Edited for Death (19 page)

“
Parlez-vous Francais? Moi, aussi,”
Blomberg says. “I also speak Hungarian, Hebrew, Italian and Switzer-Deutsch. I’ve spent a lot of time in the middle of Europe and for a while was headquartered in Switzerland.”

“You sound as though you’ve been around,” I say stirring my coffee so I won’t gape at him. “What did you do? I mean, what was your job before you retired?”

This seemingly simple question asked of a new acquaintance makes Royce set his drink down on the table so hard that the wine slops out of the glass and puddles into a dark red stain.

“I worked for a non-profit group that was looking for stolen things,” Blomberg’s voice is soft and flat.

“Were you some sort of a detective? Did you work for Interpol?”

“No, nothing as official as that,” the older man says. “I was associated with one of the Jewish organizations that were trying to trace families and property lost during the war.”

I feel the room go cold.

Just a few days ago, Phil and I traded emails about art treasures looted by the Nazis. My interest had been purely academic. That had all happened before I was born. Now I’m sitting in a hotel in the California foothills, having a drink with this urbane man who has spent years looking for those looted things.

“That’s fascinating. Amy and I were talking recently about Klimt’s Ada Bloch piece that was recovered.” Phil can engage with this topic. “It really set the art world back when that Revlon guy bought it. At least now it’s in a place where it can be seen. Did you have anything to do with that recovery?”

“No, no, that was more a legal battle.”

“The other piece we talked about was the Egon Schiele one that was sold with a flat in Paris. Was that one of your cases?”

“No, that was a quirk of fate rather than an actual trace,” Blomberg’s eyes glisten. “We’ll never know exactly how that ended up where it did in Paris. My area of expertise is researching the German transport records of the trains that shipped things to Berlin. You know, so much was stolen from individuals throughout Europe, but huge amounts of art, jewelry and precious objects vanished from German homes, alone.”

“I know that some countries are putting pressure on Switzerland to make the banks give out information on deposits,” I’m trying to keep my voice from shaking. “Is that the sort of thing you’re working on?”

“It’s pretty much the past tense, now. I’ve retired, but I have two or three clients still, just to keep my hand in,” Blomberg says. “Actually, we worked for families mostly, either direct survivors or relatives of Holocaust victims. The Nazis kept meticulous records, oddly enough, of a lot of their work. There is no way to know the names of all who died, but as late as 1944, some clerk in Berlin was still tracking names of people ‘shipped East.’ They were probably sent to Auschwitz but we have no way of knowing.”

Silence settles over the table. Even noise in the kitchen suddenly stops, as though the kitchen crew has overheard the conversation. I’m stunned. This man, just a man traveling through, an absolute stranger, had, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, brought horrors from the past into my life. How could anyone stand to read records from the Nazis? How could this quiet, seemingly well-educated man speak so casually about massive murder? What could have allowed him, made him, devote his life to living with the dead?

I realize I’m not breathing. I take a breath and the noise in the kitchen starts again, cutlery rattling against dishes and pots as the busers scrape the last of the plates.

“Why did you get involved in that work?” I ask Blomberg, who is sipping a brandy.

“I’m Jewish, my dear,” he says mildly. “I was born in Heidelberg.”

When Blomberg said he was born in Germany it never occurred to me he was Jewish. The United States has a large population of Germans or people who traced their roots back to Germany and now, thinking about it, I understand some percentage of them of course were Jewish.

“I’m sorry, I just wasn’t putting two and two together,” I say. “Did your family move here before the war?”

Blomberg grows pensive and his eyes lose some of their sharpness. “No, I was the only one of my family that was sent away,” he says. “My father was a Herr Doktor Professor at the university. Both he and my mother came from wealthy families and we led a very sheltered life. When the Nazis came to power, my father didn’t believe that they’d last. Hitler was just too outre, just too crazy. The intellectuals were sure that the German people would come to their senses and vote them out of office.

“What they didn’t understand, what they never conceived, was that, once they seized power, the Nazis turned Germany into a police state, a state where there was so much suspicion that everyone was afraid. Neighbor turned on neighbor, children turned on their parents. And then, the Nazis started taxing. First, they took about a third of a Jew’s assets, then they closed down Jewish stores and barred Jews from holding professions and jobs. Then they took another third of the remaining assets. The centuries of wealth accumulated by the Jews helped pay for the beginning of the Nazi regime and the war.

“By the time my father, my family, came to realize that the old Germany, their Germany of culture and music and learning and art, was gone, it was too late. The Nazis weren’t allowing anyone to leave. Oh, a few got out; if you had enough resources left to bribe everybody, you might be able to emigrate. My family chose me. We all thought that I was just the first to leave. My sister would come in a few months, then my parents would leave. They planned to have the whole family, at least my immediate family, settled in the States by the middle of 1940.

“After Poland was overrun in September of 1939, the door slammed shut.”

We’re quiet. It’s stunning that what Phil and I think of as history, as “History,” is still being played out. Royce is clearly uncomfortable. He toys with a coffee spoon and doesn’t look at Blomberg.

“If you were raised in the States,” Phil says, “Chicago? What got you involved in Germany again?”

“Because I was so fluent in German, I got pulled into translating for a lot of Jewish charities and rescue organizations, groups who continued to try and get people out of the hands of the Nazis. And then, when the war was over, I volunteered for the U.S. Army. I thought I could go back and find some of my family.

“They were gone. I never found a trace of them. I ended up being assigned to translate and help at the Nuremberg trials and that’s when I discovered that the Nazis had looted all of Europe on such a huge scale. There are even still rumors that the Russian tsars’ Amber Room, a room in the Winter Palace whose walls were made completely of amber, was dismantled and shipped to Germany. Who knows? It’s never been found, just as a lot of art, objects, jewelry. Were they sold? Broken up and melted down? Burned in some bombing raid?”

“If they’re gone, how can you trace them?” I ask. “That’s way beyond the needle in the haystack. At least there, you assume there’s actually a needle. Things you’re looking for may not even exist.”

“It is very difficult,” Blomberg’s eyes are sad.. “We trace Nazi records, we look at U.S. Army records, we examine the British, French, even Polish archives from that period. The fact that the Poles had a government-in-exile in England during the war helped a little. Those countries that ended up behind the Iron Curtin—Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic States—are hard. Much of what survived the war was subsumed by the Communists afterward, so not much remains. The Russians stole back a lot, some of which was stolen from them, some of which wasn’t.

“That’s one of the problems with a war. The victors feel entitled to the spoils; at least some of the victors and some of the spoils. I’m sure that everyone thought they were taking things that belonged to the Germans. What they didn’t think about was where the Germans got them.

“Every so often, though, something pops up. Like the Klimt, although that’s an extraordinary example. A few years ago, a man in a small Texas town died and his heirs found a room they never knew existed in his house. When they opened it, there was a cache of looted artifacts, including church treasures, that everyone assumed had been destroyed. He was in the Army, stationed in Italy at the end of the war, and simply shipped those things home in his duffle bag. He may not have felt they were any different as a war souvenir than a German helmet or a Japanese sword. Plenty of those ended up being taken home.”

“Mr. Blomberg...” I begin.

“Please, call me Henry,” the older man interrupts.

“Henry. These are just astounding stories. Are you going to be here for a few days? I’d love to talk more, and hear more about your work.”

Blomberg nods. “I’d planned to stay for about a week; that is if Royce has room at the hotel?” He turns to the hotel owner and I suddenly notice that Royce’s hands are shaking. Not violently, but enough that the spoon clatters against his empty coffee cup.

Royce jerks back, dropping the spoon. “Uh... uh, yes, of course. I thought you were planning to stay. I, um, have your room blocked out for a week.”

“Good. Then I’ll see you and Phil tomorrow some time?” Blomberg says, pushes his chair back and stands. “I’m driving to Jenny Lind tomorrow. I understand there’s almost nothing there, but a gold rush town named for a Swedish singer. That’s just too much to resist.”

He smiles at me, shakes Phil’s hand again and leaves the dining room.

“What a fascinating man, Royce,” I say. “Is he a regular guest? How did he find you?”

“I don’t know how he found me,” Royce says. He has a touch of misery in his voice. “He called one day to book a reservation about a year after I bought the place. I only had three rooms ready, and the dining room only served lunch, so I was glad when he said he’d be here for four days. He’s been back three times since then and each time he stays five or six days. I guess he’s a regular.”

I gathered up my purse and sweater. “Royce, thank you for all you’ve done and for introducing us to Henry. I can imagine that’s you’re still upset about Stewart.”

Phil sits too, and reaches over to stroke my hair. “I do know some people in San Francisco who are relatives of survivors, and I’ve met about half a dozen direct survivors. I met a couple in Zurich once who still had their numbers tattooed on their arms. There’s a group who kept the tattoos because it was a way of keeping the knowledge of what had happened alive. They didn’t ever want the world to forget.”

I’m quiet. “Well, I know about what happened. But all the books and movies are more removed. I haven’t been to the Holocaust Museum and haven’t seen a concentration camp. Henry Blomberg is the closest I’ve come to anyone who went through that. And even he wasn’t in a camp. I wonder if he’s written any memoirs or journals. His inside look at the Nuremberg trials would be something.”

“Robert Calvert was, at least,” my eyebrows are raised, “but I don’t know what that has to do with anything. There were hundreds of thousands of Americans in the war. I’m sure a lot of them found buddies and stayed friends.”

“Just humor me for a minute. This may not tie together, but ever since we went to Nevell’s gallery opening, we’ve run across references to art and recovery of stuff stolen during the war. Now, at this tiny hotel in a tiny town, owned by the grandson of a certified war hero, who was war-time friends with an art dealer, we run into a German Holocaust survivor who’s spent his life hunting art stolen during the war.”

He shakes his head. “I’m probably just thinking way outside the box. God, it’s like I’m falling into a conspiracy theory workgroup. Next I’ll be hearing black helicopters and looking for light rays from UFOs,” he says, laughing wryly.

“Three, we have Royce Calvert who’s at his wit’s end. Is it really just the fear of losing business or is he hiding something else? Stewart’s death must have shocked him, but maybe he’s just a great actor. Maybe Stewart found some information and was using it for leverage against Royce. The hotel is solely in Royce’s name; maybe Stewart thought that he should have a piece of it.

“Four, we have the polite, urbane and slightly spooky Henry Blomberg.”

“What, spooky? Why do you think Blomberg is spooky?” Phil questions me. “I don’t think he’s spooky, he’s a well-bred pre-war European.”

“Maybe it’s the pre-war stuff. I haven’t been around many people who were actually raised upper-class. His style is pretty formal and it makes me nervous. I feel like I’m being dragged out in front of adults for a recital; like I’m going to forget my lines or fall off the stage.”

“OK,” Phil laughs, “there’s a fear I didn’t know you had. You never struck me as the nervous type.

“It’s different when I’m working. Then I put on my journalist persona and can push with the rest of them,” I say.