The Shield: a novel (39 page)

“
The Balkans, please.”

“
Bosnia and Croatia are done. I guess that the combination of local pro-Nazi regimes, Muslim SS, and Croat murderers were enough to get our people moving. These were small communities anyway. Serbian Jews are also coming due to the partisan war there and the German repressions. Bulgarian Jews are not moving at all. The Bulgarian government shielded them from Nazi persecution even before we intervened and is definitely friendly now. The population feels safe and isn’t interested in Israel.

“
We had better luck with the Greek community; mostly because of German repressions there. Most of them have already left. Same goes for Montenegro and Albania.”

“
Poland?”

A tall bald man smiled sadly: “We have no problem persuading the Polish Jews to leave: in western Poland they’ve been living under German occupation since 1939. They are so eager to leave that we had to establish priorities with the community councils. The Germans simply don’t have enough trains going to Italy to accommodate everyone who wants to leave. We started with Krakow – it is, as you know, the seat of the German Governor General for Poland who was irritated by all the Jews, so we took them out of there as soon as we could. I can report that as of last Friday both Krakow and the Warsaw ghetto have been completely evacuated. Lodz is three quarters done. We’ll start moving people from small towns as soon as we’re done with the larger ghettos. My estimate is that about three quarters of the Polish Jews have been evacuated.”

“Good. The low countries and Denmark are next.”

“
We have a somewhat difficult situation,” the woman responsible for the region said. “In our history, the Germans did not act against the Danish Jews - there’s no imminent danger we can point to, so all 7000 of them are reluctant to move. On the other hand, the Dutch and Belgian communities were not given a choice – the local police rounded them up and deported them, to what amounts to concentration camps.

“
As of today we have trains full of immigrants running from Holland and Belgium. Nothing from Denmark. At the current rate the Dutch and Belgian Jews will be out of danger in a week.”

“
I think that the Danish Jews are safe where they are, at least for the time being,” Hirshson said. “France and Italy are next.”

“
We probably would have had a serious problem in France, with so much of the community assimilated, but the Germans and the Vichy government did the job for us. A large part of France has been occupied by the Nazis for over a year. They’ve been deporting Jews to Poland. The remaining community needs little persuasion to come to us. The Vichy part of France is not much different. The French police have been enthusiastically finding and deporting Jews. When we arrived, the community, or what remained of it, was mostly eager to go. I think that about 80% of the Jews that were still remaining in France are safe now.

“
Italy is a different story. Our presence here has an advantage; we can, and did, send a large number of emissaries to every community. Including some places in southern Italy that have only a few Jewish families. On the other hand, the fascists, despite a lot of anti-Semitic talk, haven’t actually done much against the Jews. The population is generally friendly and they don’t feel that they are in danger. Personally I think they are right, unless the Germans occupy Italy. We tried to be discreet in our dealings with this community – let them know that they can escape to safety but not make a big deal of it. We don’t want the Catholic Church to discover what we’re really doing and try to stop us. The Vatican was upset when the Croatian Jews left the death camps and actively tried to stop them from getting onto our boats in Dubrovnik. Who knows how the Church will react once they figure out who we really are.”

Colonel Hirshson nodded in agreement: “I think you are right. I also think that I skipped Czechoslovakia.”

“Yes, I was eagerly waiting to report and thought you didn’t think it important enough,” smiled the girl that was responsible for the area. “We have two distinctive areas. In the Czech part, we have a steady stream of immigrants. The Germans have been in the country for three years and started oppressing the Jews as soon as they got there. By the time we appeared, a large portion of the community had already been deported to either Theresienstadt or Poland. The rest relaxed when we came on the scene and the oppression eased. But we will have everybody out before January 1942.

“
The picture is different in Slovakia. Their ruler, the Catholic priest Father Tiso, paid the Nazis to collect and deport the Slovakian Jews. By the time we arrived, some had been deported to Polish concentration camps but most of the community - about 50,000 - still remained. They needed no urging to go. As soon as we persuaded the leadership that we are for real, everybody left. We are done with Slovakia.”

“
Good. Finally, Germany and Austria.”

“
There is not much left for us to do in either country. There are still some Jews there but most left as soon as we offered them the opportunity. The remainder are either in hiding and very difficult to find, or are so sure that they are ‘Germans of the Moses persuasion’ and so patriotic that there is no way to make them leave. Our operation in both countries is winding down.”

Hirshson looked at his watch
. It was time to get ready for the Day of Atonement. “The chance of the Nazis discovering our bluff increases daily. Thanks to all of you we are doing fairly well. I wish you all an easy fast and to be inscribed for a good year in the book of life.” Ephraim Hirshson wasn’t observant, but Jewish culture was deeply ingrained and the traditional blessing came naturally.

***

Three days later colonel Hirshson’s telephone blinked its red light: “Hirshson here.”

“
Hi Ephraim. This is Gad.”

“
Oh, hi chief. My red General Staff phone was blinking, but I didn’t expect you on the line. How are you?”

“
Fine, thank you. I hear that you are doing well too.”

“
Yes. We are bit crowded here, but this is much better than the alternative.”

“
Ephraim, you think that your deputy can run the base for a week or so?”

“
I am sure that the Major can run it until it’s closed. He is a good officer and manager.”

“
Good, good. I think that you deserve a short vacation. Your wife is complaining she hasn’t seen you for five months. Hop on the next plane and come home. The orders are being delivered to the base teletype as we speak. Don’t forget to visit the General Staff the day after tomorrow. Call my secretary for details.”

Hirshson knew his superiors well enough to realize it wasn’t his wife’s loneliness they were concerned about.  But at least he’d get to see the f
amily before finding out why they wanted to see him.

The Minister for Industry and Infrastructure looked at his watch. It was time to start the meeting.

“I welcome all of you. Please be seated. You were invited to this meeting for an update on the current situation and to improve our communications. First an update.” The Minister gestured to a young man waiting in the wings, “My assistant will do the honors.”

“
The situation for today, September 29, 1941, is as follows: Our total industrial output is up by about 40%. Both exports and imports of industrial products are zero. Inflation is currently at less than one fifth of one percent…” The assistant went on for a while with statistical information.

Ze’ev Hirshson
interrupted. “We all know the statistics. Maybe not to the second decimal point, but we know them. Can we go on to the next item on the agenda?” A murmur of agreement went through the crowd of thirty industry leaders.

“
Fine” the Minister said. “I only wanted you to hear the statistics one more time because they point to a problem: we need a drastic change in our industrial makeup or we face a crisis. Before the Event we imported most of our industrial needs. This included everything from heavy earth-moving machinery to silverware. We paid for it mostly with earnings from the export of high tech and pharmaceuticals, plus a considerable income from tourism. All that is impossible now and will stay so until we establish diplomatic and trade relations with other countries.”

“
It’s the government’s decision that made trade impossible,” a tall heavyset man said. “If you open the borders we can do business again as usual.”

“
No, we can’t,” the Minister responded. “The world is at war and many years behind us in technology and science. We could not buy a D12 Caterpillar bulldozer no matter how much we paid – They’ll start making them in the U.S. in about seventy years, assuming we haven’t messed everything up. We also can’t buy a Toyota or a digital clock. If we open our borders now we will be, with a little advertising, able to export anything we want, but we would not be able to buy one modern item. Some of the machinery available now may be useful and we will be able to buy raw materials.

“
This is the reason you are here. We need to achieve industrial independence as soon as possible.  The government wants to support you in this effort, if you are ready to cooperate.”

“
What kind of support?”

“
We’ll place orders with the companies that agree to participate in the program. The orders will be for items you’re capable of making in small quantities or close to being able to make. If necessary, we’ll advance you the capital you need to fill the orders. That will be the first phase. In the second phase, or maybe concurrently – depending on your response – we’ll fund, again, through loans, development of manufacturing capabilities. For example: we can produce fair numbers of computers but have only a tiny capacity to make specialty hard drives. We would like to be able to make computers for export when the time comes as well as in numbers sufficient for internal consumption. We also need to make mass storage - hard drives or something else. There’s no industrial base for that at all.”

“
Sounds good to me,” the president of a large consumer electronics and appliance manufacturer announced. “How do we go about it?”

“
I suggest that you split into small groups and discuss the matters pertaining to your industries in greater detail.” The Minister paused for a moment and then went on. “You may have noticed that most of the people present here today represent large and medium sized firms. I would like to clarify that you are not the only ones that will be eligible for government loans. We are holding meetings with as many businesses as we can manage, mostly locally, and are doing our best to induce them to participate. The government will publish a simple set of criteria that will allow businesses to apply for loans, technical assistance or other help. We want to eliminate what is called ‘crony capitalism’ and will do our best to prevent public funds going to businesses that have little chance of repaying them.”

***
*

Ze’ev Hirshson found Consolidated Manufacturing on the list and went to the assigned office. He was surprised to find himself alone with a Ministry employee. Apparently no other plant had similar interests.

“Dr. Hirshson, a pleasure to see you.” The man seemed awfully young to Ze’ev. Everyone under fifty looked too youthful.

“
I hope it will be my pleasure to meet with you,” Ze’ev responded somewhat grumpily. He didn’t trust the government to do anything good – in his opinion they only collected taxes and then wasted them on strange projects and bureaucrats. “Let’s finish this quickly. I have a dinner reservation at six in Tel-Aviv with my new family. Can’t be late for that.”

“
I won’t impose on your time too much. Here’s a list of things we would like to order from Consolidated. It’s divided into three categories. The first is comprised of steel castings slightly beyond the upper weight limit of what you can make now – these are mainly turbine housings for the new hydroelectric plant and some other parts related to it. The second is a large quantity of medium-sized parts, mostly engine blocks and other automotive parts, and the third is machining of these castings.

“
I would appreciate if you have your staff go over the list and tell us what you need to be able to make them in the quantities we want to order. If you are not interested, we will have to find somebody else, though I admit that this will be a serious hassle for us with your company the only steel foundry in Israel.”

Ze’ev looked quickly through the list: “I think we can handle this. On the other hand, it seems strange to me that the Ministry chose to ignore our capability in industrial cer
amics. We have been supplying the army with ceramic armor for a number of years now and most of the integrated circuit manufacturers are using our materials as a base for their chips.”

“
Dr. Hirshson, we didn’t ignore anything. You will undoubtedly be approached by electronics firms with requests for large quantities of those materials. The Ministry of Defense has its own program. We’re trying to interfere as little as possible with either the free market or other government entities. The chip manufacturers will be able to arrange financing to support your expansion, if necessary.”