The German Suitcase (29 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Max had been powerfully shaken by the lynching he had witnessed en route to the train station. Now, as he approached the main entrance on his bicycle, the sight of the news dealer in his kiosk, hawking broadsheets that heralded the war’s end, raised his spirits. The fact that the fellow was able to put Max in contact with the forger who had worked with his parents, bolstered them.

Milton Glazer’s D-K-G studio was in a garret atop a building in the badly damaged Schwabing District. Though Jews were no longer forced to wear yellow stars—making the snap-fasteners the young graphic designer had cleverly used to remove his, unnecessary—the sign on the door still proclaimed Druck-Knopfe-Grafik.

Slight of build with a daring sparkle in his eyes, Glazer had used his talent and guile to survive the Nazis and help other Jews do the same. He took one look at Max and realized a photo of him as he appeared, now, would mark his passport as a forgery. Instead of taking a new one, Glazer expertly removed the one from Max’s German passport and touched-out the portion of a seal that circled through the corner; then he made a copy and riveted it to the Austrian passport he’d spent the afternoon forging. A stamped red letter J finished it, nicely. By nightfall, he had also produced a perfect copy of a Displaced Persons Identity Card. Kennecartes, as they were called, were issued to survivors upon their release from processing centers like Landsberg. Each had a photo of the bearer’s left ear and a thumbprint. Both documents were in the name Jacob Epstein with the address in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt District as his residence.

“With luck, these will get you into Austria,” Glazer said with his endearing twinkle, double-checking the details of both documents. “As you know, passports were confiscated by the SS upon arrest. As you probably also know, prisoner doctors had special privileges. That’s your answer if anyone asks why you have one. The sweat-stains, creases and grime are no accident. It’s been beneath the insole of your shoe for safe keeping during your imprisonment. Are you right-handed or left-handed?

“Right-handed,” Max replied.

“So, it would be your left shoe. Border guards find these little details very satisfying. You understand?”

Max nodded. “You’re amazing.”

“I know,” Glazer said with a grin. “By the way, the Jewish Brigade is operating on the Italian side. So that crossing shouldn’t be a problem.”

Max looked puzzled. “The Jewish Brigade? I don’t recall my parents mentioning them. Of course they never mentioned you either—not by name, anyway. Are they with the resistance?”

“No, they’re British Army,” Glazer replied with an amused chuckle. “All Jews from Palestine. Five thousand strong. They’ve been in Northern Italy for months. We hear they’re working with Bricha.”

“Bricha. That’s Hebrew for escape, isn’t it.”

Glazer nodded. “It’s also the name of a movement that assists Jews fleeing Germany, Austria and Eastern European nations. It smuggles them into Italy and takes them to seaports so they can book passage to Palestine. Bricha has been extremely helpful to our people.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for them.”

Glazer’s expression darkened. “I heard about your family. I’m sorry. They were more than courageous. This is for them, Captain Kleist,” he said pointedly.

Max nodded his eyes welling. He wanted to protest, to say I’m not really SS, not one of them; but he had what he needed and thought the better of it.

That evening, Max lashed the bicycle atop the Professor’s car, put the dog and the suitcase in the back seat, and settled next to Gerhard. They drove south through Starnberg, Murnau, Garmisch and Mittenwald. In less than two hours, they had covered the sixty miles to Sharnitz, a town on the German-Austrian Border where a Prohibited Frontier Zone had been established. To reach Venice, Max had to clear the checkpoint, traverse the Alps via the thirty-five-mile-long Brenner Pass, clear the checkpoint on the Austro-Italian Border, and bicycle 150 miles through the rugged Italian countryside.

After an emotional farewell with the Professor, Max strapped the suitcase to the handlebars as he had on leaving his family’s townhouse, and then pedaled into the darkness, the dog loping down the road after him. Soon, the glare of floodlights at the checkpoint’s gated barrier turned night into day. Max shuddered at the sight of a large sign that proclaimed:

IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE TERMS OF SURRENDER

GERMAN MILITARY PERSONNEL

ARE FORBIDDEN TO PASS BEYOND THIS LINE

Bavaria had been taken by American forces; and the squad of U.S. Army soldiers, manning the checkpoint, had strict orders: Only Allied military and civilian personnel with proper travel orders, POWs under escort, liberated civilians, and displaced persons returning home could cross zonal boundaries. A small group of refugees were being processed as Max approached. Those on foot were lugging suitcases and bundles tied with string. Some had knapsacks slung over their shoulders. Several rode motor scooters or drove cars burdened by the weight of their owner’s belongings. A few were astride bicycles. Despite the advent of Spring, many wore heavy coats.

Max dismounted and took his place at the end of the line, walking the bike forward. When his turn came he presented his Austrian passport and Displaced Persons kenncarte, the latter, ostensibly, signed and stamped by an official at Landsberg Center upon his release.

The sergeant had a sidearm strapped to his hip. He studied the passport, looking from Max’s face to the photo and back. “Vienna’s way east of here. Salzburg checkpoint’s much closer. Why not cross there?”

“Because I want to get out of Germany as quickly as possible,” Max replied, indicating his striped uniform. “I’m sure you understand.”

“Dachau,” the sergeant said.

Max nodded and pushed up his sleeve to reveal the number tattooed on his arm. “Auschwitz before that.”

The sergeant grimaced then, trying to lighten the mood, he nodded to the dog. “Was he there too?”

“No, but he’s been tailing after me ever since.”

“Good luck, sir.” The sergeant returned Max’s documents and nodded to the soldier posted at the gate.

Max smiled and began walking the bike toward it.

“Hold on,” the sergeant called out, stopping Max in his tracks. A shiver shot up his spine. His heart pounded. Had Landsberg discovered Epstein, Dr. Jacob, number A198841, was missing and put out an alert?! Had it just arrived at the checkpoint?! Max was about to toss the suitcase and bicycle aside and make a run for it when the sergeant asked, “That all you got to wear?” Max looked back and nodded, suppressing his relief. “It’s freezing up in that Pass,” the sergeant went on. He called out to a soldier, unloading supplies from a truck, “Eddie, you got a spare parka in there?”

A short time later, bundled in official Uncle Sam-winter issue, Max began the steep, twisting climb. The fifteen mile journey to the crest was a grueling challenge on a bicycle; and despite coasting for long stretches on the descent, the exertion, below-freezing temperatures at altitude, and bone-chilling rain in the valleys took their toll—not only on Max but on the dog as well. It was morning when the Prohibited Frontier Zone on the Austro-Italian border came into view.

The Italian military controlled the checkpoint, now. In mid-1943 when Mussolini’s Fascist government fell, Italy became occupied by German troops. The new Italian leadership surrendered unconditionally to the Allies and pledged their support. As an offer of proof, they adopted humanitarian policies, and began collaborating with the British Army’s Jewish Brigade to support the Bricha movement; and Italian border guards, routinely, turned a blind-eye to such travelers.

As a result Max had no trouble entering Italy. Mud-spattered and exhausted, he shed his parka and lifted his face to the wind, embracing the warmth that rose from the Italian foothills. He pedaled blithely along twisting mountain roads, passing long lines of German POWs being marched north by their captors. The hill towns of Fortezza, Varna and Chiusa were soon behind him, and he was climbing the hills of Ponte Gardena when the drive-chain snapped. The bicycle coasted to a stop. Max dismounted and crouched next to it, examining the damage. Several links had broken and been mangled by the gear sprockets, scattering bits of twisted metal across the roadway. Kunst settled on his haunches next to Max, then laid down as if begging to sleep. The dog was right. They’d been on the move for nearly thirty-six hours and Max decided to nap before attempting to repair the chain. After several hours curled-up on the warm earth with the dog, Max was having little luck reassembling the broken links when the rumble of an approaching vehicle propelled him to his feet.

A military truck came into view. White lettering stenciled on the door read 8th Army. It pulled onto the shoulder and rolled to a stop. The two soldiers in the cab wore British Army uniforms. The driver saw the yellow triangle on Max’s striped uniform, and, in Cockney-accented Yiddish, asked, “Need a hand there?”

“The chain snapped,” Max replied without missing a beat, his Yiddish polished by regular use at Dachau. “I’m afraid it’s beyond repair.”

“Well, I’ve some lovely folks in the back you might like to meet. Where you headed?”

“Venice. I’ve a close friend there. You?”

“Ancona via Padua. Venice is just a hop and a skip down the road from there.” The driver climbed down from the cab and extended a hand. “Marty Goldstein.”

“Jake, Jake Epstein,” Max said as if he’d been saying it all his life. It was automatic, unthinking, a moment of impromptu social interaction, a transformative moment that convinced Max he could become Jake Epstein whenever the need arose.

Max left the bike on the roadside and climbed into the back of the truck with the suitcase followed by the dog. It was filled with Jewish refugees who had been smuggled into Italy by Bricha and the Jewish Brigade. With any luck they would reach Padua by nightfall.

The old university town—where in 1305 Giotto painted his lyrical frescoes in the Scrovegni family chapel—had been liberated in heavy fighting on April 29th by the New Zealand Division of the British Eighth Army and CNL partisans. Led by General Bernard Freyberg the Division continued on to Venice where resistance was light. It drove the Nazis from their headquarters in Ca’ Giustiniani, a 15th Century Palazzo on the Grand Canal; and took up residence in the Hotel Danieli where the General had stayed on his honeymoon years before.

The drive to Padua proved uneventful. Night had fallen by the time Max bid farewell to his rescuers. He spent the evening in a trattoria celebrating the end of the war with gregarious locals, making-up for all the meals he had missed. Barely two weeks had passed since the Germans had been routed. Trains ran intermittently if at all; but the Padana Superiore, the old public road on which the New Zealand Division had marched to Venice was open; and bus service had resumed.

The next morning, Max bought a ticket and boarded with his suitcase. He didn’t have to pay for the dog. About an hour later, the enchanting city came into view. Built on pilings more than a thousand years ago, Venice hovered above the water like a fog-shrouded mirage, the domes and spires of its more than sixty churches aglow in the morning light. Max had come here, once, as a child with his family for the Biennale, the world famous art fair where his mother had made many an astute acquisition; but it was a poignant twenty-year-old memory, now; and as the crisp scent of brine came through the open windows of the bus, filling his head, Max was as awestruck as a first-time visitor, and delighted to see the city was completely intact.

Indeed, as President Roosevelt promised after Italy surrendered in the autumn of 1943, nonmilitary objectives had not been attacked by Allied bombers; and Venice’s architectural and artistic treasures had been spared. However, mainland industrial areas in Mestre had been bombed as had nearby rail yards. As a result, the Germans began shipping supplies to Venice by sea; and a week before the city was liberated, the Royal Air Force dive-bombed Venice Harbor, destroying the long wharves. The airstrike had been so precise, the city was undamaged but for a few broken windows.

On reaching the end of the Padana Superiore, the bus taking Max to Venice entered a long causeway. The Ponte Littorio swept across the Lagoon in a two-mile-arc, carrying motor vehicles between the mainland and the ancient island city. It terminated at a massive parking garage in Piazzale Roma. Max set-off along the Grand Canal with his suitcase and crossed the steeply arched Scalzi Bridge into Cannaregio, the largest of Venice’s six administrative districts and site of the Jewish Ghetto where Eva Rosenberg’s family lived. Skittish in the unfamiliar environment, Kunst padded along close on his master’s heels.

Small boats, water taxis, ferries and gondolas were plying the network of canals at a leisurely pace, barely disturbing the placid waters. Not a single motor vehicle had ever been driven on the streets of Venice, and never would be, making sidewalks unnecessary; and every Calle, Strada and Via was filled with strolling pedestrians. But for their attire, it was as if Max had stepped back in time to the Middle Ages, to the days of Marco Polo, and the Venetian empire that had conquered Byzantium and ruled the Eastern Mediterranean. The British troops, who were patrolling the bustling city, were the only reminder of the ravages of war Max had left behind.

It was a short walk to Campo Ghetto Vecchio where the city’s tallest structures stood. Since all of Venice’s Jews had once been forced to live there, and only there, landlords had taken to adding floors to their buildings to house their growing number. Smaller than two side-by-side football fields, it was bounded by canals and connected to adjacent areas by bridges. From the early 1500s when Jews were herded there—in a defiant, if inhumane, response to the Vatican’s decree that all Jews be expelled from Western Europe—until the mid-1800s when they were freed, these bridges were gated and manned by Christian guards. A century later, they had been gated, once again, and manned by SS guards who had sent hundreds of the Ghetto’s residents to death camps.

There were no guards when Max arrived. He stood beneath the blossoming trees, his heart pounding with anticipation. Locals were swirling about the verre da pozzo as the carved well-heads centered in Venice’s campos are called. Animated conversation and carefree laughter echoed throughout the neighborhood as the residents, freed from Nazi oppression, went about their marketing and daily chores. Max collected himself, then crossed the pollen-dusted cobblestones to No. 11.