A Murder in Auschwitz (4 page)

Her husband had been very considerate since the births on Thursday afternoon. She had hardly had to move as he fussed around her, making sure she had plenty to eat and drink or checking to see if she was comfortable. The previous night, he had even made sure that Klara had bread and cheese and an apple sitting ready for her breakfast on the table, covered with a cloth. The time that the four of them had spent together over the past few days had been very special.

He stayed in bed until the twins needed feeding again and then got up and added some kindling and more coal to the fire to warm the room for Klara and the girls. Then he washed, dressed, and had some bread, cheese, and coffee for breakfast. He kissed his wife and babies and, after protracted wishes of good luck, left the apartment for the journey to his new position, as an assistant lawyer in the office of a criminal law firm.

Manfred Meyer’s journey to Bauer & Bauer took almost exactly an hour, leaving him thirty minutes early. It was a cold, dry morning, and the darkness was being chased away by the emerging sun, making Berlin look like a watercolour. Meyer attempted to assuage his nervousness by watching people pass by on the busy street.

At 8:15 exactly, the great Black Forest oak double doors that guarded the entrance to Bauer & Bauer were unlocked from the inside by an unseen hand, and one of the doors opened to allow entrance to employees. Within a few moments, men in expensive suits began to disappear into the building.

Meyer waited until 8:20, took a deep breath, and headed in after them, up the marble steps and through the internal glass doors. His hands slid easily over the bannister of the grand staircase as he climbed to the top floor, where the walnut hall and Muller’s office was situated.

He expected to have to sit and wait for Muller to arrive as he hadn’t seen him pass through the door in front of him. However, the secretary's office door was already open, and he was sitting behind his desk.

Meyer knocked on the door frame and bid him good morning. Muller checked his pocket watch and peered over his glasses at him before smiling.

“Good morning, Herr Meyer. Herr Bauer informs me that you will be working with Herr Deschler as his assistant. I am to take you to his office this morning. If you give me a moment to collect the mail which is to be posted, I will take you down to the first floor.”

Muller collected several envelopes from his desk, checking each one in turn, and then instructed Meyer to follow him. As they walked briskly along the walnut hall, Muller gave Meyer a quick history of Deschler’s time at the company.

“Herr Deschler started with us in 1920. He had been a practising lawyer for two years before volunteering for the front. He earned an Iron Cross before being badly wounded in the Somme, and then a British shell took his leg at Arras, after which he spent a year in hospital.”

Muller stopped at an open office door and took some envelopes from a wire tray before continuing with Deschler’s history.

“It took him another two years before Herr Bauer senior brought him into the firm.

“Herr Deschler is an excellent lawyer. He started, as all of our court lawyers do, with a relatively simple defence case, which he won. And then proved himself again and again. You will learn a lot from Herr Deschler. Only Herr Bauer has a successful defence record more impressive than Herr Deschler.”

They had stopped outside an office door, and Muller gave a quick two knocks before entering. Inside was an anteroom, slightly smaller than, and not as ornate as Muller’s. A young woman sat, working at a typewriter. She looked up and greeted Muller without missing a key. Muller nodded to her and proceeded to knock on what Meyer assumed was Deschler’s office door.

A simple “Enter,” came from inside.

Muller led Meyer into the office. Kurt Deschler had a glass of water in his right hand and a cigarette in the other. He had been standing, looking out of his window when the two men had entered his room. Meyer spotted a glass bottle, obviously medical in style, on his desk next to a jug of water. A walking stick was leaning against the desk not too far from the reach of the man. Deschler downed his glass of water and then, with a single limp towards his desk, opened a drawer and dropped the bottle out of sight without looking at it.

“Herr Deschler, this is Herr Meyer.”

“Ah yes. My new assistant,” said Deschler rather dryly as he held out his hand. Meyer stepped forward and shook it.

Deschler was around forty years old and slightly taller than Meyer’s one metre seventy. He had a full head of hair which had obviously been jet black when he was younger but now had silver streaks running through it, especially at the temples. He sported a similar style of moustache to Muller's which contained a considerably higher proportion of grey than his head. Glasses sat on a thin nose, behind which an old scar ran over his left eye.

“Please sit down, Herr Meyer.” The tone of Deschler’s voice barely changed. Muller had already left the office as Meyer sat in a chair at the side of the room.

Deschler took a long drag on his cigarette and then put it out in a crystal ashtray on his desk, carefully folding over the end of the butt to ensure that the glowing tobacco embers were extinguished. The sunlight, now streaming in through the window, caught the long, slow plume of thin smoke that he blew across the room.

“So, Herr Meyer, have you assisted in a court of law before?” The question sounded more like a challenge.

“Yes Herr Deschler, I was an intern for...” but he was not allowed to finish.

“Good. You will know what to expect then,” came the interruption, as Deschler reached for his stick, took his coat off the stand and hung it over his arm. “We are in court this morning at eleven am precisely, court number three. The final day of my defence of a Gypsy in a murder trial. I am sure you have read all about it in the papers?”

Meyer had indeed been reading about this case.

“Yes, Herr Deschler. This is the trial of Prala Weide, the suspect in the murder of an elderly couple for the sake of a few Reichsmarks.”

“That is correct, Herr Meyer. And do you think he is guilty?” asked Deschler, as he pointed at two briefcases which he obviously meant Meyer to carry.

“I am not sure, Herr Deschler, but I would think that from what I have read, his innocence will be difficult to prove,” replied Meyer, as he picked up the cases and began to follow Deschler out of the room. He immediately realised the naivety of his answer when Deschler came to a sudden halt and turned to him.

“The first two lessons you need to learn, Herr Meyer, are these; first of all, unless they wish you to view them otherwise, which is very uncommon, your client is always innocent in your eyes. As you are my assistant, he is also your client. Secondly, and more importantly, you do not need to prove a man’s innocence, only his lack of guilt.”

Meyer noticed that Deschler’s eye, which carried the scar, was twitching. He wondered if this was a nervous twitch brought on by the final day of a trial, or caused by anger over Meyer’s schoolboy response.

“Today, I have to secure the doubt about Herr Weide’s guilt which I have been attempting to place in the minds of the jurors over the past week,” continued Deschler.

“I have to make sure that the doubt I have sewn is enough to overcome human nature’s requirement to find a reason for something happening. Each of the jurors we face today wants a guilty man to be provided to them to revenge the murders of that couple. As defence lawyers, this is the most difficult thing we have to overcome; not just to prove the lack of guilt of our client but to not then hand over a further suspect for them to inflict judgement upon. The perfect way to ‘prove a man’s innocence’ is to provide a guilty man in his place.”

Deschler turned, and, leaning heavily on his stick, led Meyer out of the office.

Meyer sat beside Deschler in the courtroom. Dark oak panels covered the room like a great wooden jacket, insulating it both from the cold and the sounds of the outside world. The room smelled of polish and reeked of institution and formality. Meyer loved courtrooms. They gave him the same feeling of warmth and contentment afforded by stepping in to a library.

The jury had not yet been led in and Deschler was looking through his notes in silence, formulating the arguments and points which he would be attempting to convince the jury with, as well as the final questions which he would be putting to the witnesses.

A door opened at the side of the courtroom and the jury were led in from an anteroom by a clerk, to take their positions. Deschler lifted his head momentarily from his papers and watched the men arrive and take their seats. His eyes then shifted to Meyer.

“All I require from you today is to pass me any of my papers if I require them. If I need a drink of water, you will pour me one and pass me the glass. Your job today is to make it possible for me to concentrate on this case without my thoughts being interrupted unnecessarily.”

Deschler looked back at the jury and studied each face in turn before continuing.

“I will brief you on the papers I will need and what you should be doing while I am either questioning or presenting evidence.”

He then started to move the papers around and place them into different piles. Once he was happy with how they were arranged he took off his spectacles and rubbed the scarred eye with a handkerchief. Then he placed a hand flat down on one of the piles of papers.

“You haven’t spoken since we arrived. That is a good start,” said Deschler. “These papers are notes that I have made which I will occasionally refer to. If I need them I will point to them and you will hand them to me.”

Deschler moved his hand and placed it on another set of papers. Meyer noticed that the tip of Deschler’s little finger was missing.

“These I may not need; however, they contain the names of all the witnesses as well as the individuals in this case. As I am cross-examining the defendant or making my statements to the court, you will constantly check the list and find the person I am discussing. If I need more information on them I will take this list from you and you will indicate on the page where that person’s name and details are.”

He now moved his hand to a third pile.

“These are questions I will be asking throughout today. I may ask additional questions. I may ask different questions. But these are the core for today. You will follow these and as they are asked you will indicate on the paper that they have been asked. If I need them I will point to them. You do not need to do anything more and I am sure you have assisted in this manner before.”

Meyer was about to reply to Deschler when there was an announcement from the Clerk of the Court that Judge Koehler was entering. Everyone stood until the judge was seated.

Very soon after that, Deschler’s client, Prala Weide, was brought into the courtroom by an officer and was taken to the dock, where he was seated. Meyer was familiar with this process, having witnessed it many times as a law student and as an intern, but this was the first time he had been part of the actual performance.

After some shuffling of papers and discussions with the Clerk of the Court and the stenographer, who showed the judge part of the transcript, the Clerk of the Court called for silence and the judge called the court to order.

Deschler pushed himself from his seat and made a short statement to the court regarding the case so far, how he had shown that the accused was innocent and could not have committed the crime, and that he would provide irrefutable proof to that effect. He then sat down again and waited for Prala Weide to be called to the witness box.

Prala Weide looked like a Gypsy. His long nose and swarthy skin was complemented by his greying black shiny hair and drooping moustache. His dark, almost black, eyes were sunk below thick, bushy eyebrows. His clothes were also dark, and slightly grubby in appearance. Although small in stature and with a withered left arm, he was obviously a strong, fit man.

After a few minutes, Prala Weide was called to the witness box, where he was seated and reminded of the fact that he was still sworn in. Deschler pushed himself up on his stick, which he then hung on the table. Meyer set the papers with the questions to one side, picked up the papers with the list of names on them, and waited for Deschler to speak.

“Your Honour, officials of the court, members of the jury, today I will finish my cross-examination of my client and be able to show that not only was he not able to have committed this crime, not only was he not present at the time of the crime, but that only one other person could, would, and did commit these terrible murders at the Färber family home.”

Meyer swallowed hard. He felt nervous and excited. Bauer had known what he was doing, having him start his new job on the last day of a murder trial. And with such an orator as Deschler to provide his first real lesson in the dark art of criminal law.

Deschler continued with his opening statement of the day.

“Dieter Färber, the Färbers' youngest son and the only one still living at the same address, returned home to find his father and mother murdered in their living room. The room was in disarray, with ornaments scattered and broken on the floor, including a jar, which normally sat on the mantelpiece and contained a hundred or so Reichsmarks.

“In his state of shock and grief, Dieter Färber quickly checked the rest of the home, which had also been ransacked. On his return to the living room, Herr Färber saw a male Gypsy attempting to leave through the front door. Herr Färber then saw the Gypsy make off in a westerly direction towards the church.