I Am Juden Read online

‘Perhaps,’ I lied.

  ‘It’ll pass, you know.’

  He asked if he was intruding; I shrugged, backed up against the wall on my plump pillow and picked lint from my sheet.

  ‘Talk about being thrown in at the deep-end.’ Zgismond turned the chair from my desk and sat at the foot of my bed. ‘Julius should never have sent Joziek in his condition. His nose was redder than a baboon’s backside.’

  It took a few seconds to realise that Julius was Herr Ritter. I’d never heard his first name spoken before.

  ‘He’s very proud of you.’

  ‘Pride,’ I scoffed, releasing a handful of lint to stream through the dusk.

  ‘It might not feel like it, but you’ve done a great thing today. When we get out of this mess, you’ll never have to buy a meal again, the way those people downstairs feel.’

  ‘To think that they’re… celebrating?’ I said. ‘Makes me feel even sicker to be honest.’

  ‘They’re enormously thankful for what they have here, it’s not the same thing. Everyone’s got loved ones beyond this forest. As of tonight, we’re all prisoners.’

  ‘Some have bigger cells than others.’

  ‘Not for too much longer,’ he said. ‘Moda can take in a lot more, and we will. Measures are already underway. But it comes at a price. As you know.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

  ‘I’m sorry I have to ask but we need to know. Did Lohse say anything else?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The conditions. Pampered poodles, or the like.’

  I tried to wave it off. ‘That was a joke with Herr Ritter before he’d even set foot inside the building.’

  ‘Precisely. Lohse’s never been here, so that means we’ve got a reputation beyond the quality of our goods, and that’s not good for anybody.’

  ‘He didn’t see a soul outside of the fitting room.’

  ‘Old man Bau didn’t limp out of his cupboard?’

  I smiled, despite myself. ‘He did not.’

  ‘No more comments we need to know about, you’re sure?’

  ‘On a day like this, you’re worried about your reputation? About what kind of show you put on?’

  Zgismond’s talk horrified me. Labour camps had been operational in Germany since the mid-1930s. The Nazi press liked to gloat how they’d fooled the International Red Cross on inspections of the likes of Esterwegen, Oranienberg and Dachau by painting and renovating, planting trees and flower beds and staging football matches between convicts. Inmates were coached on what to say to IRC delegates, and too terrified to reveal the truth about the hunger and the beatings. Camp Moda was no Dachau, but our levels of deceit today had been on a par, even if this time it was to trick the Nazis themselves. But we had our own Nazi in charge, the elusive Gertenberg. It made no sense.

  I said, ‘Where is the Chaze tonight?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Did he even know about Lohse’s visit?’

  ‘He arranged it.’

  ‘Yet he was not here in person to receive his superior.’

  ‘What’s on your mind, Jozef? Come out and say it.’

  ‘Did he know what you were up to? Closing the bedrooms, the canteen substitutions?’

  ‘You think Ritter could have authorised any of that himself? He’s only the foreman.’

  ‘Then I don’t understand. Why would the Hauptsturmführer risk everything – his life – for us?’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself, comrade. Gerternberg’s only loyalty is to his bank account. He’s a businessman first and foremost. When Stalin wins this war, the Chaze’ll be churning out fur caps in Vladivostok. Play your cards right and you might be fitting out the Politburo for new boots. Or you can sulk and find yourself out of a job.’

  ‘That almost sounds like a threat.’

  Zgismond smiled, rose to his feet and neatly tucked the chair under the desk.

  In an attempt to clear my head after Zgismond had left – it was the closest I’d come to an argument at Moda – I left the building for one of my solitary perambulations around the perimeter fence. I confess, had I found a hole in the wire that night, I might have slipped away. But in the end, my fate was sealed by a discovery of a very different nature.

  I walked to the western end of the accommodation block, keeping my distance from the soldiers on the other side of the fence. They had no need to stray beyond their garrison huts, and the back of the factory was mine to roam. As long as inmates were in bedrooms by Lights Out, our movement was largely unrestricted – another luxury of the camp I had taken for granted.

  It didn’t take much pumping of oxygen to the brain to realise how shamefully I’d acted. Oswald Zgismond had come to me in kindness and compassion, but I was too adrift in a fog of self-pity to see, convinced that having spent twenty minutes measuring the hairy toes of a high-ranking Nazi was the utmost sacrifice a man could make. While Zgismond tried to absolve my conscience, I’d moped on my bed, sighing and fluttering my eyelids like an imperious high school princess. Worse still, I had been deliberately obtuse, accusing my co-workers of celebrating in the canteen when I knew the opposite to be true. The fool who goes looking for an argument with a friend is an even bigger putz if he claims victory on finding one. I owed Oswald an apology. He’d been right about the Chaze, too. Everyone knew of his gambling habits and addictions to the high-life: a man of those weaknesses would do anything to cover his tracks. If Gertenberg was prepared to lie to his own wife, the deceit he’d practised upon Hinrish Lohse was small-fry.

  The only comment of Zgismond’s that still left me uneasy was his parting shot. Was my lack of experience really so obvious that I had been rumbled? However well Messrs’ Zygot and Donelaitis had trained me, I couldn’t hope to compete with some of the finest artisans in Eastern Europe, men who’d had the craft handed down by fathers and grandfathers. Yet Julius Ritter had chosen me this afternoon. Why? Ungrateful as it seems, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Hinrich Lohse wasn’t the only one to have had the truth concealed from his eyes. I made up my mind to track down Zgismond before lights out, not to offer my fists but to seek answers.

  In the meantime, I was lost. I’d strayed beyond the buildings’ glare into untamed wilds of overgrowth, with only moonlight to guide me. Up ahead, about ten metres from the fence was a clearing in the trees and what looked like a free-standing brick wall, covered with leaves and twine. Intrigued, I approached, trampling a path through the spongy floor.

  The wall had a thick roof along the top and wasn’t a wall at all, but a series of fronts concealing a network of narrow trenches with coffin-shaped portals built into the brick. It was an air-raid shelter from the Great War, when the factory was producing steel cable. As I stood at the opening of the main passageway, wide enough for single file entry, I wondered if I was the first person to explore since the plant had ceased production. I squeezed between the mossy walls, my mind racing with memories of H. Rider Haggard stories, intrepid explorers of lost temples, painted faces hidden between cracks, blowpipes poised.

  I struck a match and entered. The shelters themselves were empty except for things that scuttled in the dust. I passed through the cold and clammy chambers, one after another, enough to accommodate the entire cable workforce in its heyday. I was nearing the thin column of light at the far exit when my shin collided with something soft but substantial on the floor, like a padded armchair. Another match flaring in my hand, I stepped back and peered down at an upright battered suitcase. There were two others behind it, standing the same way, as if patiently awaiting their owner in Lost Property.

  I tried lifting the handle of the one I’d walked into but it was far heavier than a box of clothes had any right to be. I could feel the contents sifting back into place as I let the case sag to the floor. It sounded like a hoard of hardware, screws and nails. There was a chalk inscription on the side of the case, a name I had not heard before:

  HAHN Irene, DOB 1929

  The other two cases were marked the same wa
y, hand-printed in chalk, presumably by the owners :

  EMIL HUBSCHEIN 4632

  WAISENKIND HANA FUCHS 13. JULY 1941

  This last case dated from only a month ago.

  None of the names were familiar as Moda prisoners, although of course I did not know everybody. I couldn’t understand for a moment why Irene or Emil would have left full cases out here with the beetles and rats, even if they’d arrived at the camp fully laden, which almost nobody did. Like me, most inmates had been brought in from other work-details, or snatched off the streets with no more belongings than the contents of their pockets.

  On my knees, I lowered Hana Waisenkind’s case to its side and tried the brass buckle.

  It wasn’t locked.

  I lifted the lid, revealing a jumble of discarded wealth, more than one person could possibly have owned, unless Hana was a princess. More money than I had seen in my lifetime: gold and silver coins, bank notes, stocks, certificates, foreign currency, real estate assets, ear and finger rings, necklaces, spectacles, bracelets, watch-cases, lockets. I estimated I was gazing at the combined loot of a hundred different Jews.

  The other suitcases were filled the same way.

  Supper was over when I returned, the barrack landings busy as a tenement fire escape in July, neighbours exchanging gripes for gossip before bed. I made straight for my room, unable to look a fellow prisoner in the eye.

  My mind was a jangling bag of billiard balls that night, one thought constantly knocking into the other. Who did all that jewellery and paperwork belong to? Why was it hidden? Who were Irene and Emil and Hana? After hours of twisting my sheets into damp knots, I resolved to take the only course of action available: to check the air-raid shelter again at first light, when I could see clearly. There had to be something I’d missed, a sign or notice that would explain. No point jumping to wild conclusions based on one moment of moonlit madness. Partly mollified, or at least soothed by the semblance of consolation, my mind was able to settle and still. Cooling sleep anaesthetised me a little after three o’clock.

  I snored straight through the siren, and awoke to the sounds of the barracks performing its morning ablutions, rushing water and hissing steam from the bathrooms. I had missed my chance to slip out to the shelter before breakfast. Providing I could stop myself from blabbing about what I’d seen, the earliest I’d be able to return was dusk, in the lull between supper and lights out. It was going to be a long day.

  I stepped out of my room and almost walked into a neat pile of striped clothing that had been left outside. Glancing down the corridor, I noticed Ronen’s door also had a pile outside, as yet untouched. While I stood there scratching my head, Elise Trachten came out of the women’s bathroom at the far end, dressed in a brand new black and white striped smock.

  I grabbed my pile of clothes and jumped back inside. Vest, trousers, hat and coat: I laid them out on my bed in disbelief. From my window I saw a stream of Jews walking to breakfast, all dressed in the same stripes. I donned my new uniform and followed them out.

  More changes were afoot in the canteen. Only porridge and water were served. Not one of my table of clickers commented or looked remotely disappointed; it was as if everybody but me knew what was going on. Perhaps they did. After my grilling last night about Hinrich Lohse’s ‘pampered poodles’, Oswald Zgismond had returned to supper, where the workers were still coming to terms with the news of the Kaunas Ghetto. I later learned that a collective decision had been made, and I was now witnessing the consequences. In the interests of collective self-protection, Ernst Bau had led a successful petition for a harsher regime, surely an unprecedented move in the history of penal servitude.

  From now on, every day would be inspection day.

  I was careful not to point out that the fortune stashed in our air-raid shelter could have bought us all breakfast at the Narutis Hotel, for the rest of our lives.

  At twelve o’clock I learned from my supervisor that Herr Ritter wanted a word with me before lunch, as he had the previous day, when he gave news of Hinrich Lohse’s arrival. This time, I was to report directly to his office on the first floor of the Admin Block. Wondering if there had been an overnight adjustment to Lohse’s order, I made my way through the insistent rhythms of the factory’s machines to climb the oak staircase, pass under the painted window and into the grand turquoise room I’d first glimpsed with Ronen Kesselman.

  The typewriters were idle; the secretaries took their lunch earlier than the rest of us.

  Herr Ritter was not at his desk either either, but the frosted glass ‘Herr Direktor’ door in the corner was open. I could hear voices from the inner sanctum. As I approached along the strip of scarlet carpet along the wall, a voice bid me to enter.

  Compared with the bright, lavishly appointed room where Ritter and the secretaries worked, the Chaze’s office was little more than a closet. Ritter was scrawling notes on a piece of typed paper at a small table in front of the window while Oswald Zgismond stood clutching a black file at his side, next to a bust of Adolf Hitler. Behind him on the wall were two maps of Europe. The only other décor of note in the drab office was a black SS jacket discarded on the back of a leather armchair in the corner. Zgismond remained standing, but gestured for me to take a seat opposite Herr Ritter.

  ‘So,’ the old man said, finally laying his pen down. He raised a bunched handkerchief to his nose and wiped the tip. ‘What is it you’d like to ask first?’

  I stammered, all bluster.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ Herr Ritter coaxed. ‘You’re amongst friends.’

  ‘Now I really am worried.’ I grinned, looking from one to the other for signs of a well-wrought joke. ‘I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Sir.’

  ‘Look,’ Ritter said. ‘You’ve been here long enough, I don’t doubt for a second that you’ve preserved your integrity with the rest of the workers. But this is an opportunity for you to discover the truth.

  ‘About the new uniform?’

  ‘About the suitcases,’ Zgismond said. ‘We know where you went last night, Jozef. And we’d like to set the record straight.’

  Blood pulsed against my ear-drums and the room flashed black on white, like a reverse negative. I nodded and pushed back against my chair, appraising the two again in the light of Zgismond’s transparency. The time for duplicity was over, on all sides.

  ‘Alright,’ I said. ‘I realise I’m in no position to make demands, but I’d certainly like to know what’s going on.’

  Herr Ritter went first. ‘The contents of those suitcases were legally obtained, every last ear-ring and necklace. You must understand that.’

  ‘I saw ‘legal obtaining’ in Lukiskis,’ I said. ‘And it wasn’t pretty.’

  ‘This is different,’ Zgismond said. I couldn’t stop myself from scoffing at the distinction. ‘Everything you saw in the shelter was the result of police raids after deadlines to hand over property had expired. Due process was followed every step of the way. Nobody’s allowed to keep this stuff anymore, you know that. Lithuanians, Poles, Jews…’

  ‘So where did you get it?’

  Behind me, a closet door opened and I heard the soft click of a light switch cord.

  ‘From me,’ the Chaze said, walking out, drying his hands on a small towel. I tried rising to me feet, but he stopped me. ‘Sit, sit. You’re our special guest.’

  The three of them smiled at that. I suspected I was about to have my throat cut.

  The Chaze had put on weight since his birthday, and it wasn’t sitting well on him. Already a big man, there was a weariness in his limbs this afternoon, as if they were finding the strain all too much.

  ‘Believe me, there’s more diamonds sloshing around in Tuskulenai Manor than anyone knows what to do with,’ the Chaze said, slowly circling the table. ‘So I helped myself to a couple of cases, big deal. You think running an operation like this comes cheap?’

  He paused behind my chair, hands on my shoulders. The perfume of leathe
r and spice was more pungent than ever, but it was mixed now with the rank odour of his sweat, and something deeper, riper.

  ‘Any idea how much vodka alone it takes to keep those soldiers on the other side of that fence? How much I have to spend on birthday presents to keep the Armoury Inspectors from making a day-trip out the city?’

  Releasing my shoulders, he began to circle again. ‘You think you’ve paid a price to keep this going, well guess what, we all have. This is a good thing, for everybody. If you don’t want a place here anymore, all you’ve got to do is say the word. Fine, no problem, I can pick up ten more like you before supper. But if you’re here, and you’re working for me, you cannot have any second misgivings. Are we clear?’

  ‘Clear,’ I said.

  Herr Ritter looked up at the big man, stopped behind the armchair in the corner. They really were a strange pair: the Bird and the Bear.

  ‘There are over a hundred lives at stake in this camp,’ Ritter said, dabbing the white drip on his nose. ‘And we’re expanding all the time, bringing in whole families where we can. After yesterday, quicker than ever, I’d imagine. Let us help you, Jozef.’

  ‘Yes,’ the Chaze said, ‘Help. That’s what I’m talking about.’ He removed his Hauptsturmführer’s jacket from the chair and began buttoning up in front of the mirror on the back of the door.

  ‘My family are in Poland,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing to be done.’

  ‘Let us help you,’ Ritter said, correcting his emphasis. ‘Help you to help us. And I mean more than carrying out bespoke shoe fittings, although you certainly earned your keep in that regard.’

  ‘Lohse’s very impressed,’ the Chaze said, squaring his chin while buttoning his collar. ‘Called me personally. The sneezer not so much. He’s on the fast train to base-camp.’

  Base-camp meant Stuthof, the nearest concentration camp in northern Poland. I hoped he was joking.

  ‘With your looks, and your fluency of the language,’ Herr Ritter said. ‘You could pass for anybody.’

  ‘I’d say he’s already proved that.’ The Chaze poked a pick between his crooked incisors in the mirror. ‘Ten years at the University of Kiel. Not bad for a humble cobbler.’