The Barbed Crown (The Vatican Knights Book 13) Read online

  “And if this happens, Dror,” said Avraham, “the fact remains that we are becoming slow in our duties.” He raised the sleeves of his garments to show off arms that were not much thicker than sticks. “Every day I starve I get weaker.” He let the sleeves fall. “It’s getting to the point where I can barely lift the corpses from their bunks and to the cart, even with another helping. It’s just a matter of time for all of us, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” Dror answered through clenched teeth, and then he pumped his fist in the air. “And that’s why we need to do something about it. Right here. And right now.”

  “You want to do something right here and now?” Weiner asked him.

  “What I mean,” said Dror, “is not to wait for what’s coming for most of us a few weeks from now. We start the wheels turning right here and now, yes? And it begins with you two and those who work the detail inside the women’s camp.”

  “And what exactly are you asking of us?” Avraham pressed him, the man obviously unsure as to where Dror was taking this.

  Dror gave another quick synopsis of a plan that he and Ephraim had formulated, something that needed many moving parts. Weiner and Avraham’s teams had access to the women’s compound, where they could establish ties with those who could be trusted. First, they would have to make contact with those working inside the munitions factory, just a selected few who were willing to risk their lives for the possibility of salvation, no matter how slight the chances. Then a network was needed to smuggle gunpowder from the munitions factory to the Sonderkommandos at the crematorium, which would be hidden inside bullet-shaped urns that were three-feet tall, with enough urns to go around. But how to get the gunpowder to the urns remained the question.

  “If the quota is going up as you say,” Weiner stated, “then there will be less rations to see this done. Those who are already dying will only do so quicker, now that there will be no sustenance to prolong their lives. People will begin to die by the feet instead of by the inches. And that, Dror, means that there will be more bodies to cart off to the crematories.”

  Dror was beginning to understand. “You’re thinking of smuggling the gunpowder by using the corpses?”

  Weiner nodded. “The Germans do not inspect the dead, so we can hide the gunpowder in the lining of clothes, in orifices, by whatever means necessary to see this done. You said you can hide the contraband?”

  Dror pointed to several dozen urns lined up against the far wall, all empty and waiting.

  “The women who work the munitions factory can network with those who work in clothing. To be certain that the guards won’t check the carts, however, we can hide pouches within the hems and lining of garments. Once you strip the corpses down, then you can empty the pouches into those containers, yes?”

  Dror nodded. “Yes.”

  “We will mark the garments in a way that will alert you that a pouch is concealed within, perhaps a strange mark upon the clothes, yes?”

  Another nod from Dror. “Yes.”

  “The mark will be a series of three holes on the right lapel of the smock or shirt, like so.” Weiner hunkered low and tapped the brick floor three times in the shape of a triangle. Then he repeated the motion. When he was done he labored his way into a standing position, his joints cracking.

  And Dror was smiling. A plan was coming together. But many wheels had to be put in motion, with willing cogs to operate as a collective whole for a single purpose. To amass troops who could be trusted would be a difficult process. To cull away those who would rather gain the favor of the guards to prolong their lives would have to be carefully managed. And since neither Dror nor Ephraim could control what happened inside the women’s compound, he hoped that Weiner and Avraham had the vision to choose their female captain wisely.

  Then Avraham asked: “And the need for the gunpowder?”

  “To create a distraction,” Dror answered.

  Weiner piped in on this. “Distraction?”

  Dror nodded. “Just outside the women’s compound lies the armory. It’s heavily guarded, true. But there are no landmines or obstacles. Once the distraction is created, guards will be pulled to respond, leaving minimal hands to guard the weapons.”

  “And this you’re sure of?” asked Weiner.

  But Dror wasn’t, at least not completely, but hopeful since it was human nature to gravitate to something so devastating, as a means to bring order to a chaotic situation.

  “And if this happens?” asked Avraham. “If the Nazis do as you believe they will.”

  “We’ll get a work detail of younger men, stronger men, to act as your proxy at the time of action. They’ll be armed with shivs. When the Germans are occupied and their attention elsewhere, they will sneak up and take them out. Once done, they’ll commandeer the armory and give us a fighting chance.” Then Dror added: “You heard about the uprising in Treblinka and in Sobibor.”

  They nodded.

  “Three hundred escaped Sobibor. Another hundred from Treblinka.”

  “Of the four hundred who managed to escape,” said Weiner, “only fifty got away with many more executed as an example to others.”

  Dror didn’t deny this. “In a month’s time, maybe less, most of us standing here are going to be killed,” he told them. “This is a fact that’s going to be confirmed as soon as the train filled with two thousand Hungarians arrive here in a few days. I’m sure of it. We either do this and take our chances, or we simply wait for the SS guards to drive us out to some out-of-the-way field, where we can all lie together in a mass grave.”

  Weiner nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s just a matter of proper planning. Perhaps we can take a few with us if things don’t go as planned, yes?” Then he gave Dror a feeble smile.

  Dror nodded his appreciation to Weiner, then he said: “Nevertheless, this is going to take time to create. So we need to get this machine going.”

  Weiner pointed to Avraham and said, “Avraham and I have much to do today. Many bodies to cart. We’ll get word to those we know and trust, and they’ll get word to those they know and trust. Either we stand together on this, or we fall together, yes?”

  Dror gave Weiner a wink of appreciation. “And if this doesn’t work out,” Dror stated, “at least we’ll die honorably on our feet trying to fight for our lives, rather than to readily forfeit them over.”

  “It’s a rough plan on the surface,” said Avraham. “But we can polish the rough edges and turn it into a diamond and see this through. Like Dror said, we have less than a month to live. And we’re not only talking about us, but family and friends as well, if what Dror says is true about the quota.”

  “It is,” said Dror.

  “If not,” returned Avraham, “since you put your entire trust in the likes of Chapiro—whom we all know has the morals of a snake to better his position—and we go through with this when we didn’t have to due to Chapiro’s lies, then we will die for nothing. But tell me, for this information, what was it that you traded him?”

  “My meal,” he told him.

  “That’s all?”

  “And Ephraim’s.”

  “And there lies the motivation for his lies, yes? To fill his belly while others starve. But like you said, Dror, if that train comes in and no one is processed, then Chapiro is telling the truth. Nevertheless, if we’re to start networking, then we must begin to establish the ties. Perhaps in the end, Dror, we should fight our way out of this Hell, regardless.”

  “I agree,” answered Dror.

  With the promise to return with additional carts, Weiner and Avraham stated that they would also bring updates regarding who they were contacting on the other side of the fence.

  When they were gone, both men pushing along carts that appeared to become heavier by the day, Dror turned to the urns lined up against the wall. They were black and empty, their purpose to contain the ashes of Jews, perhaps close to one hundred per container, with the remains made up of strangers.

  But Dror saw the
m as something else. He saw them as weapons and a means to fight back.

  With Ephraim working hard to load the trays, Dror went to inform him of his interaction with Weiner and Avraham.

  Once again hope reigned.

  * * *

  The routine of the pushcart teams was always consistent. If the chambers had been in use, then it was an all-day process of removing the bodies to the ovens. Otherwise, the daily practice was to search the barracks for those who had passed during the night.

  When Weiner and Avraham began to check those who appeared more dead than alive, they even had to endure comments about whisking off the near-dead.

  Take him, someone would tell them. His life is over, regardless. He’s even beginning to smell like death.

  Do you propose that we offer him to the ovens while still alive, no matter how little he clings to it? Weiner would return.

  The man is suffering.

  As we all are. So, should we come to the very same barrack one day to find you barely alive, do we do the same to you? Do we send you to the ovens while you’re still alive?

  When there was no remark, Weiner and Avraham went from bunk to bunk, observing some whose only indication of life was the movement of their eyes, their bodies so weak they could move nothing else.

  Perhaps tomorrow, Weiner would tell them after gently caressing a bony cheek with the back of his fingers. You will see the Glory of His Light and be done with this madness.

  Some, if they could manage it, would smile, a minor curvature of the lips.

  Other times they would come upon a corpse whose eyes were already beginning to take on the milky sheen of death, their pupils dull and colorless.

  And as they continued to make their rounds they also made contacts, bringing into close council those that they trusted most and gave them a challenge, a goal, and something to live for. There would be no more wondering if they had been earmarked for the ovens, or if an SS guard had an itch to use his Luger. There would be no more disagreeable work details of carting off the dead, or wondering when they would be taken away on the very same cart. There would be no more viewing of the stacks that continuously vomited the ashes of family and friends, of coworkers and associates. It would be a world entirely of ‘no more.’

  It was a vision of long shots, but not one of impossibility since Treblinka and Sobibor was proof of that. Fifty had run off and made it to the land of ‘No More.’ Many others, however, died. But the fifty proved that nothing was out of reach.

  When Weiner and Avraham began their rounds in the women’s compound, it was Weiner who approached Roza Saperstein, a woman he had grown close to when they were inside the Warsaw ghetto, becoming as close as siblings. When they were behind the walls they often spoke of escape, either through the sewer tunnels beneath the streets or scaling the barricades, always dreaming of freedom, but neither having the fortitude to see this through.

  “Now’s our chance,” he whispered to her, as he and Avraham lifted a bone-thin corpse from a bunk and to the floor.

  She had dark eyes, sharp cheeks and a pointed jawline. Her breasts were now flat, and her body shedding pounds until her flesh became a tight wrapping around her framework. “You’re asking me to do the impossible,” she told him.

  “I’m offering us a chance to live,” he returned. “If we stay the course, this is what will become of us.” He pointed to the corpse. “It’s all around us and it’s getting worse. The death quota has just been raised by the Lagerkommandant. So it’s only a matter of time.” He looked around the barracks. The female kapo was nowhere to be seen. So he leaned into Roza and grabbed her lightly by the arms, which felt sickening thin beneath the sleeves of her smock. “We can do this,” he told her. “Like we used to plan years ago inside the ghetto, remember?”

  She nodded. “Sol, those dreams are dead.”

  “They don’t have to be,” Weiner said to her with contained excitement. “We can. Only this time we will act, yes?”

  “This time we’ll be killed.”

  “We’ll be killed anyway.”

  Roza Saperstein looked at the corpse that was about to be carried out to the cart, along with other potentials who were lying in their bunks, those who hadn’t moved all morning. “What do you need me to do?” she asked him.

  “Make contacts with those you trust most,” he answered quickly. “Form a network.” Then he told her about the munitions factory. And how to use the bodies as tools for smuggling the gunpowder from the camp to camp, and then to the Sonderkommandos. He informed her of the preliminary plans to cause a distraction in order to get a work detail inside the armory.

  “Sol, plans always look good on paper, but you know as well as I that they never work the way they are drawn up. The odds are too long.”

  “Think logically, Roza. If we do nothing, then the chance of us dying is one hundred percent. But if we pull this through, then the percentages climb, even if the numbers are small. But the bottom line, my dear, is that we’re running out of time.”

  After a pause between them, she nodded. “I know people who work the munitions,” she said. “People I can trust. I also know people who work the clothing factory as well. We can establish methods of getting the gunpowder to you and Avraham.”

  Weiner gave her a smile, then he pulled her forward to kiss her lightly on the forehead. “We’ll need you to start the network right away.”

  “Tonight,” she said. “I can start tonight.”

  “The kapo,” it was Avraham. “She’s coming.”

  Weiner guided Roza away from him and pointed her toward her bunk, telling her to draw distance from him. When the kapo entered the barracks, she was wearing civilian clothing, even though she was a Jew, and wore an orange star to signify her status instead of yellow, which was worn by the lower caste members of her faith. Unlike those who appeared to have wasted away, she was far from being undernourished.

  As soon as she stepped inside the doorway, she began to slap her truncheon over and over again as a show of authority. Then she pointed her truncheon at Weiner, then at Avraham, and then to the corpse lying on the floor. “What are you two doing?” she asked him. “Your cart has been outside this barrack for some time, and all you can manage to do is raise a single corpse from its bunk.”

  “We’re careful to check everyone,” Avraham told her. “No one, no matter how sick they may be, goes to the ovens alive. You know this.”

  The kapo gave a hard look to all the girls around her. Then she asked them: “You’re not messing around in here are you? With the women? The Blockführer would not appreciate that at all.”

  Avraham shook his head. “Of course not.”

  Then she slapped her truncheon hard against the wall. “Then hurry up. At this pace the corpses will be rotting by the time you get to them.”

  Avraham gave her a cordial nod. “Right away.”

  When the kapo finally left the barrack, Weiner turned to Roza and gave her a wink, who returned a wink of her own.

  The wheels were in motion.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Orders were coming in fast and furious to the SS guards. They were to gather all the male kapos for reassignment, and load them into the vehicles for immediate transport.

  Frederic Becher, along with members of his unit, forced the door to the kapo dormitory wide and began to scream for the kapos inside to hurry, that they were being moved to new camps. The kapos were quick under the orders of the guards, with each man rushing to grab their belongings to stuff them into a burlap sack.

  “Nein! You’ll have new clothing in the camps. New possessions. Better food, yes?” a guard yelled. “To the trucks! Schnell! Schnell!”

  The kapos hurried through the doorway and into the courtyard where three trucks were waiting. Two of the trucks were already filled with waiting personnel, a convoy nearly complete. While the kapos entered the bay of the third transport vehicle, Liev Bodner recounted what Dror had told him regarding a three-month tenure, right after he laid his tr
uncheon to him:

  …Then tell me this: why do all the kapos disappear after three months?…

  …They don’t disappear, Dror. They’re reassigned…

  …Reassigned? To where?…

  …To other camps…

  …Is that what they’re telling you, Liev? That they’re reassigning you to other camps? You mean places like Chelmno, Belzac and Majdanek? Those camps closest to Auschwitz yet are three-hundred-twenty kilometers away, six-hundred-forty kilometers round trip, perhaps a ten-hour ride on these roads… Well, if you cannot answer this, then perhaps you can tell me why it is that the trucks leave so early in the morning filled with kapos… but return less than an hour later?…

  It all sounded so clear in Bodner’s mind.

  But Dror was wrong because it hadn’t been three months. Not yet.

  “Schnell! Schnell!”

  Bodner could feel his insides begin to spoil, all the time wondering if Dror’s words had any merit to them, as he scaled the truck to enter the cargo bay.

  Once the flap was closed, when darkness blanketed the inside of the hold, the trucks began to move.

  And Bodner began to weep.

  * * *

  Dror and Ephraim were starting the furnaces inside Crematorium I when they saw and heard the SS guards shepherd the kapos into the trucks. Though the morning air held a chill to it, the Sonderkommandos were sweating, the ovens raising the temperatures inside the room to hellishly hot levels, even as they stood by the doorway.

  “It’s not three months,” said Ephraim.

  “That’s because the death quota has been raised,” Dror stated. “The Germans are stepping up the exterminations, as Chapiro said. Things are moving quicker.”

  Ephraim turned to Dror. “Is it because the Red Army approaches, you think?”

  Dror shrugged. “Seems to me they’re trying to erase all this for some reason.” Then he gave a quick sweep of his hand to indicate the camp. “Maybe they’re trying to bury their sins.”