Harold had to admit that the Kommissar had a point and he realized that there was a hidden lesson in the scolding. It was not so much that his mind was lazy and that he wanted instant answers. No, it was more along the lines that he recalled several independent actions of his officer friends which had raised unanswered questions in his mind.
He had observed that the relationship between the Kommissar and the Major was different from the relationship between the Kommissar and the Captain. In spite what Pajari had told him, there were definitely different agendas involved.
He also realized that the Major had gone out of his way to make it possible for him to see his father. He knew that Tesslov had acted on his own without any input from Godunov. Why? He came up with two possible answers. Either Tesslov had an interest in assuring himself of Harold’s support further down the line, or, Tesslov was a genuinely nice guy.
Then there was the theft of certain documents by Pajari and he was wondering who was acting upon whose orders. He also recalled that Godunov had originally wanted the propaganda reels for himself, which was the opposite of handing them over to the Americans.
And, what about the sudden demise of General Berzarin? He could not believe that it was a simple accident. He was sure that someone would ultimately reap benefits from his death.
All in all, he decided, he needed more information. Matter of fact, a lot more, if he wanted to put the bits and pieces together he currently had. And that was exactly what consumed him the most because he remembered that one of the officers had told him that accurate and timely information was the greatest asset of an intelligence officer. He was no intelligence officer, not yet, but just the idea of it was interesting and tempting.
He had plenty of time to gather the missing pieces. In the meantime, he decided, he would increase his observation and cut down on his questions.
*****
The next day Harold was ordered by Godunov to drive with the Major once more into Poland. There had been some unrest between the Polish civilians and Jewish refugees. The command to prevent hostilities and to instill order had come directly from Marshal Zhukov. This was a difficult task because the local Polish authorities refused to cooperate with any and all instructions from Russian officers.
Major Tesslov’s orders were to observe and to identify hot spots. Harold was again behind the wheel and he enjoyed the double chore of learning the Russian language and driving. He also appreciated that Godunov had ordered one of his personal bodyguards, Yefim, to come along with Alex.
Their first destination was the medium-sized town of Ostrava in the previous provincial district of Galicia in southern Poland. The further they drove to the south, the closer they also came to the Czech - Slovakian border.
“Fuel transports,” Harold remarked, when after a day of driving they reached the outskirts of Ostrava. A seemingly endless column of fuel trucks rolled from Slovakia towards the west. Harold had to stop, unable to make a left-hand turn into a cross street leading into the city. The fuel convoy was not moving very fast but didn’t slow down either when Harold resorted to his horn to call attention to his predicament.
None of the Russian drivers paid any attention, however, the sound had awakened Alex who looked at the situation and then motioned to Harold to simply cut off one of the trucks.
“They drive too close behind each other,” Harold answered looking helplessly at the Major beside him. Tesslov agreed. Any turn would cause a collision.
Alex looked around for foot soldiers but there was only the long snake of trucks coming in their direction. He took off his uniform jacket and folded it neatly on his seat and then walked a few steps up the road. Reaching into his pants pocket he retrieved a pack of cigarettes and jumped on the running board of the next truck. Waving the cigarettes in front of the windshield he used his other hand to grab the driver’s long hair and almost pulled his head out of the cab. Unable to see anything, the driver stepped on the brakes and stopped the truck.
Alex waved at Harold to use the break in the formation to make his turn and then offered the driver a few cigarettes in return for a match. The Russian driver who had feared losing his hair stared at the giant and could hardly comply fast enough. Alex smiled at him, tapped him gently on the shoulder and jumped off the foothold. A moment later he was back in his seat with his jacket across his lap.
“Why didn’t you use the power of your political star emblem?” Harold asked.
“We only identify ourselves when there is no other option; besides there were too many of them,” answered the Major.
“Alex didn’t think so.” Harold could not help himself.
“Agreed, your friend does not think.” The Major reached into his own pocket and offered Alex a packet of cigarettes as replacement.
When Harold noted an abundance of very good looking Polish women in Ostrava he knew that the Major would be tempted to take a two or three day ‘break’. Tesslov did not disappoint him. As soon as he had secured quarters for his detail, the Major excused himself until the next morning.
There were some old buildings in the center of the town that had somehow survived the fighting and Harold used the free time to admire the ornate décor. If it would not have been for Alex and Yefim it might have been a bit of a risk to walk in the Russian uniform through the town. The Polish civilian population had no use for the Soviets and made no attempt to hide it. They did, however, have enough sense not to bother the two Tatars.
*****
“Good morning, get up, we are leaving.” Tesslov showed up much earlier than Harold had anticipated.
“Are we driving home, already?”
“Our mission here is over. I found out what the Kommissar wanted to know. But we will make a detour to Krakow just to confirm a few things.”
The trip to Krakow was an eye opener for Harold.
“What do you know about the German extermination camps?” The Major was barely in the car when he started the conversation.
“What is an extermination camp?” asked Harold in return.
“So you don’t know that the SS maintained concentration camps and killed systematically hundreds of thousands of inmates?”
“I heard about concentration camps, but not of mass murder.”
Tesslov considered for a moment Harold’s answer. It might be that the boy spoke the truth. Most of the camps had been outside of Germany and the few which were inside the country had not been near or in the vicinity of Berlin.
“Tell me what you know,” he prompted again.
“I know that the SS arrested anyone who said anything derogatory about Hitler. They also rounded up the mentally ill and any unproductive people.”
“What do you know about what happened to these people?” Tesslov persisted.
“We were told that they were forced to work in ammunition factories.”
“And you, or your friends, never wondered why none of the prisoners ever came back?” The Major probed.
“No, not really. The war was raging on several fronts and demanded a constant stream of ammunition and war material.” Harold answered without hesitation and Tesslov believed him.
“Alright, Harold, relax. This is not an interrogation. I only wanted to know where to start.”
Harold had a difficult time believing what Tesslov told him during the remainder of the drive. While he had witnessed the brutality of the SS, he was shocked to hear about a Nazi concept that the Major summarized as ethnic prosecution.
“Now the talk about war criminals and the upcoming trial in Nuremberg is making sense to me.” He was finally able to respond. However, he could not bring himself to believe everything the Major told him.
Tesslov understood the doubt he saw in Harold’s eyes. “I see that you don’t wish to accept what I told you, and you don’t have too. The Nuremberg trial will provide the evidence and proof.”
Harold reflected on their trip to Luxembourg and on the extraordinary questions from the American officer. In his mind things were falling into place.
“Which way to the Kleparski Square?” Tesslov inquired when they reached the center of Krakow. His command of the Polish language was not too good but still astonished Harold. There seemed to be no end to the abilities of the language wizard.
Within a short time they reached the Kupa Synagogue next to the square. It was a Saturday. Harold pulled up close to the entrance and while they waited for the Jewish service to end, he observed a group of Polish boys gathering stones and broken pieces of bricks.
“That’s how it usually starts.” The Major had noticed it too. He got out of the car and ordered some lingering Russian soldiers to disperse the kids. It didn’t do much good. The Polish teenagers simply vanished into the side streets and when the soldiers left they showed up again in greater numbers. And, with more rocks.
Tesslov disappeared for a moment behind the carved wooden doors of the synagogue and returned with two Jewish worshippers. As he pointed to the waiting teens he advised the two peasants to stop the congregation from leaving until he had some soldiers in place to assure their safety.
“How can I help?” asked Harold, not knowing what to expect.
“Drive forward and block the entrance, but don’t get out of the car. Alex and his friend Yefim will stay with you while I get a Polish administrator.” He gestured across the town square to some official looking white enamel signs on the largest building.
Harold eyed the neighborhood for some support from Russian soldiers but for one reason or another, the plaza was empty. Except that some civilian adults had now also gathered around the boys and it seemed that they were encouraging each other.
“Move over.” Alex pressed Harold against the door and sat next to him, protecting his side from any possible stones flying towards the car. They didn’t need to worry. Tesslov was already on his way back with two Polish civil servants in tow. None of the two spoke a word of Russian but were fairly fluent in German and Tesslov’s German was much better than his Polish.
“How do you intend to protect the worshipers?” Tesslov wanted to know, gesturing towards the growing bunch of onlookers.
“This is none of our concern,” the taller one of the two bureaucrats answered. The other one nodded in agreement. “They should have stayed where they belonged. Preferably hidden.”
“You are in charge of maintaining order,” the Major thundered.
“We will have order when the unwanted are back in Galicia or wherever they were hiding from the Germans,” the shorter one maintained, cowering from the glaring eyes of Tesslov.
“You care to explain?” The Major was unyielding.
“I’d be only too happy to do so,” the taller and older one obliged. “Before the war we had about 60,000 of their kind in our city. They confined themselves to a small area in the Kazimierz section of the town. When the Germans came and hunted them down, their numbers dwindled to about 2,000. Now, just a few weeks after your troops supposedly freed us, we are again faced with over 6,000 and we don’t want them.”
“What do you mean, you don’t want them? They are Polish citizens just like you are.”
“No, they are not, and as God as my witness they will never be. But, we don’t harm them like the Germans did. We are only looking the other way when our young people make it clear that they are not welcome.”
Both of the Polish supervisors grinned at each other, enjoying that the crowd around them was growing and Harold feared that it might turn into an angry mob. Some of the spectators understood German and supported their elders with shouts of encouragement.
“If you don’t establish order within the next few minutes you will regret it for the rest of your very short life.” The Major’s eyes conveyed confidence when he turned the lapel from his jacket around, exposing the star of the dreaded GPU.
The smiles on the faces of the civil servants froze. Nobody in the Soviet occupied territory would dare to challenge the Communist Secret Police.
“How….how do you want us to do this?” The taller one was clearly terrified. His eyes darted from the Major to the Tatars and back.
“Now that’s your problem, isn’t it? You will tell your people to disperse and not to come back. If I see any teenager lingering around, I will take you and your stupid looking assistant for a ride. You might as well say good bye to your friends because you will not return.”
At the same time the Major exposed his star Yefim had leveled his side arm at the taller man’s head and gestured to the frightened bureaucrat to move closer to the car. There was no question that the Major meant business. The threat to be taken away in a vehicle of a political officer was more than the man could handle.
He yelled at the top of his lungs to the civilians, urging them to leave the plaza. At first there was no movement, except from some of the older ones who started to shuffle away.
Alex had followed the proceedings without moving from Harold’s side until the Major identified himself. In the very next moment he was out of the car and grabbed the other civil servant before he could run away. True to form he twisted an ear of the hapless man causing him to shriek in pain. The screaming and pleading of the official caused the remainder of the bystanders to disburse.
“I want you to gather food, water and blankets and bring it to the Synagogue,” Tesslov ordered, and the two supervisors complied as fast as they could. With the help of several store keepers they delivered a heap of supplies during the next two hours.
“What else do you wish us to do?” The merchants as well as the civil servants stood sweating in front of the Major.
“Who is the most respected citizen in your town?”
“That would be Comrade Grodzki.”
“Good, bring him here.” The Major waved at the merchant who had answered and motioned to the other ones to remain. Within the next hour Tesslov sent for additional senior citizens and by the evening he convened a meeting in the town hall and installed a new city government with Grodzki being the new city administrator.
“Should I hear any complaints from the Jewish community I will come down on you like a load of bricks,” he assured the assembly. “Keep your youngsters under control.” After this last warning he took the new administrative team over to the Synagogue to introduce them to the Jewish worshippers.
“I hope that your problems are solved. Keep the supplies as a reserve,” Tesslov informed the congregation and advised them to stay overnight in the building. He was convinced that he had not resolved the underlying issues but for the present time he had restored some order. He trusted that Grodzki would be more up to the task than the former official.
“The Jewish faith needs a homeland and even then I doubt that this will solve their difficulties. The distrust between the ethnic groups goes back a very long time and I am sure the incidents we observed in Krakow will erupt over and over again,” Tesslov told Harold during the drive to the next small town. The Major had no desire to spend the night in the city.
Harold drove all the way to Oppeln (later named Opole), a town in Ober Schlesien (Silesion). By the time they arrived it was very late. For a second time the streets were congested with fuel transports and Harold noted that they were all in route to a certain section along the Oder River. When morning broke he saw endless rows of parked Lorries. It looked very much like an organized depot.
*****
Back in Berlin, Tesslov reported immediately to Marshal Zhukov and Harold had an opportunity to visit with Godunov for a short while. At first he wanted to update the Kommissar with his observations but then decided to wait until he had more to report.
“Did you see anything worth mentioning?” Godunov was in a very good mood. He had heard from his daughter and he was thankful that she was recovering without any serious side effects.
“No, except that the Polish population does not appear to be very happy with our occupation.”
“This is no news. Anything else?”
“No.” Harold remembered the previous reprimand and was not ready to volunteer half-baked opinions.
“Well, you should have noticed something, but I see that you are learning.” The Kommissar was busy sorting through the paperwork on his desk. “I like your progress with the language lessons, however, I need the Major to stay with Zhukov. Hopefully you will do equally well with Captain Pajari.”
He had found what he was looking for and stuffed some of the papers in his briefcase. “For the next few months you will be traveling with the Captain. I expect you to absorb everything he teaches you. And, I mean more than just the languages. He is a very smart man.”
“One more thing, Harold.” Godunov rounded his desk and stood in front of the boy. “When is your birthday?”
The question caught Harold off guard and he tried to figure out today’s date. Ever since he had been traveling with the officers it had been a whirlwind of activities, one day blurring into the next.
“I must have turned 15 a few days ago,” he answered, surprised that he had forgotten his own birthday.
“That’s right. I am thinking that instead of a present I will offer you a piece of advice.” His grey eyes made contact with Harold’s.
“To whom in this world do you owe your greatest loyalty?”
Harold struggled with the answer, not knowing how to respond. “I don’t know about loyalty. I am devoted to my father…,”
He could see the disappointment in Godunov’s eyes and took it the wrong way. “And I am devoted to you and Karl,” he added.
“I feared that you would say something along those lines. But, devotions aside, you only owe loyalty to yourself.” Godunov’s voice was serious, but friendly.
Harold was not convinced that the statement was true. He thought of it as rather egoistical. Never-the-less, it was good advice because it told him something about the Kommissar’s mindset.
“Thank you, Herr Godunov. I will not forget it.”