The German Suitcase (17 page)

“He’s going to rape that girl, isn’t he?” Max said unable to contain his disgust.

“Don’t,” Kruger said sharply, sensing Max was about to intercede. “Ignore him. He’ll keep baiting you until you’re hooked, boated and gutted, if you don’t.”

“Where do you think he takes them?”

Kruger shrugged. “I’ve no idea. He’d be a fool to risk violating the Nuremberg Laws in his quarters or the SS brothel.”

Max nodded, bristling in silence.

As the group around them dispersed, Kruger noticed a neatly groomed officer, taking a seat at a distant table. “See that fellow with the glasses?”

“The one in the corner by himself?”

Kruger nodded. “Major Ernst Bruckmann, M.D. He was transferred here from Auschwitz. He refused to do Selections…and got away with it.”

“Are you suggesting I talk to him?”

“Couldn’t hurt. He gave me some good advice.”

Max cocked his head in thought, then crossed to where Bruckmann was sitting, and introduced himself. The major nodded formally, but declined to shake Max’s hand. “I’ve been expecting you. Most doctors assigned to the ramp find their way to my table sooner or later.”

“And what do you tell them, Sir?”

“Stay away from the typhus ward. There’s a reason why I sit alone and don’t shake hands.”

“Are you saying you were assigned there for refusing to do Selections?”

“No, but I visit it regularly,” Bruckmann replied, matter-of-factly. “It seems like the right thing to do.”

“Of course it is, we’re doctors, aren’t we?”

“It’s not easy to be one here.”

“As I’m learning. If I may, Sir, it sounds like you’re able to set your own terms. How do you manage it?”

“Luck. I have friends in high places who protect me. The head of the Hygienic Institutes for one.”

“Dr. Mrugowsky?” Max prompted, brightening.

Bruckmann nodded.

“I’m reading Hufeland,” Max said, referring to the essays on medical ethics which had been reprinted many times since its initial publication. “Dr. Mrugowsky wrote the introduction to the copy I got from the library.”

“‘Only in the art of healing does the physician find the myth of life’,” Bruckmann said, quoting from it. “I’m sure Joachim meant it when he wrote it; but he seems to have lost his way as of late.” He paused and took a thoughtful sip of his drink. “Is it true you were reassigned here as a matter of discipline?”

Max nodded. “They’ve threatened my family, too.”

Bruckmann looked baffled. “Your surname is Kleist, isn’t it? Your father is…”

Max nodded emphatically, stopping him.

“My God,” Bruckmann gasped. “Why?”

“I’ve some friends…Jewish friends.”

“From medical school,” Bruckmann said knowingly. “I’m surprised you weren’t assigned to the Typhus Ward. The outbreak is massive. The prisoner doctors are sick and overwhelmed. I do what I can.” He looked off, then chuckled softly in reflection. “Two years ago when I reported to Auschwitz, I was so naive, I brought my wife along. Can you imagine? I sent her home soon after.”

Max smiled in empathy. “I’m sure I’d have done the same, were I married, Sir.”

“Well, focus on the things that matter in life,” Bruckmann advised in a paternal tone. “Do whatever it takes to get through this with your sanity intact. Rumor has it the Russians are in Warsaw. If it’s true, you won’t have to do it for long. Good luck.”

“To you too, Sir,” Max said, before taking his leave and joining Kruger and the others at their table.

“He was recruiting you for the typhus ward, wasn’t he?” the young lieutenant asked, slyly, peering at Max over the top of his thick lenses.

“No, we were just getting acquainted.”

“Stay away from him and from the Revier,” the officer with the waxed mustache advised. “None of us go near the place.”

Max looked baffled. “But we’re facing an epidemic. It needs to be contained.”

“Easier said than done, Max,” Kruger cautioned. “Unless you’re willing to risk a death sentence.”

“Let’s not overreact,” Major Heiden counseled in his gentle way. “I’ve heard talk of bringing in prisoner doctors from other camps to deal with it.”

“What’s the point?” the young lieutenant asked, rhetorically. One way or the other, they’re all going to die, anyway.”

Max was the one who was dying. Dying inside. He wanted to say: But we’re all going to die! And he desperately wanted to ask: How could the philosophy of Hippocrates have been so subverted? How could medical professionals become enablers of the Führer’s evil obsession with racial purity? How could decent family men go about excising entire ethnic groups from the family of man because they had been labeled social cancers by a madman?! How could we doctors, trained as healers and sworn to protect life, allow ourselves to become ruthless executioners?! He was on the verge of making the challenge when, as he had on the ramp, he imagined his father, mother and sister driven to their knees by truncheons; imagined the muzzle of Radek’s Luger pressed to the back of their heads, imagined the sharp crack of gunshots and the grotesque explosion of brain matter; then, reflecting on the advice he’d been given, Max bit the inside of his lip until he could taste his own blood, and remained silent.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Tannen was the first to arrive at 50 East 42nd Street a nondescript building on the corner of Madison Avenue where the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Eastern Headquarters were located. The entrance, between Cohen’s Fashion Optical and a RadioShack—where the Breaking News headline on TV monitors in the window read:
LAPD SEEKS TO QUESTION MICHAEL JACKSON’S DOCTOR
—was flanked by two American flags. It led to a narrow lobby with a vaulted ceiling where a security guard in a red blazer stood at a small desk. There were no plaques heralding the Center’s presence whose offices were on the sixteenth floor. Tannen was securing a visitor’s pass when Stacey blew through the door, clutching a Starbuck’s latte.

“Sorry, the subway was a disaster.”

“Relax. We have to wait for Sol.” Tannen splayed his hands and prompted, “So?”

Stacey looked baffled. “Sorry, the caffeine hasn’t kicked in yet.”

“The hug…” Tannen prompted.

Stacey sighed. Her posture slackened. “I screwed it up. Then, he really screwed it up.” She shook her head in dismay and took a sip of coffee. “Don’t ask.”

Tannen’s head was bobbing in commiseration when Steinbach came striding into the lobby.

Unlike its occupant, Ellen Rother’s office was threadbare and rumpled. Stacks of files teetered on windowsills and marched across the desk, framing the tiny figure behind it. Images of the fugitive Nazis that Simon Wiesenthal had spent a lifetime pursuing were displayed on one wall. Among them: Adolph Eichmann, architect of the Holocaust; Franz Stengl, commandant of Treblinka; Karl Silberbauer who arrested Anne Frank; and Josef Mengele, the angel of death at Auschwitz who, to Wiesenthal’s frustration, drowned, accidentally, before he could be captured and tried for war crimes.

Dr. Epstein’s suitcase was in the center of a long table, its contents arranged neatly around it. A descriptive label or tag had been affixed to each. A supply of archival packing materials was nearby. “I have good news,” Ellen said brightly. “Dr. Epstein has decided to donate his memorabilia to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.”

“That’s great,” Tannen said, forcing a smile. “I’m afraid our news isn’t as good.” He brought Ellen up to speed on the problem, giving her the printouts Adam had made: the first two depicted prisoner ID number A198841 tattooed in different handwriting, one of which was on Dr. Epstein’s forearm. The third depicted the numerals on the luggage tag that appeared to be in the same handwriting as his tattoo.

Ellen took a few moments to study them; then, her eyes saddened, and she said, “This is very troubling.”

Tannen nodded, glumly. “If the implications are true, we’ve probably exposed a war criminal. If they aren’t, and word of this gets out, a decent man with a lifetime of good works and professional achievement will be ruined. Either way, as they say, the tar goes on a lot easier than it comes off.”

Ellen’s lips tightened into a thin line. “It certainly does. Perception is everything.”

“And if it gets on the Internet, it’s the only thing,” Stacey added. “There’ll be no stopping it.”

“That’s our dilemma,” Tannen concluded. “We need guidance. We need to determine the truth.”

“And we need discretion.” Steinbach added.

“So do we,” Ellen responded, forcefully. “We also require proof beyond any doubt, not just reasonable doubt; and we don’t leak to the press. These matters become public through the legal process.”

“Unfortunately, the press is already involved,” Tannen said. “Adam Stevens from
The
Times
brought this…this matter to our attention.”

“The reporter doing the human interest story…”

Tannen nodded.

Ellen winced. “A very astute young man. Is he a reasonable one as well?”

“Stace? You know him better than anyone,” Tannen prompted, then in explanation added, “They have a…a personal relationship.”

“Had,” Stacey corrected. “Without getting into details, he asked me to help him get this story. It made me uncomfortable. We argued about it and he freaked out. There was no reasoning with him.”

Ellen nodded, resignedly.

Steinbach was fidgeting with impatience. “Let’s cut to the chase. Is our guy a war criminal or not?”

“It’s not that simple, Mr. Steinbach,” Ellen replied. “Many professionals and intellectuals of the day weren’t rabid Nazis. Doctors faced the additional dilemma of being true to their Hippocratic Oath without being labeled traitors.”

“Change the spelling…” Stacy quipped in her sassy, shoot-from-the-hip way.

“Change the spelling?” Ellen echoed, mystified, as were Tannen and Steinbach.

“Uh-huh, from crat to crit,” Stacey explained with a nervous giggle. “Hippocrats?Hypocrites? They could blame it all on a typo.”

“How wonderfully clever and glib,” Ellen said with a thin smile. “I can see why you’re so good at what you do. I can also see you find this subject disturbing and are relying on your sense of humor to cope with it.”

Stacey looked chastened and nodded. “It gives me chills…really weirds me out.”

“I know,” Ellen said with heartfelt empathy. “But it’s important to remember the Nazi vision was a biomedical one. Doctors were drafted into the SS early on. Hitler was a psychopath but he wasn’t stupid. His plan to purify the Aryan race was insane but finely crafted. Who better to legitimize it, to diagnose and remove the racial cancers he imagined, than physicians? Many were coerced into carrying out his vision.”

“Nobody coerced that bastard Mengele,” Steinbach said, trembling. “He loved every minute of it.”

“A monster, as my grandparents can testify.”

“But they survived…” Steinbach prompted.

Ellen nodded. “God knows how.”

“Mine didn’t.”

“I’m very sorry,” Ellen said, clearly moved. “But we’ve learned not all Nazi doctors were Mengele. Some were conflicted by what they were ordered to do. They drank heavily and were tormented by nightmares. As a matter of fact, a distinguished professor of psychology wrote a book about how Germany’s doctors were turned into mass murderers.” She went to a wall of bookcases, scanned the titles, and removed a hardback which she handed to Steinbach.

Discrete gray lettering at the top of the black dust jacket spelled out: Robert Jay Lifton. Below, dynamic uppercase lettering, with an incised black borderline, that made the white characters vibrate, proclaimed
The Nazi Doctors
; and at the bottom, in more lyrical red lettering, the book’s subtitle:
Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide
.

“Robert Jay Lifton,” Steinbach mused, examining the hefty volume. “Sounds familiar…”

“Not surprising. He’s the leading authority,” Ellen said. “One of the many doctors he interviewed was an SS officer who was on the ramp at Auschwitz. Ernst B., as Dr. Lifton called him, found it so unnerving that he refused to do any more selections. Fortunately, he was supported by a mentor who had him transferred to Dachau.”

“But he was on the ramp at Auschwitz,” Steinbach said in condemnation. “He did selections, right?”

Ellen nodded.

“That makes him a war criminal,” Steinbach stated. “That was the deciding factor at Nuremberg, wasn’t it? You were either on the ramp or you weren’t.”

“Yes, in most cases,” Ellen replied. “People were hung for it; and Dr. Ernst B. was eventually arrested and brought to trial; but he was acquitted of all—”

“Acquitted?!” Steinbach interrupted, outraged.

“Yes, of all charges,” Ellen resumed, gently. “The prisoner doctors he worked with at Dachau testified on his behalf. All of them—most were Jews, by the way—said he was humane and caring toward the prisoners and put himself at risk to help them.”

Steinbach was stunned and muttered, “I had no idea…”

“If it helps…” Ellen went on, “…his mentor, a Dr. Mrugowsky, who was head of the Hygienic Institutes, was executed for conducting fatal medical experiments.”

“That’s an amazing story,” Tannen said, clearly moved. “But, can we get back to our doctor?”

Ellen sighed in dismay. “As I said, this is very troubling. For two reasons: Money is one. Dr. Jacob Epstein is the other. Not necessarily in that order.”

Steinbach looked puzzled. “Money? I don’t get it.”

Ellen nodded glumly. “Despite your generosity and that of many others, Dr. Epstein among them, the Center is on the verge of bankruptcy.”

Ellen’s three visitors emitted a collective gasp.

“That’s how everyone reacts. Well, almost everyone. Racist web-sites and publications are cheering openly. We’ve cut our staff to the bone. What resources we do have are being used to press active cases. It takes decades to track these monsters down.”

Stacey nodded. “Adam was telling us about this Nazi doc who’d been living in Cairo for thirty years. I think his name was Heil or Heinz…something like that.”

“Heim,” Ellen said smartly. “He was a monster in the Mengele mold. But Dr. Jacob Epstein? A Jewish-American aristocrat? Who would donate to investigate him? For Mengele, yes; for Eichmann, yes; for Heim, Entress, Vetter, yes. All human scum.”

“People would mortgage their condos in Palm Beach to nail those bastards,” Tannen joked, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“People did mortgage their condos,” Ellen retorted without cracking a smile. “Dr. Epstein is a Jewish icon. A lion. A former chairman of the WJC who has donated more money to, as you put it, nail these monsters than anyone. Furthermore our—”

“Playing devil’s advocate,” Tanned interjected, “Can you think of a better cover?”

“That’s rank speculation Mr. Tannen. I was about to say our donor base has been decimated by the global financial crisis and the likes of Bernie Madoff.”

“Cancelling this year’s fund-raiser didn’t help,” Steinbach said. “My wife was on the verge of melting her Platinum Card on a Versace when you pulled the plug. We still ponied up by the way.”

“And it’s much appreciated; but when we ran the numbers, we realized the gala would’ve cost more to put on than it would’ve raised. By the way, Dr. Epstein’s Foundation is one of the few that hasn’t cut back or eliminated its contribution. You want the Center to use
their
donation to prove he’s a war criminal?”

“I love the old guy,” Stacey said with a tremor in her voice. “But if he is guilty, there’d be something Shakespearean about that, wouldn’t there? A sort of poetic justice?”

“Justice is our focus. If it comes with a little poetry, fine,” Ellen replied, matter-of-factly. “Nobody wants to get these monsters more than we do.”

“Adam’s a close second,” Stacey warned. “And his motives aren’t as altruistic. With the current state of the newspaper business, nothing’s going to stop him.”

“That doesn’t change the Center’s commitment to having proof beyond any doubt before taking action.”

Tannen removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Then what does all this mean?” he asked, referring to the printouts.

“Not much,” Ellen replied. “Most Europeans make their numbers like that. They could’ve been written by anyone. Probably one of the monsters at Auschwitz.”

“That’s occurred to us,” Tannen said with a look to Stacey. “But Dan Epstein said the writing on the tag could be his father’s; and if it does match the numbers on Dr. Epstein’s tattoo, one might conclude that he—”

“—that he tattooed himself with the real Jacob Epstein’s ID number,” Ellen interjected. “I get it; but then why agree to do the ads in the first place? Why take the chance of being exposed? The sight of the suitcase, alone, would have terrified him. Why didn’t he get rid of it and everything in it, years ago?”

“We’ve asked the same questions,” Tannen replied. “We came up with: Guilt. A need to wipe the slate clean. To make amends at the end of his life. Sentimentality…”

“It’s also possible someone’s out to smear him,” Ellen said. “Even the finest surgeons are sued for malpractice. It might be a patient who wants to hurt him. Or one of Mr. Steinbach’s rivals, for that matter, whose sales will suffer when you run your ads.”

“Doesn’t compute,” Tannen replied with finality. “Stacey found the suitcase on the street. No way anyone could’ve planted it there and counted on us using it in the campaign, let alone planted evidence in it.”

“Yeah,” Steinbach grunted. “No competitor of mine would stoop to such tactics. I’m confused. I mean, why are we getting this push-back? Dr. E’s deep pockets aside, I’m wondering if there isn’t another reason?”

Ellen broke into a little smile. “Ah, you’ve found out he did my grandmother’s hip replacement.”

“He did?” Steinbach said, caught unawares.

“Uh-huh. Must be twenty, twenty-five years,” Ellen said. “He’s done more hips and knees around this place than you can count. I could recuse myself; but nothing would change. If Dr. Epstein is a war criminal, I’ll do everything possible to bring him to justice; but I get to play devil’s advocate, too. I have to be sure we’re on solid ground before committing resources which, as I said, are severely limited.”

“Solid ground or not, this has to be resolved and fast,” Steinbach declared. “And I don’t want to leave it up to a kid reporter. Anything you can do?”

“Well, for the sake of argument, let’s say our Dr. Epstein isn’t the real Dr. Jacob Epstein. Then, who is he? Well, we know he’s a doctor. If he was at Dachau, he’d have been SS—they all were—and we could search data bases for him: The Wiesenthal Center. The European Consortium of Nations. The U.S. Department of Justice. The German Military Archives… If he’s wanted for war crimes, chances are he’ll turn up; but we can’t do a search without a name—an SS Nazi doctor’s name.”

Stacey, Tannen and Steinbach looked at each other in puzzlement for a moment then, suddenly struck by the same thought, they nodded in unison.

“Maximilian Kleist,” Tannen said.

“Where’d that come from?”

“From the man himself,” Tannen replied. “According to Dr. Epstein, they were best friends at medical school. He also said, that Max Kleist gave him the suitcase, and that he was in the SS.”

“Dr. Maximilian Kleist, SS,” Ellen said, mimicking a German accent. “Has a nice Nazi ring, doesn’t it?”