Authors: Leon Uris
“Would you tell my Lord and the jury what she said?”
Tears fell down the cheeks of Maria Viskova and more than a few who heard her. “She said ... ‘Maria ... it is not possible that any of us are going to live and get out of this camp. In the end the Germans must kill us because they cannot allow the outside world to know what they are doing.’ And she said ...‘the only thing that is left for us is to behave for the rest of the short time we have left as human beings ... and as physicians.’ She said ... ‘we cannot leave these people to suffer alone.’ ”
Thomas Bannister looked at Adam Kelno as he spoke. “And you did not report to Barrack V the next day to assist in the operations.”
“I did not.”
“What did Voss do about that?”
“Nothing.”
27
L
ENA
K
ONSKA HAD UNDERGONE
four days of intense grilling by Aroni and Jiri Linka but it was impossible to find many flaws in her story. She admitted to seeing her cousin, Egon Sobotnik, briefly at the end of the war and at that time he told her he was going to go somewhere far away, he could not bear the ghosts.
Aroni was not easily discouraged. He knew, after all, that Lena Konska had the wit to live illegally for five years. Each day Aroni brought newspapers of the trial and pleas were interspersed with threats.
As they mounted the steps to her flat, Linka wanted to quit. “We are wasting our time. Even if she knows something, she’s too crafty an old witch.”
“So long as Prague finds no new information on Sobotnik we have to keep going at her.”
“Have it your way.”
“Suppose,” Aroni said to Lena Konska, “we discovered you have lied to us.”
“Are we going over all that again?”
“We know you are clever, clever enough to keep a secret from everyone but God. You’ll answer to God for this.”
“What God?” she answered. “Where was God in the concentration camps? If you ask me,” she said, “I think that God has gotten a little old for the job.”
“You lost all your family?”
“Yes, the merciful God took them.”
“Well, they would be proud of you now, Madame Konska. They will be extremely proud of you if Adam Kelno wins this case because of information you withheld. The memory of them will annoy you. You can depend on that, Madame Konska. As you grow older their faces will become more vivid. You can’t forget. I tried.”
“Aroni, leave me alone.”
“You’ve been to the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague. You’ve seen that, haven’t you?”
“Stop it.”
“Your husband’s name is on the wall of martyrs. I’ve seen it, Jan Konska. Is that his picture, there? He was a handsome man.”
“Aroni, you act like a Nazi yourself.”
“We’ve found some neighbors,” Aroni said. “They remember Egon Sobotnik returning. They remember him living here with you, in this apartment, for six months then suddenly disappearing. You have lied to us.”
“I told you he stayed for a short while. I didn’t count the days. He was restless.”
The phone rang. It was police headquarters for Jiri Linka. He listened for a moment, then handed the phone to Aroni as the words were repeated.
Aroni replaced the phone slowly, his wrinkled face distorted, a sort of madness in his expression. “We have heard from Prague.”
Lena Konska did not betray what was happening within her, but she saw something horribly different about Aroni, the hunter.
“The police have found statements dating back to 1946, three statements in which Egon Sobotnik was implicated with Kelno’s surgery. That’s when he fled Bratislava, isn’t it? All right, Madame Konska, which way do you want it? Do you tell us where he is or do I find him myself? I’ll find him, you know.”
“I don’t know where he is,” she repeated firmly.
“Have it your way.”
Aroni picked up his hat and nodded to Linka, and they passed through the draped opening to the small foyer off the parlor.
“Just a moment. What will you do to him?”
“He’ll be taken care of if you force me to find him.”
She licked her lips. “To the best of my knowledge his guilt is very small. If you were to suddenly find him ...what kind of a deal would you make?”
“If he testifies, he will leave the courtroom free.”
She looked desperately to Linka. “You have my word as a Jew,” he said.
“I swore ... I swore ...” her lips quivered. “He has changed his name to Tukla, Gustuv Tukla. He is one of the directors of the Lenin Factories in Brno.”
Aroni whispered in Linka’s ear, and he nodded. “We are going to have to detain you to remove the temptation of calling him until we make contact.”
28
“D
R.
V
ISKOVA, DO YOU
recall any particular incident about twins in Barrack III?”
“When I arrived there were twins from Belgium, Tina and Helene Blanc-Imber, who had been irradiated and had an ovary removed by Dr. Dimshits. Later, two other sets of twins were sent in, the Cordozo and Lovino sisters from Trieste. I remember how terribly I felt because they were so young, the youngest in the barrack. Sometime later they were irradiated again.”
“And they have testified to their sickness afterwards. We now come to a particular night in early November of 1943. Would you tell us what happened?”
“A number of SS guards and Voss himself entered the barrack. Of course there was always alarm. They ordered the Kapos to get the three sets of twins. From upstairs they brought a number of young Dutch boys, an older Polish man and a medical clerk. His name was Menno Donker. They were taken away quite hysterical. Dr. Tesslar sat with me. We knew what would be coming back to us. We were grief-stricken.”
“How long did you and Dr. Tesslar wait?”
“A half hour.”
“What happened?”
“Egon Sobotnik, a medical clerk and orderly, came with two SS guards and told Dr. Tesslar he must come to Barrack V. There was pandemonium, and he had to keep the people quiet. So he rushed out.”
“How long was Dr. Tesslar gone?”
“It was just after seven o’clock when he left and a little after eleven when he came back with the victims. They were brought back on stretchers.”
“So, fourteen of them were operated on in a little over four hours. Would that not be about fifteen minutes each if done by a single surgeon?”
“Yes.”
“Did Dr. Tesslar say there was more than one surgeon?”
“No, only Adam Kelno.”
“And with one surgeon doing an operation every fifteen minutes there was not time to sterilize instruments or himself between operations. What was it like in Barrack III?”
“A bedlam of screams and blood.”
“You were on the ground floor and Dr. Tesslar on the upper floor, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see each other?”
“Often. We were running up and down with each new crisis. I first came up to assist with one of the men who was going quickly.”
“What happened to this man?”
“He died of shock.”
“And you returned to your own problems.”
“Yes. Dr. Parmentier arrived, and thank God she was there to help. We were in serious trouble with the hemorrhaging and almost helpless. We didn’t even have enough water to give them. Dr. Tesslar tried to get Dr. Kelno to come but got no response. They lay bleeding and screaming on wooden beds with straw mattresses. At the caged end of the barracks, the mental patients of Flensberg became hysterical. I saw I could not stop the hemorrhaging of Tina Blanc-Imber so we moved her into the corridor away from the others. At two in the morning she was dead. All night we struggled to get control of the situation. By some miracle, the three of us managed to keep the others alive. At dawn the Germans came to take away Tina and the man. Egon Sobotnik made out death certificates which we signed. Then I heard him receive orders to change the cause of death to ‘typhus.’ ”
A sob broke out in the balcony and a woman ran from the courtroom.
Bannister spoke so low he could not be heard, and he had to repeat the question. “Did Dr. Kelno ever come to visit these patients?”
“A few times he came to the door of the barrack. Once, he glanced at them briefly.”
“On that occasion, did he find them cheerful?”
“Are you joking?”
“I assure you I am not.”
“They were very sick for months. I was forced to send the Cordozo sisters back to their factory even though I knew Emma could not last. Sima Halevy was the most ill, and I kept her as an assistant so she would not go to the gas chamber.”
“Is there any question in your mind of who did these operations?”
“I object, my Lord,” Highsmith said without passion.
“Objection sustained. Instruct the witness not to answer.”
Her silent answer, her eyes on Adam Kelno were answer enough.
29
L
INKA AND
A
RONI RACED
north along the Austrian border from Slovakia into the rolling fields of Moravia, rich in the barleys and wheats that immortalized Czechoslovakia beer.
A detour forced them near the battlefield of Austerlitz, where Napoleon once took on the imperial armies of Russia and Austria in a short blood-soaked encounter costing the lives of thirty-five thousand men. The Battle of the Three Emperors as it was poetically remembered.
Aroni, who slept sitting upright with head nodding and bobbing, suddenly came awake as though an alarm had been set off inside him.
“I don’t quite understand how you got such cooperation from Branik,” Linka said.
Aroni yawned, lit a cigarette. “We speak the same language. Concentration camp language. Branik was almost hanged for his underground activities in Auschwitz.”
Linka shrugged. He still didn’t understand it.
They entered Brno, the pride of Czech industry with one of the greatest heavy industrial complexes in the world and an enormous Trade Fair Center covering hundreds of acres which attracted a million annual buyers and visitors throughout the world.
They checked in at the Hotel International, an ultramodern glass and concrete affair that belied the chunky, drab Communist hotels throughout Eastern Europe.
There was a message waiting,
GUSTUV TUKLA HAD BEEN TELEPHONED FROM PRAGUE BY MUTUAL FRIENDS AND TOLD TO COOPERATE. HE IS EXPECTING ARONI AT TEN O’CLOCK. BRANIK.
Aroni found Gustuv Tukla a polished, urbane man in his late fifties, yet with the rugged face and hands of a professional engineer. His office, which looked out over a yard to the mammoth Lenin Factories, also showed Western affluence. Along the window a table held a model of the Blansko exhibit at the coming International Trade Fair. Tukla settled them opposite each other on a pair of couches separated by a coffee table holding a number of catalogues of the Blansko products. A miniskirted secretary brought them thick espresso. Aroni smiled as she bent over and set it down.
“Set me straight,” Aroni said, “exactly who called you from Prague?”
“Comrade Janacek, the party chairman for the Committee on Heavy Industry. He is my direct superior except for the head directors here.”
“Did Comrade Janacek tell you anything about my business here in Czechoslovakia?”
“Only that you were a very important gentleman from Israel and, frankly, to make a good deal with you.”
“Good. Then we can get down to cases.”
“Confidentially,” Tukla said, “I am glad we are going to do business with Israel. It is not said in public but there is a great deal of admiration for your country.”
“We like the Czechs. Especially their arms when they were available.”
“Masaryk, thank God we can now mention his name, was a friend of the Jews. So, perhaps you are interested in our Kapan Turbines?”
“Actually I’m interested in one of your personnel.”
“As an adviser?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Who?”
“I am interested in Egon Sobotnik.”
“Sobotnik? Who is that?”
“If you will roll up your left sleeve and read me your tattoo number, I think we can stop wasting time.”
Aroni then said who he was and Gustuv Tukla turned from a self-assured executive into a mass of confusion. It had all happened so suddenly. The call from Janacek only this morning. Obviously this Aroni was dealing with the hierarchy.
“Who told you? It must have been Lena.”
“She had no choice. We caught her lying. She did it for your own good.”
Tukla spun off the couch sweating, grunting, pacing. “What’s it about?”
“The trial in London. You know about it. The newspaper on your desk is open to the story. You’ve got to come to London and give testimony.”
Tukla tried to shake the confusion, tried to think. It was so sudden! So sudden!
“Are these Janacek’s orders? Who?”
“Comrade Branik is interested in this case.”
The mention of the head of the secret police had its effect. Aroni watched him coldly as he sat again, wiped his face and bit the back of his hand. Aroni set his cup down and walked to the window. “Are you ready to listen?”
“I’m listening,” Tukla whimpered.
“You are an important party member and your testimony may prove embarrassing to the Czech government. The Russians have long memories when it comes to assisting Zionism. However, your people think you ought to come to London. Fortunately, even some Communists know right from wrong.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“You know,” Aroni answered.
“A defection?”
Aroni stood over him. “It’s a short distance to Vienna. You are a member of the Brno Flying Club. There will be an airplane at the airport large enough to hold your family. With a defection, no one will be able to blame your government.”
Tukla trembled violently. He managed to gulp down a tranquilizer. He blinked, dazed. “I know their tricks,” he whispered. “I will take off from the airport and the plane will develop engine trouble. They can’t be trusted.”
“I trust them,” Aroni said, “and I’ll be in the plane with you.”
“But what for?” Tukla wailed. “I have everything. Everything I’ve worked for will be gone.”
“Well now, Sobotnik ... you don’t mind if I call you Sobotnik? A Czech engineer from the Blansko works isn’t going to have much trouble finding a highly suitable position in England or America. Frankly, you’re lucky to be getting out of the country. You’ll have the Russians down your throats inside a year and there will be purges like the Stalin days.”