Warsaw Requiem Read online

  The notches of March ticked by. Nameless camp was packed to overflowing with human flotsam washed up on the Nazi shore with the sinking of Czechoslovakia. And Karl waited. He waited for his guards to slam into his cell and drag him to a room to watch the torture of his children. He waited, knowing he would say anything they wanted—anything—if only they would not hurt Lori and Jamie!

  On the twenty-second notch, the guards came to tell him that Germany had also taken the Baltic seaport of Memel from Lithuania.

  “Certainly Prisoner Ibsen must see that it is useless to resist the righteous Aryan cause! The Führer has traveled by sea to Memel!”

  Karl had smiled with relief because the news was not about Lori and Jamie. The guards had taken his smile as a sign that perhaps he was coming to his senses. They reported his reaction to the warden. Karl was given an extra ration of bread to celebrate the Nazi occupation of the Lithuanian port.

  The next day he was interrogated. His smile was questioned. He answered that he had only wondered if the Führer had gotten seasick. For this answer he was beaten, but when he regained consciousness he found that the smile within him had not died. Somewhere Jamie and Lori were still free!

  In that same month, Spain finally fell to the German-led forces of General Franco. One million had died. Britain and the U.S. recognized the new Spanish government immediately.

  “Soon the whole world will be Fascist. Everyone but you, Prisoner Ibsen!”

  On the first notch of April, the rattle of tin plates in the corridor announced breakfast. Karl heard the guards talking outside his door. England’s Prime Minister Chamberlain did not much like the fact that the Führer had taken all of Czechoslovakia without asking. The English and the French were now saying that they would go to war against Germany if the Führer set his sights on the Polish port of Danzig. In reply, the Führer had renounced the British-German naval treaty, telling the English, “Who cares what you do?” Maybe there would be a war after all! Maybe it would come at last . . . over Poland! Even little Holland had mobilized.

  The guards sounded pleased. They sounded hopeful. The metal slot in the door clanged open, and the plate of burned oatmeal was shoved through.

  “Feeding time at the zoo,” a voice cried. Amid much laughter, the slot clanged shut again.

  Once again Karl smiled. He too had been hopeful that day. Perhaps at last the democracies had drawn a line across the pocked face of Europe and said, “No farther!” So little Holland had mobilized its army to fight if Germany should, in fact, step over the line! David against Goliath!

  From that first day of April until today, the thirtieth mark on the brick of May, there had been no further news. No interrogations. No laughter in the outer corridor. Prisoners on either side of Karl’s cell had been moved. The silence was complete. His meals were passed to him without comment, his latrine bucket emptied in the dark by a faceless Kapo who entered the cell when Karl slept. The straw in his cell remained unchanged. His confinement became totally solitary. He prayed. He recited Scriptures to himself. He let his mind walk through the past again and again until that mental path became worn into a groove that was easy to follow. He called out questions to his captors as they passed him his rations. “Was there a war?” They did not reply. They did not seem to hear him.

  Could he be the only man left, as they had warned? Had everyone else gone off to fight in Poland?

  Until today, the thirtieth of May, he had found himself slipping into such morbid thoughts. But today the sparrow had come to his window! Today he was reminded once again it was spring! Somewhere there were gardens with flowers blooming. Maybe Jamie and Lori . . . maybe . . . maybe they were out walking—looking at colors, wondering about their father, hoping they would see him again someday soon.

  ***

  For months in France, important visitors had been picked up at their hotels in Paris and driven through the peaceful countryside of Alsace-Lorraine to tour the great concrete wall of defense, the Maginot Line. Politicians and industrialists, and celebrities such as Charles Lindbergh had all been invited to “take the tour.” They had descended into the maze of concrete bunkers and gun emplacements; they had spoken with the French soldiers who manned this fortress; they had emerged again into the bright sunlight of the peaceful French countryside, convinced that there would be no war waged by Germany against France, not with such a massive line of defense to get through.

  Today it had been American journalist John Murphy’s turn to tour the Maginot Line. He was the logical choice for this week’s guest list. As the head of Trump European News Service, he was establishing one of the most successful newspaper and radio news agencies serving America from the Continent.

  Added to that, Mr. Murphy was a personal friend of the venerable British statesman, Winston Churchill. The two had crossed the Channel together, stayed at the Ritz in Paris for a day, and now walked through the steel and concrete caverns beside the French captain, Edmone Perpignon. Forty years old, with an erect carriage and snapping brown eyes, Captain Perpignon’s entire career in the French Army was tied to the Maginot. He loved its smooth gray walls and bristling gun turrets, which pointed across the Rhine toward similar German fortifications.

  “You see,” the captain said to Murphy in a soft, thick accent, “General Gamelin said that perhaps you are the sort of person who should see the Maginot. Perhaps you will then understand it.”

  Murphy understood perfectly well how much stock the French put in this cement marvel that stretched from Switzerland all along the border to the lowlands of Belgium. Certainly the German Army would not want to confront such an obstacle. But wasn’t it possible that the Germans might simply go around it? The government of Belgium had just announced that it would remain strictly neutral if war should break out; Murphy and Churchill had discussed just how much such a declaration would mean to Hitler. A few hours’ march across little Belgium, and the German divisions could simply go around this hulking wall like a quarterback doing an end run.

  Murphy considered using this analogy with the French captain, then remembered that the French had no Rose Bowl football games they might compare to war maneuvers.

  The captain was ecstatic. “And if anyone in America doubts for a moment,” he said, waving a hand at the long tunnel, “that peace is our only war aim, and defense is our only strategy, tell them this: We have anchored all our millions of dollars’ worth of great guns in five hundred million dollars’ worth of concrete!”

  Murphy exchanged an uneasy glance with Churchill. Churchill had just been saying that the strength of the German war machine would lie in its mobility. Against armored tank divisions, concrete was indeed a barrier—provided the Germans attempted a frontal attack.

  The French captain was in love with the Maginot; he was also in love with the history that had inspired it. “You must promise me you will do an article for the American newspapers about Lorraine! This place was the gateway used by the barbarians to invade France since the time of Attila the Hun.”

  Churchill broke his long and thoughtful silence. He paused and relit the stub of his cigar as he eyed the captain. “Yes, I can see the similarities between the barbarians and the Nazis. Herr Hitler would make a commendable Attila.” He cleared his throat. “But are you sure they will try to come through this way again?”

  The captain also paused. He shrugged. “They always have before.”

  “Last time they came through Belgium,” Churchill remarked dryly.

  The captain raised an instructive finger. “We have urged the Belgians to see to their own defenses, and soon we will be extending the Maginot along the Belgian border.”

  “Why hasn’t it been done before now?” Murphy dared to ask. “The crisis is imminent.”

  No doubt more important men than Murphy and Churchill had asked similar questions.

  The Frenchman had a ready answer. “Partly because of cost. Partly because of time. But mostly because if the Belgians see our guns and forts facing them, they might
think that we French are as aggressive as the Germans.”

  “Even though the guns are in concrete?” Churchill asked.

  “It will be remedied in time.” The captain was undaunted. His faith in this wall was not even scratched by the cannonade of doubts that exploded within Murphy.

  They proceeded through enormous air-conditioned galleries linked with rail tracks and separated at various points by fireproof sliding iron doors. Casting all unpleasant thoughts away, Captain Perpignon showed them the floor that could drop inward, hurling any enemy who penetrated so far into pits fifty feet deep. The great guns were on the first floor, the control and chart rooms below them, then the plentiful supply rooms, overflowing with food and medicine and racks of shells, like the honeycomb of a beehive. A maze of oil tanks, machinery, and electrical generators were all duplicated for backup in case one of anything should fall. All of this was indeed impressive. Provided, of course, that Hitler followed the footsteps of Attila the Hun.

  Once again Murphy rolled an uneasy thought over in his mind. The Germans were smart. Very smart. What did they know about the Maginot that the French and the Western world could not see? What secret did the strutting German Führer have tucked up the sleeve of his plain brown tunic?

  Churchill looked at his watch as if he too was considering the same doubts as Murphy. “You are an excellent and convincing guide, Mon capitaine,” Churchill complimented, still focusing on his watch. Hitler was to broadcast from Germany soon, and both Churchill and Murphy wanted to hear what he had to say tonight. Perhaps the success or failure of the French line of defense would be hinted at by some small word or phrase in the Führer’s speech.

  “Je fais mon métier,” the captain replied with false modesty. “I am just doing my job.”

  He was doing more than that, Murphy knew. The French captain was loving this monument to future death and past stupidity. He was waiting and praying for the moment when the guns of the Maginot would boom across the river into Germany. The thought of splintered German tanks and broken bodies filled him with premature pride. “They will come this way,” he said. “The Germans are stupid. Oui! They will come!”

  ***

  The German occupation of Czechoslovakia on March 15 had put Theo Lindheim back in uniform.

  At the orders of Hitler, the German Army had rolled beyond the boundaries of the Sudetenland to smash what was left of Czechoslovakia. In the same hour, the divisions of the Czech Army and Air Force were ordered to abandon their weapons and equipment to their Nazi conquerors.

  Instead the handful of unmarried men who had been a part of Theo’s air command had donned their flying gear, fueled their aircraft, and headed for England. They hoped they might live long enough to fight for their country one day.

  Hitler slept unconcerned in Hradcany Castle while troops marched into Old Town Prague and arrested the men and women who ran the refugee soup kitchen. Subversives, the Nazis called them. Hundred were arrested and executed for resistance.

  Hitler toured the great factories of the Skoda Arms Works—quite a prize for Hitler’s war machine. Planes considered to be the most modern in Europe were handed over to the German Luftwaffe. Tanks, rifles, machine guns, and artillery from thirty dismantled Czech divisions were given to the Nazis, and now they pointed at the heart of Poland!

  One by one, escaping Czech aircraft flying on fumes made it to a dozen little airfields in England. The pilots collapsed on the ground. They begged for political asylum, just as Theo had done the night England and France had first betrayed Czechoslovakia to Hitler’s Munich Agreement.

  The night of the Munich Agreement Chamberlain had vowed to fight for Czechoslovakia if Hitler moved any farther than allowed by the treaty. Now Hitler swallowed the nation in on gulp. Czechoslovakia was no more. Every promise had been broken. Men and women were dying; the Czech people were abandoned.

  And Chamberlain did nothing to help.

  Members of the exiled Czech government slipped out quietly. Some fled to England, where they were granted asylum like this small group of pilots with Theo tonight.

  But England did not fight to save Czechoslovakia. Instead the British Prime Minister vowed that this time he would guarantee assistance to Poland if Poland was attacked.

  Days later the Nazis discovered that the former government of Prague had deposited several tons of gold bullion with the Bank of England for safekeeping. Hitler wanted this gold. He wanted it immediately. After all, Czechoslovakia was part of the Reich now, was it not?

  The British government handed the gold over to Hitler, who promptly put it to good use building more tanks.

  March had been an amazing month for broken promises and broken lives, Theo thought. The refugee ships had arrived regularly, carrying their loads of brokenhearted children. Many of them were still at the house in London. How sad they were, how quiet. This is what bad politics and stupid politicians had brought them to.

  As for the few Czech airmen who had managed to escape, they too were grim and bitter. They had saved these precious aircraft for what they saw was soon coming to England. They looked around for former officers who had fled like them.

  And they found Theo Lindheim. “They will need us soon enough, Officer Lindheim!” exclaimed a young man whom Theo had trained to fly. “The English gave away our country, but we will stand with them to fight for theirs!”

  Would Theo join them? Would he come and train young Czech students to fly?

  The time to mourn was past. Theo reasoned. The fight was all that would soon be left for them. He put on his uniform that very day and joined the dozens who had fled in hopes of fighting another day.

  ***

  The rich, newly plowed fields of France smelled warm and fragrant in the night air as Murphy and Churchill were driven back along the road they had taken that afternoon.

  Beyond the dark boundaries of the hedges Murphy could make out the silhouettes of haystacks. In the daylight he had just been able to see the snouts of field guns protruding from the golden heaps. For miles and miles of apparently tranquil countryside, machine-gun nests hid in half-built cottages. Just beneath the tender shoots of grass, camouflaged pillboxes lay on the hills, like snakes waiting to strike. Tank traps bristled with deadly iron spikes. And far away, across the uplands, unbroken coils of barbed wire waited for the return of some reincarnated barbarian to find his path back this way to a quick death in France.

  Three hundred yards across the river into German territory, both Murphy and Churchill had seen the figures of German soldiers leisurely digging rifle pits—in case the French should try to invade?

  Every bridge across the swollen Rhine had been mined. Loyal Frenchmen waited on duty with the button within reach . . . just in case! All of this, and yet Europe was at peace! There was no quarrel between Germany and France, or Germany and England! The Führer had said it. All he wanted now was Danzig!

  Churchill sighed heavily. The moonglow shone on his waxy complexion. “And so it has come to this,” he said sadly. “As though babies were born to grow and be hurled into the breach.”

  Murphy did not reply. He stared silently out the window and thought of Elisa, of their baby. What kind of world will our little one be born into? Trenches and wire and concrete bunkers. Gas mask drills and . . . He shook his head to force away the images of dead children he had seen in Spain.

  “We have been brought to this abyss,” Churchill continued with melancholy eloquence. “Germany rearmed in violation of a solemn treaty. Air superiority was cast away by us. Just across the river back there they reoccupied the Rhineland. Their Siegfried Line built to match the Maginot. The Rome-Berlin Axis. Austria devoured. Czechoslovakia dismembered by the Munich pact. The mighty arsenal of Skoda now turning out munitions for the German armies. Thirty Czech divisions cast away.”

  Churchill’s match flared, illuminating his round face in eerie light and shadow. “Yes,” he finished, “we shall hear it tonight. Poland is next. By September, I believe, before the rains ca
n stop the tanks of Germany. By September, there will be war.” His slow, certain drawl sent a charge of dread through Murphy as he listened. “The folly of great nations will be paid for by children and mothers. It has come to this at last.”

  2

  Love Like Iron

  Thousands of years had passed since Jewish mothers first heard the grinding of Egyptian swords being sharpened for the slaughter of their babies. As the first howls of grief had pierced the morning, a young mother nursed her baby one last time, placed him in a tiny cradle of reeds, and cast him adrift on the waters of the Nile River.

  What mother over the centuries did not hear the story and admire? To step back from the murky water and watch that fragile ark rocking on the current required love like iron, heated in the fires of anguish and hammered against the anvil of desperation.

  In 1939, the grinding wheels of Europe were heard rasping against Nazi swords. Jewish mothers nursed their babies and knew . . . They braided the sweet, soft hair of their little girls and did not doubt . . . They tucked in their little boys and listened to prayers; they tired shoes and doctored scrapes . . . all the while the steady buzz of blade against wheel drifted through the nursery windows. And the little boys grew while mothers waited for the day when they would say good-bye.

  Tonight the docks of Southampton were illuminated in anticipation of the arrival of the ship. But there were no bands, no eagerly waiting husbands or wives, no whistles or shouts or excited waves or confetti. Not for this ship.

  Over the weeks, the arrivals of the big passenger liners carrying refugees—joyless, homesick children—from Danzig had been unlike any that Elisa Murphy had ever witnessed.

  Elisa’s mother, Anna, and Anna’s sister, Helen, stood shoulder to shoulder on the quay. Their heads slightly tilted toward each other as though they wanted to tell a secret but had forgotten it. Faces were pained, and yet the eyes of both women were eager and hopeful as they scanned the solemn group of refugee children who stared down from the decks of the liner.