“Look,” said Kaz, as he pointed to a column of blue uniforms advancing along the wharf. Carabinieri. About a hundred, maybe more, marching in good order, packs on their backs and rifles slung over their shoulders. They halted before the Liberty ship next to us and began to file aboard, their boots clanging against the metal gangplank. Lieutenant Luca Amatori brought up the rear, giving his boss, Captain Trevisi, a snappy salute before he followed his men up. It was hard to make out at that distance, but I got the impression Trevisi was as glad to stay on shore as Luca was to leave him there. At the top of the gangplank, Trevisi saluted again, and leaned on the deck, just as we were doing, watching the massive preparations.
“I didn’t have a chance to ask you about Luca and the concentration camp,” I said. “What did you find out?”
“I spoke to a friend on the staff of British Army Intelligence, a fellow Pole. He had a file on Lieutenant Amatori. Our friend Luca was posted to the island of Rab, in the Adriatic, off the coast of Yugoslavia. The Fourteenth Carabinieri Battalion was charged with guarding a concentration camp there, mainly for Yugoslav civilians suspected of partisan activities. Mostly Slovenes and Croatians, often entire families if they were thought to have helped the partisans.”
“He did say something about partisan activities,” I said, reluctant to change my opinion about the likable Luca.
“Yes, but the Italian and German anti-partisan sweeps were particularly brutal, and more than a thousand died of starvation in the camp itself. It held more than fifteen thousand prisoners, many housed only in tents, even in winter. Men, women, and children, including about three thousand Jews.”
“What happened to them?”
“The story is not quite clear. There are references to complaints made to Rome by the commander of the Fourteenth Carabinieri Battalion, protesting the treatment of Yugoslavs. The Jews, all Yugoslavian, were treated much better than the partisan prisoners. Apparently the Jews, having not been part of the partisan movement, were viewed as being in protective custody.”
“But in a concentration camp.”
“Yes, the Fascist government did put them in the camps, in Italy as well as Yugoslavia. Some were worse than others, depending on the whim or politics of the commander. When Mussolini fell, the new government ordered the Jews released, but gave them the option of staying in the camps, in case they feared being rounded up by the Germans.”
“That’s a hell of a choice.”
“Indeed. A few hundred joined the partisans to fight, others fled to partisan-held territory. But about two hundred were too old or sick to be moved. The Germans took over the camp and transported them to another camp in Poland. Auschwitz, I think it was.”
“Auschwitz? Diana mentioned Auschwitz, and another camp in Poland, Belzec.”
“The Germans seem to prefer Poland as their killing ground,” Kaz said. “Belzec was the first camp set up, but Auschwitz has grown into a huge operation. I wrote a paper detailing what is known about it while I was in London with the Polish government-in-exile. Three main camps, over twenty-five satellite camps. Inmates are put to work on war industries, and often worked to death.”
“It may be worse than that,” I said. The warm sea breeze on my face felt odd, as if nothing of beauty or any pleasant sensation should intrude upon these words. I told Kaz everything Diana had told me, and watched his face harden with disbelief, horror, anger, and all the emotions I had gone through. It couldn’t be true, that was the first response of any sane person.
“Oh my God,” Kaz said. “Witold Pilecki.”
“Who?”
“Captain Witold Pilecki, of the Polish Army. In 1940, he volunteered as part of a Polish resistance operation to be imprisoned in Auschwitz.”
“That’s one brave guy, or a fool.”
“Many people thought the latter, especially after his reports were smuggled out. The underground delivered them to London. He talked about the mass killings, and requested arms and assistance to free the prisoners. His request was never granted. He was thought to be exaggerating, either deliberately or as a result of conditions in the camp. His report stated that two million people had been killed there, during a three-year period. He simply was written off since no one believed the numbers he was reporting.”
“What happened to him?”
“He escaped, last April. I think he must be with the Home Army, the Polish underground.”
“Three years in hell, and no one believes him.”
“Does anyone believe Diana?”
“I do. But I don’t think Kim Philby did. Or he didn’t want to. Or couldn’t.”
I watched Luca Amatori on the deck of the Liberty ship next to us. He was enjoying the sun and the breeze, maybe feeling he was part of some grand plan, helping to liberate another piece of his homeland. Did he ever think about the two hundred sick and elderly Jews he left behind on Rab? Did they ever disturb his sleep? What else did he do, hunting partisans in the mountains of Yugoslavia, that might haunt him at night?
There was so much evil in this war. Maybe Luca was a good man, maybe not. Maybe he had been a good man once, before the shooting started. Before the hard choices. That’s how evil made its way in this world. Not with a devil’s face, as the nuns taught us. It slithered between the cracks, caught decent people off guard, dragged them along until they were in too far. Then it made them into something they never thought they could ever be.
Had our killer, our Caligula, once been innocent? Had evil snuck up on him, or was it an old friend? Death was everywhere. Soldiers and civilians, the grim and the meek, they were all drawn into this killing machine that sucked in souls from the front lines, the air, the water, from quiet homes far from the fighting. Why should some fool be allowed to feed the machine more than it demanded? That trumped evil in my book.
A column of GIs passed below us, and I saw Danny’s face, glasses on his freckled nose under a helmet that looked way too large. I started to cry out, but it wasn’t him. The kid didn’t have his walk, and the set of his shoulders wasn’t right. Somebody else’s kid brother.
I covered my face with my hands and prayed. Prayed for Danny, for his innocence, even harder than I had prayed for his life. It seemed so precious.
When I looked up, Kaz was gone. Probably in search of better company. There was a flurry of salutes on the deck below, and I figured it had to be senior brass coming aboard. It was Major General John Lucas, commander of VI Corps and this whole damned invasion. He pulled himself up the steel stairs-ladders, I think the Navy insisted on calling them-huffing a bit as he made it to the upper deck. He turned and addressed the crowd on the lower deck, mostly correspondents and headquarters types. I saw Phil Einsmann waving and I waved back, but he was trying to ask the general a question, not flag down a drinking buddy. He got the general’s attention and shouted above all the others.
“General Lucas, any comment on where we’re headed?”
“It’s top secret,” Lucas said, and then waited a beat. “But no one told the street vendors, I hear, so I’ll tell you what you already know. It’s Anzio.”
That got a laugh among the reporters, and a halfhearted cheer from the officers. General Lucas looked amused, like a banker at a Rotary Club luncheon who just told a joke. He had a stout banker’s body and gray hair. He didn’t look like much, but I’d heard he’d been a cavalry officer on Pershing’s Punitive Expedition into Mexico, and then wounded in the Great War. There had to be some fire left in the man, but he was keeping it tamped down, as far as I could see.
“Are you headed for Rome once you’re ashore?”
“Are you going to attack the Germans from the north?”
“What strength do you have?”
These and a dozen other questions were shouted out while Lucas signaled for quiet.
“Now that you’re all on board and under armed guard,” he said, to another round of polite laughter, “I can answer your questions. My orders are to secure a beachhead in the Anzio area and advance upon the Alban Hills. We expect the enemy to put up a stiff resistance and respond rapidly with reinforcements. Therefore, the primary mission of VI Corps is to seize and secure the beachhead. I have the British First Division, the U.S. Third Division, and other attached troops, including Rangers, paratroops, and British Commandos. We’re going to give the Germans a surprise, I’ll tell you that.”