Authors: Leon Uris
Richard Smiddy, son of George Smiddy and grandson of Harold Smiddy of that fine old law firm marched the stairs to the entrance of the Reform Club. He was rather pleased about getting an appointment with Robert Highsmith in less than a week. As protocol required, Smiddy’s clerk wrote a hand-delivered note to Highsmith’s clerk at Parliament and arranged the meeting. Smiddy did have his man denote that the matter had some urgency. For a passing moment Richard Smiddy had contemplated by-passing tradition and picking up the telephone but only the Americans did business that way.
He deposited his umbrella and bowler with the hall porter and made the usual remark about the foul weather.
“Mr. Highsmith is expecting you, sir.”
Smiddy trotted up the stairs to that place where Phileas Fogg began and ended his trip around the world in eighty days, then into the lounge off to the right. Robert Highsmith, a heavily set fellow indifferently tailored, moved his largeness from a deep leather chair that was cracked with age. Highsmith was somewhat of a colorful character having bolted a family of landed gentry to be called to the bar. He was a dazzling barrister of extraordinary skill and, at the age of thirty-five, recently elected to the House of Commons. A zealous crusader by nature, Highsmith always seemed to have his finger in some pudding of injustice. As such he headed the British office of Sanctuary International, an organization devoted to the defense of political prisoners.
“Hello there, Smiddy, sit down, sit down.”
“Good of you to see me so soon.”
“Not soon enough. I had to put a lot of pressure on the Home Office to hold things off. You should have phoned me for an appointment with time so short.”
“Well yes, that did occur to me.”
Highsmith ordered a whisky neat and Richard Smiddy ordered tea and cakes.
“Well, I’ve got the gist of the charges,” Highsmith said. “They want him for just about everything in the book.” He balanced his specs on the end of his nose, brushed back his disheveled hair, and read from a single sheet of paper. “Giving fatal shots of phenol to prisoners, collaboration with the Nazis, selecting prisoners for the gas chambers, participating in experimental surgery, taking an oath as an honorary German. And so forth, and so forth. Sounds like a bloody monster. What kind of a chap is he?”
“Decent enough sort. A bit blunt. Polish, you know.”
“What’s your office got to say about all this?”
“We’ve gone over the matter very carefully, Mr. Highsmith, and I’d wager my last quid that he’s innocent.”
“Bastards. Well, we’re not going to let them get away with it.”
Sanctuary International
Raymond Buildings
Gray’s Inn
London WC I
The Under Secretary of State
Home Office
Aliens Department
10 Old Bailey
London EC 4
Dear Mr. Clayton-Hill,
I had advised you earlier of the interest of Sanctuary International in the matter of Dr. Adam Kelno, now being detained in H.M. Prison at Brixton. As a matter of procedure, our organization looks with suspicion on any demands for political prisoners being extradited to Communist states. Dr. Kelno is clearly a political victim.
On further scrutiny it is our belief that the charges against Dr. Kelno appear to be totally without foundation. The affidavits against him are either from Polish Communists or Communist-oriented persons.
In no event has anyone claimed to have personally witnessed any wrong doing by Dr. Kelno. These affidavits are based on the loosest kind of hearsay that would be inadmissible evidence in any court of law in the Western world. Furthermore, the Polish government has been unable to produce a single victim of Dr. Kelno’s alleged cruelty.
In our opinion Poland has absolutely failed to establish a prima facie case. Those persons who are able to testify to Dr. Kelno’s magnificent behavior in Jadwiga cannot go to Poland and under no circumstances will the man be given a fair trial. If this extradition is permitted it would be tantamount to a political murder.
In the name of British fair play, Sanctuary International pleads for the unconditional release of this blameless man.
Yours faithfully,
Robert Highsmith
Hobbins, Newton & Smiddy
Solicitors
32B Chancery Lane
London WC 2
The Under Secretary of State
Home Office
Aliens Department
10 Old Bailey
London EC 4
Re: Dr. Adam Kelno
Dear Mr. Clayton-Hill,
Further to the matter of Dr. Adam Kelno. I have the pleasure of enclosing twenty more statements from former inmates of the Jadwiga Concentration Camp on behalf of our client.
We are appreciative of your granting a delay which has allowed us to bring forth over a hundred affidavits. However, Dr. Kelno has been in prison for nearly six months without a prima facie case against him.
We shall be obliged if you will inform us whether you are now satisfied on the evidence we have produced and can arrange to release Dr. Kelno or if we are to go to further expense and labor.
May I call your attention to an honorary tribunal consisting of representatives of all the Free Polish organizations which has not only exonerated him but cites him as a hero.
Faithfully yours,
Hobbins, Newton & Smiddy
In the House of Commons, Robert Highsmith gained support from his fellow members and exerted growing pressure for the release of Kelno. A rash of opinion was growing against the obvious injustice.
Yet, equally insistent was a feeling of anger from Poland that a beastly war criminal was at large and being protected by the British. From their point of view it was a Polish matter and England was bound by treaty to return him for trial.
Just as it seemed that Sanctuary International was turning the corner, Nathan Goldmark, the Polish investigator who was in England pressing for the extradition, found an unexpected witness.
4
T
HE SKYLINE OF
O
XFORD
was punctured by a hundred spires and towers. Nathan Goldmark of the Polish Secret Police nibbled on his knuckles and pressed close to the train window as fellow passengers pulled their luggage down from the overhead rack.
Oxford, he had read on the ride up from London, dated back to the twelfth century and had grown to its present conglomerate of thirty-one colleges with assorted cathedrals, hospitals, institutions, all joggled about in winding ways, a terribly romantic stream, Gothic richness, fluted ceilings, ancient quadrangles, and the chancellors, and masters, and readers, and students, and choirs. Colleges such as the Magdalenes and Pembrokes and All Souls counted their history and their heroes in hundreds of years. The Nuffields and St. Catherine’s in mere decades. All of it was filled with the roll call of immortals that was the greatness of England itself.
Nathan Goldmark found the taxi stand and handed the driver a slip of paper that read, Radcliffe Medical Center. He lowered his window despite the chill drizzle as they drove toward a flood of bicycles and jaunty students. On an ancient wall in paint in red letters were the words,
JESUS WAS A FAIRY.
In the sterile sanctuary of the medical center he was taken down a long corridor, past a dozen laboratories to the tiny, disheveled office of Dr. Mark Tesslar, who had been expecting him.
“We will go to my place,” Tesslar said. “It is better to speak there.”
Tesslar’s apartment was a few miles from the center of Oxford in the countryside, in a converted monastery at Wytham Abbey. It took only a moment or so for Dr. Mark Tesslar and Nathan Goldmark to size each other up, for they were both members of the same unique club, the few and far between Polish Jews to survive Hitler’s holocaust. Tesslar had matriculated through the Warsaw Ghetto, Majdanek and Jadwiga Concentration Camps. Goldmark was a graduate of Dachau and Auschwitz. The rivulets of deep furrows and sunken eyes betrayed the past of one to the other.
“How did you find me, Goldmark?” Tesslar asked.
Through Dr. Maria Viskova. She told me you were in Oxford working on special research.”
The mention of Maria brought a smile to an otherwise rigid, bony face. “Maria ... when did you see her last?”
“A week ago.”
“How is she?”
“Well, in a favorable position but, like all of us, trying to find out where life is again. Trying to understand what happened.”
“I begged her, when we were liberated and returned to Warsaw, to leave Poland. It is no place for a Jew. It’s a graveyard. A vast, hollow place filled with the smell of death.”
“But you are still a Polish citizen, Dr. Tesslar.”
“No. I have no intentions of going back. Never.”
“It will be a great loss for the Jewish community.”
“What Jewish community? A smattering of ghosts sifting through the ashes.”
“It will be different now.
“Will it, Goldmark? Then why do they have a separate branch of the Communist Party for Jews. I’ll tell you. Because the Poles won’t admit to their guilt and they have to keep what is left of the Jews locked in Poland. See! We have Jews here. They like it here. We are good Poles. And people like you do their dirty work. You have to keep a Jewish community in Poland to justify your own existence. You’re being used. But in the end you’ll find out the Communists are no better for us than the Nationalists before the war. Inside that country we are pigs.”
“And Maria Viskova ... a lifelong Communist?”
“She will be disenchanted too, before it’s over.”
Goldmark wished to disengage the conversation. His face pinched nervously as he sucked at one cigarette after the other. As Tesslar made his attack, Goldmark became more restless.
Mark Tesslar limped slightly as he took the tray of tea from his housekeeper. He prepared it and poured.
“The reason of my visit to Oxford,” Goldmark said, “concerns Adam Kelno.”
The mention of Kelno’s name brought an instant visible reaction. “What about Kelno?”
Goldmark smirked a little, chomping with the sudden importance of his revelation. “You’ve known him a long time?”
“Since we were students in 1930.”
“When was the last you saw of him?”
“Leaving the Jadwiga Concentration Camp. I heard he came to Warsaw after the war, then fled.”
“What would you say if I told you he was in England?”
“Free?”
“Not exactly. He is being detained at the Brixton Prison. We are trying to get him extradited to Poland. You ought to know the situation here in England with the Polish fascists. They have made a cause célèbre out of him. They’ve managed to attract enough attention in high places to make the British do a fence-sitting act. You knew him intimately in Jadwiga?”
“Yes,” Tesslar whispered.
“Then you must be aware of the charges against him.”
“I know he committed experimental surgery on our people.”
“How do you know this?”
“I saw it with my own eyes.”
The Under Secretary of State
The Home Office
Alien’s Department
10 Old Bailey
London EC 4
Hobbins, Newton & Smiddy
Solicitors
32B Chancery Lane
London WC 2
Re: Dr. Adam Kelno
Gentlemen:
I am directed by the Secretary of State to inform you that he has carefully considered all the circumstances including information furnished by the Polish government. With the recent sworn statement of Dr. Mark Tesslar the Secretary of State considers that a prima facie case has been established. It is not within our jurisdiction to comment on the right or wrong of Polish law but to comply with treaties in effect with that government.
Therefore, the Secretary of State has decided to enforce the deportation order by sending Dr. Kelno to Poland.
I am, gentlemen,
Your obedient servant,
John Clayton-Hill
5
T
HE GUARD LED
A
DAM
K
ELNO
into the glassed consultation room where he was seated opposite Robert Highsmith and Richard Smiddy.
“I’m going to come right to the point, Kelno,” Highsmith said, “we are in a nasty bind. Nathan Goldmark has obtained a very damaging affidavit against you. What does the name Mark Tesslar mean to you?”
Fear was evident in him.
“Well?”
“He is in England?”
“Yes.”
“It is all very clear. Once the Polish government could not establish a case against me, they sent one of them after me.”
“One of whom?”
“The Communists. The Jews.”
“What about Tesslar?”
“He swore to get me almost twenty years ago.” Kelno hung his head. “Oh God, what’s the use.”
“See here, man, you pull yourself together. There is no time for sinking spells. We have to keep our wits.”
“What do you want to know?”
“When did you first meet Tesslar?”
“Around 1930 at the university when we were students together. He was dismissed for committing abortions and he claimed I was the one who turned him in. At any rate, he concluded his medical training in Europe, Switzerland, I think.”
“Did you see him when he returned to Warsaw to practice before the war?”
“No, but he was a well-known abortionist. As a Roman Catholic it was difficult for me to recommend abortions, but a few times I felt it best for the life of the patient and once a close relative was in trouble. Tesslar never knew I sent people to him. It was always done through a blind party.”