12
Black Market
I SLEPT THAT NIGHT ON THE LEBRECHTS’ FLOOR, though not very soundly, knowing that tomorrow I would be wandering the streets of Berlin again. I was becoming a human Flying Dutchman, forever on the move.
What made life hard to endure was not just the lack of a place to call home. There was also the danger of running into Gestapo agents or Wehrmacht patrols, who would be curious as to why an able-bodied man was not in uniform. There was also the chance that I could meet some old friend or acquaintance who might gossip to the wrong person. Informers were everywhere, some of whom were in the pay of the Gestapo and others who denounced people to curry favor with the authorities. Every apartment complex, every factory, practically every building in Germany had its share of informers.
Under these circumstances, it was almost impossible to keep anything hidden from the Nazis, which is why there were so few successful acts of sabotage. The Reich had its share of internal enemies, but most of them did not live long enough to do much damage.
As long as I was on the streets, especially during daylight hours, I was exposed to the danger of arrest. It was imperative to stay hidden as much as possible. I wracked my brains, trying to think of anyone I might stay with. I made one vain attempt and visited a distant relative by the name of Bukofzer. Although sympathetic to my plight, they were afraid of being denounced for harboring a Jewish fugitive. If discovered, they would certainly have been arrested themselves. They allowed me to stay one night and then I had to move on. I did not count it as wasted time. You never knew who might be willing to offer aid—and although I had no way of knowing at the time, Herr Bukofzer’s sister, Susi, would be of great help to me in the future.
The next day I was on the move again, walking the streets. A sense of hopelessness threatened to overwhelm me and I had to concentrate on remaining calm. I could not allow myself to fall apart now.
After wandering aimlessly for a few hours, I stopped for a moment and leaned against a streetlamp. By chance, I was in front of a theater that I had visited several times in the past. The concerts I had attended there had been one of the greatest joys of my life. I stepped back toward the curb so that I could read the billboard announcing who was playing. It was Will Glahe!
Glahe was a band leader who was a favorite with teenagers in Germany. He played all kinds of swing and jazz, including some American music. At this point, musicians could still get away with performing American music, although it was later made illegal. On impulse, I checked my wallet. I still had a little bit of money left from the sale of the electric motors, enough to buy one of the inexpensive tickets.
The theater would be a perfect place to hang out for a few hours. Nazis abhorred jazz music, which was supposedly contaminated by “Negro” influences. Theater houses that featured jazz musicians were therefore avoided by party members. Also, there should be a large crowd of young people, which would allow me to sink into the background. And, I rationalized, it would get me off the streets for a little while.
I had a few hours to kill before the concert began, so I found a cafe that did not require ration cards and went in to have a chicory coffee and a piece of imitation cake. All the while, I kept my attention focused on the room, looking for Gestapo. Ilse had told me about greifers or “catchers”—Jews who were working for the Nazis, rounding up their fellow Jews.
The catchers bought their own freedom and sometimes that of their immediate families by roaming the streets looking for U-boats. They would see someone they knew to be Jewish and would approach them in a friendly manner, striking up a conversation. The other person would usually be pleased to see a familiar face and would welcome the chance to talk. Being a U-boat, as I was presently learning, was a lonely business. Constantly in fear, constantly on the run, these poor people would be delighted to chat with someone from a happier time.
In the course of the conversation, the catcher would tell the U-boat that he was also on the run, hiding from the Nazis. This would establish a rapport and some degree of trust. The greifer would then inquire as to the whereabouts of the U-boat’s family and friends. He would ask where the U-boat was staying, whether he had been able to get fake identification and from whom, etc. Quite often, the soon-to-be victim would tell all, thinking that he could trust a fellow Jew.
Within a few minutes, the catcher would signal a member of the Gestapo who was waiting nearby. These people often roamed about, working as a team. The greifer would make the first contact and then whoosh! The Gestapo would jump in, capturing the U-boat in mid-sentence. The U-boat would be taken to prison, where he would await deportation or execution.
So I had to remain alert as I drank my chicory and ate the imitation cake. But I tried hard to enjoy both the calories and the opportunity to sit, however tense I felt. I looked around at the rest of the cafe. This was a good place for someone on the run, I thought. It was packed with people. Here I could sink into the background.
Picking a table near the rear, I took a seat that gave me a good view of the room. Most Gestapo agents constantly wore their leather hats and trenchcoats, which made them easy to spot. Keeping one eye on the door, I sat near an exit. I had learned that two exits were better than one and that walking was better than running. Simple rules, but they could save your life. My life had devolved into a focus on two principles: avoid capture and stay alive.
I finished the chicory and got up to leave. It was just about time to go to the concert. During the war, concerts often took place during the day instead of in the evening. Most nights, the British had reserved the skies over Berlin for their own use and no one wanted to be caught in the open when the Royal Air Force came calling.
There were already long lines of people when I arrived at the concert hall. I walked into the building’s main lobby and went to take my seat. The music was wonderful, mostly jazz with some of the swing music that made young Germans go crazy with delight. But even as I was enjoying the music, I caught a glance of someone who looked very familiar. I could only see his back. It was a young man with flaming red hair, tightly curled. Could it be Horst Dobriner?
Horst and I had known each other for a long time. We had lived together in the orphans’ home where, when we took time out from our studies, we played for the same team in the Maccabi Jewish Soccer League. He was a very good-looking young man, exactly my age. He was witty, an outstanding soccer player, something of a poet, and an absolute sports fanatic. If he had escaped deportation, he might be in a position to help me.
We had stayed in touch after my parents had been deported. I visited him occasionally while I was working at the gun factory, but I had not seen him for some time. He knew I had met Ilse but was unaware that I had married her.
Horst and his mother, Frau Dobriner, had been extremely fortunate. Frau Dobriner had been seeing a Gentile man, Erich Ziegler, for years. A few months before the factory action, when it became apparent that huge numbers of Jews were being arrested and deported, Herr Ziegler invited them to move in with him. By failing to register their new location with the police, they became U-boats, living underground. No one, except for a few friends like me, knew where they were.
Ziegler and his son, Oskar, used their ration coupons to keep all four of them alive, though Horst was sometimes able to help a little. Horst had a job in a large factory where he performed menial tasks until he and his mother went underground. At that point, of course, he had to live by his wits like the rest of the U-boats.
At intermission, the lights went on and I was able to get a better glimpse of the redheaded man. It wasn’t Horst. But as I sat there, waiting for the second half of the show, I realized that the Dobriners would still be a possible haven for me. I resolved to go there immediately after the show.
After the concert was over, I hurried out of the building. The structure that housed the Ziegler apartment was three stories high, squeezed in on both sides by other apartment buildings. I walked up the steps and inside to the second floor. There on the door in front of me was the name ZIEGLER.
I knocked on the door. After a moment, it was opened by tall, skinny man with brown hair on a head that was rapidly going bald. He had a long, slim, face with a Hitleresque mustache and buckteeth. He reminded me of a rabbit.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Hello, Herr Ziegler, I am Dagobert Lewin. I’m a friend of Horst’s.”
Ziegler’s eyes grew wide and frightened. He looked down at the ground. I immediately caught on.
“Herr Ziegler, is there something wrong? Where is Horst? Is he not here?” I asked, worried about the response.
Ziegler looked at me. “Come in please.” I entered, and he shut the door behind me.
“Please come in here,” he motioned, taking me into a combination dining room/living room.
Sitting there on the couch was Frau Dobriner, Horst’s mother. She was a plump, black-haired woman. Horst’s father had died some years earlier, and Frau Dobriner had been faced with the task of raising Horst by herself. She couldn’t seem to bring herself to face some of the usual parental tasks, such as attending Horst’s soccer games. But she was always friendly and hospitable in earlier days. I had gotten to know her pretty well during the many social visits I had made to their apartment before my parents were deported.
She looked up, saw me, and gasped, clutching her heart. Tears immediately started flowing from her eyes.
“Dagobert! Oh my God! Dagobert!” she exclaimed.
I went up closer to her and sat next to her on the sofa. “Frau Dobriner, I am so sorry to have shocked you so by coming without warning. I had no way of contacting you. What is wrong, Frau Dobriner? Is it Horst? Has something happened to him?”
She reached out and hugged me, pulling me toward her. I remember her body feeling large and soft, like a down pillow.
Horst, like so many others, had been captured by the Gestapo. Herr Ziegler had some contacts in the local police district office and was able to learn that Horst had been arrested sometime in early January. They were unable to learn how the Gestapo found him, but somehow Horst was picked up as he walked down the streets and was hustled into one of the infamous SS transport trucks, almost certainly to be shipped to the camps. So Frau Dobriner had now lost her son as well as her husband.
Fortunately for her, there were no records detailing her move to Herr Ziegler’s apartment and it was unlikely that Horst would give her away.
“And what of you? What are you doing here? I am so happy that the Gestapo have not gotten you, too,” Frau Dobriner said.
“I am a U-boat. About a month after Horst was seized, I narrowly escaped capture at the gun factory where I was working.” Once again, I found myself telling about my brushes with the Gestapo and asking for a place to stay.
Frau Dobriner looked over at Herr Ziegler, then back at me. Unlike the Kusitzkys, she asked that I excuse her and Herr Ziegler so they could discuss it in private.
They excused themselves, leaving me alone. I sat there, heart beating fast, hoping. I was still shaken by what I had heard about Horst. No matter how many times I heard about my friends being taken by the Gestapo, it was still a shock when it happened. People like Horst were more than just bodies being taken away. They were friends and family and therefore important to me. While I could never allow myself to be so emotional as to fall apart over bad news, it still shook me.
Eventually, Frau Dobriner returned with Herr Ziegler in tow. It seemed to me that Herr Ziegler was used to deferring to Frau Dobriner. He looked back at her frequently as he spoke, apparently making sure that he did not overstep some invisible boundary.
“We will be glad to help you, Herr Lewin,” Erich Ziegler began. “For a few days, that is. We have a small apartment here, but we can make do for a while to help you out.”
Frau Dobriner nodded her head behind him. She obviously had primed her man and had spoken to him about me. He seemed very agreeable and looked back to her with a loving smile. I was later to learn that Herr Ziegler relied on Frau Dobriner for direction in many areas. Events generally seemed to turn out the way Frau Dobriner wished in this household.
“Thank you, thank you, Herr Ziegler,” I said animatedly.
Herr Ziegler then took a minute to advise me of some of the conditions of my residence. Herr Ziegler’s son, Oskar, also lived in the apartment, and he wanted to forewarn me now to prevent any surprises. I was shown an older sofa in the living room where I would be sleeping and told that meals would be, at best, on the light side. It seemed to me that Herr Ziegler was subtly fishing for information about my financial condition, without being so crass as to come right out and ask. He mentioned that he had a source for black market ration cards but could rarely afford them.
This intrigued me. I knew of only one place to buy the cards, but I had a gut feeling that sooner or later the man who was selling them would be arrested and take everyone he could with him. It was just a feeling. Not very scientific, perhaps, but the price for making wrong decisions was excessively high, one I did not care to pay.
Buying black market ration cards was not as easy as purchasing everyday items. They were illegal and therefore required taking risks. Secondly, they were expensive. The black market was fueled by cash—no other method of payment was acceptable. It seemed now that I would be able to develop a new contact from Herr Ziegler, but that still left the problem of the money to purchase them. This I had in very short supply.
“Dagobert,” I heard Herr Ziegler now interject, “do you have the money to buy illegal ration cards?”
It was amazing how he seemed to be able to read my mind. I looked up at Herr Ziegler and could see that he had been studying my face these last few moments. He was not a good-looking man, or rather, there was something about him that made me wonder if he were ill. I would later learn that he had a lung problem for which he received treatment and special ration cards.
I heard him say again, “Dagobert, my boy. I asked, do you have the money to buy ration cards?”
I looked at him and gave a weak smile, just barely turning up the corners of my mouth. I thought about the pittance I had in my wallet. Barely enough for a drink at a cafe, much less ration cards to sustain one person or a family.
“Yes, Herr Ziegler,” I responded. “I have the money.”
It was not exactly true that I had immediate access to cash, but I did have the means to obtain it.
That evening, Herr Ziegler’s son, Oskar, came home. We all sat around their dining room table, Frau Dobriner, Herr Ziegler, Oskar, and I, eating the meager meal that Herr Ziegler had anticipated. It did not matter to me. I was happy to have any food at all. Having a home where I could eat the food was even better.
After dinner, Herr Ziegler sat me down on the couch in their living-dining room and gave me some fatherly advice. “Tomorrow, Dagobert, about four o’clock, I can take you to a place where you can buy ration cards. You will then be able to have them to feed yourself when you go and also you will be able to help out while you stay here. You will be able to help us as we are helping you. I can also tell you where to obtain identification papers. You’ll need these, since you obviously have to move around quite a bit. If you’re stopped without papers, you are doomed.”
“Yes, I am very interested in everything you are saying. I look forward to your guidance tomorrow,” I said, thinking to myself that I would need to have money by four o’clock tomorrow.
And in truth, I was very interested in a source of identification papers. In Germany, life without ID was impossible. A wide variety of papers, permits, and cards were used for work, transportation, travel, or simply walking the streets. Nazi Germany was a police state, and lack of proper papers meant immediate arrest.
“Good. Then it is done. We will both meet here tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock.”
That night I slept on their couch. I slept fairly well, except for a few ticklish interruptions whose origins I did not want to contemplate.
The next morning, Frau Dobriner offered me some bread and chicory coffee, which I gladly accepted. Then, excusing myself, I left to begin my attempt to raise some money.
The neighborhood was fairly nice and middle class. Here, as in most areas of Berlin, the residents lived in apartment houses. I had been here several times before, once with my father before he was deported by the Gestapo. I had been back on another occasion while I was working at the gun factory.
I knocked at the door. A moment passed, then the door opened.
“Dagobert! What are you doing here?”
“May I come in?” I asked him.
“Of course, come in.”
I walked into the living room.
“Please sit down,” he told me. “Can I get you anything? Some tea?”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you. I never turn down anything to eat or drink, especially these days.”
So he excused himself and went back into the hallway and down into the kitchen. I waited in the living room, which had been converted into a lavish collection room and personal library.
Before long, Hirschfeld returned, carrying a teapot and glasses. “So, Dagobert. What brings you here?” he asked.
“I’m a U-boat now,” I told him plainly.
“I see,” he said. There was no need to elaborate. Almost all Jews were, by now, familiar with what this meant.
“I wanted to see you very much, Herr Hirschfeld. I wanted to see you not only for old times sake, but also to see if we could do some business together,” I said.
“Hmm. What kind of business? What did you have in mind?” he asked.
“I would like to see if you could help me dispose of something,” I said.
“Ahh,” he intoned. “And is this something very valuable?”
Seeing that this preliminary sparring could go on for quite some time, I decided to simply show him the item. I extracted a small envelope from my pocket. The envelope contained a stamp, an 1859 two-penny Mauritius, which I knew was worth a substantial amount.
He took the envelope over to a small table and opened it. An expression of delight grew on his face as he examined the stamp.
Herr Hirschfield was a cautious man, not given to overt displays of human warmth. But on this occasion, he was overcome by emotion. He shook his head and I could barely make out that he whispered, “Good for you, Leopold. Good for you.”
I found myself getting misty-eyed as I heard him pronounce my father’s name. He looked over at me, and in that moment, something seemed to pass between us. After all was said and done, in spite his error in underestimating the danger presented by the Nazis, in the end Leopold Lewin had taken care of his son. He was taking care of me now. And this, both of us knew.
My father had taken two ordinary belt buckles and joined them together in such a way that a small compartment was created between them. One of them was now the front, as in any common buckle. The second now became the back of the buckle.
The back had an opening that was covered with two doors held in place with tiny springs. The compartment could be accessed by simply prying open one of the hinged doors, which would snap shut when released. He placed some of the most valuable stamps from his collection inside and closed the compartment.
Drawing of the belt buckle my father devised to conceal valuable stamps.
He wore one, and he gave me one. This way, we would always have an emergency source of funds. It was a near-perfect solution to the problem of carrying valuables, as rare stamps could be sold to collectors anywhere and my father’s ingenious method of concealment made discovery by a cursory search unlikely. I knew that my father had hidden the rest of his stamp collection in a leather goods store on Potsdamer Platz, but I’d have to wait till the end of the war to retrieve them, presuming both the store and I survived.
“Let’s check the catalog to see what it is worth,” Hirschfeld said. Rising, he removed a thick reference book from the crowded shelves.
It took him only a few seconds to locate the information we wanted. He moved his finger across the page, reading the description softly to himself and then across to the trading price. He showed it to me.
“This is the trading price,” he declared. “I don’t know whether I can get the full amount for it, but I will try. I will take it to someone else, whose name I prefer to keep to myself. Come back in three or four days and I will have your money.”
Three to four days? Yes, that probably is realistic, I told myself. But Herr Ziegler expects me to have money today, and I was penniless.
Hirschfeld was another Jew who had married a Gentile wife. He and my father had been good friends as well as fellow stamp traders. Hirschfeld and I shared a love of music, and he had once invited me over to his apartment to listen to some very rare recordings he owned. So while we were not the best of friends, I felt that I could trust him.
Now he was the only hope I had of obtaining money for the black market cards. I had no choice but to give him the stamp. It was a tremendous trust I was placing in him, and this we both knew.
But there was another problem. I needed money now, immediately. I was not in the habit of asking for loans, but I managed to convince him to advance me a hundred marks. A fair exchange, I thought, for my trust.
So he gave me the money and I soon left his apartment, leaving the two-penny Mauritius behind.
That afternoon, at four o’clock sharp, Herr Ziegler took me to the Tiergarten park. Ziegler directed me to a bench, where we took a seat and waited. After a few minutes, I noticed a young man looking in our direction. After carefully surveying the area, he headed over to us. He was carrying a green coat folded over his arm, with an attaché case in his hand.
“Guten tag, Herr Ziegler,” the man said. “It is nice to see you again. Who is the young man with you?” He appeared nervous but under control and seemed surprised by my presence. I guessed that Ziegler had neglected to tell him that I would be there for fear of scaring him off.
“He is a friend of the family,” Herr Ziegler said. “He needs your help.” We explained that we required two sets of ration cards and settled on a price. Reaching into his attaché case, he took out a paper-wrapped package. As surreptitiously as possible, I handed him the money, which he promptly deposited in his case.
As I handed him the money, I told him that I would be interested in future purchases of both ration cards and identification papers.
“Let’s see how this works out. You can always contact me through Herr Ziegler.”
He was obviously a cautious man and did not care to provide me with a way to contact him directly. Nothing infuriated the Gestapo like finding black market dealers, since the goods sold in this manner were usually stolen from military and civilian supplies.
Our dealer tipped his hat and walked in the direction of the exit while we proceeded on in the direction of Ziegler’s apartment.
Shortly after our arrival, I handed Herr Ziegler one of the sets of ration cards. I hoped to stay with the Zieglers for a while longer, and the cards were my payment. But it was not to be.
The second evening after our trip to the park, Herr Ziegler pulled me aside. He had seemed anxious all day. Never a particularly brave man, Ziegler had hidden refugees only because of Frau Dobriner’s wishes. Now he informed me that the Wehrmacht had been conducting unusually heavy patrols in the area. These soldiers were watching people more carefully than was usual, as if they were looking for a particular face.
Ziegler told me that he suspected that someone had seen me enter the apartment and may have informed the Gestapo. After weighing the risks, they felt it was better if I left for a time. Berlin was rife with informants and with Frau Dobriner already living there illegally, they could not chance the apartment being searched.
Reluctantly, I agreed to leave in the morning, even though I had nowhere to go.
Early that next morning, I packed up my few possessions, bid them good-bye, and left. Once again, I was homeless.
At this point, my options were extremely limited. It was much too soon to return to the Lebrechts or the Kusitzky residence, and public parks were heavily patrolled by the SS. I wandered the streets of Berlin, passing first the Nazi district office building near the Lebrecht’s hiding place and then past a series of abandoned buildings made uninhabitable by Allied bombings. As I walked, my heart pounded. Ziegler had seen heavy army patrols on this very street. I had to find shelter before curfew or I would certainly be picked up. In my case, an arrest would be equivalent to a death sentence.
I looked around, trying to keep a close watch for military patrols. As I walked, my thoughts returned to the wrecked buildings I had passed. By this time, Allied bombers had devastated large portions of Berlin, doing a great deal of damage to many buildings. Some had burned but remained standing. Other buildings had collapsed, leaving gaping wounds through which lower structures and basements were exposed.
The more I thought about it, the more I considered this as an opportunity. I could hide in the ruins with relatively little chance of being discovered. It was dangerous because the buildings, already weakened structurally, could collapse at any moment. I decided to give it a try. I picked out a building that seemed relatively sturdy and lit a candle I had gotten from Frau Dobriner. I crawled into an opening that exposed steps, which I discovered led to the basement. It was pretty much intact. Like most basements, this one had almost certainly served as an air raid shelter. There were cots, chairs, and tables.
I could not help but notice an extremely unpleasant odor, which was much more intense than the normal musty smell associated with dark, wet places. I didn’t like it but decided that I had no choice except to endure it. I examined the cots and picked out one of the least dilapidated ones.
I walked to the entrance to retrieve my bag and get settled. As I approached the stairs, I found the source of the odor.
Before me, partially covered with bricks and stones, was the first corpse I had ever seen. It looked as if the ceiling had fallen in on him and had either killed him immediately or trapped him there to die.
Horrified, I immediately turned and hurriedly walked out of that area and across the basement hall, into another area that had been used as an air raid shelter and thus also contained chairs and cots.
When I found another suitable place, I immediately blew out my candle. Candles were hard to come by, rationed as most things were in those days. I crawled onto the cot, curled up in a fetal position, and tried to get to sleep.