Escape (33 page)

Sobelman turned his attention back to the audience. Many of their faces were pale, and most had tears in their eyes, even the adults.

"I was spared not through some kindness, but because the Germans and their Ukranian dogs did not want to do the dirty work," he said. "They kept several hundred Jewish slave laborers for that.... We worked in teams. Some cleaned out the killing rooms, the bodies so tightly packed that even when they were dead, there was no room to fall down. Rail tracks ran up to the back of the building; bodies were hauled out the rear doors and loaded on trolleys to be taken to pits, where other prisoners stacked them like cordwood for efficiency, then burned and buried them."

Sobelman sighed and then continued. "There were many jobs in the camp. Some gathered the hair in the shaving hut and sorted it by color and quality—most going to stuff mattresses though the best was used for wigs. Other slaves gathered bodies in the camp of laborers who had been killed by guards or died of starvation simply because they had no wish to live any longer. My job was to remove gold fillings from the teeth of the corpses before they were placed on the trolleys for the burial pits."

"Oh my God," cried one of the mothers as she placed a hand over her mouth. She looked in desperation at her husband as if hoping he might take her and their child out of the room. But he just took her hand in his and nodded toward Sobelman, which allowed her to gather herself and face the old man, too.

"Oh my God," Sobelman repeated. "How many times, in how many languages, did I hear some Jew on the way to the gas chambers ask, 'My God, how can this happen?' But this was not a place where God answered many prayers ... why, I do not know ... but in this place, evil reigned supreme." The first commandant at Sobibor was a man named Franz Stangl. He was an Austrian and had been a master weaver and then a police detective before the war. "During his tenure from when the camp opened for business in May 1942 until July 1942, approximately 100,000 Jews were murdered at Sobibor," Sobelman said. "Most came from Lublin, as well as Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Austria."

In late summer 1942, the mass killings stopped as repairs were made to the main rail line and the number of gas chambers doubled to six. "Operations resumed in October. Only now they could rob, strip, murder, and dispose of 1,200 innocent people at a time."

By the spring of 1943, more than a quarter million Jews had been killed. "Mostly from Galicia, Poland, Germany, and Slavic lands. Then in March, the first trainloads of French Jews arrived and were exterminated, followed by 35,000 Jews from Holland, including myself and my family. Jews were being drained from the population of Europe like water from a bathtub."

"Even children?" another of the mothers cried out.

"Yes, my dear," Sobelman replied heavily. "Even the children. I remember especially one of the trains from Holland had so many children that it was impossible to process them quickly. They were separated from their mothers and formed into a spiraling line in one of the yards. They were beautiful children—little blondes in sailor suits and pigtails with round, red cheeks, all dressed up as if going on holiday. Hour after hour they waited in the line with their little suitcases and bags. Some knelt to play in the sand, while others cried for their mothers. But they were good children and did as they were told and waited even when the Ukrainians made a game of trying to frighten them. All day long, from morning until night, that line uncoiled as the children were slowly led into a building where their clothes and baggage were taken from them. Then they were herded like little animals up The Tube where their parents had already gone, and into the brick building. Then the engines would start and a few minutes later, the doors at the back of the building would open and out they would fall like potatoes from a truck."

Even being a slave laborer was no guarantee of staying alive. "I was spared because of my father's occupation," Sobelman said. "One day, a German officer named Johann Klier, who had owned his own bakery before the war and ran the camp's, sought me out. Other prisoners who had known my father told Herr Klier that I was an experienced baker. So I went from pulling the teeth of corpses to baking bread. Oh, and Herr Klier also was in charge of collecting the shoes from prisoners. He once told me that he estimated 45,000 pairs of shoes in his inventory."

"Was Klier as bad as the others?" Zak asked.

"I guess you could say that on a scale of lesser evils, he was more humane than some of the others, though he knew what was going on in the camp, and did nothing about it. He was also not above beating prisoners for the slightest infraction. But there were those who enjoyed the brutality more than others."

There were some like Paul Bredow, a former police officer from Silesia. He would wait on the train platform to weed out the invalids or those too weakened from the strain of the trip to make the journey to Camp II. Instead, he would have other prisoners take them to "the chapel" where, he assured them, they would be taken care of. However, it was just a building where he practiced what he called his "hobby," which was target shooting, with Jews as his targets. "He set himself a daily quota of fifty."

Others enjoyed raping young girls and their mothers in front of each other. Or making new prisoners haul out the bodies of their family members and take them to the pits where they were forced to watch the bodies bum before they were shot and kicked into the pits as well."

"They were monsters!" Giancarlo exclaimed. "You'd have to be crazy to do something so horrible."

Sobelman shook his head. "Monsters? Crazy? Perhaps you could say that their deeds were monstrous and crazy, but to let them blame it on some mass psychosis that overtook the German race is to give them an excuse for deliberately murdering 12 million people."

Elisa Robyn's mother raised her hand. "What about people who say the Holocaust never happened?" she asked. "The president of Iran says it was a hoax. And so do some people in this country."

Sobelman's eyes glittered with anger. "Some hoax." He rolled up the sleeve on his right arm and held up the tattoo for all to see. "I'm sure you've all heard about these numbers," he said. "Well, do you know why they numbered us? It was so they could keep track of how many they killed. So how do we know it was not a hoax? Well, for starters, while they did their best to kill all the Jews in their camps, they did not succeed. So I suppose all those survivors were just lying? And what about the confessions of those who worked as guards and staff at the camps? I suppose they are lying, too, to make themselves look bad? Or perhaps their confessions were beat out of them the way they used to beat their prisoners? Of course, if you listened to those guards and officers, it was always someone else who did the killing; they always worked in some other part of the camp and had nothing to do with it."

As he continued to speak, Sobelman began pacing back and forth. "And what of the photographs the Germans took of the stacked bodies or the piles of bodies simply thrown into pits? And how about the photographs taken by the Allied soldiers who liberated the camps? I suppose they are all part of this grand hoax as well."

Sobelman stopped pacing. "But how do we really know for sure? Where did we come up with these outrageous figures of 6 million dead Jews for this hoax? Why, from the murderers themselves!"

He tapped the number on his forearm. "The Germans are a very meticulous people; they take great pride in it, and in this case, they kept detailed records. Remember all those personal belongings we surrendered when we arrived at the camps? They cataloged and tagged it all.... they even gave us receipts, though that was probably to lull us into a false sense of security."

"I think they were evil," said the woman who'd cried out earlier.

"I guess if you define an evil person as someone who commits evil deeds, then yes," Sobelman agreed, but then frowned. "However, if you're saying that by being evil they were not human—that they grew horns or spoke in gibberish—then again, you are making an excuse for their behavior. You're saying that they were evil and therefore could not help themselves, as if evil were a form of insanity."

Sobelman shook his head. "The acts were evil, but the actors were just humans. Most were ordinary people before the war. It's true that most of the SS and camp guards, and even the officers, weren't well-educated; they'd been factory workers, bakers, weavers, salesmen, and shop workers, just like their fathers had been before them. Many of them were married and had children."

"How could they do this then?" Zak complained.

"How could they, indeed. After the war, those who were put on trial said they were just following orders. It is always this way when men are held accountable for crimes: They blame someone else—a Führer, a king, an imam, their government, the other soldier. They even blame God. But all the while they know what they are doing is wrong, and that's what makes them guilty."

"How did you escape?" Giancarlo asked.

Sobelman looked at Karp. "Do we have time?"

Karp glanced at his watch. "Yes, but I do hear that cherry cheese coffee-cake calling my name."

Sobelman smiled. "Then we should answer. But perhaps this last story will be a good way to end such a horrible tale. For you see, those intent on evil can break our bones and knock out our teeth; they can murder us in gas chambers and blow themselves up in our synagogues. But there is one thing no one can do to you unless you let them..."

The friendly little old baker suddenly straightened his back, and his eyes grew fierce as he pointed a finger at his audience. "They cannot take your soul, and in the end, we did not let them take ours."

As the F train rumbled south, Malovo and Hazzan stayed near the door, ready to get off quickly. Malovo nearly lost her balance and had to reach out and grab her companion's arm as the train swung around a sudden bend in the rail line. He started to laugh—having ridden the subway system since childhood, he knew how to keep his footing the way a cowboy knows how to stay on a bucking horse. But since he'd known her, he'd never seen Ajmaani lose her composure, or her balance, and it seemed comical until he caught the look in her eye.

When the train reached the Delancey Street station, the woman they were following waited until the last moment and then stepped out as the doors were about to close. Malovo wondered if Miriam was on to them. But the younger woman never turned to look back. Instead, she stood for a moment to study the subway station signs and then headed for the exit she wanted, her two trackers following.

The sky had darkened considerably by the time they walked onto Delancey Street in the Lower East Side. The sidewalks were in transition, with some people heading home and others walking to the area's restaurants, which were doing a brisk table business as people enjoyed one of the last warm evenings of August.

It took Malovo a moment to spot the back of the lime-green hajib, but then she spotted Miriam heading into Sarah Roosevelt Park. The younger woman cut through the park onto Chrystie Street, which she followed north until she reached Rivington. Suddenly she stopped and wheeled.

This time Malovo anticipated the move by stooping to inspect the wares of a sidewalk purse vendor, who tried to sell her a knock-off Prada. Meanwhile, Hazzan pointed to a framed photograph of the World Trade Center as it had appeared at night from the art vendor seated next door. Their target just seemed to be trying to get her bearings before crossing Chrystie to Rivington, where she was set upon by two bums looking for change.

With Miriam distracted, Malovo crossed Chrystie and hid in a doorway. She was tired of this game.
We should have just killed her after her idiot husband blew himself up,
she thought. At the time, she'd argued that they had no idea what Jamal might have told his wife about the plan—maybe enough that someone could piece some of it together. "I'll make it look like just another violent crime for which New York is reputed," she had said to Jabbar.

Malovo suspected that the imam had his eyes on the Widow Khalifa, although he was twice her age and reminded the Russian of a lizard with his bulgy eyes and the way his pink tongue constantly wet his thin lips. He'd argued that if something happened to her, Mahmoud Juma, the old man, might raise enough of a stink that the NYPD might start asking questions. The attorney, Dean Newbury, had agreed. "So far, according to my sources, the federal agencies haven't linked her husband to the mosque," he said. "We dodged a bullet, which we might not do a second time if the police come snooping around here for a murder investigation."

So Malovo had allowed herself to be persuaded that the threat of deportation—as well as an unfriendly reception in Nairobi should her family return—would be enough to force Miriam's silence. But she wasn't so sure anymore. A feeling of unease had been growing ever since she overhead Miriam Khalifa talking to the security-firm translator, Marie Smith, at the reception.

PrimeTech Security Corporation charged a lot of money, and they could no doubt hire the best of the best. Espey Jaxon was a prime example. As an FBI agent he'd caused her and others, like Andrew Kane, a lot of trouble. Finding out that Jaxon had a gambling problem had been a real surprise— but it seemed to check out with her mob sources.

She was just as sure that the firm's translators would also be high-priced and more than competent. Still, one who could speak French, English, Arabic, Chechen, and "a few words of Swahili," not to mention any languages she had failed to mention, was, as she'd said, unique. What else this "Marie" might be capable of if she started talking to Miriam Khalifa wasn't something Malovo wanted to leave to chance.

Malovo had tried to have Smith followed after the reception. But the mujahideen assigned to the task had lost her after she arrived back at the security firm's headquarters in New Jersey. The firm was guarded about the living arrangements of its personnel, and when a half-dozen sedans with dark-tinted windows left an hour later, the mujahideen didn't know which one to follow.

So Malovo decided she would have Miriam Khalifa watched instead. The men assigned to the task, however, reported nothing out of the ordinary. Each weekday morning, the woman brought her son to the mosque school, went to work at the reception desk until school was out, and then picked him up and walked him home to the apartment she shared with her father and sister. On weekends, she spent most of her time at Marcus Garvey or Central Park with her family.

This morning, the routine changed. Miriam had arrived at the mosque without her son. When one of the watchers reported this, Malovo had checked with the teacher and was told that the boy's mother said he wasn't feeling well and had stayed home with her father. But Malovo had several opportunities during the day to observe the younger woman without being seen, and she thought she seemed nervous and preoccupied. She kept talking to some unseen person, which made her wonder if the woman was wired for sound.

So Malovo dismissed one of the men assigned to keep an eye on Miriam and took a seat herself at the Khartoum Restaurant and then followed her to Rivington Street. She peeked around the edge of the doorway. Miriam was searching her purse for something to give the beggars.

The question was whether or not to kill the woman now. The last piece of the puzzle would arrive in a few days, and then the plan would go forward. They could not afford to arouse the suspicions of the police, whether they were looking into a murder or following up on anything Miriam Khalifa might tell them. But which was the more likely scenario?

Malovo looked at her watch. Whatever she was going to do, it would have to be done soon—a difficult proposition on a busy side street. She was supposed to meet her "lover" in a little more than an hour in Brooklyn. The idea of it made her stomach lurch, but he, too, was necessary to the plan. She would have to tolerate his grunting and groaning, while fantasizing what it was going to be like to kill him. Now, that was enough to give a girl an orgasm.

She peeked and saw that Miriam was walking away from the beggars, moving out of sight down Rivington. "Let's go," she told Hazzan.

When the smaller of the two beggars approached, Miriam had recoiled at his foul language more than his odd looks and the muscle spasms in his face. It took her a moment to realize he was trying to pass on a message.

"You're being ... piss fuck me ... followed," the man said, staring at her through dirty glasses that magnified his watery blue eye. "The woman in the black leather ... what a whore crap ... with the black boyfriend. No, don't turn. Pretend to give me and Booger here a ... oh boy oh boy bitch ... a couple of bucks."

A gigantic man-beast, who appeared to be covered from head to toe in fur, hovered behind him. She gasped as she caught the full effect of the big man's odiferous body; he smelled like he'd been rolling around on bags of garbage left for a week in the sun.

"What is the password?" Miriam remembered to ask. She'd seen the woman, too, on the subway station platform and again near the park, and intuition had already told her she was being watched. Still, these two street people weren't the sort of people she'd expected to be looking out for her.

"God is ... fucking ... great," said the little man as his face went through a series of grimaces.

Miriam wanted to tell the man not to blaspheme, but she finally understood that he had no control over his language or the facial tics. Allah had made him as he was, and that meant Allah had a purpose for the afflictions. She reached into her purse and found two dollar bills.

"Thanks," the little man said, accepting the bills and handing one back to the one he'd called Booger. "Now, walk up the block and go ... damn damn oh boy crap ... down the alley. You'll meet a ... whore vagina oh boy ... man in there. He'll help. Don't be ... hold my penis ... afraid."

Miriam reached the alley on the north side of the street but hesitated. The streetlights had come on, but they did little to illuminate more than a few feet of the graffiti-covered alley.

She considered walking on, getting back on the subway, and going home to her family. If she truly was being followed, then they suspected her, and she might be in danger, or worse, she might be endangering her son.

Imam Jabbar had pulled her aside a few days earlier and told her that Jamal was "missing in action" fighting against NATO troops in Afghanistan. He said that as the widow of a martyr, she would be entitled to a monetary stipend provided by "certain friends of the mosque in the Middle East." In order to receive these benefits, however, it was necessary for her to keep her mouth shut and say nothing of her husband, especially if the authorities nosed around.

If that happened, not only would she lose the "martyr's wife" stipend, she and her family would be deported. "And I would not be able to protect you in Kenya," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder in an inappropriately familiar way. She'd removed his hand but nodded that she understood both the offer and the implied threat.

Maybe I should take Jabbar up on it,
she thought. Whatever the Americans made of the information she carried in her handbag and in her head, she would still be the widow of a mass murderer. And an illegal immigrant. Surely they would make her and her family leave the country.

The whole reason her father had been willing to entertain the possibility of marriage between herself and Jamal when the imam inquired was that it might make obtaining permanent residence status easier for Miriam. Jabbar had pointed out that it might even help Mahmoud and Ayaan remain in the country legally.

Miriam had wanted very much to remain in America. Maybe if she had never known anything more than the simple fishing village on the coast of Kenya, she would have been content there. She would have married a local boy, and they would have raised their children to be good Muslims as her people had been for nearly twelve centuries.

However, she did know more than that village. There was a world of possibilities for her in America that she could have never pursued in Kenya.

Here she could still be a good Muslim and go to college and have a career. She could even enjoy art and music in the more liberal Islamic community of the United States.

Jamal Khalifa wasn't exactly the man of her dreams. She didn't care for his pockmarked face, or worse, that he worked for the imam as one of his "security team." However, after they were formally introduced, he seemed nice enough, so she agreed to go for a chaperoned walk with him to see if they got along. "As long as I don't have to marry him if I don't like him," she told her father.

"I would rather return to Kenya and fish for the rest of my days than for you to be unhappily married," Mahmoud replied.

So she and Jamal went for a stroll in Central Park as one of the older women from the mosque stood in for Miriam's mother and followed at a discreet, but visible, distance. Jamal was shy because of his scarred face, but she thought he had pretty eyes and a nice smile. It went better after he started telling her about his dream of maybe owning a business, or even studying to become an imam of his own mosque.

After the first meeting, she'd agreed to see him again, and after a time the older woman had deemed the escort unnecessary; everyone could see that the couple were growing closer. They were walking one early summer evening in 2002 through the neighborhood where he'd grown up, so that she could visualize a game of stickball or kick-the-can, when he stopped. "Listen," he said. "Do you hear that?"

At first, she heard nothing, but then in the distance, she heard the first few notes of tinny, happy music, which soon grew louder. "What is it?" she asked.

"A miracle," he replied with a sly smile. "Look!"

At first all she saw was a city street at the end of a hot day, but then a white truck appeared with a loudspeaker playing music above the windshield. Yelling with delight, children came running from the stoops and out of the buildings, abandoning their games and rope-skipping to swarm around the truck.

Laughing like a little boy, Jamal Khalifa pulled her by the hand until they stood at the side of the truck. "Choose one," he insisted, pointing up at the pictures of the various treats.

At first she demurred, but he wouldn't order for himself until she did. So she pointed to one, mostly because it was pink and pretty. "Strawberry Shortcake and a Drumstick," Jamal told the man inside the truck. He then proudly handed her the ice cream bar.

It was the most delicious treat she'd ever eaten. By the time she got home that evening, she had made up her mind to marry Jamal. She still didn't like his politicizing of Islam or defense of extremists who talked about jihad. When he tried to defend the attack on the World Trade Center as an act of war, she'd told him about the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.

"Even if it had been a military target, and it was not," she argued, "it killed more Muslims than anyone else, and that is certainly against the teachings of the Qur'an. It was an act by cowards who were picking and choosing and misinterpreting the Qur'an to achieve their own selfish, evil ends. I don't want to marry a martyr; I want a good Muslim husband and good father for my children."

Occasionally, Jamal had put his foot down as the man of the house, such as when she wanted to send Abdullah to public school and he insisted that he attend the madrasah. But that was his right in accordance with the Qur'an. And he at least had not said no when she mentioned that she might want to attend night classes to get her G.E.D. and possibly even go to college "so that I can help contribute to our family's prosperity."

However, that might have been because he was struggling to make ends meet. His felony record and lack of education weighed heavily against him. Bankers just laughed at him when he went in to ask for a business loan; they laughed at him again when he asked for a loan to go back to school.