“And the voyage to Bremerhaven was tedious beyond words,” said Weiskopf to Professor Bergdorf, as he finished his narration of the journey from China. “The Sonne was a very old ship, and I swear it would have fallen apart if the rust hadn’t held it together. After we left Tianjin, the captain announced we were stopping in Singapore and Bombay on the way back, which is why we were six weeks late. Furthermore, he made us pay for the original cargo even though we ended up with much less, thanks to the Chinese army.”
“So,” said Bergdorf, his face red and eyes narrowed in anger, “the entire debacle cost us a great deal of money, and what have we to show for it? A season of work wasted, and one of the greatest finds of modern times lost. The university will be a laughing stock. I will look a fool. How could you be so thoughtless as to risk train travel in such circumstances? You should have gone by road, traveling during daylight in ordinary vehicles so as not to attract attention, not pulling a wagon-load of priceless treasures behind a passenger train for all to see. And then to trust an unreliable ship and a dishonest captain…where was your judgement? Your conduct is reprehensible, Herr Professor.”
Weiskopf, appalled and stung by the monstrous injustice of the accusation, rose to his defense in righteous indignation. He stared at Bergdorf. Was the money all he cared about? We could have lost our lives, and he calls me thoughtless?
“Herr Professor Berg—” he began, trying to moderate his tone, but Bergdorf forestalled him with an elaborate and exaggerated sigh.
“Well…what were you left with, then? What am I to tell the university governors to save my reputation?”
“Your reputation?” Weiskopf could not keep the incredulity out of his voice.
“Of course, mine. Whose do you think? I am the one who authorized the expenditures, not you. I am the one who will have to explain the loss to the governors, not you. So, I ask you again, what did you bring home when all is said and done?”
“All eight large bronze ritual vessels survived,” Weiskopf answered, his anger unabated. “Each of them very fine specimens, tri-pedal, highly decorated, and bearing considerable amounts of text. Two of them are of a style hitherto unknown. Most of the smaller bronze pieces are also safe. The soldiers saw no value in them.”
“Ceramics?” asked Bergdorf.
“Virtually all destroyed,” said Weiskopf, in a tired voice, the enormity of the loss weighing him down once again. He felt sick with disappointment and frustration. “Irretrievably shattered, even if we’d had time to collect the fragments. There are only two large jars remaining and one small Longshan bowl.”
“Anything else?” Bergdorf shook his head. “Dear God, what a disaster.”
“Assorted pieces of several chariots and carts, about fifty bronze projectile points, spearheads mostly, along with four-hundred-and-seven oracle plastrons out of the original thousand-and-twenty-two. We have all the skeletons, of course, the soldiers wanted nothing to do with those, and a few of the smaller jade sculptures.”
“A thousand-and-twenty-two oracle bones?” echoed Bergdorf, his eyebrows arched.
“Yes,” said Weiskopf. “The soldiers destroyed many of them, and we had to leave hundreds on the ground when the train started again. However, I kept the most important one with me, and it’s still safe.”
“One…and that one is…?” inquired Bergdorf, sarcasm sharpening his tone.
“I’ll tell you everything after I’ve confirmed the translation. It requires at least two further verifications by specialists, although I’m confident of it, myself.”
“Spare me your scholarly caution,” Bergdorf snapped. “Just tell me what’s so important about it. Don’t forget I’ll have to face the governors over this. I need everything I can get if I’m to come anywhere close to redeeming myself.”
An angry retort sprang to Weiskopf’s lips, but with an effort he bit it back. There was some truth in what Bergdorf was saying. The university governors would have many questions to ask him. His interview would not be a pleasant one, even if he was concerned only with saving his own skin.
“I have every expectation it will confirm the battle of Mingtiao as an actual historical event, and that General Chang was not a mythical figure, as has customarily been thought.”
Bergdorf said, “That won’t go far towards placating the governors.”
“I am sorry, Herr Professor,” said Weiskopf, although he felt no responsibility for what had happened in China, nor any need to apologize for it.
Bergdorf sighed again.
* * *
Aaron Weiskopf was not the sort of man who paid great attention to politics. His world was his work, and the objects he found and studied filled that world with fascination. What they told him of life in ancient China was more important to him than the demagogic harangues and hate-filled rantings of Germany’s new masters. By late 1933, Germany was being remolded and refashioned around him, but he took little or no notice. He rode a tram to his office at the university at the same time each morning and returned home at the same time each evening. An unmarried man, his only family was a half-brother in Stuttgart with whom he seldom ever spoke. He employed a cook and housekeeper, and after her excellent dinners he relaxed with his Meerschaum pipe, a book, and his collection of gramophone records, predominantly Mozart. He almost never listened to the news or read a newspaper, and consumed as he was by his research, and isolated by his insular existence, the changes in Germany overtook him like an unforeseen tidal wave.
The previous year, a clique of German aristocrats, alarmed at the surging popularity of Adolph Hitler, had persuaded eighty-five-year-old President Paul von Hindenburg to run for re-election. This he did, and defeated Hitler in a runoff. But Hindenburg was ill, and the Nazi party knew the collapse of the tottering Weimar Republic was only a matter of time. Twice that year, von Hindenburg dissolved the Reichstag in hopes of stemming the rise of National Socialism, but the moves served only to further destabilize the political situation, add to people’s fears of civil war, and strengthen Hitler’s position. In March of 1933, two weeks after Weiskopf’s departure by ship for China, Hindenburg, reluctantly succumbing to the vehement pressure being placed on him from all sides, appointed Hitler Chancellor of Germany.
Now, it was August the second, 1934, and Hindenburg was dead. After a lavish funeral, which included as impressive a display of German military might as anyone had seen in many a year, Adolph Hitler declared the positions of Chancellor and President were merged, and he appeared before the Reichstag flanked by his lieutenants, and was proclaimed Germany’s Führer. Parliamentary democracy was at an end.
Weiskopf took barely any notice of these ominous events or the social disorder which accompanied them. The anti-Semitic laws and civic ordinances promulgated thus far by the Reichstag and the city of Leipzig had not touched him to any great extent, and although he was aware of them, he tended towards a somewhat fatalistic attitude. He had fought for Germany in the war to end all wars, sustained a shrapnel wound at the Somme, and lived through the years of turmoil and hyperinflation that followed Germany’s defeat. He remembered the days when it took a wheelbarrow-load of money to buy a loaf of bread. What could be worse than all that, he asked himself.
When the new laws were pointed out to him, he merely shrugged.
“Such things have come and gone in the past, and they will do so again. Nazism is a fashion, a fad, as far as I can see, and Germany will soon tire of it.”
By chance one day, he came across a copy of a leftist newspaper discarded in the hallway outside his office, and, stooping to retrieve it while muttering words about untidiness and carelessness, the headline, Germans Awake, attracted his attention.
The German people, the front-page article declared, must awaken and see Hitler’s vacuous jingoism for the dangerous threat it really is. Nazism is far more than spectacles, parades, and the sound and fury of hysterical party rallies. Hitler is a megalomaniac who will destroy Germany and her high traditions of art, music, philosophy, and literature. Hitler is not the friend of the people; he will enslave the people.
He finished reading, and folding the paper, he carried it into his office. Hitler has no monopoly on jingoism, it seems, he thought, wryly, as he dropped the paper into the wastepaper basket by his desk. Everyone is taking the Nazis far too seriously. Far too seriously, indeed.
He had not heard the sound behind him of a door being softly closed as he entered his office.
What he and the rest of Germany did not know at that particular moment was that the Nazi leaders were meditating the creation of a slate of laws to be propounded at a party rally the following year in Nuremburg. Those laws were to herald a latter-day reign of terror unexampled in human history. The tempest was soon to be unleashed, and Aaron Weiskopf did not see the storm clouds boiling up over Germany, blotting out the sun.
By early October of 1935, Weiskopf had completed his paper on the Mingtiao oracle bone — it had grown into a somewhat larger project than he had at first envisioned when he thought about it in China — and he submitted the manuscript to the prestigious archeological journal which had published his work for many years. To his great surprise and undeniable irritation, it was refused, politely enough, but without explanation.
“I don’t understand it,” he complained to Bergdorf during one of their increasingly rare meetings. “The findings are extremely significant. The evidence irrefutable.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure it’s all very fine,” said Bergdorf, in a distant tone of voice, suggesting he had more important things to do elsewhere, “but things are difficult these days. There are new laws people cannot ignore. You must surely understand.”
But Weiskopf did not understand, and voiced his frustration to Schilling, who stared at him, stone-faced.
“Aaron, open your eyes and look around yourself. You’ve heard of the book burnings while we were in China, haven’t you? They’re still going on, you know.”
“Young hotheads,” scoffed Weiskopf. “Ardent young minds misdirected, that’s all.”
“Don’t be too sure,” said Schilling. “Reichsminister Goebbels made a speech extolling the death of anti-German intellectualism.”
“What on earth is anti-German intellectualism?” Weiskopf demanded, but Schilling said nothing, contenting himself with an unwavering stare. Comprehension dawned on Weiskopf. Goebbels meant Jewish intellectualism.
He said, “Look Eduard, I’m a sinologist and archeologist. My work has nothing whatever to do with politics, let alone this so-called anti-German intellectualism, and it certainly has nothing to do with my being Jewish.”
Schilling sighed and chewed his lower lip for a moment.
“Must I spell it out for you, Aaron? Even you must be aware Hitler now governs without the Reichstag. He has been given virtually unlimited power to do as he thinks best. As of last month, all Jews are deprived of their citizenship and all the rights associated with it.”
“Yes, yes, I’ve heard about the Nuremburg laws,” said Weiskopf, testily, “but I don’t see what they have to do with my research or the publication of my paper.”
“The laws declare you are a non-German.”
“I’m as German as anyone else,” said Weiskopf. “My family has been here for six centuries, and why should nationality matter, anyway? My paper should be judged on its scholastic merits, not on my ancestry, my citizenship, or anything else.”
Schilling was silent for a moment, then in a harsh voice, he said, “Well, other things are now more important in Germany than scholastic merit, and perhaps that’s a good thing just at this time.”
Weiskopf was thunderstruck. It seemed his friend actually believed what he was saying. How was it possible? He knew Schilling admired Hitler as a strong leader, but did he also subscribe to Nazi dogma? It was hard to imagine.
“So,” said Weiskopf, “who a man is has now become less important than what he is.”
“Yes,” said Schilling, with a shrug, “I suppose you could put it that way.”
Weiskopf stared at his former assistant, wondering if he ever really knew the man, but Schilling spoke again, this time in a conciliatory tone.
“Look, Aaron, I know it all seems a little heavy-handed sometimes, but you must admit Germany needs a leader, a man who will get things done. People need jobs. Germany needs a strong, well-equipped army, a powerful navy, and a modern air force. The Versailles Treaty is crippling us, and we’ve lost the Rhineland which is rightfully ours. Once Hitler has put these things right, things will settle down. You’ll see. But in the meantime, he’s got to have a free hand, or we won’t get anywhere at all. He has to take control of our economy, and, frankly speaking, the Jews, particularly the financiers, wield far too much power over the rest of us. Hitler is merely trying to rectify the imbalance. Just give him a little time.”
“Ha,” grunted Weiskopf. “So, you want to give him time, do you? Time to take away your citizenship as well, perhaps? Listen, Eduard, for what it’s worth, I say the best thing Germany could do would be to rid herself of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis right now, not wait for things to settle down, as you so quaintly put it.”
“I’m only trying to explain things to you for your own good, Aaron,” said Schilling, before turning and walking away without waiting for a reply.
After several further submissions and rejections, the paper was finally published as a feature article in a tourist magazine in Düsseldorf called Mysteries of the Orient, the publisher of which was more than pleased to list the distinguished Dr. Aaron Weiskopf as one of its contributors. Photographs of the plastron appeared in the text, but to Weiskopf’s bewildered consternation, the article achieved instant oblivion, even amongst his colleagues. Unknown to him, however, a copy of the magazine somehow made its way to the University of Oxford where it found a comfortable place on a dusty shelf in the Bodleian Library and slumbered there in peaceful obscurity, its significance unrecognized.
But its publisher was not left in similar peaceful obscurity. Within a month of the article’s appearance, he was attacked by ten members of the Hitlerjugend, the Hitler Youth, who smashed his windows and his presses, and beat him senseless in front of his terrified staff as recompense for what they called his love of Jews.
The very distinction Weiskopf had attained as a scholar had now turned him into a marked man, but as yet he knew nothing of it.
* * *
“What on earth do you mean, dismissed?” demanded Weiskopf, a month later, gaping at Professor Bergdorf in utter incredulity.
The two men stood in the corridor outside Bergdorf’s large office — he had not invited Weiskopf in, saying the matter he wished to discuss would not take long.
“It’s out of my hands,” he said, his voice impatient. “It’s an order from Berlin. Jews are to be dismissed from all university faculties throughout the Reich immediately. I received the directive from the governors this morning. Surely you can appreciate I have no choice. You’re lucky to have stayed on as long as you have, but you must be aware of what’s going on. This can’t have come as a surprise to you. In any event, kindly remove your personal possessions from your office, and leave the campus at once.”
Weiskopf was dumbstruck. “But —”
“There’s nothing more to be said, Herr Weiskopf,” Bergdorf interrupted harshly, pointedly omitting Weiskopf’s professorial title. “Vacate your office by tomorrow evening at the very latest.” After a perfunctory nod, he added, “Good day.”
Bergdorf strode into his office, and then, turning to face Weiskopf, he hesitated for a moment before saying, “Good luck to you.”
Weiskopf was about to make one final, utterly useless protest, but he was left staring impotently at the closed door in front of him. He asked himself, was this revenge? Was Bergdorf actually sacking him because of the catastrophe in China two years ago? True, he had been furious at the time, and he had been embarrassed in front of the governors, but they had not held him responsible. They had, however, commended Weiskopf for his handling of the situation, which had not improved Bergdorf’s frame of mind, but surely, he was not so small a man as that.
No, he thought wearily, as he left the building. Bergdorf was right. It should not have come as a surprise. There had been many warning signs, but he had not taken them seriously. He had been too complacent, too trusting. Jews had been dismissed from the civil service, from banks and large corporations, even from symphony orchestras, which caused several of the smaller ones to all but disappear.
He walked across the green lawns of the campus to his office in a daze, his mind unable to encompass what had just happened. The sun shone, birds sang, but all was lost on him. His thoughts were in a turmoil.
How can it be, he asked himself, that this great university, the university of Friedrich Nietzsche, could behave this way? How can this place, the very home and hearth of unfettered thought, of creativity and open inquiry, now turn its back on me because I am a Jew? My friends, my colleagues…it is sheer madness. And the words of Nietzsche himself then came unbidden into his thoughts.
Insanity in individuals is something rare — but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.
As he crossed the ancient cobbled quadrangle fronting the building housing his office, he caught sight of three of his students and hailed them.
“I am sorry to tell you, gentlemen, I am leaving the university,” he said, striving to keep his voice calm. “I —”
“It’s about bloody time,” one of them interrupted, his tone coarse and full of malice.
“We no longer learn from Jews,” sneered another. “Jews have nothing to offer to Aryan Germans but cultural degradation and racial contamination.”
He stared at the young men, three of his best and brightest students, noticing for the first time they each wore an armband emblazoned with a swastika. They had not come to see him for two weeks or more, but that was not untoward. They were all engaged in research of their own, and he had thought nothing of their absence.
Bowing his head to hide the stricken expression on his face, he turned away, the final words of the third student reverberating in his ears.
“Dirty Jew!”
He spent the rest of the day packing up his office into cardboard boxes, and the following day carrying them one by one to his flat by tram. Most of his books and files were already at home, since the bulk of his work on the Mingtiao oracle bone had been done there in the evening when he would not be disturbed, but by the time he was finished, he was exhausted. Dropping the last box onto a pile in his study, he told Frau Kempner, his rotund and gray-haired long-time cook and housekeeper, he was more than ready for his supper.
“It smells wonderful,” he said, in eager anticipation.
“It’s your favorite,” she said. “Beef stew and dumpling.” She seemed less talkative and cheerful than usual that evening, but he was too hungry to think much about it.
She served him an excellent meal as she always did, but after giving him his coffee in the sitting room, she stood before him twisting her apron in her hands like a nervous child.
“What is it, Marta?” he asked, after lighting his pipe. “You look very worried about something.”
“Oh, Herr Professor,” she said, tears beginning to stream down her round cheeks, “I cannot work for you any longer. I must tell you goodbye. I will not be here tomorrow morning.”
Weiskopf was stunned. He put down his pipe and stared at her in disbelief and consternation.
“But why, Marta? What has happened?”
“I am so sorry,” she whispered, sniffing, and dabbing at her face with a lace-edged handkerchief. “They tell me I must not work for a…a Jewish person.”
“Who tells you this?” he demanded, but Marta Kempner only shook her head.
“Goodbye, dear Aaron.” She crossed to where he sat and kissed his forehead. She had never done such a thing before, and he was startled. He opened his mouth to speak, but she shook her head again and hurried from the room. He heard the door close behind her as she left the flat.
They tell her, he thought, bitterly. As if I didn’t know who they are. The Nazis are poisoning this nation. True German culture is shamed by this bigotry and hatred, this twisted so-called patriotism and love of country. I don’t belong here any longer.
I don’t belong here any longer!
And in that instant, he was struck by a brilliant shaft of determined resolution. He decided, as he sat there in his own comfortable sitting room in Leipzig, that he would leave Germany. The strength of his conviction brought him to his feet, and he paced around the room.
“I shall leave everything,” he said aloud. “I will take only the Mingtiao bone and one small suitcase. I shall pack this very night and take passage from Bremerhaven as soon as I can. I shall go to England, or perhaps even America. I can continue my work there. I shall go to the bank tomorrow and withdraw money for the exit visa; then I can obtain the forms I will have to complete. If my country will no longer have me, I shall go elsewhere.”
He knew, strictly speaking, the Mingtiao belonged to the university, not to him, but he dismissed the thought as the university had dismissed him.
Bergdorf and the governors owe me that much.
The following morning, he arose early, made his own breakfast — something he had not done for more than twenty years — and prepared for his visit to the bank. As he reached for his coat, there came without warning a fearsome hammering on his door, and a harsh voice demanded he open up. Bewildered, he did so, and was confronted by four men in black raincoats standing in the corridor.
“Weiskopf?” one of them demanded, as the four of them pushed past him into the flat. He was a tall, heavy-set man with a bull neck and dark eyes as cold as stones.
“I am Professor Weiskopf, yes,” he answered, defiance now beginning to supplant his initial surprise and confusion. “Who are you, may I ask, and what right have you to force your way into my home?”
“Gestapo. You are under arrest for sedition and anti-German activities.”
Indignation was now added to defiance.
“I have done nothing,” he declared. “Nothing whatsoever. I am a scientist, and I take no interest in politics.”
“Really,” sneered Bull Neck, as the other three laughed. He took a step closer. “Do you deny being in possession of an anti-government publication?”
Weiskopf opened his mouth to protest, but the man held up his hand.
“Don’t bother to say anything, you traitor. You were seen taking it into your office.”
“Yes, and I threw it away,” said Weiskopf. “It was inflammatory nonsense.”
“But you read it, didn’t you? And you didn’t destroy it as you should have. As a true German should have. But you aren’t a true German, are you? You’re a Jew.” He fairly spat the last words.
“I am not a man of political views,” Weiskopf protested again. “These things mean nothing to me.”
“Is that so? Well, answer me this, then. Did you or did you not say to one of your colleagues that the best thing for Germany would be to get rid of Adolph Hitler and the National Socialist Party?”
Weiskopf tried to speak, but no sound came. He stared, aghast. Schilling was responsible for this. Eduard Schilling, his colleague. His heart sank. How was it possible? There had been stories of Nazi sympathizers denouncing friends and neighbors, even family members, but, like so many other stories he had heard, he dismissed them as exaggerations or deliberate fearmongering. Now, the deadly reality of it stared him in the face. The four men glared at him menacingly, and with a supreme effort he retrieved what dignity he could.
“I deny —”
“Shut your mouth, Jew,” shouted one of the others. “We’re going to search this place. You stay where you are. If you try to run, we’ll shoot you down. Understand?”
Weiskopf no longer recognized the world around him. His urbane, ordered life, all that was familiar, had fled. No longer defiant or indignant, he was terrified, and his knees no longer supported him. Sinking into a chair, his hands trembling, he watched the four men ransack his small flat, emptying drawers and cabinets onto the floor and flinging his books off their shelves. One man tipped out the small, leather suitcase he had already packed and seized the Mingtiao oracle bone.
“He was getting ready to make a run for it, all right,” the man shouted, as he held up the plastron. “What the hell’s this old bone thing?”
“Be careful,” said Weiskopf, fear for the oracle bone outweighing fear for himself, “that’s nearly four thousand years old, and very precious.”
“And you were going to steal it, weren’t you?” the Gestapo man snarled, waving the bone in Weiskopf’s face. “Just like any other thieving Jew.”
“Please be careful with it,” Weiskopf begged.
“Maybe I’ll just smash it, shall I?” taunted the man, laughing, but the bull-necked one, who appeared to be in charge, delivered a crisp order which silenced him.
“I don’t know what the damn thing is, but don’t damage it. All works of art and antiques confiscated from Jews must be sent to Berlin. The Reichsmuseum will look after it.”
“What about all these notebooks and things?” asked one, and Bull Neck shook his head.
“No, not that sort of stuff. Just leave it.”
“So, we take this?” said the man holding the oracle bone. “The Jew says it’s old.”
“Yes, whatever the hell it is.”
“Give it to me, please,” Weiskopf pleaded, trying to reach around Bull Neck and jostling him as he did so.
“Don’t touch me, Jew,” shouted Bull Neck, and with a full swing of his thick arm, he drove his fist into Weiskopf’s face. He staggered backwards, blood pouring from his nose. One of the others took hold of him, preventing him from falling, and pinned his arms behind his back.
“All right,” he laughed, “let’s teach the teacher a lesson, for a change.”
The three other Gestapo men took turns punching Weiskopf in the face and stomach and clubbing him with the butts of their pistols. The beating was accompanied by crude insults and coarse laughter, but before long unconsciousness delivered Weiskopf from his torment. He descended into merciful oblivion and knew nothing more.
* * *
Dr. Aaron Weiskopf, eminent professor of archeology and distinguished scholar, was never seen again. He simply disappeared. Like so many others who were taken, he existed thereafter only as a name and number on a list of many names and numbers carefully recorded, duly filed, and promptly forgotten. His neighbors remarked on the disappearance of Herr Dr. Weiskopf, but in the end, most agreed he had been taken for resettlement.
“Well…he was a Jew, after all,” they said, with knowing nods, “and resettlement is what happens to Jews nowadays, isn’t it?”
Everyone had heard there were special areas being set aside for Jews, pleasant places of their own where they could live and work without influencing the lives of German citizens or debasing the purity of the Aryan race. No one seemed to know exactly where those idyllic places were — except that they were somewhere in the east — but apparently the Jews were very happy there. Wherever they were, however, the resettlement was an excellent and humane solution to the Jewish problem. A good idea, they agreed. A very good idea, indeed.