Agent in Peril, page 30
Siegfried had said nothing in the twenty minutes it took Jack to explain himself. Once Jack finished, he reached over to the sideboard and poured them both a very generous measure of German brandy.
‘But I’m a performer, Jack… not that I get to perform much these days. I’ve learnt to keep my head down and avoid anything political.’
‘This isn’t anything political, Siegfried, it’s rescuing a woman.’
‘From the Gestapo!’
‘No, from the Polizeipräsidium.’
‘Exactly… I know the place, Jack, it’s like a fortress.’
‘What do you mean you know the place?’
‘I work there, Jack.’
The American stared at him in disbelief.
‘Don’t look so worried, Jack, I’m not a policeman. There’s so little work at the Stadt-Theater these days we’ve all had to get other jobs. I found one as a clerk in the records department at the Polizeipräsidium: at least it’s nearby and it’s warm and I’ve even been promoted to senior clerk, would you believe. Some of my colleagues from the theatre have ended up working in factories and others have been conscripted.’
Siegfried explained how he helped to organise the records: archiving those of cases that were finished with and creating new records for current investigations.
‘Do you wear a uniform?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Jack. I wear a suit.’
Jack stood up and asked Siegfried to give him a minute or two to think. He paced around the small apartment; its walls adorned with photographs of its owner in various theatrical roles. He stopped by one: a younger Siegfried dressed as a cavalry officer.
‘You look quite the part there.’
‘I should certainly hope so: the magic of the theatre is that one can get the audience to believe that you’re someone else, even though they can see you on stage. Once you put on the costume and the lights go on, you become that character.’
Jack sat down and carefully explained to Siegfried what he had in mind. Siegfried was dismissive at first, unwilling to entertain Jack’s idea and calling it an act of madness. But then Jack asked him when he’d last been on stage and he admitted it was over a year ago and after that he became less reluctant and started asking Jack questions and making helpful suggestions.
Gradually, his mood changed from hostile to almost enthusiastic. He said he’d go along with it, but on one condition. When Siegfried explained what that condition was Jack hesitated briefly before replying, saying that sounded fair enough.
* * *
Kriminaldirektor Klaus Braun interrogated Sophia until nine o’clock on the Saturday night. He’d soon realised she was going to be no pushover. She was of an altogether different calibre to the hotel manager in Duisburg.
Whereas Rainer Kühn had been nervous and confused, this woman was calm and collected. She wasn’t rushed with her answers, but nor was she hesitant. She managed to convey very persuasively that she was perplexed as to why she’d been arrested. And she stuck to her story: she was Frau Alma Walter from Cologne, on her way back to her home city, and had decided to travel via Düsseldorf. She explained how she was active in the Frauenschaft and had taken it on herself – as an act of patriotic duty – to visit Duisburg and Gelsenkirchen, but had begun to feel unwell and had decided to return home.
When Braun informed her there were no records of a Frau Alma Walter from an address near the Volksgarten in Cologne she shrugged and said she wasn’t surprised. There’d been a lot of bombing, she explained. As far as she was aware, almost all the records had been destroyed! That wasn’t her fault, was it?
Braun said of course not and found himself smiling at her and then reassuring her that… please, there’s no reason to cry, would you like a drink…? He realised he was being charmed by her, a quite beautiful woman, with the most extraordinary eyes and a refined air about her and all in all it was quite disconcerting.
He decided to leave the questioning until the morning. When he returned to the office one of his Kripo colleagues took him aside.
‘Lindner’s still around, he’s desperate to question the woman. He wants her transferred to the Gefängnis. He’s been trying to get hold of Oberregierungsrat Albath, but without any luck. So far.’
* * *
At a quarter past seven on the Sunday morning Kriminaldirektor Klaus Braun arrived back the Polizeipräsidium to resume his questioning of the woman who insisted she was Alma Walter from Cologne.
Braun entered the police headquarters through the main entrance on Mackensen Platz. At almost exactly the same time, Siegfried Schroth entered the building through the less imposing entrance on Fürstenwall. While Braun headed to an upper floor to prepare for a long day of questioning, Schroth’s destination was the records department on the lower ground floor at the rear of the building. He knew the duty clerk would have gone off duty at seven o’clock and he also knew – because it was custom and practice on Sunday mornings and he did it himself – that the day duty clerk wouldn’t come in until nearer nine o’clock.
That gave him just under two hours. He found the previous days’ booking records with the details of the prisoner who’d been arrested at the station. With her custody number he was able to fill in a new custody form, which would be identical to the one being used upstairs. From the safe in the office of the head of criminal records he removed a blank Prisoner Transfer Form. These were tedious documents which took some time to fill in and were considered an encumbrance by most officers. As a result, it was often left to the clerks to complete them and, to make matters easier – especially at night or over the weekend – there were even a few blank copies already stamped and signed by Oberst der Polizei Weber, the most senior police officer in the district: the man in a position to authorise the transfer of prisoners.
It was just after half past eight when he’d filled in all the forms. He put them in an envelope which he taped to the inside of the back of his jacket. But he had one more place to visit in the Polizeipräsidium. If it was locked or busy or someone spotted him, then their plan would stand no chance.
It was located at the other end of the lower ground floor, a stuffy and dimly lit, windowless area at the end of a long, sloping corridor that smelled of disinfectant. The door was open and it was silent, apart from the noisy snoring of the duty officer, fast asleep in a small cubicle. It took Siegfried Schroth just five minutes to find what he wanted.
He left the Polizeipräsidium well before nine o’clock, slipping out of the building with the familiar sensation of excitement and trepidation he used to experience when he was about to go on the stage.
Chapter 31
Poland
June 1943
Max and Raisa started to argue soon after darkness fell over the forest that Sunday night.
They had no way of knowing the exact time, but they’d developed a sense of gauging approximately at what point in the day or night they were at. They knew their mother had left at around seven o’clock, telling them she may be away for an hour, perhaps a bit longer. When night wrapped itself around the forest and the air somehow felt rarer and the temperature dropped and with the heavy canopy above them blocking out what little light there was, they both realised she was long overdue.
Raisa said they should go and look for her but Max reminded her of what their mother had said: they weren’t to leave where they were under any circumstances. She’d come back for them.
They stopped their whispered bickering and drifted off to sleep. When they woke at dawn, they drank some water and chewed on raw turnip and then decided maybe their mother was waiting until it was light before making her way back.
When she’d still not returned an hour later they decided they could go in search of her. What if she’d fallen and didn’t want to call out for them?
They discussed where to go and Raisa reminded Max that their mother had said she was going to look for somewhere safe for them to hide.
‘Do you remember that strange house we passed yesterday: the one in the middle of a field that looked like a cowshed? Maybe that’s where she’s gone.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because she was so interested in the place: we spent ages watching it, didn’t we?’
They agreed that’s where they would go. But they’d be careful: they’d remain hidden the whole time.
* * *
Lea was aware of her fate the moment the two brothers dragged her into the scullery and said they were going to have some fun with her.
They didn’t return for the best part of an hour but in that time Lea had found a surprising inner calm. She knew Roman was safe in Switzerland and the children had not been discovered and she’d avoided mentioning them. They’d be safe in the forest, she decided. But she was in no doubt that a dreadful fate awaited her: she just hoped it would be quick.
The brothers returned to the scullery dragging a heavily stained mattress, which they threw her onto. They tied a filthy cloth which tasted of oil round her mouth and told her to keep quiet: they didn’t want their mother to be disturbed.
They finished with her an hour later, both men exhausted and affected by the bottle of vodka they’d drunk their way through as they took turns raping her. She was bleeding and in pain and totally humiliated of course, but she concentrated her thoughts on the rest of the family.
They were safe.
Roman would soon be reunited with Max and Raisa.
She was sacrificing herself for them.
* * *
Nothing prepared the children for what they saw when they emerged from the forest and crawled through the undergrowth to the edge of the cornfield. The cowshed was ahead of them and in the patch of wasteland behind it lay the naked and bloody body of a woman they realised was their mother.
At first, they thought she was dead, and Raisa had to hold Max down, but then they saw two men pouring buckets of cold water over her and soon after that their mother stirred and sat up and then the old woman came out of the house and handed her some clothes. Within minutes their mother had been dragged away and, in the distance, they heard a scream and some shouting, after which there was the noise of an engine starting followed by silence.
The wind rustled through the field in their direction, the heads of corn pointing towards the forest, as if instructing them to return there.
They found their hiding place and for the next two or three days they sat in a state of shock, first one weeping, then the other. They tried to console each other, but they knew they’d never see their mother again. All they could do was what she’d told them to do and stay where they were.
* * *
Lea Loszynski arrived at the Gestapo headquarters in Pomorska Street in Krakow later that day. The two brothers carried her into Pomorska Street and told the officer on duty they’d found this Jew trying to break into their house and here she was.
The Gestapo officer hardly looked up: he said they could go now and when they asked about their reward, he told them to get lost, the only reward they were getting was that they weren’t being arrested too!
She told them her real name and that she’d been in Warsaw during the ghetto Uprising and had escaped and was trying to get to Slovakia. All her family had been killed in Warsaw, she said. She admitted the identity she was carrying – Klara Wójcik – was a false one. She suspected they’d have found that out anyway and thought it would help to admit it and hopefully stop them interrogating her.
But they were barely interested in her. They took a note of her name and put her into a cell to await the next transport. When her eyes adjusted to the gloomy interior, she realised she wasn’t alone: half a dozen adults and maybe ten children, slumped on the floor or sharing a small bench.
No one said a word, though a woman who looked her age nodded.
‘They said I’d be on the next transport,’ she asked. ‘Do you know where that’s to?’
‘You mean you don’t know?’ It was an older man, his arm in a sling.
Lea said she didn’t. She wasn’t from round here.
‘Auschwitz,’ said the woman. ‘They’re taking us to Auschwitz.’
‘And then we die,’ said the man with his arm in a sling.
* * *
Raisa recalled an argument her parents once had in front of them. She’d asked her mother what a miracle was and her father said there was no such thing: everything had a scientific explanation. Their mother had told him it was important to believe in miracles: you never know when you’ll need them!
A few days after they’d seen their mother taken away Max and Raisa experienced a miracle.
They hadn’t eaten for two days and felt too lethargic to do anything, even to go to the stream. They’d taken to sleeping a lot and felt very light-headed. Raisa was asleep, the warmth of the afternoon sun on her face, when Max prodded her in the ribs and told her to wake up. When she did, he pointed ahead of them.
Fifty yards away, clearly visible through a gap in the trees stood an old man. He raised his hands in greeting and smiled in their direction before moving closer to them, slowly and in a manner designed to reassure them. When he was no more than twenty yards away, he stopped and put the big knapsack he was carrying on the ground and then knelt down and pulled out a large flask, some bread, cheese and sausages and a bag of apples. He pointed at the food and then at them, at which point Max started to say something, but the man shook his head and put a finger to his lips.
Moments later he waved goodbye and disappeared into the forest.
The man returned every three or four days. He brought enough food to last them until his next visit and Raisa decided that they should store some of it, in case something happened to the man.
At first, they tried to speak with him. They told him their names were Mieczysław and Janina Wójcik, from Krakow but he’d shake his head and put a finger to his lips and eventually they realised they weren’t to say a word.
One day he brought blankets with him, then a large tarpaulin and after a few weeks he brought a bag of clothes, including shoes that were too big but still very welcome.
When the summer began to fade and the nights became bitterly cold and the forest was painted with frost, they began to worry. They both knew they wouldn’t survive a winter in the forest. They debated whether to say anything to the man but one afternoon he indicated they should follow him and bring everything they had with them. He carried the blankets and the tarpaulins and marched ahead, always keeping twenty yards in front.
They must have walked for three hours, possibly longer. At one stage they climbed up a steep slope and then down the other side into a particularly dense area of forest, before following the course of a fast-running stream, the stones around it green with moss, the air fresh and full of the noise of birds.
The man then disappeared. One moment he was ahead of them, walking through some trees, the next he was gone. Max and Raisa stood close together, neither saying a word but both thinking the same: they’d been abandoned again.
But then the man appeared, waving at them and giving a low whistle, which sounded like that of an animal.
He was in the doorway of a wooden hut that was so well camouflaged by the forest that they’d not spotted it. He beckoned to them to join him.
It was evident he’d prepared the hut for them. It was small and sparse, with two narrow beds along each side wall and a table in the middle. Around the walls were shelves, with food and plates on them. There was a small stove with a pile of wood next to it and an axe on top of the wood. He showed them how to use the stove and pointed to the hook on the inside of the door, making it clear they should keep it locked.
And then he was gone.
The hut saw them through that winter and that of 1944 too. His visits became less frequent in the depths of winter, but that mattered less as Max and Raisa became stronger and more confident. They learned to forage in the forest, which was the best part of the stream to catch fish, which mushrooms and berries were edible, the patches where vegetables grew.
When he brought them food the bread was usually wrapped in newspaper and they’d read the crumpled sheets and it was clear there was a lot of fighting going on.
As the winter of 1944 turned into 1945 – they knew that because they had a copy of a newspaper dated 14 January – they heard the rumble of artillery fire around them, at one stage sounding as if it was in the forest itself.
They never saw the man after that. Since moving to the hut they’d made notches on the door to mark the number of days between his visits and by the time the winter of 1945 turned into spring and the number of notches reached one hundred, they decided to venture out.
The forest was once again silent, no more sounds of artillery.
It was, they decided, time to try and get to Switzerland.
Chapter 32
London and Switzerland
June and July 1943
‘It’s absolutely appalling news, there’s no pretending otherwise. It was so promising… and now it’s all gone…’
‘Up in smoke?’
‘I’m afraid so, Roly, literally… Basil’s absolutely devastated. Never known him to be so down: blames himself and one does have to wonder whether he perhaps took his eye off the ball.’ Piers Devereux spread his hands in a forlorn gesture that emphasised the helplessness of the situation. For someone usually so considered in his choice of words he now appeared to be lost for them.
They were meeting in a secure room in the War Office, the enormous building on the corner of Whitehall and Horse Guards Avenue. Air Vice-Marshal Frank Hamilton had an office here and as their normal meeting room in Downing Street was being refurbished, this was deemed to be a suitable venue.
