human cargo packed inside.

The prisoners burst forth in a frenzy. The frail and those who had died or passed out en route were trampled by those who surged into the frigid darkness, gasping for air. Blinded by the spotlights, the disoriented prisoners stumbled about, some bundled in heavy coats, others in shirtsleeves. Among them were elegantly dressed women in fine jewelry and furs, farmers in tattered mackinaws and bibbed coveralls, businessmen in suits and ties with natty fedoras. Some collapsed from exhaustion. A few protested their inhumane treatment. All were begging for water. Many clutched pieces of luggage on which personal data had been painted.

Loudspeakers atop the guard towers crackled to life. “There is no need to panic. Follow instructions. Go to the line to which you are assigned,” a soothing voice instructed. “You will be given hot meals, soap and towels for showering, and assigned to heated barracks. If you are a doctor, a nurse, or have other medical training, raise your hand or make this known to your processing officer. There is no need to panic. Follow instructions and go to the line to which you are assigned…”

Max’s eyes widened in horror as the SS guards, in mindless contradiction to the announcement, set upon the prisoners with their truncheons and rifle butts.
“Raus! Raus! Auf die Rampe! Form eine enzigen zeile!”
they shouted, beating them into silence and submission, and, in some cases, comas.
“Schnell! Schnell! Bilden eine linie!”
they went on, forcing the prisoners to form a line in front of Captain Kruger’s station.

Members of the Kommando descended on their fellow prisoners and began stripping them of their belongings: prized articles of clothing were peeled from their backs, rings were pulled from their fingers, pockets were rifled, and suitcases were emptied and tossed aside onto a growing pile, their contents sorted into other growing piles. All personal belongings, jewelry, cash and other valuables—except for food, which Kommando members were allowed to keep—had been decreed property of the Third Reich by the Führer and were, therefore, confiscated.

With the dispassionate efficiency of a robot, Kruger went about making his selections, directing the confused and terrified prisoners to one of two lines which led to the camp’s entrance gate: The elderly, the infirm, frail-looking women, and children to one that could have been labeled: Short-Lived Anxiety. Little Torture. Immediate Execution. The healthy-looking men, teenagers, and robust women to the other that could have been labeled: Delayed Execution. Be Tortured, Worked And/Or Starved To Death.

As Kruger went about his work, Max noticed that the prisoners who had responded to the call for doctors and medical professionals were treated more humanely than the others. They hadn’t been beaten and stripped of their belongings, and were being escorted into the camp, suitcases in hand. Max’s curiosity turned to concern when he realized that neither he nor Kruger, nor anyone else, had been issued clipboards. Names and ID numbers weren’t being taken. Arrival records weren’t being kept. Perhaps, those selected for work would be processed once inside. But what of the others? Would they be executed and disposed of as if they had never existed? Would there be no record of what had happened to them? Would they, as Radek had so crudely put it, just go up in smoke?

Any thought Max had of raising the issue vanished when the Kommando rolled back the door to the second freight car and the same violent scene was played out. This time, the prisoners were forced to queue in front of his station. Max was on the verge of retching as the clusters of frightened and confused people came toward him, clinging to each other, carrying infants and exhausted children, dragging pieces of luggage and bundles tied with rope, their faces wracked with fear, their eyes pleading for them to be spared, to be treated humanely.

Despite the soothing assurances being broadcast, humane treatment had nothing to do with it. Max’s job was to make selections. To pick and choose and separate members of families, some of whom would soon be executed. Once again he could hear the commandant’s voice: Be ruthless. Avoid ambiguity. Let nothing cloud your fealty to the Führer. Now Max really knew why the colonel, who seemed to despise him, had offered this almost fatherly advice. Max was trying to convince himself that if he didn’t make Selections, Captain Kruger or the fanatic Radek or some other rabid Nazi would and these people would die anyway. Max was losing the argument, and on the verge of leaving his post, when he imagined the terrified faces and pleading eyes were those of his family: his father, his mother and his sister. Indeed, the commandant had left no doubt that Max would be signing their death warrants if he refused to carry out his orders.

And that was the moment Captain Maximilian Kleist, M.D. Waffen-SS made his first selection; and as he stood in the searchlight-slashed darkness, and the line of anxiety-ridden humanity kept coming toward him, Max made another selection, and then another. Individuals of every age, young couples, elderly couples, and entire families. Now, a strapping farmer, his robust wife, their lethargic teenage son and elderly grandparents came trudging toward him. Like all the others, their eyes pleading, their hands reaching out in supplication.

“How old is he?” Max asked of the boy.

“Fifteen,” the father replied.

Max lifted the young man’s face to the light and examined his eyes, then pulled gently at the skin on his neck that stretched like putty. “He’s malnourished and severely dehydrated.”

“We’ve had no food or water for days,” the father explained. He had seen what happened to those who had preceded them; he knew what was being decided here, and quickly added, “He’s a good, strong worker.”

Max nodded and directed the parents and son to the workers line, but restrained the grandparents. Anguished by their separation, they all began calling out, and pressing forward, arms outstretched until their fingertips touched in one last desperate moment of contact. Max was devastated by their forlorn glances and, though the elderly couple’s age dictated they be sent to the execution line, he was about to grant them a reprieve when two SS guards came running over.

“Zuruck in die linie!”
they shouted at the younger three.
“Zuruck! Zuruck eine linie!”
One drove the butt of his rifle into the farmer’s chest, knocking him to the ground where he lay writhing in pain. His wife and son screamed in fright, then rushed to his side. The SS guards set upon them with their truncheons, driving all three back toward the workers line; then, remaining at Max’s station, they turned on the elderly couple and began driving them toward the execution line.

The painful scenario was tearing Max apart. Bile rose in the back of his throat. He was swallowing hard, trying to collect himself, when the door of the next freight car was rolled back. Scores of prisoners surged into the frigid darkness and blinding searchlights in an air-gasping frenzy. The commotion caused the SS guards to hurry from Max’s station to Kruger’s, at the other end of the platform. Max saw his chance and jerked his head toward the workers line, sending the terrified grandparents rushing into the arms of their overjoyed family; then, preempting any expressions of gratitude that might call attention to his act of kindness, Max threatened them with his riding crop, and began shouting, “Idiots! Stupid idiots! Back in line! Follow instructions! Remain in line!”

The deafening cacophony that prevailed was suddenly penetrated by the sharp crack of a pistol shot. It was followed by another and then another. Max winced at each of the evenly spaced reports that came from the courtyard Lieutenant Radek had pointed out during his orientation tour; and where Max knew many of the prisoners he had just selected, were being executed. And between each shot, the soothing voice kept coming from the loudspeakers in mocking reassurance: “There is no need to panic. Follow instructions. Go to the line to which you are assigned. You will be given hot meals, soap and towels for showering, and assigned to heated barracks. There is no need to panic. Follow instructions. Go to the…”

Once again, Max was on the verge of retching and leaving his post—on the verge of deserting; but the steady crack of pistol shots that were driving him to run were what ultimately stopped him. It wasn’t the thought of them being fired into the back of his head—he didn’t care about the consequences he would suffer should he refuse to carry out his orders—but the thought of them being fired into the back of his father’s head, and that of his mother’s and sister’s; and, tormented by this unnerving vision, Captain Maximilian Kleist, M.D. Waffen-SS remained on the ramp, continuing to make selections; and by the time the fifteenth and the sixteenth and seventeenth freight cars had been unloaded, he, too, was making them like a dispassionate robot.