Authors: Leon Uris
“Would you tell my Lord and the jury about your removal from Barrack III?”
“The SS came for the six of us who had been irradiated together. They also took a Pole, an older man, and Menno Donker.”
“Had Donker been irradiated?”
“No, I thought it strange he should be taken. I remember that.”
“Go on, please.”
“We were marched to Barrack V, the eight of us and six women from the ground floor of the barrack. Then, a scene of madness took place. Everyone was naked and being manhandled and held for injections.”
“How many injections did you have?”
“Only one, in the spine,”
“How was this administered and where?”
“In the waiting room. A huge Kapo locked my arms behind me so I was powerless, a second shoved my head between my legs and the third gave me the needle.”
“Was it painless?”
“I never have to worry about pain from that time on because nothing could ever give me so much pain. I passed out.”
“And when you awakened?”
“I opened my eyes and saw a reflection lamp. I tried to move but my lower body was dead and I was held by straps. A number of men stood over me. The only one I knew was Voss. One of the men in white and wearing a mask held my testicle in a pair of forceps and showed it to Voss. He put it in a bowl, and I remember them reading the number off my arm and writing it on a tag attached to the bowl. I began to cry. That is when I noticed Dr. Tesslar at my side trying to comfort me.”
“And you were returned to Barrack III?”
“Yes.”
“What was your condition?”
“All of us were ill from infection. Menno Donker was the most ill because both of his testicles had been removed. I remember one of the boys, Bernard Holst, was taken away that first night. I heard later he died.”
“And after a time, you were released?”
“No. I remained. We were taken back to Barrack V and X-rayed again.”
“Did you have a second operation?”
“No, I was saved by Dr. Tesslar. There was a death in the barrack. He paid off the Kapos to fill in a death certificate in my name. I took the name of the dead man and was able to continue with it until we were liberated.”
“Mr. Bar Tov, do you have any children?”
“I have four. Two boys and two girls.”
“Adopted?”
“No, they are my own.”
“You’ll forgive me for this next question, but it is extremely important and is not meant to make any inference on the nature of your relationship with your wife. Were you examined in Israel to ascertain that you were potent?”
Bar Tov smiled. “Yes, I’m too potent. I have already enough children.”
Even Gilray joined in a short laugh, then silenced the room with a frown.
“So, even though you were subjected to severe radiation in both testicles, you were not sterilized?”
“That is right.”
“And whoever took out your testicle may well have been removing a healthy and not a dead gland?”
“Yes.”
“No further questions.”
Sir Robert Highsmith arose and contemplated quickly. This was the third victim paraded before the court. Obviously, Bannister was saving some firepower for later. The web of innuendo was being woven around Kelno with the coup to come in the form of Mark Tesslar.
He went into a swaying motion. “Mr. Bar Tov, in fact weren’t you sixteen when you arrived at Jadwiga?”
“Sixteen or seventeen. ...”
“You testified you were seventeen, but you were sixteen. It was a long time ago, two decades ago. Many things are hard to remember exactly, isn’t that so?”
“Some things I forget. Some things I never forget.”
“Yes. And those things which you forgot you were refreshed on.”
“Refreshed?”
“Did you ever testify or give a statement before?”
“At the end of the war I made a statement in Haifa.”
“And no other statements until you were contacted within the last several months in Israel.”
“That is true.”
“By a lawyer who took a statement in Hebrew?”
“Yes.”
“And when you arrived in London, you sat down with another lawyer and Dr. Leiberman and went over what you had said in Israel?”
“Yes.”
“And on many points you refreshed your recollection of what you stated in Haifa.”
“We cleared up some points.”
“I see. Points about morphia ...a pre-injection. Did you talk about that?”
“Yes.”
“I suggest that you passed out in the waiting room, not from the pain of the spinal, but you had been put under by morphia in Barrack III and it took effect in Barrack V.”
“I don’t remember any other injection.”
“And being unconscious during the operation you recall no brutality, you remembered nothing.”
“I have testified I was unconscious.”
“And of course you are not identifying Dr. Kelno as either the surgeon or the man who induced sperm from yourself.”
“I cannot identify him.”
“You saw photographs of Dr. Lotaki in the newspaper, I suppose. Can you identify him?”
“No.”
“Now then, Mr. Bar Tov, you are quite grateful to Dr. Tesslar, are you not?”
“I owe him my life.”
“In a concentration camp people save people’s lives. You know that Dr. Kelno saved lives, don’t you?”
“I heard.”
“And since the liberation, you have remained in contact with Dr. Tesslar, have you not?”
“We lost contact.”
“I see. But you have seen him since you’ve been in London.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Four days ago, in Oxford.”
“Yes.”
“To have a reunion as old friends.”
“Dr. Tesslar had quite an influence on you.”
“He was like our father.”
“And you were quite young and your memory quite faulty, you could have forgotten some things.”
“Some things I will never forget. Have you ever had a wooden handle shoved up your rectum, Sir Highsmith?”
“Now, just a moment,” Gilray said. “You will address yourself to the questions.”
“When did you first hear the name of Dr. Kelno?”
“I heard it in Barrack III where we were held.”
“Who told you the name? “
“Dr. Tesslar.”
“And recently in London you were shown a floor plan of Barrack V.”
“Yes.”
“To get all the rooms straight in your mind.”
“Yes.”
“Because you did not remember exactly what room you were in at what time. I suggest that. And were you shown photographs of Voss?”
“Yes.”
“Now then, what is your job on your kibbutz?”
“I am in charge of marketing and the truck cooperative with other kibbutzim in the area.”
“And before that?”
“I was a tractor driver for many years.”
“It is very hot in your valley. Wasn’t it difficult work?”
“It is hot.”
“And you were a soldier in the Army?”
“In two wars.”
“And you still do your military service each year.”
“Yes.”
“So, with four children, your health was not impaired by this operation.”
“God was more fortunate to me than to some others.”
Bannister now launched a massive frontal assault, coming back with three more men, a Dutchman and two Israelis who had been with Bar Tov on that night in November. As the story was hammered home by repetition, there were fewer and fewer differences in the testimony. Each of them insisted that Dr. Tesslar was present in the operating room thus building toward the climax of the defense case. The main difference was that they had no natural children of their own as did the more fortunate Bar Tov.
After the third testified, Bannister called still another man forward, a former Dutchman named Edgar Beets, who was now Professor Shalom of Hebrew University.
In this battle of attrition, Highsmith suddenly wearied. He turned the cross-examination of Shalom over to his junior, Chester Dicks.
Professor Shalom proved extremely articulate as the pace slowed for another recounting of the events. As Dicks ended his questioning, Bannister came to his feet.
“Before this witness is withdrawn, I am going to call your attention to the fact that my learned friend has not challenged this witness on several points of the plaintiff’s case, most importantly he did not challenge the witness that Dr. Tesslar was present. And I call to his Lordship’s attention that neither of my learned friends suggested that the testimony of any of these witnesses was untrue.”
“Yes, I see what you mean,” the judge said. “Well, what is the situation, Mr. Dicks?” He leaned forward. “I think the jury is entitled to know if you think the witnesses have let their imaginations run loose and dreamed all of this, or if they are perfectly honest men and women who cannot be relied on. Now, just what is your case, Mr. Dicks?”
“I do not think they can be relied on,” Dicks answered, “due to the distressing circumstances.”
“You are not suggesting,” Gilray said, “they are all telling a pack of lies.”
“No, my Lord.”
“It is usual,” Bannister insisted, “to challenge a witness if you do not accept the witness’s evidence. You have not done that on the major issue.”
“I have asked a number of questions about the presence of Dr. Tesslar.”
“There’s no need to put every point to the witness. Oh, very well, why don’t you put it to the witness,” Gilray said, annoyed somewhat with Bannister.
“I suggest that Dr. Tesslar was not in the operating room,” Dicks said.
“He was there,” Shalom answered softly.
16
A
FEW MOMENTS AFTER
the Czech national anthem ended the day’s telecast at midnight, a phone summons was answered by Aroni.
“You will walk to the top of the square to the National Museum, and you will wait before the statue.”
Although it was now past midnight, there was music and laughter from the café’s of the tree-lined Vaclavske Namesti. How long would the laughter last in Czechoslovakia? Aroni was concerned for his own fate. Certainly in police headquarters they had speculated on his mission and Prague had gotten dangerous since the mysterious death of Katzenbach.
A car slowed before him and the back door opened. He found himself sitting next to a silent guard. Jiri Linka was in front with the driver. Wordlessly they crossed the Charles Bridge to a nondescript large house on Karmelitska bearing the plaque:
DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF ANTIQUITIES AND ARCHEOLOGICAL STUDIES
, which everyone knew in Prague to be the headquarters of the secret police.
The office was sordidly plain with a long table covered in green felt. The wall at the end of the room was sanctified with the usual portrait of Lenin, who could hardly be considered a Czech hero, and portraits of the current heroes, Lenart and Alexander Dubcek. Aroni reckoned the latter pictures would be off the wall before too long.
Branik did not look like a cop. He was slender, outgoing, and debonair.
“Are you still at it, Aroni?”
“Just enough to keep my hand in.”
Branik nodded for everyone except Linka to leave the room and produced a round of drinks.
“First of all,” Aroni said, “you have my word I am here on a private matter. I am conducting no government business, moving no funds, and contacting no one.”
Branik placed a cigarette in a long holder and lit it with a very non-proletariat gold lighter. He understood that what Aroni was saying was he didn’t want to end up in the river like Katzenbach.
“My business concerns the trial in London.”
“What trial?”
“The one on the front page of every Prague newspaper today.”
“Oh, that trial.”
“There is a strong opinion that Kelno may win unless a certain witness is produced.”
“You think this man is in Czechoslovakia?”
“I don’t know. It’s a last desperation gamble.”
“I promise nothing,” Branik said, “except that I’ll listen.”
“For obvious reasons the Jewish people cannot lose this case. It would be construed as a justification of many of the Hitler atrocities. For the most part you have always been fair with us ...”
“Save the speech, Aroni, and let me hear the facts.”
“There was a man in his mid-twenties from Bratislava by the name of Egon Sobotnik, a half Jew on his father’s side from a large family of twenty or thirty people by that name. Most of them perished. Sobotnik was deported to Jadwiga and served as a medical clerk in charge of surgical records. He knew Kelno intimately, perhaps observed him closer than any other single person. I have gone through the entire Czech Association of Israel and only a few days ago discovered a distant relative, a man named Carmel. His name used to be Sobotnik but as you know a great number of immigrants changed to Hebrew names. May I?” Aroni asked, nodding to the packet of cigarettes.
Branik whipped out his gold lighter and the old man puffed.
“Carmel had kept a correspondence with a second cousin, a woman by the name of Lena Konska, who still lives in Bratislava. According to Carmel, she escaped the Germans by crossing into Hungary and lived underground in Budapest as a Christian. For a time she hid Egon Sobotnik, but the Gestapo found him. I may add, he was a member of the underground in Jadwiga who was making it a point to record what Kelno was doing.”
Smoke began to swell in the room as Linka joined in.
“It was known he survived the camp.”
“And you believe he is in Czechoslovakia?”
“It is only theory but it seems certain he would have headed back to Bratislava and made some contact with his cousin, this Konska woman.”
“Why his disappearance?”
“It is only a question that Sobotnik can answer, if he is still alive.”
“And you want to see this Konska woman?”
“Yes, and if she can shed light and we find Sobotnik, we want to get him to London immediately.”
“This brings up complications,” Branik said. “We have no official position in this trial but things with the Jews are touchy.”
Aroni looked directly at Branik transmitting a message the secret police chief could not help but receive. “We need a favor,” he said. “In this business favors are reciprocal. Someday, you may need one.”
Someday rather soon, Branik thought.
Just before dawn they raced east from Prague and then south into the Slovakian countryside. Linka nudged Aroni, who had dozed. The first light of day fell on the distant square-turreted Bratislava Castle, which hovered over the Danube River at that place where Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia came together and the landlocked Czechs had their only major port.