Chapter 3

The following day was a Wednesday, a rainy morning with a blustery wind that carried its chill through the streets of Munich, distributing it impartially among the souls leaning into it, struggling to reach their destination; but to Herzl Daniel Grossman the sun might have been shining brightly for all the attention he paid the weather. As he stood and rang the doorbell of the library all he could think of was Miriam Kleiman and the fact that he would be seeing her in a matter of minutes. He had counted the time since their dinner the night before in eons, and his great fear was that somehow she might have disappeared during the night, suddenly taken the job in London, packed and gone, or for some reason decided not to appear at work that day. But after being admitted, and after he had mounted the stairs to the second floor two at a time and tried not to burst into the room, there was Miriam Kleiman, as beautiful as ever, calmly studying a book behind her cluttered desk.

Herzl breathed easier. “Good morning!”

“Good morning,” she said in an impersonal tone, quite as if they had never had dinner the night before, almost as if they had not met previously at all. Herzl knew he was being foolish but he could not help but feel hurt. He had known, of course, that she would scarcely throw herself into his arms at sight of him, but a bit more warmth might have been expected. After all, they had held hands the night before; or at least he had put his hand on hers for several moments before she pulled her hand away, and that ought to count for something. Could it be she felt so strongly against the film project that she was allowing it to affect their personal relationship? Well, he had the entire day in which to improve that relationship, and many more days should they be needed, and he expected to work hard at it. Miss Kleiman put down her book. “Your films are ready downstairs.”

“Can’t you join me? It’s only film on von Schraeder, and from what you say there shouldn’t be much footage on him. It will probably take only a few minutes.”

“I’m sorry, but no. I have much work.”

“Ah, well …” he said dispiritedly, and trudged from the room. Behind him Miss Kleiman smiled for several minutes, looking after him, before returning with a sigh to her book.

Rolf Steiner looked so sad when Herzl entered the small projection room that for a moment he wondered if something had happened to the film he wanted to see, but as soon as Steiner saw him the explanation was forthcoming.

“Almost nothing, a few clips is all, plus the one of the parade which I also put on the reel, just that part of it with von Schraeder on it, ah, yes, ODESSA, you know, they destroyed so much film, even file film, you know, a terrible thing, yes, oh yes …” He clicked his tongue.

“Whatever you have,” Herzl said, his mind on Miriam Kleiman and really not all that interested in von Schraeder at the moment.

“Not much, not much, a pity, oh, yes …” Steiner clicked his tongue again and reached for the lights.

The first clip was the short section of the parade that Herzl had seen before. There was von Schraeder looking out of the car, smiling at the lens. The resemblance this time seemed to be even stronger at that younger age; uncanny! How could he have failed to notice it the day before? For a moment he had the odd feeling that it was him in the car, staring out at the people throwing streamers, and he could almost feel the car lurch as it stopped and started. Remarkable! he thought.

There was a click, a slight stutter, and the scene had changed. Now they were in a field outside a town that could be seen burning in the distance, the smoke being carried in waves across the sky; planes darted in and out of the smoke, but that was in the upper part of the film. In the lower section a group of German officers were standing next to a jeep whose engine hood was being used as a sort of table for maps which were unrolled on it. From both sides of the jeep officers bent over, their fingers tracing routes. Von Schraeder could be seen in the center of the group, pointing; a breeze came up and von Schraeder put his arm down awkwardly to prevent the top map from blowing.

“Poland,” Steiner said succinctly. “October 1939. Near Lezsno, as near as we can tell.”

The officers on the screen nodded to one another, raised their arms in an abrupt Nazi salute, and marched off. Only von Schraeder remained, rolling up the maps, smiling broadly. The camera came in close, wobbling a bit as if it had been taken from its tripod and was being hand-held for the close-up. Von Schraeder winked first with one eye, then with the other, laughed, and turned away. Herzl frowned. There was something in the way von Schraeder had half saluted, something in the manner in which he rolled up the maps, that teased Herzl’s memory. And that winking first with one eye and then with the other … But before he could follow up the thought there was a click, the usual slight stutter from the projector, and they were looking at a new scene. His attention moved with the film.

“Maidanek,” Steiner said, and added a trifle apologetically, “We have nothing from his time in Russia although he spent almost a year there. The Russians undoubtedly must have some captured film, but—” He shrugged.

The scene was basically like the one in the first book he had seen, the photograph taken by the brave but foolhardy prisoner. In this one, however, no prisoners or civilians could be seen. The film showed an open area with four uniformed officers standing about as if waiting for someone or something, and while the identifying tall chimney seen in the book was not in evidence, the barracks-like buildings were there, and the barbed-wire fence that stretched almost out of sight before bending to disappear behind a tiny watchtower in the distance, clearly identifying the place as a concentration camp. The men spoke idly to one another and then suddenly could be seen coming to attention, drawing themselves in a line. The camera swung; a car was drawing up, coming to a stop in the area. The driver got down and hurried around the long black sedan to open the rear door and instantly spring to rigid attention. The man who got down wore a monocle; he was tall and quite thin, and impeccably uniformed.

“Eichmann,” Steiner said a bit breathlessly. “Eichmann,” he repeated softly, excitedly, and fell silent, watching as if he had never seen the clip before.

Eichmann approached the line of men, smiled, and extended his hand, shaking hands cordially with each one in turn. Then he stepped back and one by one the officers facing him stepped forward to be rewarded with medals which Eichmann took from an attendant at his side and pinned to the man’s uniform blouse. Von Schraeder was the last to step forward, bend rigidly at the waist for a fraction of an inch, straighten, and stand like a statue while the medal was pinned to his chest. Like the others he then stepped backward one pace and saluted.

That was when the resemblance struck Herzl—

That raised arm—or, rather, that half-raised arm! That movement in rolling up the maps, as if the full extension of the arm to roll them up in one smooth motion was somehow lacking! And that wink, first with the left eye and then with the right! Benjamin Grossman used to amuse his young son with that droll grimace many years before, laughing afterward and tickling his giggling youngster.

He sat, stunned, as the lights went on and Steiner started to respool the film, talking as he did so.

“It’s all we have on the man, I’m sorry but that’s all, as I say the Russians may have more but … A pity so much was destroyed, ah, yes, criminal, criminal! Lucky we even have this … oh, yes …”

Herzl sat and stared at the blank screen, trying to bring his confused thoughts into some order. It was a coincidence, of course, a monstrous coincidence. Helmut von Schraeder was dead, that had been witnessed and attested to; he had died of typhus at Buchenwald. The Germans were too organized to make a mistake on something like that. And Benjamin Grossman was alive, a hero of Israel, a brigadier general in the army, as well as being a wonderful father. What he, Herzl, had been thinking was not only impossible, but was stupid, vicious, and cruel. Someone had once postulated a theory that everyone in the world had a double somewhere, someone born the instant he was born, who acted in every respect as he acted, who looked in every respect as he looked—except that the one who resembled von Schraeder in that uncanny fashion was not Benjamin Grossman, but his son. But it had to be a coincidence, because anything else was too dreadful to contemplate. And besides, Helmut von Schraeder was dead.…

He could not remember getting up, leaving the small projection room without even thanking the voluble Rolf Steiner, or finding the stairs to the first floor and then to the second. He walked through the door into the large library and stared at Miriam Kleiman as if he had never seen her before.

She was shocked by the blankness on his face, by the ashen complexion.

“You are all right? Is the film bothering you?”

“Von Schraeder,” he said, and it sounded to him as if the words were coming from some disembodied person at his side. “What do you have on his death? The details?”

She looked puzzled. “But I am showing you everything yesterday. It is all we have except for the testimony on the war trials that you are already reading—”

“I don’t remember. Could I see—?”

“Of course.”

She hurried to the stacks while Herzl sank down in a chair and stared numbly at the table. When at last she brought the proper volume and slid it before him, opened to the proper page, he stared at the book for several moments before shaking his head violently as if to clear it of cobwebs, and then forced himself to concentrate on the words before him. Miriam Kleiman retreated to her desk slowly, and watched him anxiously, perplexed at what could have effected the profound change in the young man in such a short time. He had seemed such a stable sort, but possibly he was not; as she recalled, the films were certainly not that disturbing.

Testimony of Colonel Reginald Manley-Jones, British Army interrogator at Bergen-Belsen camp after liberation.

Q:	… von Schraeder?
A:	In regard to Colonel Helmut von Schraeder, I interrogated all prisoners who had previously been at Maidanek and Buchenwald, the camps at which von Schraeder functioned in a supervisory post. All prisoners were quite critical—
Q:	In reference to his death, please, Colonel.
A:	Oh, that? Well, several said they thought they had heard in a roundabout way that von Schraeder had died at Buchenwald, but one prisoner was more definite. He said he had been working in Ward Forty-six—the typhus ward, I believe it was—and was actually there when Colonel von Schraeder died. He stated that there was no possibility of error. He said he was the one who had to sew von Schraeder’s corpse into the burial sack and help to cart him to the crematorium. It didn’t bother the man a bit. He had been a Sonderkommando at Maidanek, and they were used to that sort of thing, I suppose. Animals, really, you know—
Q:	If you please, Colonel, those remarks are not in keeping with the purpose of this investigation. To get back to the inquiry, do you believe the prisoner—I mean, the liberated inmate—do you believe his testimony was correct? As far as von Schraeder was concerned?
A:	Oh, he was telling the truth, all right, no doubt of that. Why would he lie? He enjoyed telling me how Colonel von Schraeder died.

Herzl turned the page, feeling better, ashamed of himself for the gross and unwarranted suspicions he had entertained. Colonel Helmut von Schraeder was dead, all right.

Q:	And what was the name of the liberated inmate being interrogated?
A:	I have it here someplace in my notes. I remember him, scrawny bastard, all ears and nose—
Q:	Please, Colonel, just the name. For the record.
A:	Here it is. Benjamin Grossman. Said he was from Hamburg—

Herzl stared at the words in shock, and then slowly closed the book as if he could also close the information from his mind with the motion, but the words stood out in large letters in his brain.

Benjamin Grossman.

Benjamin Grossman, the only one to see Helmut von Schraeder die, the one who had sewed him into the burial sack and saw that he was cremated. Benjamin Grossman, who the testimony said worked in Ward Forty-six; but Herzl’s Uncle Max had told him once that his father, Benjamin Grossman, had been in Ward Forty-six as a victim of bestial experimental surgery. Surgery. Scars. Surgery, Herzl suddenly thought, but plastic surgery! Benjamin Grossman, who came from Hamburg where all records were destroyed, most probably born when Helmut von Schraeder died! Benjamin Grossman, graduate in mechanical engineering, fierce and fearless warrior …

Herzl became aware that someone was talking, that it was not just an echo in his mind. He looked up and saw it was a girl sitting at a desk.

“Did you say something? Were you speaking to me?”

“I ask if you are all right. You are not looking too very well—”

“I’m—” What had he wanted to ask her? Oh, yes. “Do you have any further information on von Schraeder—any other books you might have missed, anything at all?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

He remembered something else, but at the moment could not recall where he had heard it. “Somebody said something about another library. In London, I believe?”

“I am telling you myself, last night,” she said, and now she sounded really worried. “The Wiener Library. It’s on Devonshire Street, number four. Why? You go there? When?”

“Tonight,” he said vaguely. “This afternoon, if I can.” He remembered something else. “Is it possible to get copies of the film clips I saw this morning?”

“Yes. There is a laboratory in town who does this work.”

He drew his checkbook from his pocket, scribbled his signature, and tore the check out, handing it over.

“Fill in the amount,” he said. “Add postage. Airmail, first-class, to—” He stopped to think a moment, his mind still foggy. “To Zion Films, to my attention. Herzl Grossman.” He fumbled in his pocket for his letter of introduction, handing it over. “The address …”

She accepted it, looking at him strangely, wondering for a moment if there had been anything she might have said or done to cause this sudden change in him, in his attitude toward her, in his plans. Surely he understood that a girl did not let a man take her home the first date. But that was ridiculous; they were strangers, and he had been so friendly when he first arrived that morning. A pity he was leaving; he was very attractive and she would have liked to have dinner with him again, to get to know him better, and even let him take her home this time. But he obviously had not been serious, he had forgotten already. A pity …

“Wait, I write down the Wiener Library address for you,” she said, and reached for a slip of paper. “I am also giving you a little note to them,” she added, and wrote.

He waited, staring around the room, his mind in a state of shock. He was the son of Helmut von Schraeder! How long before the same tendencies would appear in him, the same ability to kill and kill and kill without conscience? But it could not be; violence disgusted him, blood sickened him—or was this something he had inherited from his mother? What had someone said to him recently? We are all monsters.… But the entire thing had to be a mistake, a horrible coincidence but a coincidence just the same. Benjamin Grossman, his father, the same man as Helmut von Schraeder? Ridiculous!

Actually, what was the basis for this vicious canard? The similarity of his looking like the man; the fact that Benjamin Grossman was the only witness to the death of the man, a pure coincidence since obviously someone had to sew him into his shroud and it just happened to be a prisoner named Grossman; the uniqueness of a few similar gestures that a thousand or a million men probably used to entertain their children, winking with alternate eyes! Looked at in this light, or any other rational light, the suspicion was idiotic.…

He became aware the girl was handing him something. What—? Oh, yes, of course, the address of the library in London and a note to the personnel there. He tucked it into his jacket pocket without looking at it.

“Thank you,” he said without realizing he had said it, and walked blindly from the room.

The people at the Wiener Library in London were as helpful as possible, but the fact was they had nothing to add to what he had learned about Helmut von Schraeder in Munich. Fingerprints? No, there was no record of any for many of the Nazi war criminals; ODESSA had seen to that. Yes, they were quite sure; the Allies had made a search in depth. Photographs? They had the same studio picture as well as the same book photograph, but that was all. The librarian who helped him was a Miss Pizer, an elderly lady, and he remembered with a sharp pang Miriam Kleiman and wondered at his cavalier action in walking out without giving her the courtesy of an explanation. True, he had been stunned, but in retrospect that seemed like a small excuse. He really should call her, try to explain—but what would he say? I’m almost positive I’m the son of Helmut von Schraeder, the Monster of Maidanek, the man who was responsible for the gassing and burning of over a million people, including Germans like yourself. How would you like to have dinner with me and possibly get to know me well enough even to fall in love?

Or am I the son of Helmut von Schraeder? Wouldn’t I have felt it before this if I were? Could my mother, Deborah, have fallen as much in love as she obviously is with a murderer like von Schraeder? At least Herzl was responsible enough, now, to order photocopies of the pictures, and the testimony of Colonel Manley-Jones, as well as the other facts from the files before leaving the library, and then he left to trudge the streets of London, unable to resolve the problem.

He sat in his hotel room the following day, staring from the window at a heavy fog, trying to think what to do next. Go home without knowing for sure, for absolutely sure, whether Benjamin Grossman was or was not the man he suspected him of being? How could he go through life with that question always unanswered? How could he face his father? Or his mother? How could he live with the uncertainty?

The answer was that he could not. Hamburg—should he go there and attempt to trace Benjamin Grossman, to try and locate someone who might be able to remember a Grossman family who had a son named Benjamin? Born in April of 1917? Except that Hamburg had been utterly destroyed, wiped out, all records gone as well as all the people who lived there. But some had escaped before the fire storm, before Hitler, gone to America. Advertise? For a fact that was now almost thirty years old, just since the death of von Schraeder, and over fifty since the birth of this mythical Grossman? Not likely. What about Angermünde? On a sudden inspiration he picked up the telephone and was connected with the hotel operator.

“East Germany?” she said. “Of course. What city and what number?”

“Angermünde, in Mecklenburg,” he said. “I don’t have the number, but I would like to speak with someone in the records section of their city hall. Is it possible?”

“Of course. However,” she added, “you may be monitored by the police there if you don’t mind,”

“I don’t mind.”

“In that case I will ring you when the call comes through.”

He hung up the receiver and shook his head sadly. What was he going to ask them when he was finally connected? Helmut von Schraeder had left Angermünde when he was less than nine years old; what could their records show that could possibly identify—or not identify—the man with Benjamin Grossman? But he had to do something; he couldn’t just sit and wonder. He came to his feet and started to pace the room, and then made a sudden move for the telephone as it began to ring.

“Yes? Hello—?”

“Your party is on the line.” And in a lower tone of voice, “You are being monitored …”

He could not have cared less. There were a series of clicks, and eventually the voice of a woman in German, sounding quite efficient. “Records. May I help you?”

Herzl took a deep breath.

“I hope so,” he said. “I’m looking for any information I can get about a family named von Schraeder—”

“Von?” said the voice, mystified. “We have not had any ‘vons’ for—”

“I’m speaking of a family that left Angermünde in 1925 or 1926,” Herzl said hurriedly.

“I’m sorry,” the voice said, and it seemed to sound relieved at not being able to help. “Our records were completely destroyed during the war. Totally. All of them. Now they begin again after 1946.”

“Not even—” Herzl knew he was wasting his time. “Thank you,” he said dispiritedly, and hung up.

It appeared as if both von Schraeder and Benjamin Grossman were beyond investigation. No records anywhere: No fingerprints, and photographs that meant little or nothing at all. Why not leave it at that? Forget it. Put the resemblance down as an odd similitude. Why beat a dead horse? But he couldn’t drop the matter and he knew it. Another thought suddenly occurred to him and he raised the telephone again quickly, before he could convince himself it was useless. The hotel operator came on the line.

“This may sound insane,” Herzl said apologetically, wondering if she would hang up and call the authorities and not blaming her if she did, “but I’m really quite serious. I want to talk to the oldest person at a church in Angermünde. Not a parishioner,” he added hastily. “A priest, a minister—” He shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know.”

He might have been asking for a connection to room service or to another guest in the hotel for all the surprise his request evinced from the operator; he wondered for a moment at the nature of some of the requests she received.

“Which denomination, sir?”

“I don’t know,” he said, now convinced he must really be insane. “I have no idea of the denomination.” He knew it sounded stupid, but there was nothing else he could say. He felt like kicking himself; surely the information as to the von Schraeder family’s religion had been available at either library had he had the intelligence to think of it. “What religion is most common in East Germany?”

“They are Communist,” the operator said, as if this answered his question.

“But they must have churches—!”

‘“A few, probably,” she said, conceding the possibility. “Lutheran, possibly?”

It was as good as any. “Would you try them please? If there is only one Lutheran church, I suppose we’ll have to try other denominations—”

“There won’t be many of those, either,” the operator said, and repeated, “… oldest person … not a parishioner,” quite as if the request was completely normal. “I’ll ring through to you.”

This time the wait was interminable. Herzl looked at his watch every minute until he realized this made the time creep even more slowly. After that he picked up the morning newspaper, but the words made no sense at all and he tossed it aside, staring out the window at the fog. What was the weather like in Munich at this hour? It would be ten in the morning there; what would Miriam Kleiman be doing at this minute? Going through the mail? Having a cup of tea? Helping another researcher who would probably ask her out to dinner? The thought rankled. He really ought to write to her and apologize for his behavior the day before, maybe even go back to Munich and explain to her in person. But if he discovered anything in Angermiinde he would have to go there and get affidavits, sworn statements. And he would have to advise Zion Films where he was, and why. That might take some doing, although he really wouldn’t have to explain until he got back—

The telephone rang.

He reached for it eagerly. “Hello?”

“Your call.”

Another operator on the line, another language. Again, “Your call …”

He continued to wait, hearing breathing at the end of the line, but nobody spoke. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

Finally, “Yes?”

“Hello? May I ask who I’m speaking to?”

The voice at the other end was instantly suspicious. “Who is asking?”

“My name is Grossman,” Herzl said, feeling ridiculous to be identifying himself to some stranger who had no idea who he was or why he was calling. “I’m looking for information, any information, I can get about a family named von Schraeder. They left—”

“Von?”

There it was again!

“They left Angermünde in 1925 or 1926,” Herzl said desperately. “An aunt and a boy, after both parents died. The father was General von Schraeder. The mother’s name was Langer, her maiden name. I thought possibly there might be some church records. The town records were destroyed—”

“We have no records of anyone of that name.” The voice sounded positive, which Herzl thought extremely odd considering that there had been no attempt to verify any of the facts.

“But—”

“Good-bye!” There was a sharp click as the telephone at the other end was hung up abruptly.

The telephone rang again almost instantly.

“I did not lose the connection to Angermünde,” the hotel operator said, and for the first time there was a touch of emotion in her voice; it was pride. “I will now ring the second church. It is also the last church as far as we can tell,” she added as if to say I told you so, and disconnected.

He sat with the receiver to his ear, listening to the eerie exchange of sounds and languages between unknown parties, and then found himself alone on the line.

“Hello?” he said tentatively.

The answering voice was faint, quavering with age. “Yes?”

“Could I ask who I’m talking to?”

“My name is Father Gruenwald. You wish—?”

Herzl took another deep breath. He had a feeling he was wasting his time but he also knew there was nothing better to do with his time until the riddle was solved.

“I am looking for information about a family named von Schraeder, General von Schraeder,” he said, speaking slowly, evenly, and as clearly as possible, and feeling as if he had repeated the statement a hundred times that morning. “They left Angermünde in the year 1925 or 1926—”

“They did not leave,” the wavering voice said, sounding petulant at the incorrectness of the statement. “They are buried in our churchyard, both the general and his wife.”

Herzl felt an electric shock.

“Helmut von Schraeder—” he began.

“No, no!” said the old voice querulously. “Karl Klaus! General Karl Klaus! We were children together. He always sat in the front pew, on the left. We played chess together every Thursday—”

“But they had a son,” Herzl said insistently, his fingers biting into the molded rubber of the receiver.

“—he always took the black, even without choosing, but of course he was the better player. I don’t play anymore …”

“They had a son,” Herzl said, trying to pierce the curtain of the past. “His name was Helmut. Helmut. There must be some records—”

“A son?” Father Gruenwald sounded doubtful. “I do not remember—”

Herzl gritted his teeth. Not now! he thought. Not when we’re this close! “A son,” he said, as if by mere repetition he could bring the old man’s memory back. “His name was Helmut.”

There was a pause as Father Gruenwald did his best to remember; then with a sigh he conceded defeat to the years that had gone. “I’m sorry.” A thought occurred. “But maybe my housekeeper will remember,” he added with a slight brightening in his voice. “She worked at the von Schraeder estates as a—maid?—when she was young. Or was it as the cook …” There was a pause as the old voice could he heard raising itself feebly. “Magda!” There was another pause and then Father Gruenwald returned to Herzl apologetically. “I will get her. She doesn’t hear too well without her hearing aid, I’m afriad. I will insist she put it on. She hates it, you know …”

There was a murmur of voices in the background; then an old woman’s voice was on the line. She sounded very suspicious, as if telephone calls to the church were rare, and then only to bring trouble.

“What do you want?”

“I was speaking with Father Gruenwald about the von Schraeder family,” Herzl said, trying to sound as diplomatic as possible, as little like an East German police official as possible, “and I was asking about their son—”

“What about him?”

Herzl felt the repeat of the shock at finally having found someone who might be helpful. He tried to maintain the same tone of voice, afraid to break the spell.

“Do you remember him?”

“He’s dead,” the old lady said. “His name was Helmut. He was a pretty boy—”

Herzl took a deep breath and asked the important question. It was just the sort of thing a person could so easily slip up on, as he might slip up on winking alternately with both eyes at a spellbound child.

“When Helmut was a child,” he said slowly, clearly, “did he ever fall out of a tree and break his arm?”

The old lady took the receiver from her ear and stared into it suspiciously as if the person at the other end of the wire had lost his senses. Who called up to ask a ridiculous question like that about a little boy fifty years before? Then she shrugged and adjusted her hearing aid. If someone wanted to waste their time asking idiotic questions, it was no problem of hers.

“No,” she said.

Herzl felt his heart jump. “You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” she said disdainfully. “You think I don’t remember just because I’m old? I should know, I took him to the doctor myself. It wasn’t his arm. It was his shoulder.”