The German Suitcase (25 page)

CHAPTER FORTY

A bone-warming sun greeted Catholic Bavaria as it awakened to celebrate the risen Christ. Max’s thoughts were of the family chapel where his parents and sister would be attending Mass. He’d have given anything to have spent the day with them. He spent it on the ramp, instead, processing a trainload of Jewish prisoners that had been transferred from Bergen-Belsen. They had suffered the most horrifying of Nazi atrocities, and were the last prisoners Himmler wanted in the hands of the Allies.

About a week later, Max and Kruger were in the Officer’s Club numbing their senses after yet another day on the ramp when the wail of sirens and whistle of falling bombs sent everyone running for cover. The camp had been added to the Allies target list and its water main and power house were completely destroyed. Without water for drinking, cooking, showering and toilet flushing, Colonel Weiter was forced to deploy caravans of tanker trucks to fetch and distribute it throughout the camp, daily. In the weeks that followed, Max and Kruger made a habit of commandeering tankers which they drove into the prison compound making certain the Revier was well-supplied.

It was during this time, on Friday, April 13th, the world learned of the death of President Roosevelt. Though cheered by the news, Himmler was shaken by reports that American troops were advancing on Dachau. He panicked and ordered all 32,000 prisoners be evacuated or executed. Colonel Weiter was frantic. There weren’t enough trucks or boxcars in all of Bavaria. Besides, every roadway and rail spur had been hit by Allied airstrikes. Death marches? Many prisoners could barely stand let alone walk. Mass executions? Even the vaunted German killing machine wasn’t up to the task now.

In desperation, Himmler ordered that the Jewish prisoners who had just come from Bergen-Belsen be evacuated to a subcamp in Austria. Weiter resigned his commission and accompanied them. A previous commandant, Martin Weiss, was put in charge. It took him just two days to see the wisdom of Weiter’s decision; and when a convoy evacuating hundreds of high-profile political prisoners departed, Weiss joined it. Among them: former Chancellor of Austria Kurt von Schuschnigg, former Jewish Premier of France Leon Blum, and Rev. Martin Niemöller, a Protestant minister convicted of treason for anti-Nazi sermons. An inexperienced 2nd Lieutenant was left in charge of the entire SS installation. His name was Henrich Wicker.

The next day, KZ-Dachau was liberated by two combat units of the U.S Seventh Army. Operating independently, they had advanced on their objective from different directions. One came upon the entrance to the SS Garrison, the other upon the entrance to the concentration camp. As a result, their commanders formed two totally different impressions of Dachau, and initiated two totally different courses of action.

Around midday, General Henning Linden, commander of the 42nd Rainbow Division, came down the Avenue of the SS in his jeep to where Lt. Wicker was waiting at the main entrance to the SS Garrison. Its stately houses, picket fences, movie theater, canteen, post office, and barracks with landscaped courtyards sure didn’t look like the atrocity-riddled death camp the general had heard about. Indeed, the outstretched wings of the Imperial Eagle above the entrance, seemed to be welcoming its liberator; and with his travelling companion, an attractive blonde who just happened to be an aggressive reporter, at his side, General Linden engaged in the pomp and circumstance of an official surrender ceremony.

However, a few hours earlier, advancing from the opposite direction, Colonel Felix Sparks of the 45th Thunderbird Division, accompanied by troops of I-Company, arrived at the entrance to the Prison Camp, coming face-to-face with its stomach-turning horrors. Sparks had two immediate concerns. First: Contain the typhus epidemic. Though every GI had been vaccinated, he ordered his men not to enter the prison until DDT could be obtained. Second: Contain the 32,000 prisoners—a sick, hungry and angry mix of Jews, anti-Nazi Protestants and Catholics, political prisoners, and resistance fighters—who presented a threat of mass rioting. To that end, Sparks had the entire contents of the SS food warehouse delivered to the prison compound. With luck, the prisoners would remain calm until more troops could be brought in to control them.

But it was the Americans who lost control first. During their advance, Colonel Sparks and the troops of I-Company had come upon, what they named, the Death Train. The long line of flatcars and gondolas had been abandoned on the tracks that led to the prison. Thousands of decomposing, half-naked bodies spilled from the railcars. The stomach-turning sight unnerved the GIs whose outrage was fueled by other atrocities they encountered: The piles of corpses outside the crematoria and burning pits. The twisted bodies of prisoners who had been beaten to death. The skulls of children smashed by rifle butts. The skeleton-like faces of prisoners pressed to the fences, begging for water, food, and medical attention. The moaning typhus victims inside the Revier; and the gagging stench of death that hung in the air.

Gripped by a murderous rage, some GIs from I-Company began to massacre the SS troops defending the prison. Those in bunkers were overrun and given no chance to surrender. Those in guard towers, despite white flags flying from the turrets, were cut down as they emerged from ground level entrances. Many were unarmed and had their hands raised. A few fired weapons. Most were shot on sight.

The news that the Americans had arrived heartened the prisoners. Some became emboldened. Armed with steel pipes and wooden clubs that moments before had been the legs of tables and chairs, they went on a vengeful rampage. SS guards who had brutalized and tortured them were beaten to death; then, armed with weapons confiscated from their victims, the prisoners began executing anyone in a German uniform. Guard dogs were shot in their kennels.

Max and Kruger were inside the prison compound delivering water to the Revier and were unaware of the chaos. After hooking up the tanker’s hose to the storage tank, Max went inside to check on his patients. Kruger remained with the truck to monitor the pumping operation. He was checking the tank’s water level when a mob of marauding prisoners spotted his SS uniform and came at him with their clubs.

In the meantime, other squads from I-Company, that had maintained military discipline, were rousting SS guards and officers from hiding places. The captured Germans were made to stand along a concrete wall with their hands atop their heads. A sergeant, manning a machinegun on a tripod, was in charge of the squad guarding them. Shocked and angered by the horrors they had seen, the GIs stood glaring at their captives. One of them was a young SS officer with a crisp uniform and a self-assured air which proved contagious and spread down the line of ragtag enlisted men that now numbered several dozen. Their slackened postures became more erect. Their frightened eyes engaged those of their captors. Their downturned mouths rose in cocky smirks. The unnerved GIs began taunting the ‘fucking Krauts’ who seemed to be enjoying their discomfort. Expletives and threats were exchanged. One of the GIs muttered, “Bastards…we should kill ’em, all.” Another overheard, and shouted, “Yeah, kill ’em all!” Others echoed the call that built into a rhythmic chant. “Kill ’em all! Kill ’em all!”

That’s when it happened. When the Sergeant manning the tripod-mounted machinegun snapped, and pulled the trigger, unleashing several sustained bursts that killed ‘em all; when screams, pieces of flesh and chunks of stucco filled the air; when blood kept spattering the bullet-pocked wall until none of the SS men were left standing. The crazed sergeant was firing at the twitching bodies on the ground when Colonel Sparks, reacting to the gunfire, came running over and kicked him off the weapon.

Inside the Revier, Max had found Jake and Hannah in the meeting room with Dr. Cohen and other staffers. The single dose of penicillin hadn’t been sufficient and Jake was still seriously ill. Hannah had lost weight and was looking gaunt but seemed to be holding her own. Aware the camp was being liberated, the group was discussing how to brief and integrate American medical personnel when several prisoners came running down the long corridor into the room. “The Americans aren’t taking prisoners!” one of them shouted, excitedly.

“They’re killing every German in sight!” another exclaimed with delight.

An almost euphoric reaction came from the group of prisoner doctors and staffers. They knew the war was over; knew they had survived the Nazi atrocities; and there was an undeniable satisfaction in knowing their tormentors were getting all that was coming to them; but the indiscriminate nature of the vengeance, soon, struck them—struck close to home. Concerned looks darted from one to the next and the next. And when they had settled, all eyes were on Captain Maximilian Kleist, Waffen-SS.

“I’m afraid Max is in extreme danger,” Jake said, breaking the tense silence.

“Why?” Cohen protested. “We’ll tell the Americans he’s a doctor. That he’s been humane and caring. That he’s not one of the monsters. They’ll understand. He’ll be safe.”

Max nodded in agreement. “He’s right, Jake. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. The Americans play by the rules.”

“Not anymore,” one of the prisoners said. “They’ve gone berserk. They’re shooting anyone in an SS uniform on sight. No questions asked.”

Max winced. “That’s hard to believe. Are you sure?”

“Positive,” the other prisoner replied. “They lined everyone up in front of a wall and machine-gunned them. Dozens of SS men executed in cold blood.”

A gasp of disbelief came from the group.

‘It’s not just the Americans. Bands of prisoners are roaming the compound beating SS guards to death. I was over by the—”

He was interrupted when a man in an SS uniform, supported by two prisoners, stumbled into the meeting room and fell face down across the table. They turned him over, revealing he had been severely beaten about the head. His scalp was, deeply, slashed, soaking his hair and the front of his uniform with blood.

“Otto!” Max gasped, recognizing Kruger despite the carnage. “What happened? he asked, as Hannah and the medical staff began tending to Kruger’s wounds.

“We found him on the ground next to the tanker truck,” one of the prisoners who had helped Kruger replied. “He’s lucky to be alive.”

The other nodded. “If we hadn’t seen him with you, we’d have finished him off.”

“We have to find a place to hide Max,” Hannah said.

“Hide him?” one of the staff members echoed with concern. “What happens to us if the Americans find out we’re hiding an SS officer?!”

“He’s right,” Max said. “I’ll just have to take my chances. If I can get back to my quarters…I…I could change into some civvies, and—”

“Forget it, captain,” a prisoner interrupted. “The Americans are already searching every nook and cranny of the SS camp. They’ll be all over this place, next.”

“They’re not the problem, yet,” Cohen said, taking command. “The Americans have orders to stay out of here. It’s the mobs of prisoners I’m worried about.”

“Either way Max doesn’t stand a chance,” Hannah said, clearly alarmed.

“We haven’t much time,” Cohen said. “We better come up with something.”

Jake looked off in thought, then brightened at an idea. “I have it,” he said, hurrying from the meeting room. Cohen and Hannah followed, leaving the staffers to care for Kruger. Max paused to check on his friend and winced at his condition. “He’s a good man. Do everything you can for him,” he said before hurrying after the others who had followed Jake to his quarters.

Max had just entered, and was closing the door when the sound of people running rose in the corridor. Loud voices and more thunderous footsteps erupted. Dr. Cohen guided Max aside and peered out the door to see clusters of frenzied prisoners dashing from block to block at the far end of the corridor. Many were wielding clubs. Some carried guns. “Where’s the SS man?!” one shouted on entering one of the blocks.

“We heard one of those SS bastards is in here!” a second yelled, pushing his way into another block.

“We know he’s in here somewhere!” the leader of a third group shouted.

Like packs of rabid dogs, the frenzied bands of prisoners were leap-frogging their way down the long corridor from one block in the Revier to the next. In a few minutes they would reach the one where Jake’s quarters were located—the one where the SS man they were looking for was now trapped.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

If Adam’s question had confused Dr. Epstein and stunned those gathered around him at the launch party, the old fellow’s answer landed an even more staggering blow. Few, if any, other than Ellen Rother with her in-depth knowledge of the Holocaust, knew of the massacre and execution of SS troops at Dachau by outraged GI’s, let alone of the revenge-driven prisoner rampages.

“I’ve got chills,” Stacey whispered to Adam as the crowd, shaken by the terrible thing that happened all those years ago, dispersed into smaller groups.

“Well, according to the GMA, Max Kleist was killed in action,” Adam said. “Now, I guess we know how.”

Stacey frowned in condemnation. “Executed in action sounds more like it.”

“So why do I still have a weird feeling in my gut about this?”

“Come on Clive,” Stacey said with an exasperated sigh. “It’s over. Don’t let it become an obsession. That was Hitler’s problem.”

“Hitler? Hey, no need to sugarcoat it,” Adam said, good-naturedly. “Look, it’s more than a feeling. Dr. Epstein said Max took the snapshots of the tattoos—his included. That means the handwriting should match; and it doesn’t. How can I ignore it?”

Stacey sighed again. This time in concession. “Fuck. I knew you were going to say that. Every time this thing gets resolved it comes undone.”

“Tell me about it.”

“But Dr. E seems so honest, so…so convincing. I mean there’s nothing mendacious about him. I just can’t believe he’s been lying all this time.”

“Maybe he wasn’t…”

Stacey looked baffled.

“…maybe he’s been living the lie for so long he actually believes it,” Adam concluded.

Stacey tilted her head considering it. “Sixty-five years…Yeah, I suppose it’s possible, isn’t it?”

Adam nodded. “I can’t let this go, Stace. I can’t.”

“Me neither; but like I said, you can’t destroy someone over a feeling. You need proof—beyond any doubt—and you don’t have it.”

Adam scratched at his two-day growth. “I think it’s time to take Paul up on his offer. He edited the Heim piece. He might have an angle on peeling this onion that hasn’t occurred to me.”

The launch party was winding down. Stacey and Adam slipped away and, twenty minutes later, were getting out of a cab on East 41st Street in front of Motenapo, the chic Italian eatery in the lobby of the
Times
Building. They picked-up a visitor’s pass at the security desk and headed for the elevators. The typography tracing across many of the 560 screens read:
OBAMA COMMEMORATES 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF STONEWALL UPRISING. MEETS WITH PROMINENT GAYS AND LESBIANS IN WHITE HOUSE.
Other screens displayed related stories from the archives:
AHMADINEJAD CLAIMS NO HOMOSEXUALS IN IRAN — CONGRESS PASSES MATTHEW SHEPHERD HATE CRIME LEGISLATION — MILITARY’S DON’T ASK DON’T TELL TO BE REEVALUATED.

The next day’s edition of
The Times
was being put to bed. The patter of conversation and the muted clack of keyboards filled the well above the newsroom. As they approached Diamond’s cubicle, Adam and Stacey were confronted with a disconcerting sight: File boxes were everywhere. On the desk, on the floor, on the chairs; as were documents, books, and toppling stacks of folders. If Adam didn’t know better he would have thought the tall, thin fellow with the bald pate in the midst of it all, was—as the saying goes—cleaning out his desk.

“Hi…” Adam said gingerly. “What’s going on?”

Diamond tossed some books into one of the boxes then craned his neck around. “What’s it look like?”

Adam’s eyes crinkled in disbelief. “You’ve been downsized?”

“Furloughed,” Diamond corrected. “It’s the newly anointed word. See tomorrow’s story on…downsizing.”

“You’re kidding…”

“Nope. I dodged the first bullet,” Diamond said, referring to the merger of the Metro and National desks earlier in the year. “But the next one…right through the heart. Hey, for every one of me they execute, they can hire three of you. They’ve got to pay all those biz-bloggers, somehow.” The latter was a reference to the recent hiring of twelve on-line reporters despite an across the board hiring freeze. The unpopular move had been pushed by executives on the business side who argued that the blogs drew the kind of compulsive readers who were highly prized by advertisers.

“Geezus, Paul,” Adam said with a look to Stacey, “I’m…I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say, I…”

“Say whatever you came here to say,” Diamond said with a glance to his watch. “I mean, they still own me for the next hour and twenty-two minutes. What’s up?”

“The suitcase story…”

“Nazis. Holocaust survivor. Ad Campaign…And?”

“Well…we’re not sure Dr. Jacob Epstein is who he says he is.”

“Oh dear…” Diamond said caught off-guard. “We aren’t talking the Heim thing, here, are we?”

Adam waggled a hand. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. It’s possible someone stole Dr. E’s identity. The evidence points to his med school buddy who was a Captain in the SS. A guy named Max Kleist.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“According to the records, Max Kleist is dead…”

“How convenient,” Diamond said with a knowing smile. “You have recent photos of Dr. Epstein, right?”

“Sure,” Stacey chimed-in. “Dozens of ‘em.”

“You have an old one of Dr. E or this Kleist guy?”

“We might,” Adam replied. “Why?”

“Well, when we were developing the Heim piece, we needed to be sure it was really him. We had a shot of young Nazi Heim and one of wrinkled old Heim taken in Cairo years later; and had them computer analyzed.”

“Bio-metrics,” Stacey said, smartly.

Diamond nodded. “Facial Recognition Technology to be precise. FRT matches dozens of points of coincidence in facial structure; then rates the chance of a match from zero to a hundred percent. We emailed the photos to this company in L.A. Couple of hours later it came back ninety-something percent; so we knew we had him.”

“So…” Stacey said, assembling the pieces, “If we can get our hands on a photo of the real Dr. Epstein…like one taken during the war…we do an FRT analysis with the one from the ad campaign. If they match, he’s the real deal; if they don’t, he’s an imposter.”

“Exactly,” Diamond said. “The technology’s highly reliable. It’s used routinely in casinos to ID gamblers who’ve been barred. They’re picked-up by surveillance cameras and run against a data base. Soft tissue changes dramatically over time, but bone structure doesn’t. Even after decades, FRT can ID one of these sharks in a couple of minutes. Works just as well on war criminals. It identified Mengele, who had plastic surgery and sported a bushy mustache, forty years after the war. Of course he wasn’t out to break the bank at the Mirage.”

“Well, Dr. E went to Med School at the University of Munich,” Adam said with a glance to Stacey. “Didn’t he say the Nazis used a photo from his student file on a fugitive alert?”

Stacey nodded. “Yeah, and, with luck, by now, it’s all stored in a database…”

“Be my guest,” Diamond said indicating his computer.

Within minutes Adam had accessed the University’s student database. He typed Jacob Epstein in the name block and 1943-1945 in Years of Attendance, then clicked on Search. Several seconds later, his shoulders slumped in disappointment. “Shit.”

“What?” Stacey prompted.

“We struck out,” Adam replied, tapping the screen. “The city was heavily bombed in April of ‘45. Most of the University was leveled. All student records were destroyed. Now what?”

“Well Dr. E’s passport and travel documents were in the suitcase,” Stacey replied, sounding optimistic. “Every one of them has a photo that was probably taken during the war.”

Adam brightened. “Yeah, and they’re all on the CD. All we have to do is—”

“Hold it—hold it,” Diamond interjected. “This is where it gets tricky. If someone stole Dr. Epstein’s ID, chances are they replaced the original photo with one of their own—which FRT would determine a perfect match. Which would give you absolutely nothing.”

“Yeah, but if it isn’t a match,” Adam reasoned, “….we’d know for sure someone’s been impersonating him. We just wouldn’t know who.”

“Point well taken,” Diamond conceded, gesturing to his computer again. “One way to find out.”

Diamond went back to packing up file boxes, and Adam went back to work on the keyboard. He accessed the computer in his cubicle on the mezzanine above, and searched the data he had downloaded from the Wiesenthal CD for documents with photos of Jacob Epstein. The one on his Austrian passport was the sharpest and least faded. Next, he downloaded the ad campaign photo he had used to compare the handwriting of the ID number tattooed on Dr. Epstein’s forearm to the handwriting of the ID number in the snapshot found in the suitcase. “Wow,” he said, on seeing the two faces side by side on the screen. “They don’t look like the same person at all. Maybe we’ve got something.”

“Maybe,” Stacey cautioned.

“What does that mean?”

“Just being realistic. I mean, a couple of months ago, I’m watching this movie on TCM. “The Seventh Cross”? Spencer Tracy, Jessica Tandy? He’s on the run from the Gestapo. She and her husband take him in?”

Adam nodded. “Hume Cronyn…her husband in real life too. Where you going with this?”

“Point is, I had no idea it was her. I mean, she looked just like Liv Ullman in her prime. Just like her. You’d never know it was the same actress in “Driving Miss Daisy” forty-what years later. Totally different.”

“I second that,” Diamond said. “Bill Gallo the sports cartoonist? He’s been writing a wartime memoir in his column. Had a couple of photos of him: How he looks now and back then when he was in the Marines. Not the same guy. No way.”

“Well, thanks for your support,” Adam said with a weary smile and a mouse-click that emailed both photos to the Bio-metric lab in Los Angeles. “It took, what, a couple of hours to hear back on Heim right?”

Diamond nodded and raised a brow. “You have any idea what time it is?”

“Aw shit,” Adam groaned, glancing to his watch.

Diamond nodded. “Even with the time difference they’ve already been shut down for hours out there.”

“Then when? Tomorrow? By noon?”

“If you get lucky and they run it first thing.”

“And if we don’t?”

Diamond shrugged. “What’s the difference? You’re not on deadline right?”

“Not yet…”

“Well, unless you need the info to stop Al Qaeda from blowing up the Vatican…” Diamond let it trail off; then, reflecting on the Church’s weak response to the ongoing pedophile priests scandal, he smiled and added, “Of course, these days, that might be a close call.”

“Easier than this one,” Adam said, glumly.

“Come on, it’s payday,” Diamond enthused. “Lighten up and enjoy the fact that you’re still employed.”

“While I still can, huh?” Adam quipped.

“Hey, Clive may not be on deadline, but I am,” Stacey said, her voice taking on an edge. “We just launched a global ad campaign; and if Dr. E turns out to be another Dr. Heim, it’s going to blow up right in our faces.”

Diamond started to laugh, then stifled it, and held up a hand in apology. “Sorry, I was just picturing all those unsold suitcases with bombs in them.”

Stacey’s blond spikes were bristling, now. “Just because this isn’t in the same league as stopping St. Peter’s from being cratered doesn’t mean it isn’t serious. The sooner I know whether or not I’ve got a disaster on my hands, the better.”

“Spoken like a staunch advocate of truth in advertising,” Diamond said with a sarcastic cackle.

“Just doing my job,” Stacey said pointedly.