Black Cross. Greg Iles
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Schörner inspected the front line from end to end, looking for something or someone the prisoners could only guess at. Few had the courage to return his probing stare.
One who did was the shoemaker.
Another was a young woman of about twenty-five, a Dutch Jewess by the name of Jansen. Unlike the shoemaker, she had her entire family with her: husband, two small children, her father-in-law. The shoemaker had seen them arrive on yesterday’s train. The woman’s head had been shaved, but her large brown eyes flickered with a quick intelligence that had long since faded from the eyes of most of the other camp women. The shoemaker admired her bravery in returning Schörner’s gaze, but he knew that it was hollow. She had no idea what lay in store for her family.
The shoemaker did. He didn’t need to hear the whispers of the Poles. During the afternoon he had seen SS men taking great pains to avoid the area of the gas storage tanks behind their barracks. Obviously some new and potent poison had been pumped into the tanks from the laboratory. Yes, tonight there would be a selection. And selections were the exclusive province of the Herr Doktor.
“Excuse me, sir,” the young Dutchwoman whispered in Yiddish. “I am Rachel Jansen. How long must we stand here in the cold?”
“Don’t talk,” said the shoemaker, keeping his face forward. “And keep your children quiet, for their sakes.”
“No talking!” Sergeant Sturm shouted. At the sound of his voice the German shepherds burst out barking.
The shoemaker looked up at the sound of another slamming door. SS Lieutenant-General Herr Doktor Klaus Brandt, Commandant of Totenhausen Camp, stood before the rear door of his quarters wearing his elegant pale gray dress uniform. The tunic was immaculate. With a slow, purposeful tread he walked toward the Appellplatz and his assembled prisoners. It always intrigued the shoemaker to watch this man. Not only was Klaus Brandt exactly his own age—fifty-five—but to his knowledge was the only concentration camp commandant who was also a medical doctor. This had been tried once before, at a different camp, but the chosen physician had made a muddle of the administration. Not Brandt, though. The balding, slightly podgy Prussian was an obsessive perfectionist. Some believed he was a genius.
The shoemaker knew he was insane.
The commandant’s SS uniform also signaled that tonight was a special occasion. Klaus Brandt considered himself a doctor first and a soldier second, and on most days wore his white lab coat over a business suit. He also insisted that he be addressed by his subordinates as Herr Doktor rather than Herr Kommandant. Of course he might be wearing the uniform simply to keep out the cold. The shoemaker could not remember a wind like this for many weeks. Earlier he had seen SS men building fires beneath their vehicles to keep the motor oil from freezing in the crankcases.
When Brandt came within ten paces of the line, Sergeant Sturm snapped to attention and yelled: “All prisoners present, Herr Doktor!”
Brandt acknowledged this report with a curt nod. He examined his watch, then leaned over and spoke quietly to Major Schörner. Schörner checked his own watch, then looked toward the main camp gate forty meters away. One of the gate guards shook his head in reply. Schörner looked questioningly at Brandt.
“Let us begin, Sturmbannführer,” Brandt said.
Major Schörner signaled Sergeant Sturm with a flick of his head. Sturm marched toward the far end of the line and began pulling men from the ranks. The shoemaker saw immediately that this selection was different from all others he had seen. The criteria for selections were usually self-evident—sometimes certain adult men were selected (those of a certain approximate weight, for example), other times women having their menstrual cycle. Never had the shoemaker seen more than ten adults selected at one time, and for a simple reason: Brandt’s testing chamber had not been designed to handle more.
Also, the usual procedure was for Brandt to walk along just behind the sergeant, approving the selections or, in rare cases, granting an on-the-spot dispensation. The Lord of Life and Death at Totenhausen savored his divine authority. But tonight Sturm was snatching men from the ranks with hardly a glance. Already thirteen stood under guard apart from the main group. With a chill of foreboding the shoemaker realized that all thirteen were Jews. Had his turn finally arrived?
His hands trembled. None of the Jews looked over fifty, but who knew? He saw the Jansen woman lean out of the line to try and see what was happening. An SS private stepped forward and shoved her back. Five storm troopers converged as Sergeant Sturm waded into the ranks to collar a reluctant prisoner. A hysterical wail echoed up the line, forcing the dog handlers to restrain the German shepherds.
The shoemaker began to pray. Nothing else would do any good. He had made his mistake years before, when he refused to flee from Germany with his wife and son. At least they were safe now, he thought—he hoped—safe in the Promised Land. Palestine. He was certainly luckier than the Jansen family on his right. Tonight the old grandfather would lose his son, the young wife her husband, and the children their father. He saw panic in the woman’s eyes as she sought some means of protecting her husband. There was nothing. This was Nazi Germany, and Sergeant Sturm was getting closer.
“You!” Sturm snapped, pointing his finger. “Out of the line!”
The shoemaker watched a forty-year-old clerk from Warsaw shuffle out of the line and join the doomed men huddling in the center of the frozen camp yard. Rosen was his name, but no stone would ever mark his remains—
“You!” Sturm bellowed. “Out of the line!”
From the corner of his eye the shoemaker saw the young Dutch father turn and look into his wife’s face. His eyes showed no fear for himself, only a withering guilt at leaving his family to suffer without his protection, however meager it might be. Their two children, a tiny boy and girl, clung to the hem of their mother’s gray shift and stared up in mute terror.
“Austreten!” Sergeant Sturm barked, reaching for the Dutchman.
The young man raised one hand and tenderly touched his wife’s cheek. “Ik heb er geen woorden meer voor, Rachel,” he said. “Take care of Jan and Hannah.”
The shoemaker was German, but he knew enough Dutch to translate: I have no more words, Rachel.
As Sergeant Sturm’s hand closed on the young Dutchman’s sleeve, a white-haired man bolted from the ranks and threw himself at Sturm’s feet. The shoemaker cut his eyes up the line. Forty meters away Major Schörner was engaged in conversation with Dr. Brandt. Neither had seen the movement.
“Spare my son!” the old man begged in a whisper. “Spare my son! Benjamin Jansen begs you on his knees for mercy!”
Sergeant Sturm waved away a storm trooper who was hurrying over with a dog. He drew his pistol, a well-oiled Luger. “Get back in line,” he growled. “Or we’ll take you instead.”
“Yes!” said the old man. “That is what I want!” He rose to his feet and capered like a madman. “I will serve just as well!”
Sturm shoved him back a step. “You’re not what we need.” He pointed his pistol at the son. “Move!”
The elder Jansen’s right hand burrowed inside his coat pocket. Sergeant Sturm pressed his Luger to the Dutchman’s forehead, but the wrinkled hand emerged from the pocket holding something that flashed like stars under the arclights. The shoemaker heard Sturm catch his breath.
The Dutchman’s palm was full of diamonds.
“Take them,” Ben Jansen whispered. “For my son’s life.”
The shoemaker watched Sergeant Sturm’s face go through several changes of expression. He could hear the thoughts turning in the sergeant’s brain. Who else had seen the diamonds? What were they worth? A small fortune, by the look of them. How long would he have to carry them before he could hide them in his quarters?
“They’re yours,” the old man whispered, pressing the gems toward Sturm’s pocket.
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