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

  Chapiro, whose face was covered with a warm wetness, removed his cap and began to twist it once again. To him it was not an audition to impress the SS guards, but a moment of self-preservation. There was no opportunity to retreat once the gauntlet had been drawn and the challenge accepted by Kaiser. So he reached down to his deepest fears and excommunicated any sense of a moral compass that might have cost him his life, by stealing another man of his, an equal trade. All Moshe Chapiro wanted was to live, no matter the cost to those around him.

  “You did well,” the SS sergeant told him. “As agreed, you are now a kapo. You know what’s expected of you?”

  Chapiro nodded.

  “If you fail in your tasks to do so,” said Kaiser, “you’ll be sent back to carrying buckets of piss and waste all day long. Is that clear?”

  Another nod from Chapiro.

  “Very well. I’ll have the pushcarts come through to clean up the Jew. You, however, can clean yourself up inside the kapo dormitory.” Then Kaiser issued an order to the guards to escort Chapiro to his new quarters.

  The walk was long, the compound extensive, and though the guards spoke amongst themselves and acted as if Chapiro didn’t exist, Chapiro exhaled inwardly. Kapos lived a life of grandeur, always looking well-fed while maintaining a rich and healthy pallor. Three months of training and then relocation to other camps where he would rule, with the cudgel his ruling scepter over the Jews. In his mind he had climbed to the pinnacle and made himself safe. But Moshe Chapiro had never been so wrong or misguided. Instead of promoting longevity, he only managed to stunt it.

  When they reached the dormitory, Chapiro’s mouth worked mutely in surprise. There was a magnificent spread upon the table with cheeses and bread and logs of salami, a feast. When the guards left, Chapiro did not head to the buckets of clean water to bathe away the blood, but took to the meats and cheeses with unclean hands, and not caring about gorging his food with the stains of the old man’s blood, as he ate the morsels with bloodied hands and fingers.

  Though Chapiro had reached his immoral depths, he simply justified his actions as a show of self-preservation. And if the conditions were right, then any man could justify any act, no matter how heinous, as long as it eventually pacified his conscience. And not only was Chapiro pacified, he was also satiated, his hunger no longer gnawing at his gut.

  Chapiro, after cleaning off the blood and discarding the banded garments, donned civilian clothing that held the orange star of his rank, that of a kapo.

  Grabbing a truncheon from a rack against the wall, though it was far from being as heavy as the truncheons carried by SS guards, Chapiro left the dormitory with his chin held high.

  Though it took a lifetime and for all the wrong reasons, Moshe Chapiro had finally made something of himself. But in his judgmental eye, if you wanted to live, there was no wrong reason or room for regret. It was, after all, a simple matter of survival where surviving-the-code-of-annihilation was the norm.

  Chapiro took to the compound in time to see the two-man detail lift the old man off the gravel and into the pushcart. Without feeling a pang of misery for his actions, Chapiro performed his first round of the premises as a kapo.

  Chapter Twenty

  The pushcart had pulled up to Crematorium I with a least six bodies, a light load. But it was the body lying with a gaping head wound that Weiner and Avraham alerted Dror and Ephraim to.

  “Problem,” said Weiner, pointing to the corpse of the old man.

  Dror and Ephraim looked at the gaping hole in the man’s head and the pieces of gray matter that clung to the edges of the wound, with most of the organ missing from the cavity. This was nothing new to them since death by bludgeoning happened so many times before, they had become numb by the carnage over time.

  Dror did not recognize the old man. Neither did Ephraim.

  “And what would that be?” Ephraim finally asked. “The problem.”

  Avraham pointed to the body of the old man. “This is the handy work of Moshe Chapiro,” he answered.

  Dror and Ephraim looked at each other. Then they turned their attention back to Weiner and Avraham. But it was Dror who spoke.

  “And Chapiro?” he asked.

  “Now a kapo,” said Weiner.

  Avraham nodded. “We watched from a distance,” he told them. “The SS sergeant handed Chapiro a truncheon, then he withdrew his weapon and directed it at Chapiro. And then Chapiro did this.” He gave a cursory gesture, a quick sweep of his hand that implied a deep disgust at not only of the outcome, but the action itself. “Apparently this was a measure to see if Chapiro had the mettle to become a kapo.”

  Then Weiner weighed in: “After he killed the old man, two SS guards escorted him to the kapos’ dormitory. Forty minutes later, Chapiro comes walking out dressed in civilian clothing and wearing the orange star.”

  “Does he have any idea what’s waiting for him within the next few months?” Dror asked.

  “Perhaps he was conscripted to be a kapo—who knows,” said Weiner, shrugging. “But if he volunteered, obviously he doesn’t know about the kapo transports returning within the hour, from a projected ten-hour drive to and from the nearest camp.”

  Dror looked ceilingward and sighed. Since Chapiro was the one who confided in them about the rise in the death quota within the coming weeks, with the Sonderkommandos a part of that equation, Dror knew Chapiro would keep a keen eye on them since he knew that Dror was not the type of individual to stand idly by as Death approached. “He knows we’ll be planning something,” Dror finally said.

  “That’s right,” confirmed Weiner. “Question is: What are we going to do about it?”

  Dror turned to him. “Have you contacted those within the women’s camp?”

  Weiner nodded. “I spoke to a woman named Roza Saperstein, a close friend of mine. She’s going to spearhead the cause to smuggle gunpowder from the munitions factory. It’ll be transported with the bodies we carry from the camp to the crematorium. From the bodies, it is then up to you to transfer the powder to the urns. The death of Jews will now have a purpose with their deaths no longer in vain. In death they will have their say.”

  “With Chapiro on the loose trying to prove his value to the Nazi’s,” said Dror, “we’ll have to work quickly. He might become a danger to the entire project.” In anger, Dror removed his banded cap and tossed it to the ground, hard. “Dammit!”

  “Chapiro can be an easy fix, if necessary,” said Avraham.

  “By what?” Dror intuited. “Killing him?”

  “If necessary.”

  “And how long do you think that will go unnoticed before the guards search the entire camp?”

  Avraham remained quiet.

  Dror held up his forefinger. “One day,” he said. “When they realize that Chapiro is not in his barrack, then a search will commence with dogs, jeopardizing the entire mission should they find the store of gunpowder. You know as well as I do that the Germans are very meticulous people.”

  “And if we allow Chapiro to blanket us, then what?” Avraham asked. “We won’t be able to transfer the powder as planned.”

  Dror looked at him, realizing that this was both reason and truth. And then: “You’re right,” he said flatly.

  “So?”

  “So we stay smart,” Dror said. “We recognize the fact the Chapiro is a threat, so we avoid him like the plague.”

  “That might not be enough,” said Weiner. “Chapiro has no moral compass and believes himself the center of the universe with no equal. He will sell you out in a heartbeat, if he believes it will keep him alive longer. He is a man divided from his own kind and shall always be.”

  “Still,” said Avraham, who was still seeking an answer about the problem of Moshe Chapiro, “what will we do about him should he become a liability in the scheme of things, if we don’t kill him?”

  Dror had no solution, at least one that would satisfy Avraham. “I have no real answer for you,” he admitted. “At least not now. All
I know is that we need enough gunpowder to fill twenty urns.”

  “That’s a lot of gunpowder,” said Weiner. “Especially when time is not a luxury. And Chapiro will be watching you closely.”

  “Do what you can,” Dror told Weiner. “No matter what, the clock is winding down for all of us.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ayana didn’t appear to be surprised that Herr Becher was true to his word. Above the buckets that were used as a waste station, there was a loose board about five feet off the floor. The stench of human waste was unpleasant, the scent stinging to the senses, especially to the eyes. As she peeled the board back, she found the handkerchief inside. Inside the bundle were the wedges of cheese and a jar of olives.

  “Is this from your German boyfriend?” Roza Saperstein asked her.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Ayana insisted.

  “Then tell me why does he do this for you?”

  Ayana shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  The wedges of cheese, the jar of olives, and when their hunger was paramount, nothing was more wonderful. It was as if she was holding a gold bar within her hands, something entirely valuable.

  But with 200 women inside the barrack, sharing it equally among them would be an impossibility and a sure motive that would drive those who went without food, to point out those to the Blockführers who did. Anarchy, after all, was said to be only nine meals away.

  “How do we choose?” Ayana asked.

  “It’s yours,” said Roza. “I won’t say a word.”

  But Ayana shook her head. “This is for all of us.”

  “There’s not enough there to feed two hundred people,” said Roza. “And having food inside the barrack is a great risk and danger, should the Blockführer find out.”

  Ayana knew this as she salivated inwardly over the cheese wedges and the olives, wanting so badly to bite and chew something of sustenance, rather than the tin she received once every two or three days.

  “Then I won’t eat this,” Ayana said, “if I cannot share with others.”

  Roza watched Ayana put the bundle back into the slot, then return the board until it was secured.

  “If you’re hungry enough,” said Roza, “you’ll come back to it.”

  But Ayana shook her head. “No, I won’t.”

  Roza feigned a smile, knowing differently. She had seen good women go down in defeat with hunger becoming so great, it nearly turned them into savages. If given the time, she knew that Ayana’s hunger would consume her to the breaking point. And Ayana, like an animal, would claw at the board to get at the bounty behind it. In the end, it was all about self-preservation and morals be damned.

  Roza then corralled Ayana around her shoulders with her arm, and began to usher her away from the buckets. “Ayana,” she began, “I need your help. And what I’m about to tell you must be kept in the strictest confidence. Do you understand?”

  Ayana nodded. Of course.

  Roza took a long pull of air through her nostrils and released it—the moment appearing to Ayana as if Roza was debating on whether or not to actually dispel a secret.

  Then finally from Roza: “You work in the clothing factory, this I know.”

  Ayana nodded, confirming this.

  Then in close council and in hushed whispers far from the others, Roza confided in Ayana about the cause. She spoke about the rumors that were more true than not, about the rise in the death quota, and how the furnaces were to burn night and day in order to meet the demands. She also talked about a network that was evolving and how they were going to make a stand against the Nazi’s. Then she went on about how freedom was no longer a delusion, but the realization of fact.

  Roza pointed to a woman at the other end of the barrack who sported deep wrinkles along the edges of her eyes, lips and brow, giving her an unbroken expression that made her appear as if she was a wizened woman when, in fact, she was only thirty-eight. “Her name is Ala Robata,” she told Ayana. “And there,” she pointed to the person Robata was with, a woman with a hatchet-thin face. “Her name is Regina Gertner. They work together in the munitions factory and they’ve agreed to be a part of the network.” She turned to Ayana, their eyes locking. “And now you are part of the association as well,” she whispered. “A part of the trusted few. We need you to create the means in which Ala and Regina can transport the gunpowder from the munitions factory, to members of the network without detection. Can you do this?”

  Ayana nodded, her allegiance naturally deep-rooted to those who had the will to fight. “I’ll do whatever is necessary,” she answered.

  Roza cocked her head questioningly at this. “You realize the consequences should you get caught, yes?”

  “If I don’t take a stand eventually” said Ayana, “I’ll end ‘up-the-chimney.’ I know this.”

  Roza concurred with a nod since she couldn’t have worded it any better.

  Then Roza advised Ayana of her role. She, along with a selected few, would alter the hemlines of certain garments where thin tubes of fabric could be inserted into the folds. These tubes would serve as the packages filled with gunpowder to be smuggled out of the women’s camp, and into the hands of the insurrectionists. She was also to create small pouches capable of fitting into particular orifices, such as the mouth. When Ayana questioned this, Roza’s response was quick and simple: “Because the dead are going to be the vessels to see us through to victory,” she said. “We will no longer stand by and watch them die in vain.”

  And Ayana understood. Whether the Jews be living or dead, they would stand or fall together as a race of people. And nothing, not even death, was going to divide them.

  “There will be others,” said Roza, “inside the workshop who will perform as you do. Their identities, however, will remain secret in case they’re compromised, so they won’t be able to point out others, should they break.”

  “I understand.”

  “Tomorrow then, you’ll begin to create these wider hems for the tubes to fit into. And we haven’t a moment to waste, Ayana, since time is not on our side.” Then Roza went into depth as to how Ayana was to design the new hemlines into the smocks, and where to leave the openings so that the tubes could be inserted and hidden for transport. “The guards never check the dead,” she said to Ayana. “They always avoid the corpses as if they carry the plague.”

  And they spoke into the early morning hours, in hushed tones, the voices of phantoms whispering in the darkness.

  And then came silence that was complete and absolute, until the early morning hours when everyone awoke to see the gallows silhouetted against the gray streamers of light that began to radiate off the horizon.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Three days after the first mentioning of an insurrection within a closed circle, a train pulled into the railway site where the ramps were fitted by Jews wearing banded attire, so that the masses could exit the cattle wagons. A band made up of the best Jewish musicians played as the SS guards pummeled the new arrivals with their truncheons and sent them to the left, toward Birkenau, where the Red House was, and not too far from the crematorium.

  Mengele was nowhere to be seen, the fates of the Hungarians already cast by the Lagerkommandant less than a week ago.

  And yet the band played on, playing Hungarian tunes as the arrivals were beaten and forced to Birkenau where the chambers awaited them, the pumps already primed to force the gas through the lines in the showerheads.

  And still the band played on, drowning out the cries as the Hungarians screamed when the gases began to overtake them, the poison filling their lungs—the coughing, gagging and wheezing, which could still be heard over the music, and drove tears from some of the musicians.

  Yet the band played on, the players never out of tune or out of sync, and always in perfect harmony.

  The screaming went on throughout the day as wave after wave of Hungarians were forced to undress and enter the chambers, once the floors had been cleared of the dead.

  And
still the band played on as a German SS guard performed as a mock conductor, by directing the group with an imaginary wand in a show of dark humor.

  In the midst of it all was the background screaming…

  …The crying…

  …The eventual gagging…

  And yet the band played on.

  When the last Hungarian had been put down, when the final cry had escaped his lips, only then did the band stop playing.

  By then, the sun was beginning to set.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  From the doorway of the crematorium, Dror and Ephraim had watched and heard it all. They had witnessed the forced evacuation of the Hungarians from the cattle cars, watched the subsequent beatings as SS guards drove everyone towards the Red House—men, women and children. And then came the screams, the cries, the coughing and the gagging, the following silence, and then the long convoy of pushcarts that carried the dead to the crematories.

  “The day we break out of here,” Dror commented to Ephraim, “is a day that can’t come fast enough.”

  “It’ll happen,” returned Ephraim. “It will.”

  When Weiner and Avraham wheeled their cart to the entryway for unloading, Dror and Ephraim beckoned them as a means for a discussion. At the opposite side of the furnaces stood a kapo with truncheon in hand, his attention focused elsewhere.

  Weiner spoke softly but just above a whisper. “”The wheels are in motion,” he told Dror and Ephraim, as they lifted a body off the cart and carried it to a tray. “My contact in the women’s camp is creating a network of trusted individuals. The gunpowder will be smuggled through the hemlines of smocks and shirts, which will be designed as pockets. Small satchels will also be made to fit inside the mouths of those corpses being transported to the ovens. The guards never search the dead.” Once they lifted the body onto the tray, Avraham slid it into the furnace, closed the door and latched it.