“And he was certain it was the same person?”
“The woman told the others you always remember the man who kills your child.”
Given so calmly, the comment chilled him. “Jesus.”
“In order to be certain, I understand they sprung a trap. They waited until last night, when he went out in the dark to relieve himself, and then they called his name, the one they knew him by at the camp. Like a fool, the man responded. The Jews here in Potsdam are still weak and sick compared to others, but there were a dozen of them and they dragged him down and beat him to a bloody pulp. It didn’t take long. If anyone heard the fight or the man’s screams, they did nothing. I don’t think anybody will remember anything either.”
Logan looked again at the body. The man’s skull was distorted, like a melon that had been dropped. There were only about a hundred Jewish refugees in the Potsdam perimeter and, understandably, they stayed together as a group and did little mingling with the others. Mostly male, with only a handful of women and no children, the Jews were thin and appeared tormented. Logan again wondered if the terrible rumors he’d been hearing about how the Nazis treated the Jews were true. They were almost too awful to believe.
Elisabeth took his arm and pulled him away from the scene. “What happens now?” she asked.
“Probably not much. If the man was as much of a pig as they say, the killers probably did the world a favor. Our generals might think it’s smart to separate the Jews from the others so it can’t happen again, or worse, someone might try to take revenge on them. God, what a crazy world we’re in.”
He stopped and pulled her around so that she faced him. “Lis, did you know what was happening to the Jews? Is it true? They’re saying millions died.”
“Last question first.” She took his hand and they seated themselves on the ground, where they could look at a couple of trees and not at the devastation around them. “Jack, what happened to the Jews defies belief. It was so awful as to be almost incomprehensible. The Nazis wanted to exterminate them and did so with such calculated cruelty that the world may never forgive Germany.”
“Incredible, almost impossible to believe. Now, what about the first question?”
“We knew from the beginning that something awful was happening to the Jews. Or, in the case of German Jews, had already happened to most of them by the time my family returned to Germany from Canada. Everyone knew the Jews were disappearing, and most said good riddance because they were different. Remember,” she said sarcastically, “they killed Christ and they talk funny and they have big hooked noses.
“The official word was they were going to resettlement areas or work camps for the duration of the war. After the war they would be expelled and sent to some other country. Somewhere I heard that Madagascar would be their new home, but the war interfered, and it never happened.”
She leaned against him and he put his arm around her. “But did I know they were being systematically murdered? No. Most Germans didn’t know that. I know my father didn’t. At least not in the beginning. He may have suspected that things weren’t as they should be, but you didn’t voice your suspicions too loudly in the Third Reich. Besides, what could he have done? My father was a good man and, like just about everyone, he originally thought Hitler was going to do good things for Germany. It wasn’t until we returned, and Hitler took over Czechoslovakia, that he began to have doubts. Many Germans knew the Jews were being mistreated, and thought that it was good. But I truly think that the emerging awfulness and extent of the exterminations is a shock to the majority of Germans. The ones who perpetrated the crimes must pay.”
“Like the dead guy did?”
“It’s rough justice, but effective.”
“Lis, is there any chance the Jews were wrong last night? What if the guy had been forced to do some of the things he did?”
She smiled up at him. “You Americans are so trusting, aren’t you?” She reached up and touched his cheek. “That’s why I like you so much. Even for a soldier, you are still so innocent. Jack, there was no doubt that he was the brute from the concentration camp. Before they killed him they stripped him and found the SS tattoo on his arm. As to his being forced to do what he did, no. All the SS men were volunteers, and only the cruelest and most malevolent were sent to the camps as guards. We know this now.”
“And he killed that woman’s son.”
“That and more, Jack. Did you know it was against the laws of the Reich for a German to have sexual intercourse with a Jew?”
“No.”
She laughed bitterly. “Do you think such rules would stop a prison guard? He and several others violated her after they killed her child. The Nazi sex laws worked the other way as well. Did you know that it was customary, almost a law, for a German woman to have sex with an SS man if he asked?”
“Are you joking?”
“Hitler wanted to breed more Aryans as quickly as possible, so he let his golden-haired Teutonic knights have any woman they wished.”
A sickening thought overtook him. “Did they come after you?”
Surprisingly, she laughed. “No, all those goats wanted was some blond Brunhilde, and I am too small and dark-haired for their tastes. I was definitely not what they had in mind to perpetuate the master race. For once, not being a buxom blonde worked in my favor. Besides, the law was not that widely observed.”
Jack squeezed her arm slightly and tried to joke. “Well, I like you anyhow even if you’re not a blond Brunhilde.”
She didn’t smile. “Pauli and I will leave Germany as quickly as we can when this is over. Somehow, we will make our way back to Canada. I still have dual citizenship, but Pauli is only German. It doesn’t matter,” she said determinedly. “We will get there. And”-she kissed him on the cheek-“I will use that address you gave me and find you.”
Assistant Secretary Of State Dean Acheson was shown into the elaborate Paris office used by the acting president of France, Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle rose and, at almost six and a half feet tall, towered over the smaller Acheson. De Gaulle also had a huge nose, and the effect was to make him look more like a horse than a great general and a brilliant intellect. Acheson recalled that de Gaulle’s family traced itself back to before the battle of Agincourt and that his love of France went beyond the extreme. He also recalled that, as a student, de Gaulle had been nicknamed “The Big Asparagus” or Cyrano by his unloving peers.
Acheson spoke passable French, but de Gaulle either did not speak English or chose not to; thus the presence of translators.
“I knew you would come,” de Gaulle said. “As soon as you heard the Russians were here, I knew you would follow them.”
“Indeed,” said Acheson. The presence of Vice Premier Andrei Vyshinsky in Paris had come as a shock to the U.S. government. Acheson, who had been in London, had been quickly dispatched to Paris. One question involved the manner in which Vyshinsky had arrived in Paris. After all, weren’t the Allies at war with Russia? But the Russian had traveled to neutral Finland and taken a plane to equally neutral Sweden and then to France. Acheson had to remind himself that there had yet been no formal declaration of war, and that the various embassies were still functioning in the various capitals, no matter how incongruous that might be.
De Gaulle gestured for Acheson to be seated. “Do you know what that man did?” he asked through the translator. “He reminded me of all of the many slights I had suffered at the hands of the Americans and the British. As if I would ever forget them!”
Acheson winced. Along with being a brilliant man and a devoted patriot, de Gaulle’s ego was as huge and as sensitive as any man’s could be. Worse, in the beginning the Allies had done almost everything wrong in their dealings with the pompous Frenchman. First, Roosevelt had not taken him seriously as a leader of the Free French, although Churchill had given him his early support. Why should they have concerned themselves with his apparent delusions of grandeur? He had been a fairly low-ranking and unknown general at the beginning of the war. Then, when the Americans began to realize his importance, they chose instead to deal with the traitorous Darlan and others. It hadn’t helped that Roosevelt thought de Gaulle was an insufferable boor and had disliked him intensely.