T he banging on the front door was unrelenting.
‘Ofnen Sie, Jude!’
Ramona sat up with a start. ‘Levi! Have they come?’
Levi put a finger to his lips. ‘ Shhh. I’ll deal with them.’ He threw on his dressing gown, suddenly remembering the two bark maps he’d left beside the model of the Mayan pyramids in his study. He rescued them and went back to the bedroom. Rebekkah and Ariel, both wide-eyed and fearful, had run in to their mother. On an impulse that the Nazis might not suspect a child, Levi gave the maps to Ariel. ‘Look after these for Papa,’ he said. ‘It will be all right, I promise,’ he added reassuringly.
‘Open up, Jew, or we’ll break the door down!’
When Levi opened the door, the Sonderkommandos, supported by a group of young Brownshirts, knocked him to the carpet and stormed into the apartment. Levi struggled to his feet to find von Hei?en standing in the doorway, tapping his knee-high boots with a leather cane.
Von Hei?en shoved the point of his cane under Levi’s chin. ‘Going somewhere, are we, Jew?’ he asked, seeing the Weizmans’ suitcases in the corridor.
Levi knocked the cane away. ‘How dare you come barging in here like this!’
Von Hei?en whipped his cane across Levi’s face. ‘Where is the figurine?’
The pain was excruciating.
‘I have no idea… Somewhere in the jungles of Guatemala, I should imagine.’
Von Hei?en slashed Levi across the face again. ‘Where is it?’
Levi’s eyes watered and he gritted his teeth, but said nothing.
Von Hei?en fought to control his fury at the Jew’s defiance. ‘ Scharfuhrer! Sergeant! Arrest them, and then search this place. We’re looking for a jade figurine about thirty centimetres high.’
‘ Jawohl, Obersturmbannfuhrer. There’s a safe in the study, but it’s locked.’
‘Is there now?’ A look of satisfaction spread across von Hei?en’s face. ‘The Jew will open it,’ he said, again raising Levi’s chin with his cane.
Levi steadied his hand and inserted the key into the safe. He opened it and stepped back, silently praying for Ramona and the children.
Von Hei?en surveyed the contents of the large strongbox in which Levi and Ramona stored their most precious possessions. The strongbox contained over 4000 schillings, proceeds from Ramona’s boutique she had yet to convert to the new Reichsmark. ‘No figurine,’ von Hei?en observed angrily. The disappointment in his voice was palpable. He rifled through the rest of the contents: Ramona’s jewellery and three gold menorahs, the seven arms a symbol of the burning bush encountered by Moses on Mount Horeb. Von Hei?en picked up a solid gold cross. At its centre was an exquisite ruby surrounded by twelve large diamonds. Von Hei?en turned the cross over in his hand.
Levi struggled to remain calm. The pectoral cross had been discovered by his great-grandfather at an archaeological dig on the Mount of Olives, just outside of Jerusalem, and it had been in Levi’s family for four generations. Its lineage could be traced back to the Third Crusade, Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt.
‘Get this scum onto the trucks,’ von Hei?en ordered, closing the strongbox and pocketing the keys.
Levi wrenched his arm away from a Sonderkommando. ‘I need to get dressed!’
Von Hei?en’s laugh was evil. ‘Put him on the truck. He won’t need any clothes where he’s going.’
Von Hei?en moved to the front window and watched the young Brownshirts shove Levi over the tailboard of the truck parked below. It had snowed heavily during the night, and the icy cobblestones glinted in the winter dawn. Further down Judengasse, more Jews were being rounded up for transportation to Mauthausen, but von Hei?en still felt cheated. Behind him, the Sonderkommandos and Brownshirts were systematically ripping Levi’s apartment to pieces, but there was no sign of the missing jade. Perhaps, von Hei?en thought angrily, the figurine was in Guatemala after all. The Jew would still pay, he vowed. Von Hei?en turned on his heel and headed back into the apartment, passing within one metre of the two figurines lying hidden beneath the floorboard.
Levi put one arm around Ramona, and his other around Rebekkah and Ariel. Rebekkah was sobbing as she buried her blonde curls into her father’s chest. Ramona had managed to convince a sympathetic corporal to allow her and the children to dress, but Levi was still in his pyjamas, shivering in the cold.
‘Where are these men taking us, Papa?’ Rebekkah sobbed.
Levi kissed her curls and held his daughter more tightly. ‘We’ll see… it’ll be all right, Liebchen,’ Levi whispered, comforting his little girl as best he could.
They crossed the Danube at Emmersdorf, and Levi could tell they were now moving along the north bank, the trees heavy with snow. He rubbed his hands to get his circulation going, Rebekkah and Ariel asleep at his left shoulder. Ramona rested her head on his right. Nearly two hours later they slowed through the little town of Mauthausen, and a few kilometres further on the lorry wound its way up a small hill before coming to a halt at the massive wooden doors of the concentration camp. The guards checked the driver’s papers and made a cursory check of the human cargo in the back before opening the gates. The truck ground into the lower courtyard and lurched to stop.
An SS captain and a dozen SS guards were waiting in the compound.
‘Get them out of the truck and line them up against the wall,’ the Hauptsturmfuhrer barked.
Levi hugged his children and his wife. ‘God will protect us,’ he whispered.
Levi, Ramona and the children were in the middle of the lineup, and Levi looked around cautiously, shivering in his slippers and pyjamas. The camp was enclosed by high stone walls topped with barbed wire. At regular intervals along their length the walls were interrupted by massive granite watchtowers covered with slate roofs. Like some macabre university of death, the lower compound into which they’d been delivered was ringed by meticulously constructed stone cloisters. In the sentry box at the far end of the cloisters, Levi could see two guards silently sweeping the barrels of their machine guns across the group of prisoners. Levi detected a sudden apprehension amongst the guards as the big doors through which they’d just entered were opened again.
‘Achtung!’ A dozen guards doubled out from the main guardhouse and formed up, rifles at the ready.
‘Heil Hitler!’ The guard commander snapped to attention, his right arm thrust forward in salute, as von Hei?en’s black Mercedes swept into the courtyard. Von Hei?en alighted, acknowledged the salute from his adjutant and strolled over to the group of prisoners, habitually tapping his leather cane against his knee-high boots. He slowly wandered down the line, and then stopped in front of Ariel, who had one hand in his pocket.
‘What have you got in your pocket, boy?’
Ariel stared at the ground, not answering, his bottom lip quivering. Von Hei?en levered Ariel’s chin up with his cane. ‘Give it to me!’
Levi moved to protect his son, but von Hei?en lashed out with his cane and a guard slammed Levi back into the wall.
‘I said, give it to me, boy!’
Ariel, tears welling in his eyes, handed over one of the maps he’d concealed in his pocket, the one with the bearings superimposed over Lake Atitlan. ‘So, what do we have here?’ von Hei?en demanded, turning his attention to Levi.
‘A child’s drawing,’ Levi responded quietly.
‘Liar!’ Von Hei?en slashed Levi’s face again and Ramona began to sob.
‘You dare defy the Third Reich? Sturmscharfuhrer! ’
‘ Obersturmbannfuhrer! ’ The short, dumpy senior NCO clicked his heels together. His uniform was stretched against his barrel-like form, his collar straining to contain thick purple jowls. Sturmscharfuhrer Schmidt had been specially selected for the appointment as Mauthausen Camp Sergeant Major, not least for his vicious hatred of the Jews. In over twenty-five years in the Wehrmacht, and now in the SS prison guard ‘Death’s Head’ division, Schmidt had never seen a shot fired in anger. Incapable of original thought, the sadistic and subservient Schmidt was determined to keep it that way. He was hated by prisoners and guards alike, but he had qualities von Hei?en found useful.
‘Take this scum to the guard barracks and have them clean the latrines.’
‘Jawohl, Obersturmbannfuhrer!’
Von Hei?en pushed his cane under Levi’s chin again. ‘And you will clean the latrines until they sparkle. It will give you time to think about being a little more cooperative.’ Von Hei?en turned on the heel of his immaculately polished boot and strode away.
Schmidt marched the ragged column up the steps at the end of the cloisters and on towards the main entrance of the prisoner compound, where two massive stone towers stood sentinel on either side of the gate. Levi looked to the left. Men and women were chipping rocks from the face of a granite cliff and carrying them to large wooden hoppers. Several women were straining to push a full hopper, their screams carrying across the quarry when a guard bashed them with a heavy wooden club. Beyond the women, men were carrying large rocks on their shoulders, forced at gunpoint to run up a steep granite staircase that led to a cliff.
The guards shoved Levi and the rest of the group into the barrack-room toilet. A vile stink permeated the air.
‘Most appropriate, don’t you think?’ Schmidt sneered. Ariel coughed and held his nose. ‘Jewish Scheisse cleaning SS Scheissen-hauser!’ Schmidt’s laugh was harsh and he manhandled Levi towards one of the open cubicles. The stench was overpowering. Schmidt grabbed Levi by the neck and shoved his head into the bowl. He yanked the chain and reeking faeces cascaded through Levi’s hair and up his nose.
Levi fell back and vomited.
‘My tallit, Levi. They made me clean the toilet with my prayer shawl,’ Ramona sobbed quietly as they were marched back towards an empty barrack block.
‘ Lichte lochen. Lights out,’ Scharfuhrer Schaub growled, and he flicked the switch. Levi had assessed the young German corporal as being one of the few decent guards he’d encountered during their arrest, so he was surprised when Schaub approached his bunk.
‘You! Outside!’
Emotionally and physically exhausted, Levi offered no resistance when Schaub shoved him towards the door, closing it behind them once they were outside the barrack block.
‘We don’t have much time, so listen carefully,’ Schaub said quietly, dragging Levi out of the circle of light thrown by a naked bulb hanging above the barrack-room door. ‘I’m sorry for what you’re going through. We’ll try to get you out as soon as we can; but it’s too dangerous at the moment, although we’re working on a plan for the children. If Ariel and Rebekkah are transferred to laundry duties, don’t try to keep them with you, and tell them to do exactly as they’re told.’
‘How do you know their names… Who are you?’ Levi asked, struggling to comprehend the message from the SS guard.
‘That doesn’t matter. The Jewish Agency in Istanbul is all you need to know.’
The door to the barracks on the opposite side of the compound suddenly opened.
Levi winced as Schaub struck him across the face. ‘You Jewish scum! What are you doing outside after lights out? Get back inside!’