I Am Juden Read online

  As Joziek explained the intricacies, I was alarmed to see my guide’s eyes grow watery and his nose require the constant ministrations of the tissue he kept up his sleeve. I hoped it was only the heat that was provoking him. I suggested we step back into the shadows to cool down.

  Joziek’s lips curled in derision and for the first time I heard a distinctly adenoidal twang as he said, ‘Do you suffer from hay fever or something?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Well then,’ he said, with an emphatic blow of his nose. ‘If I can stick it out, so can you.’ Above us, I heard a window frame swing and click shut. ‘Besides I don’t think we’ve got long to wait.’

  A minute later Herr Ritter appeared on the cream steps behind us and we stood to attention as the perimeter gate opened and the silver shark of a sleek, finned Tatra 87 sped down the slope.

  Crunching to a stop under the flagpole, the driver removed a long wooden stick from the trunk at the front – the air-cooled V8 engine was mounted at the rear, beneath its fin – and proceeded to help his passenger out, via the ignominious loaning of his own arm and shoulder together with the stick. Herr Ritter pushed past us cursing to hold open the door.

  The Fat Führer had not aged well in the years since I had left Germany. Where many men acquired a dignified gauntness in their late fifties, the Commissar’s cheeks had continued to plump. The hair at his temples was razored to the point of invisibilty, but piled suspiciously high on his head in a pompadour that reminded me of a baby’s frilled bonnet perched upon his brow. The toothbrush moustache had lost a few more bristles, and could now be mistaken as a shadow of his unimpressive nose.

  Despite these ravages, the man had never looked happier. In place of his usual doleful pout, his lips were smiling, an unusual arrangement. More alarming than his seeming inability to hobble without a stick, was the fact that the Commissar appeared to have grown two inches in height.

  The problem with his foot, I learned from his salutary exchange with Herr Ritter, was only temporary in nature, and paradoxically explained the reason for his good cheer, if not his gain in stature. En route from Kaunas this morning, the Commissar had stopped at a friend’s villa to shoot Red Grouse, and bagged a brace for evening supper. While returning from the fields, the party’s Lithuanian groundsman had happened to mention a Jewish partisan who was rumoured to be hiding nearby and stealing chicken eggs. Having succeeded with the gamebirds, the Germans considered themselves sharpened for a spot of Jew-hunting, and spent the next hour stalking through the corn. Once more, they bagged their quarry, an adolescent boy in rags who fell out of a tree and broke his neck after being winged by the Commissar’s shotgun.

  ‘Sprained my ankle in the heat of the battle,’ he told Herr Ritter, shrugging off his driver’s yoke and limping towards us. ‘Damned nuisance, second time this year I’ve gone over on it.’ He grinned, wheezing through small teeth. ‘Worth every minute, though, most fun I’ve had since Nuremberg.’

  ‘I trust you’ll be leaving your Krieghoff in the car this afternoon,’ Herr Ritter joked.

  ‘You know damn well I’m no trigger-happy thug. In fact, I’ve gone on record that the manner of these executions we hear about on the Eastern Front simply cannot be justified.’ The Commissar stopped in front of Joziek and I, putting his stick down squarely on my foot, pinning my little toe under its rubber stopper. I resisted the urge to squirm.

  He said, ‘Where is the sense in the destruction of manpower that could aid the war economy?’

  Once an accountant, always an accountant.

  ‘After all,’ he said, ‘Who’d make our shoes then? Fear not, Ritter, your pampered poodles are safe.’

  With that, he released me. Joziek and I followed them in. I tried to get another look at the Commissar’s height to disprove the notion he had grown, but he was already limping up the steps, and when we entered the reception lobby, Herr Ritter was leading him into the ground floor fitting room, and once inside, he was seated. The room was bedecked in the time-honoured fashion with previous clients’ lasts, in much the same way that an upmarket restaurant displays photographs of esteemed customers upon the walls. Hinrich Lohse’s moulds would no doubt be taking pride of place.

  There followed a couple more minutes of small talk, during which the Commissar spoke of his children, and bemoaned the fact that his new Ostland responsibilities kept him away from the family home. He was particularly disappointed to be missing this week, when the children were expected to harvest their crop of green peppers. The Commissar had built them a three-foot square garden box, based on exciting new horticultural theories of economy. Three square feet, he crowed, warming to the theme, one of the simplest lessons a father could teach his child, and one that would improve any German’s lot in life. Herr Ritter excused himself during a lull in the gardening conversation; I had been advised he would watch through the one-way full-length mirror.

  After a meek young girl in plaits had taken the Commissar’s drink order (Earl Grey tea, slice of lemon, warmed thimble of milk), Joziek removed a pair of Adelaide brogues for inspection, and proceeded to get down to business, describing the quality of the finish as the German turned the shoes over in his lap, all trace of the nasal congestion gone now we were inside.

  ‘You will see the shoe shape is refined and elegant, with an accentuated waist. The waist shape under the arch is highly pared back; not only elegant but also likely to be highly supportive to the arch of the foot. The welt is nicely bevelled, while within the waist it is pared almost flush with the upper up to the junction of the welt and the heel. The heels are pitched inwards.’

  The Commissar nodded along, as impressed with the supple course of Joziek’s words as he was with the leatherwork. I could see why Herr Ritter had chosen him as my mentor.

  Joziek continued. ‘The uppers are very finely sewn, and great care has been taken in the design and finish, such that the lines seem to flow through the shoe harmoniously – the downward curve of the vamp, for instance, coincides exactly with the position of the heel, and so on. Turning the shoe over, you may find – as might be expected – that it has a channelled welt, and there is a prominent fiddleback to the waist.’

  ‘I’ll take them,’ the Commissar said, struggling to his feet. ‘Do you have a size nine?’

  Joziek chuckled nervously. ‘Very good, sir.’

  But Lohse wasn’t joking. We’d never thought to ask if he had attended a shoe fitting before. Evidently the old bean-counter had not. He expected to walk away this afternoon with a box under his arms as if he’d bought them over the counter at Batas.

  ‘Herr Ritter has details of my account. Might as well take two pairs while I’m here.’ The Commissar thrust the shoes at Joziek, who was too stunned to take them. His considerable gift of the gab had deserted him and he stood there, mouth flapping.

  ‘I see the Commissar’s sense of humour is as sharp as ever,’ I said, committing all three of Herr Ritter’s sins – moving, speaking, and even touching the great man as I relieved him of the inspection shoes. ‘If you’d like to make yourself comfortable, my colleague will remove your boots and begin measuring your feet.’

  Lohse stared red-faced at my intrusion, nose twitching. I half expected Herr Ritter himself to come crashing through the mirror.

  I blundered on. ‘We should have you out of here in fifteen to twenty-minutes, sir, no longer.’

  Eventually the Commissar grumbled his acquiescence.

  ‘I thought you Jews were meant to have a sense of humour,’ he bristled, doing a good job of passing off embarrassment as indignation. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

  I retreated and tried to make myself invisible while Joziek assembled his measuring tools. He knelt at the man’s feet and began unbuckling his calf-high jackboots. I thought he was working in a very sensitive manner, but the Commissar grew visibly uncomfortable with his efforts, would not sit still, and twice insisted on removing the boots himself, but Joziek apologised and insisted on trying ag
ain. It was during these remonstrations that I heard the adendoidal twang return to Joziek’s voice.

  I strained to look over my mentor’s shoulders. The angle of the ceiling’s lampshade was just right to allow me to see what Joziek could not: the right length of Lohse’s black trousers was stained with dusty yellow pollen, from his exploits in the corn-fields. Joziek’s nose was inches away.

  I watched as his poor eyes began to water. He had to stop unbuckling the boots to wipe away the tears, and then he started to sniff, three, four times, each one growing louder.

  The last thing I remember seeing was Joziek’s face undergo a seismic eruption, seemingly sucking into itself before exploding in a shower of phlegm. His hands jerked up instinctively to catch, but to no avail. A string of mucus shot through his fingers and splatted the centre of the German’s left boot.

  ‘Good God, man,’ Lohse roared, with no sense yet of the scale of the insult to his footwear. ‘I didn’t come here to catch your filthy germs!’

  It didn’t take him long to realise he’d caught a lot more than that. He endeavoured to lean forward and peer past his stomach to his boots, and I watched the Commissar’s face turn purple as the green blob trembled on his shin, and then start to slide.

  But my eyes were drawn down the length of the leather, to the bottom of the Commissar’s boot, where an odd wedge-shaped obstruction was lodged under his heel. No wonder he had sprained his ankle: the man was walking around with what looked like a child’s wooden brick trapped under his foot! When I craned my neck to check the other boot, I saw a second triangular block in exactly the same position, and I realised what I was looking at. I had seen this kind of amateur heel-lift before, on the counter of Mr. Zygot’s counter in my mother’s shop in Cracow.

  Spititng profanities, the Reich Commissar fumbled for the pistol holstered at his waist, but the folds of his stomach were preventing its release and he could not stand up without his walking stick, which had been placed in the umbrella stand. It was this impotent delay that saved Joziek Seidel’s life.

  ‘Herr Lohse, sir.’ I knelt at his side and raised my hands in supplication. He swiped them away like a bear.

  ‘Never. In. All. My. Life - ’

  I put my wrists together to block his blows and stood my ground. ‘I think I know why you keeping spraining your ankle, sir.’

  His fingers paused at the holster. ‘How could you possibly know?’

  ‘Your boots, sir. I believe they may be dangerous.’

  ‘Dangerous!’

  ‘With your permission, if I may ask my colleague to give us the room, I would wish to speak to you about your heels.’

  It was only when I made reference to the heels - his most shameful of secrets - that the Commissar’s fight left him like a bull stunned by a cattle-prod.

  ‘In the strictest confidence, of course,’ I added.

  ‘He’d better get out before I bash his filthy nose in.’

  ‘Seidel,’ I said. ‘Outside. Now.’

  When I opened to door to eject him, Herr Ritter was seething against the oak panel, miming a string of invective worse than the German’s. I re-entered the room, removed the walking stick from the umbrella stand and handed it to the Reich Commissar, in case he felt more comfortable a weapon in his hand.

  ‘Let me just wipe this clean,’ I said, mopping the mucus up in my handkerchief. ‘Hayfever, sir, nothing contagious I can assure you. Now, I have a confession to make, Commissar.’

  I tossed the handkerchief in the waste-paper basket and began to pace the room.

  ‘I have not always been a shoe-maker. For ten years I worked as a teacher in the fair city of Kiel, in Schleswig-Holstein. I only mention this, because during my time, I became familiar with seeing your good self in the newspapers and news reels. And I was a little taken aback when I saw you again today, and confess I wasn’t sure it could be the same person. I am bracing myself for a blow at this point, sir, but would I be correct in suggesting you have gained two or perhaps three inches of height in recent weeks?’ Before waiting for an answer, I dropped to my knees in front of him and said, ‘Your boot – may I?’

  Now he was relaxed, the boot slipped off like Cinderella’s slipper.

  ‘Just as I thought,’ I said, holding up the offending heel. ‘I cannot say who fitted this sir, but I would hazard it was not a professional shoe-maker. Such height-enhancing lifts are a common cause of foot pain and injury. Anything inserted above ½” will mean that the heel is not held firmly in place by the boot, and the wearer will tend to walk ‘out of the shoe’, if you understand my expression?’

  ‘Out of the shoe, yes. That sounds right. I thought it was just a case of getting used to the extra height.’

  ‘It is common for the wearer of such lifts to be prone to spraining or even breaking an ankle after losing control. The ankle will roll to the side with the foot tucked underneath.’

  ‘That’s exactly what happened today, yes. I knew I wasn’t that badly out of shape.’

  ‘Any shoe-maker worth his salt knows that inserts which add more than ½” of apparent height should be avoided, sir, due to this very risk.’

  ‘You can remove them?’

  ‘Of course.’ It wasn’t difficult: the lift came away in my hand. ‘And if the Commissar cared for my colleague to continue his measurements, we could see to it that your new shoes were specifically designed to accommodate such an additional height. The trick is to raise the full foot rather than just the heel, and to use a heel-cup and side support to keep the heel in place while adding height.’

  ‘You can do all this here, on site?’

  ‘Certainly, sir. It may take a week or perhaps longer, but I guarantee you will never walk more proudly, comfortably or indeed more safely.’

  ‘Splendid.’ He placed his other leg up on a chair for me to remove the lift. ‘I daresay I could have a pair of these things made the same way?’

  ‘Any shoes or boots you desired, sir. I’m afraid you would need to enquire the price from Herr Ritter, for it would be a little higher, given the additional and specialist nature of the work.’

  ‘You will personally oversee it?’

  ‘It would be an honour, sir, to assist the Oberprasident of my former dearly-beloved province.’ I paused at the door, inclining my head, weary from obsequiousness.

  ‘Just you, mind,’ he said. ‘I can’t have any Tom, Dick or Harry knowing my particulars.’

  I released my grip on the door handle. ‘Forgive my confusion, sir. Would you prefer I didn’t call my colleague back into the room?’

  ‘To have him sneeze all over me again? What did we just agree, that you would personally oversee the work. Or am I losing my sanity as well as my wallet here?’

  ‘Of course not, sir. As agreed.’

  I turned to collect my thoughts along with Seidel’s tape measure, shrugging helplessly into the mirror for the benefit of Herr Ritter.

  And that was how, on the afternoon of August 16th, 1941, I came to perform my first bespoke shoe fitting, a pair of height-adjusted Adelaide brogues for the Reich Commissar of the newly ordained Ostland region.

  Within hours of Lohse’s departure, word spread from the Camp’s radios of the real reason for his presence in Kovno the previous day.

  On the morning of August 15th, the Reich Commissar announced a raft of new anti-Jewish directives which made the initial purge of the interim LAF government seem restrained in comparison. Effective immediately, all Baltic Jews were required to wear not one star but two, on the chest and now back; not to use any public transport; not to visit parks, playgrounds, theatres, cinemas, libraries or museums; not to own cars or radio sets.

  But more than this, it was the first we’d heard of mandatory Ghettos outside of Poland. In the space of one day, twenty-four hours before leaving for his grouse hunt and shoe fitting, the Commissar had personally overseen the removal of the twenty-six thousand surviving Jews of Kovno from their homes to the small suburb of Vilampole, in which, hencef
orth, they were to be confined. All Jewish property outside the designated Ghetto area was to be confiscated. The amount of living space that each Jew was to be allowed?

  Three square feet, the same as Hinrich Lohse’s children’s garden box.

  6

  While my co-workers sought solace in each other’s company downstairs that evening, I retreated to my bedroom. The extra supper originally conceived as recompense for the Reich Commissar’s visit had turned into a wake for the Baltic brothers and sisters caught up in yesterday’s resettlement and I wanted no part of it. The more Herr Ritter attempted to strengthen my position within the Camp, the less I felt I belonged. I had not survived five years of Nazi persecution to become their glorified wardrobe consultant.

  Yet in my heart, I knew that was the only role I could play.

  Abba Kovner offered me a chance to fight when he showed up at our kitchen table in Pilies Street, and I’d sent him away with grandstanding talk of pacifism. My failure to act had cost me dearly, with the flight of Shoshana. Her photograph on the shelf above my desk was starting to fade. Soon I would be entirely alone in the world, and I deserved every minute of it.

  I was rescued from maudlin iterations by a knock at the door. My neighbour Ronen, I supposed, come for the lap-dog’s report.

  But it was the lofty, tousled head of Oswald Zgismond that poked round the top of the frame.

  ‘The man of the hour,’ he said. ‘Will you be joining us later?’