The Shield: a novel (24 page)

“
That sort of makes sense of sorts.” Stern was still dubious. “What about the Germans?”

“
Ah, this is a bit sensitive,” Menachem said. “Do we have an absolute assurance of secrecy from all of you?”

“
Yes,” Yitzhak looked at his companions, who nodded.

“
Just so we have no misunderstandings, what I am going to tell you cannot leave this room. If it does, it will cost many thousands of Jewish lives
.
”

Everybody nodded.

“Our leadership sent an emissary to meet with a representative of Himmler. We offered him a deal: if they give us all of Europe’s Jews, we will declare independence in Palestine. The Nazis had plans for Europe’s Jews – you may have heard what was going on in Polish territories conquered by them in 1939 – and didn’t agree easily to give their Jews a safe haven in Palestine. We finally persuaded them that it would be a great bonus for them if the Jews left without their intervention. The troops and resources they are wasting now on guarding you will be freed for the war effort. An agreement was reached and we are ready to move everybody to Brindisi in Italy and from there to Palestine.”

“
And when did that happen?” Yitzhak Stern was even more skeptical than before.

“
We finalized our negotiations with the Germans at the end of June. Maybe you noticed their anti-Semitic propaganda stopped about then. That was part of our agreement. Also there have been no pogroms since then, and food supplies have stayed at reasonable levels.”

“
How did you get here from Palestine?” the young man sitting next to Menachem wanted to know.

“
We have an ID that was issued by the Palestinians that allows us to travel to any Jewish community in Europe.”

“
Please show me.”

Menachem handed over his plastic ID card. It was closely ex
amined by all three hosts and finally returned to him.

Yitzhak Stern was the first to speak
. “If you don’t mind we will talk later about who exactly sent you here. I want to make sure you are who you say you are. But this is for later. Do you expect me to tell everybody to get on the next train that the Germans claim goes to Italy? Based only on your unlikely story? You know I can’t and won’t do that.”

“
Wait a minute
.
” Yossel rose slightly from his chair. “We ask no such thing. We expect you to send volunteers, people you trust, on that first train. They will be free to inspect the facility and ascertain that it is indeed run by our people and that we are transporting everyone to Palestine, as promised. They can even go to Palestine. We will assure their return here within a week or so to report. Then you make your decision. In the worst case, if your emissaries don’t return, you will know not to trust the Germans’ promises and resist them.”

The interview went on for another hour or so. The visitors were interrogated on the situation in Palestine, who sent them, how did they get to Europe and other details. They apparently passed the test, since in the end Stern said: “I will give you the names of our delegation tomorrow. Come here at three in the afternoon.”

“
I hope this will not disappoint you,” said Menachem, “but from here we are going to visit some of the other Zionist leaders, including the Revisionists. We want everyone to come home to Eretz Yisrael and will try to persuade even non-Zionists, Communists, Orthodox and all other Jews are welcome.”

***

Jacob’s mother was not at all happy about his connection with the Revisionists. In her opinion it wasn’t much better than his involvement with the Communists in 1937. The Polish authorities arrested him for that and he spent a couple of days in jail. They released him after he promised to abandon his connections. Mostly it was because his parents pleaded for him. Being a teenager the Polish police couldn’t do much anyway since his only crime was having been named by one of his friends. That experience didn’t make Jacob abandon his interest in politics. He analyzed his previous support of the Communists and decided that he was wrong. The party did not support him in jail and after his release he heard from them only once. They threatened him to keep quiet about their activities, of which he knew nothing anyway. When the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact he decided that these people were not much better than the Nazis. Jacob was also suspicious of the left-wing Jewish organizations, like the Hashomer Hatzair and the Bund. They all seemed to share a similar ideology, and by now Jacob was deeply suspicious of Socialism.

There was one Zionist organization that appealed to him: the Revisionists. It was a movement led by Ze’ev Jabotinsky and decidedly
not
Socialist. They also thought that Jews must be able to use force and trained their followers in the use of weapons and self defense. Led by Jabotinsky, they taught that the land of Israel will belong to Jews only after having been fertilized with Jewish blood; in other words, nobody will give them a country out of the goodness of their heart, they will have to fight for it. Jabotinsky also pushed for the immediate establishment of a Jewish state. It was not a popular view and the movement was small. Most Jews in Vilnius, like everywhere else in Eastern Europe, did their best to make a living and not to annoy the authorities and their neighbors. Jacob finally decided to join the Revisionists after he attended a public appearance where Jabotinsky said: “You can walk with us on the right or with the others on the left. The only ones in the middle of the road are horses.”

Being somewhat stubborn and independent Jacob was not very popular with the Revisionist leadership in Vilna, but he was respected for his integrity, wisdom and ability to judge a situation beyond what it seemed to be.
He was surprised at the weekly meeting of his cell when they were given the information brought by the Palestinians. He was asked, with another member, to volunteer for the first train to Italy. He was supposed to evaluate the truth in the Palestinian’s story and report back to the leadership.

***

The mid-July day was hot; the cattle cars parked at the Vilnius railway station radiated heat.  Sergeant Bohdan Kovalenko, now costumed as a Jew, was in the large crowd waiting on the platform. Like everyone else, he carried a package with his belongings and talked in Yiddish.

“
I hope the train starts as soon as they load us,” he said to the young man next to him. “If it doesn’t move quickly, we‘ll be cooked alive in those cars.”

“
Maybe they won’t close the doors,” the young man responded. The pretty girl next to him was looking at Bohdan, who stood straighter under her inspection. He knew how to assume a perfectly straight-backed military stance, having been well-trained in his previous life in the Ukrainian guards.

“
Is this your girlfriend?” Bohdan asked the young man.

“
No, this is my sister Sheina, and this is my mother Sara,” the young man responded. “I’m Jacob Hirshson.”

“
Boruch Katzenelson, from Lutsk.”

“
Were you there when the pogrom happened?” Sheina asked.

Bohdan was not surprised to hear that the pretty girl had a pleasant voice and spoke an educated Yiddish
.
“Yes, I survived by a miracle. Just ran out into the fields and hid there.” He was practiced in his story and by now it came out naturally.

“
Are you alone here?” Sheina inquired.

“
Yes. My sisters and parents were all lost in the pogrom. I’d rather not discuss it.”

“
I am sorry!” Jacob exclaimed. “My little sister is sometimes too inquisitive.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the station P.A. system: “Achtung! Achtung!” a German voice announced. “You will start boarding the train. Proceed to the cars immediately.”

The train was loaded within an hour. About eighty people per cattle car - crowded but leaving enough space for most of them to sit.

Jacob looked around. In one corner of the car was an open-topped barrel of water. In another, plywood enclosed a hole in the floor. A notice printed in a variety of languages prohibited the use of the lavatory hole while the train was standing.

Jacob pointed out some writing on the wooden planks of the cattle car to Bohdan.

“
Very interesting. It looks like we made the right decision to come on this train. According to this, the previous transport arrived someplace in Italy.”

So that’s what is says, Bohdan thought, hoping his inability to read Yiddish wouldn’t be a problem.

“Are we supposed to relieve ourselves behind this piece of plywood with everybody just an inch away on the other side?” Sara complained.

“
Yes, mother,” Jacob responded. “It could be worse. The Germans don’t usually care much about their own privacy, let alone ours. Don’t worry, we will survive this.”

Two SS officers stopped in front of the open doors of the cattle car consulting quietly. The only thing Jacob could hear was “heat” and “die”. Finally the two left. A few minutes later The P.A. system announced “The car doors on the side facing away from the platform are wired shut. Do not attempt to open them. We will close the doors on the platform side with wire as well but will leave an opening for air. PAY ATTENTION: if anyone removes the wire, opens the doors, or tries to leave their car, everyone in that car will be executed.

“You were issued food packages. Make sure your food lasts you for at least seven days.”

No
am Shaviv enjoyed his work. He would have liked to have explored more design options for the building he was working on, but today was different. His yearly month-long reserve service ended only two weeks ago; it was more important for him to spend time with his wife and two boys. They were hoping the next one would be a girl. His wife wanted two boys and two girls - “balance the family”. Noam wasn’t entirely sure about having four kids, but he loved his wife and enjoyed the process.

“
Hi, Shosh!” he yelled
.
“I’m home.”

“
So I hear,” his wife, Shoshanna, answered. She was a nursing instructor at a nearby hospital and sometimes worked strange hours. She’d arranged to work only days since Noam came home so they could spend as much time as possible together. She was, as ever, full of energy and enthusiasm. “How did it go at work?” she asked.

“
Good. I’m working on an interesting design. My team finished all the small stuff while I was away and now I’m annoying them a little by challenging some of the assumptions.”

“
They should be used to that by now.”

“
I heard some news at the office,” said Noam. “We’re negotiating a new government contract and, if we get it, my department will run it. The strange thing is that the government wants us to design an inexpensive building, preferably a duplex on a 600 square meter lot with fairly nice amenities. It makes no sense, since the land will cost more than the building itself, unless they build it in the desert.”

“
It sounds like they plan to build a new city,
which makes sense. With all the people coming in we’ll need to house them somewhere.”

“
I don’t know,” Noam hesitated. “Someone probably got a contract to design the city, but I have no idea who it may be. I’ll have to inquire tomorrow. And I heard that the railways are looking into expanding their network by another five hundred kilometers south of Beer Sheba. But enough about my work. How was your day?”

“
Normal,” Shoshanna smiled
.
“Today we were preparing for a mass inoculation for polio. Teva, even with all their experience as the largest supplier of generic drugs in the ‘old’ world, still haven’t produced the quantity of vaccine we estimate we’ll need. I’ve been practicing my Yiddish - How does it sound? I discovered that I didn’t forget everything my grandmother taught me.”

No
am was amused. “Your Yiddish sounds funny to me. I only remember a couple of words, but maybe it will come back if I use it. I still remember Polish, I think. I got to use it a bit a couple of years ago - remember that project I did in Poland? It came back to me then like my dad told me it would. He says that no language you ever master is forgotten, only dormant until needed.”

The next day
at work Shoshanna was surprised.

“
I have good news,” her supervisor, the nursing school’s administrator told her. “We’ve been instructed by the ministry to setup a new nursing school at another hospital. It’ll need an administrator. If you want, the job is yours. I will hate losing you, but all the medical personnel that will be coming in from Europe will need re-training and you are one of the best in the business. Besides, I think that you deserve a promotion and there is nowhere to go here.”

“
I appreciate the offer, but I’ll have to think about this and discuss it with Noam.”

“
Sure, sure. Think it over. I am certain that Noam will approve. In the meantime, whether you decide for or against, I need you to go there today to meet with the architects and the city engineer to discuss the needs of the new school. They want to put up temporary buildings, but you know the saying ‘there is nothing as permanent as a temporary arrangement’. We don’t want to be stuck with makeshift construction, especially as the ministry miraculously found the money necessary to build a nice school.”