I Am Juden Read online

  We reached the wooden perimeter fence and drove round until coming to a thick-legged watchtower. If there was a guard in there, I couldn’t see one. A little further along, the truck slowed to a stop and I heard our driver speaking to men outside. Jumping over to a far window, I prised the fabric apart and squinted through. A dozen Lithuanian soldiers lined along the fence, three SS smoking at a folding table behind them.

  ‘Well?’ Ronen couldn’t bring himself to look. ‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’

  ‘Hard to say. Barbed wire and soldiers.’

  Ronen let out a low moan, which I was unable to console.

  The truck was on the move again. We were leaving the garrison behind, entering the compound. The gates were pulled shut behind us; the soldiers on the other side.

  We drove half a mile along a smooth tree-lined track, towards the fluttering flag. Emerging into the open, the driver took us forward and looped round a sad grass roundabout in the middle of a concrete lot, stopping under the flagpole. Finally I saw the camp in its utilitarian entirety.

  On the left of the cluster was a cubed block that I took to be SS bunks, from the circle of broad-backed officers chatting outside. Next to the accommodation were five individual red-brick units linked by a zigzag of saw-tooth roofs with glass sides. Behind them was the chimney I had spied earlier, dwarfed by the backdrop of towering trees. On the right was the most impressive structure of the lot, low but very long. At three hundred yards, it was twice the length of the other two buildings combined. Unlike the SS bunks, this brick snake comprised of only one floor, deep, spacious and bright thanks to the bank of skylights that ran the entirety of the sloping roof. It looked like it had once been some kind of factory.

  The driver opened the wooden doors. Neither of us moved.

  ‘Out!’

  I rose from my bench, hand outstretched to Ronen, whose shoulders appeared stuck to the tarpaulin. Eventually he grasped my fingers and I pulled him towards the doors. We stumbled out into harsh sunlight.

  Instead of being ordered onto our knees to be killed, we were left to stand blinking while the driver hurried away into the shadows. He paused at the top of five cream coloured steps, framed between two supporting columns under the zigzag roofs in the centre of the complex.

  ‘This way,’ he called. ‘Quickly.’

  Again Ronen refused to move.

  ‘We’re safe.’ I mustered all my conviction and continued. ‘Look where we’re going. Nobody gets executed inside a building with Doric columns.’

  ‘So what do they want?’

  ‘I don’t know. Information.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About anything they choose, as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘They’ll let us go.’

  Surprised as I was by my own facility with fiction, nothing prepared me for what we found at the top of those five cream steps. For a second I was back in my old Faculty at Kiel, ensconced behind stained glass and oak staircases. The marble lobby must have been where the factory owner brought clients when he needed to make the best impression. Now it was a couple of shabby Jewish shoemakers being escorted up the hand carved bannisters by a Wilno prison guard.

  I paused, trying to decide why my feet felt so strange. They no longer ached. I looked down: a thick red carpet was tacked to the steps. I hadn’t walked on such luxury for many months.

  ‘Stop dawdling,’ the guard shouted. ‘I haven’t got all day.’

  I followed up towards the light from the elegant painted window that crowned a wide double-doorway, paneled with frosted glass. The door was left open for Ronen and I to enter.

  The room was wide, tall and turquoise, and had it overlooked the French Riviera, the arched windows could not have transmitted a greater sense of vivacity. Between the curved glass, the walls were wood-paneled, dark brown column-bases rising to vanilla porticos across the ceilings. The fittings resembled the architecture of a sumptuous chocolate cake. Parquet tiles accounted for four-fifths of the floor, upon which three uncluttered desks lay in parallel slants. The fifth strip was given over to a strip of scarlet carpet along the right wall, delivering us to the far corner where a birdlike silver-haired man with a limp bow-tie and a grey cardigan stood at a large desk, right arm raised in salute as our driver approached.

  ‘You’re late,’ the man said in German, his voice thin and reedy. Behind him was a frosted glass door with a ‘Herr Direktor’ brass plaque.

  ‘My apologies, Herr Ritter.’ Our guard switched to a halting school-boy Deutsche. ‘The journey was slower than expected.’

  ‘Did they give you any trouble?’ Herr Ritter dabbed his nose with a corner of handkerchief concealed in his fist.

  ‘No, sir.’

  Twitching his flat little head to us, Herr Ritter commanded our approach, speaking now in Polish. ‘Identify yourselves, who’s who?’

  ‘Ronen Kesselman.’

  ‘Jozef Siegler, Herr Ritter.’

  He chopped the air, swatting away my civility. ‘Let’s get down to business. What can you tell me about Eva Braun’s trip to Florence last year?’

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard properly and asked Herr Ritter to repeat the names.

  There was nothing wrong with my hearing.

  Eva Braun? Florence, Italy? What on earth did I know about Hitler’s girlfriend’s holiday?

  Did Herr Ritter belong to the Gestapo? Was that why we’d been brought here, to be interrogated? Maybe Ronen was right all along.

  ‘Either of you?’ he snapped. ‘Florence, 1938. I haven’t got all day.’

  I wondered if I was back in my cell, still dreaming. Morning had not yet broken. There would be no bread and water slipped through the door, no truck drive out to Ponary, no enchanted factory in the middle of the forest.

  The clock on the wall behind Herr Ritter ticked remorselessly forward. Dreaming or not, one of us had to attempt an answer.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s been some kind of misunderstanding,’ I ventured. ‘I’ve never been to Florence.’

  ‘Who cares where you’ve been, Jew,’ Herr Ritter spat. ‘I was asking about the purpose of Eva Braun’s visit, not yours.’

  Next to me, Ronen woke from his trance. Grinning like a seminar student who couldn’t possibly believe he’d stumbled on the correct answer, he said, ‘I saw The Wizard of Oz. The red shoes.’

  The fool. What was he thinking of?

  ‘My friend is confused,’ I cut in, eager to spare further humiliation. ‘He knocked his head in the cell last night - ’

  Herr Ritter astounded me by saying, ‘Proceed, Kesselman,’

  ‘In 1938, Signore Ferragamo created the platform sandal for Judy Garland, and named it ‘The Rainbow’ in tribute to her most famous song. Eva Braun went to Ferragamo’s Via Mannelli shop in person to purchase a pair.’

  I was stunned. It was more than I’d heard Ronen say all night.

  ‘Correct,’ Herr Ritter said. ‘At least one of you knows what you’re talking about. How can any self-respecting shoe-maker not have heard of Salvatore Ferragamo?’

  As Herr Ritter stared at my hands, I became so fascinated with a drip of white liquid beading on the tip of his nose that I could not answer.

  He asked, ‘Where have you worked?’

  ‘In Wilno, on Pilies Street.’

  ‘For whom?’

  ‘Jan Donelaitis.’ This provoked a raising of the Ritter eyebrows and a corresponding rolling of his lower lip. ‘Before that I was in Kiel.’ In full swing now, I switched tongues, reacquainting myself with the harsh Schleswig-Holstein accent that had not rasped against my teeth for several years. ‘I also speak fluent German, Herr Ritter, if a little rusty.’

  ‘You’ll do, then.’ He wiped his nose with his fist and turned to the prison guard. ‘I’ll take both.’

  ‘Excellent,’ the guard said.

  ‘Fifty each, as agreed.’ Herr Ritter unlocked a desk drawer and pulled out a metal box, from which he doled out ten note
s into the guard’s hand.

  One hundred Deutschmarks heavier, the guard saluted, turned with a crisp kick, and walked out.

  ‘As of now,’ Herr Ritter said. ‘You two belong to the Moda Wehrmacht Uniform sub-camp, Leatherwear and Accessories division. Wait downstairs and you’ll be shown to your workstation. Dismissed.’

  He sat down at the desk, picked up the telephone, hooked an index finger in the rotary dial and paused, slowly raising a dismayed face at our continuing presence.

  We backed away, twisting into opulent sunlight.

  The lobby was empty when we floated back down the oak stairs.

  Turning to Ronen, all I could think to say was, ‘The Wizard of Oz?’

  ‘It’s not bad,’ he said. ‘For Hollywood.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Lucky one of us does.’

  ‘Very true. If I was wearing a hat, I’d doff it to you right now. Looks like we’ll be working together after all.’

  Ronen inhaled lustily. ‘Get a load of that country air.’

  ‘I hate to remind you, but we are in an SS camp.’

  ‘Do you see any soldiers?’

  ‘Not right now.’

  ‘In my book, ‘not right now’ is an improvement. Enjoy the peace and quiet. And if you can’t, be a good chap and don’t spoil it for those who can.’

  He grinned, took out his tobacco pouch, finessed a cigarette and tossed it into his mouth. With rhythmic clicks of his fingers, he stepped across to the entrance and smoked in the doorway while our guard’s truck rattled around the grass island.

  ‘Auf Wiedersehen.’ Ronen flicked his butt towards the departing wheels. ‘You jumped up speck of Lithuanian fly shit.’

  A suspiciously cheerful whistling came from the direction of the barracks and a voice called our names. Ronen was out the door before I could stop him.

  When I caught up, he was talking to another civilian, a tall man with a head of red curls and conspicuous spray of freckles across his broken nose.

  ‘Oswald Zgismond,’ the youth said, extending a hand of elongated fingers before me. ‘Head of the Julag Welcoming Committee.’

  ‘The what?’ I said.

  ‘We’re here to work,’ Ronen said. ‘That’s all we need to know.’

  ‘Alright then,’ Oswald Zgismond said. ‘The shift’s already started and we’ll be finishing an hour early tonight, so I won’t waste time showing you the bunks.’ Pointing over his shoulder to the flat-roofed cube we were leaving behind, he said, ‘That’s where you sleep.’

  This was the most shocking thing I had heard so far, and I tried not to choke. ‘You don’t expect us to sleep in the soldier’s barracks?’

  Oswald wrinkled his nose as if I’d blasphemed. ‘How much did Ritter tell you?’

  ‘Not much,’ I said. ‘Herr Ritter seemed somewhat… ’ I searched for the apposite word. ‘Distracted.’

  ‘Big day, a lot on his mind.’

  Oswald reached an iron door at the end of the long brick snake and led us onto a deserted factory floor, topped off by large skylights. We passed a staircase that led up to a huge structure of steel pipes joined together like a tree trunk.

  ‘What did this place used to be?’ I said.

  ‘Corrugated cable-works, originally, during the Great War. It’s been empty since 1920. The Chaze moved us in a couple of days ago when Gestapo HQ got too cramped.’

  I presumed this Chaze he spoke of was the boss, Julius Ritter.

  ‘We started off on Gedimino Avenue, in the basement, making luxury goods for commissioned officers. But no, to put your mind at ease, Comrade Siegler, you won’t be bunking down with the SS. Regular soldiers aren’t allowed in the camp, on the Chaze’s orders. Artisans are very sensitive, they can’t be disturbed. If you want quality footwear, that’s the cost. Last time they tried coming in without warning, the Chaze wanted to chop their balls off.’

  Ronen was rubbing his hands at this news. I wished my mind was as optimistic as his, because to me, something seemed terribly wrong. That the curt and unfriendly Julius Ritter, he of the dripping nose and limp bow-tie, could inspire the Yiddish nickname Chaze, meaning ‘Protector’ or ‘Fatherly Friend’, was difficult enough to conceive. That he had either the inclination or authority to threaten the SS with castration was quite impossible.’

  Oswald said, ‘There are no permanent guards here, no resident Commandant.’

  ‘No beatings or abuse?’

  ‘It’s not that kind of camp.’

  ‘You’ve got a garrison outside your fence.’

  ‘And I told you, that’s where they stay. A couple of truckloads rotate in every two days from Wilno, Lithuanians and a few SS. Keeps things fresh. We don’t know them, they don’t know us. There’s no trouble. Everybody gets on.’

  We crossed the floor and followed Oswald up a second staircase on the far side. Along a narrow walkway and out onto a balconied area overlooking another floor, this time a very busy one, as many as fifty tailors hard at work in the uniform room, polishing, burnishing, and making final quality checks. Every face was a mask of deliberation, committed but content, and much more well-fed than the ones I’d seen last night in the prison courtyards.

  I said, ‘So what’s the catch?’

  Oswald chuckled. ‘It’s not what, it’s who.’

  Ronen glanced my way.

  ‘The Chaze?’ I said.

  ‘The clients he brings, for sure. Ever wondered what it’s like to measure the in-step of the Nazi Party Chancellor, Martin Boorman? Kneeling down with your head six inches away from his foetid, corpulent groin?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘You want to pray you never find out. We’re talking about the most senior SS men who come here for personal fitting. The words ‘exacting’ and ‘meticulous’ don’t even come close to describing them. But it gives you some idea of the standards we have to keep. Pressure most craftsmen can’t imagine.’

  I didn’t take the opportunity to point out I’d only been making shoes for a year, since Signore Ferragamo had first glimpsed Judy Garland’s red slippers, in fact. Meanwhile, our own Oz was at the far end of the balcony, leading us back down to another room behind yet another door. By the time the tour was over, I wouldn’t be able to find my way back to Reception, let alone Wilno.

  We passed through the unmistakably pungent leather store, roll after roll of raw crust calf hide, suede, and shell cordovan, all wrapped up in the seals of the very finest European tanneries.

  The clicking department next, where the leather was cut, Oswald explained. Moda’s signature product was a new flying boot for Luftwaffe pilots, designed to enhance comfort, but also to save their lives. In the advent of an unforeseen landing behind enemy lands, a pilot could usually find a disguise of clothing on a washing-line without too much difficulty, but replacement footwear was much harder to come by. The silk-lined breakout Boot was the German army’s response: a cunning, multi-purpose invention that necessitated the most complicated cutting template I had ever seen. In the advent of an emergency bail-out, the pilot could easily detach his boot-legs to leave behind civilian Blucher shoes. As if this wasn’t difficult enough, the clicker also had to factor in a concealed pocket in the inside leg of the right boot to sheathe a small penknife. After refashioning his boot leg into a non-military looking Blucher, the pilot could be safely on his way.

  Gimping and hole-punching came next, in the closing room. First with trusty awl and hammer, then a variety of ingenious hand-operated machines I had not seen before, and finally the press-knife.

  Lasting, perhaps the most critical stage of production, was done in three discrete stages: toe-lasting first, then side-lasting, and finally seat-lasting. The machines, however, ran simultaneously, creating quite the din, although I was not alone in finding the monotony strangely pleasurable. It was here that Ronen and I parted company, to meet again for noonday soup. My erstwhile companion could not wait to get his hands on the very latest in lasting contraptions whi
le I, lacking all knowledge of the mechanized world save for my mother’s sewing machine, was escorted back to the clicking department.

  Ronen and I had only been cell-mates for a short while but in these strange days, constancy was in short supply. How rare, in the summer of 1941, for one Jew to be able to say to another, ‘Let’s meet for lunch’, with the certitude that both would keep the appointment.

  After five minutes of cutting the breakout boot, my hand cramped from gripping the knife so hard.

  After ten, my head ached with the intensity of concentration.

  The clicking proved as fiendish as it had looked. But the work was rewarding and the atmosphere in the room was never less than congenial. There were twenty of us at the benches and although conversation was sparse, it was neither strained nor curtailed by anything but our own dedication to the job. After a year of sundry and often degrading menial labour, my fellow artisans were grateful to once again be using our fingers to craft an object of ingenious - if cruel - beauty.

  At twelve, all work stopped and the entire factory decamped to the canteen for thick tomato soup with a generous chunk of bread and enough tea to drown a wild boar. Schumann’s piano concerto played through loudspeakers in the four corners.

  I ate at a long table with my fellow clickers, as was the custom. Ronen was on the other side with the lasting department, quite as cheery as when I’d last seen him. Through a series of hand gestures, we arranged to reconvene briefly after lunch to compare first impressions. Freed from the workbench and lubricated by sweet tea, tongues wagged incessantly during the meal. Had mine not been one of them, I would have contended the noise rivalled the din of the lasting machines.

  Revelations came fast and frequent around our table. I was astounded to discover that my team of twenty included not just one family unit, but two. A pair of twins worked side by side while husband and wife (perhaps wisely, for marital harmony) kept their distance in the clicking room, but away from the benches talked to nobody else. Keeping families together was one of the Chaze’s key policies. A happier worker was a more productive worker, he argued. Lists of parents or siblings and their last known whereabouts were submitted to Oswald Zgismond’s little red book every Saturday, like a lottery. But Moda had the best odds in Central Europe: barely a week went by without another mother being reunited with her child, or some other miracle.