Deadly Pedigree - By Jimmy Fox Page 0,4
because your family was Jewish?” Nick asked.
“Yes. Oh, but we were Germans, too! Jewish Germans, weren’t we? So we thought. I was a youngster at the time, working at the hotel, of course. And going to school, dreaming about the rich lives of the guests who came to fish and swim and sail on the lake. Chasing the good-looking girls of our village. Expecting to go to university.” Corban gave a wistful sigh.
“Do not think we were blind to the signs of what was coming. Everybody knew. They approved of what was going on, most of them. At first, it was gradual, but a secret? No, no.” He waved his hands as if refusing a second helping of something.
“We were so sure that they considered us Germans first, not simply Jews who happened to be unlucky enough to be living in the Reich. We loved German culture, thought we shared it with the Gentiles. We worshiped the culture, just like we loved the Fatherland. To tell the truth, we were Jewish only in memory; my father and mother had nothing to do with the old ways. Oh yes, we were very modern, very modern. God help us!
“A little cut here, a little cut there. That’s how it was. First came the pamphlets and posters with the Jews as vermin. Then we heard of the state propaganda films and the rumors against Jews, no longer just whispered, either. They had become bolder with their successes. We listened to the madman Hitler on the radio. We were shocked but still we did not see what was to come. How could anyone believe such craziness?
“Soon, our loyal guests started to treat us like we were dirty, less than human. Then came the boycott, the Anschluss, the swastikas painted everywhere on our property. My father kept saying if it got too bad, we’d cross over into Switzerland. If it got too bad…it was bad enough already! When, when? He told us he knew some people who would get us through. I remember Kristallnacht like it was yesterday; I can hear the glass shattering, I can feel it crunching under my shoes. It got worse. There was blood in the streets, in the synagogues. When, when are we to leave, Papa? Already it was too late.”
Corban raised his sleeve to reveal the blurred number. “You know about concentration camps?”
“I, uh…yes, I know something about them,” Nick said, feeling suddenly like a student who hadn’t finished studying for that day’s big test. “My father served in the Army in Europe. He saw some of the liberated concentration camps as they marched into Germany in 1945. And he made sure I read pretty widely on the subject.”
Corban shook his head. “You cannot know what it was like, what any of the camps were like, unless you were there. I never saw my parents or my two brothers or my three sisters again. All my aunts and uncles and cousins disappeared. Up in smoke.” He made a swirling gesture in the air. “You know, at the end, it happened so fast. We had no time to question, we didn’t know what to ask. Overnight we had become cattle led to slaughter.
“The rest is like a dream to me, a nightmare that will not leave me. Why was I allowed to live? I do not know. Sometimes I wonder if I am not dead.” He looked around the room, as if he didn’t recognize matter and form anymore.
“I worked in factories at first, because I was strong then, like you are when you are young, you know, a hard worker, determined to stay alive. I became ill, of course, but I managed to hide it for a time. They moved us as the fronts shifted. East, east I went, into the rising sun. It was cold, colder than I thought possible. Even the summers were without warmth and life. Don’t ask how long I was in this camp or that; I do not know. Time stopped for me. Somehow, God kept me alive, though there was less of me than you see now, thin and sick man that I am. I buried and burned the corpses and sorted the gold teeth and the hair for the Nazis as long as I could stand.”
Corban had a feverish look in his pale eyes, though the rest of him seemed exhausted. Nick moved his hand nearer the phone, ready to call for an ambulance.
But the old man continued his story, his fervor