Giovanni gladly would have spent more time in Paris, with not only
his newfound friends, but with others whose names he had written
down after finding them in his father’s old address book.
But the Touissants had been surprisingly helpful, and more to the point, before leaving for his trip he had made an appointment with the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany. The ITS had agreed to allow him access to files with regard to his research on the Meyerstein family.
He transferred between several trains during his travel from Paris to Bad Arolsen, a spa town near Munich of less than 20,000 people. After a restless night’s sleep in a small hotel, Giovanni rose early, had a light breakfast, and went out for a stroll in the chilly morning air.
There was time before his appointment at the ITS, so Giovanni took in some of the sights. He had read about the Grosse Allee, the Grand Avenue, and wanted to see it for himself. It was about a mile long, a wide, stately street that had been built in 1676. Comprised of 880 oak trees, laid out in lines of six, the Grand Avenue’s leafy beauty was calming. Despite uncertainties about his life in London, and his current journey of discovery, Giovanni needed to savor the present moment. Walking the Grosse Allee was a great way to set his worries aside for a time.
After walking for over an hour, Giovanni checked his watch. It was time. He got out his mobile phone and called a taxi.
He arrived at the ITS complex, an unremarkable series of buildings that housed fifty million pages describing the fate of more than seventeen million people. Giovanni paid the driver and asked for his card, as he would need a ride back to his hotel. Then Giovanni walked the long path bordered by hedges that seemed to force visitors to focus on the doors of the main entrance directly ahead. As he drew closer, Giovanni wondered if coming to Bad Arolsen would lead to further clues, or turn out to be a dead end.
Past the entrance, Giovanni approached the front desk and his appointment was confirmed. He provided a security officer with his passport and then again answered the same question he was asked on the form that he had e-mailed to them from London. Namely, to describe the purpose of his research.
He could not tell the employees at the front desk, especially in his limited German, of all that had happened to him since opening the Count’s crate. Even if he could, they would never believe him and might deny him access to their files, suspecting both his motives and his sanity.
In his initial contact with them, Giovanni realized that the Service was primarily for victims of the Nazi era, or family members of victims. He could not honestly tell them he was researching the death of a relative in the Holocaust. So he repeated what he had written to them—he was in possession of a work of art that, he believed, had belonged to a family that very likely perished in the camps. After all, it was the truth, at least, as far as he could trust the Count.
Having provided by e-mail the names of Henri Meyerstein, his wife Carmella, and their children Daniel and Elise, Giovanni had received a surprisingly rapid reply from Bad Arolsen, stating they did indeed have records on Meyerstein and his family. They offered to send copies of the files for a fee but Giovanni knew he had to research more than just the Meyersteins, so instead he made the appointment to appear in person.
Giovanni had been further motivated because the ITS documentation regarding the Meyerstein family meant two other important things to him. For one, whatever the explanation for his conversations with the Count, it was certain that Giovanni was not losing his mind. He had no previous knowledge of the family, their names, or if they even existed. To imagine such a thing defied all odds, leaving the most probable conclusion. However incredible, it was true—the long-dead subject of a painting had told him.
Also significant was that the Count, despite his mercurial temperament, had been historically accurate, at least about the Meyersteins. At first, Giovanni was unsure of how to process the Count’s accusation of Arabella’s infidelity. But as events progressed, between her admission of guilt and the ITS acknowledgment that the Meyersteins were in fact victims of the Nazi occupation of France, Giovanni had no reason to doubt anything else the Count asserted. Which meant, for the first time, Giovanni also had to consider the possibility, however ridiculous it may have seemed—perhaps the Count was telling the truth and Botticelli really had painted his portrait.
At the front desk of the ITS, Giovanni tried to explain in his rather uninspired German that he needed to find out if the entire Meyerstein family had perished in a concentration camp, but he didn’t know how to say concentration camp in German.
“Do you wish to have help in English?” The woman at the desk had a German accent so thick, the phrase was likely all she had ever learned to say in English.
Giovanni thanked her and sat down on a black leather sofa in the waiting area. Minutes later, a gentleman came to greet him. Giovanni was surprised by the young man’s tender age, which he gauged to be no more than late twenties. He had fine dark hair cut in a straight, solid curtain that concealed his forehead, and combined with the round spectacles that he wore, it gave him an owlish, intellectual look.
“I am Johannes Roedelius,” the young lad said. “I have been assigned as your records liaison, to assist with your research.”
Giovanni shook hands with Johannes and was grateful that he would no longer have to mangle the German language.
Johannes led the way to a room lined with lockers for clients to store their coats and other personal belongings, as nothing was allowed in the Reading Room except for a pen and paper. Giovanni hung up his coat and stowed his briefcase in the bottom of the locker.
Before proceeding, Johannes began a client orientation. He explained that more than ninety percent of their data was digitally referenced. The procedure entailed searching for information using one of the computer terminals in the Reading Room, and then the corresponding materials, housed elsewhere in the complex, would be retrieved.
Giovanni listened but he felt guilty for not telling Johannes the full scope of his mission. Of course he would be looking for information regarding the Meyersteins, the very reason they had granted him access, but he also wanted to learn more about Bruno Lothar and the mystery man, Kreitel.
Johannes continued the orientation. “Our database contains seventeen and a half million names, and it is important to realize that within that collection, many phonetic variations exist, due to different European countries and even slight surname variations within local regions. Entering the last name of a person for whom information is sought may not produce the expected result. In your case, however, it is fortunate that the name Meyerstein has no variations listed.” He smiled. “I believe your search will prove successful. Our records are organized into three major sections: Incarceration, Forced Labor, and Displaced Persons. After studying your application, I would say the information you seek will be found in the Incarceration section.”
Giovanni liked the young lad. He was well-mannered and eager to help, which only made Giovanni feel worse about his desire to search for other information.
“You can request up to three files at a time,” Johannes explained, referring to groups of documents to be brought to the individual researcher. “You will see the checkbox on the screen, in the document list. On the right. Select the documents you wish to view, submit, and I will bring you the files.”
An actual demonstration would have been better. Giovanni was not even at the computer yet and already he was struggling to keep up. Next Johannes directed Giovanni to the Reading Room, where a computer was reserved in his name. Nine other people were working at different terminals. He sat down in front of his and stared at the confusing screen. It didn’t look like a normal browser. On the table was a sign to indicate that talking was not allowed in the room. That ruled out asking someone for help with the unintuitive screen. Giovanni glanced at the other people engrossed in their research. No one returned any glances, then Giovanni wondered if the others were searching for family who had perished in the Holocaust, and he felt bad for even glancing at them.
After a few minutes of studying the options, Giovanni began to understand how their system worked, which wasn’t too difficult after all, just that it was unusual. He determined how to perform a search and entered Henri Meyerstein. Eight references to the name appeared on the screen. They were the initial matches that led the ITS to invite Giovanni to conduct his research at their site. He narrowed his choices down to the three that looked the most interesting. Then he had to find the checkbox that Johannes had described, which wasn’t difficult, but he still didn’t understand what the young man had meant by submit. Oh, Giovanni then realized, as it was right there on the screen—the big blue button with the word right in the center. He felt a bit foolish but also pleased that he could figure it out on his own. In minutes Johannes delivered the requested files.
It was uncomfortable for Giovanni to read about one of the most despicable periods in human history. He knew nothing about these people. As in really knowing about them. Among the Jewish friends he had known over the years, he had never asked any of them about the Holocaust. What was one supposed to say? How many in your family died? It was a topic of pain, and a topic to be avoided. Giovanni’s knowledge of the Holocaust came, like so many, from documentaries with horrific images shown so many times that the danger of unemotional acceptance was present. He had seen movies about the Third Reich, and he had felt the revulsion of knowing that genocide occurred and could be rationalized. Giovanni thought about the Fascism that arose in his native country of Italy, led by Benito Mussolini, which only showed that no country, no people, were immune from mass insanity.
Giovanni knew, as people around the world knew, that the Nazis had tortured and killed millions. It had passed into the category of general knowledge. But handling the files on the Meyerstein family made it uncomfortably vivid. It was one thing to see the worn, black and white footage on a television program, showing the bodies of dead Jewish concentration camp prisoners being pushed into mass graves. But touching the paper, confirming the Meyerstein’s transfer to Auschwitz, and knowing the gruesome manner in which the good people had perished, Giovanni could only imagine their terror, and it put an echo of that terror into his heart and mind that would not leave him, ever, from that day forward.
During his orientation, Giovanni had been given instructions on how to handle the documents brought to him in the Reading Room. He was not to hold them in his hands but to place them flat on the table. And he had to keep them in the order that he found them in the file. Giovanni stole glances at others. One elderly man wore white cotton gloves as he carefully handled fragile, onionskin typed pages.
Giovanni lost track of time as he studied the transport forms. The Meyersteins’ initial incarceration was in Drancy, a transit camp just outside of Paris. Then they were taken to Auschwitz and separated. Their deaths—father, mother, sister, brother—were systematically noted, as if they were nothing more than shipments of a product, delivered to a warehouse. Each was recorded as merely a statistic.
Giovanni needed to pause. He had to question his motivations versus the purpose of the ITS. He thought about the victims and their families who came there from all over the world, hoping to gain some kind of closure, if they could even find that.
But it was his one opportunity to learn the truth—of more than just the Meyersteins. He wouldn’t be coming back for a second visit, or ever again. It was time for him to discover the rest.
He entered Bruno Lothar and the screen began to scroll pages of information, far more than it had for Henri Meyerstein. Giovanni sifted through the text and selected three files dated 1940, then requested the files be brought to the Reading Room.
The room was silent except for the intermittent pecking at keyboards. Giovanni noticed that new researchers had replaced some of those who were busy at their terminals when he had first arrived. He wondered if they had found what they were looking for, and if they had, just how heartbreaking the resolution must have been. He thought about the Count and how he described his time in the Meyerstein’s home on Avenue Foch. Of all his stories, theirs he expressed with great joy. And great sadness, when retelling of how they were hauled away by the Nazis.
Johannes delivered the requested files and departed without saying a word. Giovanni opened the first. Lothar was one of Goering’s top advisors on the value of artwork, which Giovanni had already learned from the Internet. In fact, few details of his biography differed from the sites that Giovanni had already visited. However, the file contained far more images of the man, most of them newspaper clippings, along with many official documents. Giovanni turned page after page. One newspaper clipping featured Lothar holding court at Maxim’s, posing with members of the Reich, several attractive women, and others unknown. In his youth, Lothar could have been a movie star. His slicked-back hair, sharp jawline, and piercing eyes made him appear cruelly seductive.
Some pages into the file, Giovanni found a document dated November 23, 1940. It was a listing of art taken from two residences on Avenue Foch. For an instant Giovanni lost his breath—one of the residences was the Meyerstein’s. It was the very document he had hoped to find. Carefully, as if more precious than anything he had ever restored, he took it from the file and laid it flat on the table so that he could study it in detail. The document listed the names of the artists and titles of their work. He went down the long list, searching through the names, but nothing was identified as the work of Botticelli. And there was nothing listed as an unsigned painting. The proof he was searching for—that the Count’s portrait was once a possession of the Meyerstein family—simply did not exist. But that lack of evidence, it could also be argued, supported the Count’s claim that he was given away, the very reason the portrait was never cataloged at the time of acquisition nor its arrival at the Jeu de Paume.
At the bottom of the document, after all the paintings were listed, the name B. Lothar appeared as the officer in charge of the Meyerstein art appropriation. And listed as advisor, W. Kreitel.
Giovanni flopped back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. It was all too incredible. The Count’s story was true. And it was another discovery to support Giovanni’s hunch, which gave him no satisfaction, rather it made him ill. He would need a photocopy of the document and found an option to request one. As he waited for Johannes to return, Giovanni realized that he was exhausted from hours of work without food, drink, or any break. His stomach was growling and the room was warm, the air stuffy. When he stood after sitting too long, he felt that he might faint. He left the open file on the table in the Reading Room and went back to the lockers where his coat and briefcase were stored. At the main desk, he asked the receptionist to let Johannes know that he would be waiting in the lobby. Giovanni sat on the black leather sofa, his head in his hands, wondering if he should have stayed in London and never embarked on this crazy stolen art investigation.
“Mr. Fabrizzi?” Johannes nudged him on the arm. “Are you feeling all right?”
Giovanni looked up at him. “Just a little tired.”
Johannes sat down, then handed Giovanni the photocopy he had requested.
“Actually, I’m going to need three copies,” Giovanni said, having failed to find an option to request multiple copies. “And please, would it be possible to have it on a compact disc?”
“Certainly,” Johannes replied. “Did you find what you were looking for, Mr. Fabrizzi?”
“Yes.” The word came out more as a breath than as an actual word.
“Then this is good.”
“It doesn’t feel good,” Giovanni said.
“I understand. But you must remember, many come here and never find what they were looking for.”
“I realize that.” Giovanni looked at the photocopy. “It’s one step closer, but the document doesn’t prove my painting belonged to the Meyersteins. I now have to find this Kreitel. W. Kreitel,” he corrected himself.
Johannes rose from the sofa.
“Herr Roedelius,” Giovanni said. “Would you mind if I asked you a personal question?”
He sat back down. “You may ask. And you may call me Johannes.”
Giovanni nodded. “All right, Johannes. Tell me, are you Jewish?”
“No, I’m a Lutheran.”
“You are a young man, not Jewish, and you were not even alive when World War II occurred. I think it’s wonderful that you care enough to do this work, but I’m curious as to why you chose to be here at the ITS.”
“We who did not live during the Holocaust want to understand how it could happen. I, myself, feel it is a mystery how people can become so destructive toward their fellow humans. Working here is my chance to gain a better understanding of that. I may never fully understand what happened, but this is my personal effort to try.”
“I too am trying to understand, in some small way.” Giovanni straightened his posture as he caught himself slumping from exhaustion.
“You look very pale, Mr. Fabrizzi. Have you eaten lunch?”
Giovanni shook his head.
“You should go and have something to eat, and then come back. You still have three hours left, if you wish to research more.”
“Danke, Johannes.” Somewhat ashamed of his abrupt departure from the Reading Room, Giovanni said, “I’m sorry, but I left the files on the table.”
“It’s all right,” Johannes said. “We will keep them aside for you.”
Giovanni struggled to get up and Johannes helped him rise.
“Thank you,” Giovanni said.
“Now find yourself a meal.” Johannes smiled and escorted Giovanni toward the exit. “Then when you return, you may ask for me.” He held the door open for Giovanni.
“You are a fine young man.” Giovanni gently patted Johannes on the cheek.
“I will see you soon,” he replied.
Giovanni walked out into the cool afternoon, struggling to dig out the taxi driver’s card in his wallet, and then from his coat, he brought out his mobile phone.