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Golden Reich Operation Rebirth by Mark Donahue |
“He didn't know how to speak properly, how to walk properly, how to comb his hair, and she felt embarrassed for him as he shouted about restoring jobs and national honor, about a better and splendid Germany. The mob applauded, shouted. Did people really believe that he wanted what was best for Germany?” --Ursula Hegl, Children and Fire |
Prologue
Germany-1943
The blue wooden sandbox in which three-year-old Ari played, was littered with the small steel toy trucks given to him by his older sister Anna as a Hanukkah gift months earlier. When Ari drove them over imaginary roads he vibrated his lips and made motor sounds that caused spit to drop onto his red shirt forming a wet six-inch teardrop pattern below his chin. His brown hair was matted with sweat from his focused efforts in the mid-day sun. His beige shorts, white socks and canvass shoes were covered with the fine gray sand.
Ari looked up from his diligent work and squinted in the sunlight when he heard the rumble of three tarp-covered military trucks that pulled up in front of his parent’s large Tudor-styled home in an affluent neighborhood outside Berlin.
While the truck engines idled, Ari excitedly bounced up from his sandbox and ran toward the large Swastika emblazoned vehicles, his favorite red toy truck clutched in his right hand. When he crossed over the circular driveway and approached the front gate, he was intercepted by his mother who swooped him up on a dead run. When she turned back toward the house Ari wailed in protest and dropped his toy truck in the grass. “Mama, mama, truck, truck!”
His mother, Rebecca, a slender, attractive, twenty-six-year old, raven-haired woman, ignored her son’s protests. Instead she ran toward the garage where her husband David held the side door open. Inside the cool garage a dark blue 1937 Cadillac sedan sat in the shadows. After David slid in behind the steering wheel, Rebecca moved into the passenger seat. She held their only son who had grown quiet sensing his parent’s curious emotions.
David pumped the accelerator pedal twice, turned the ignition key, and the V-8 roared to life. He reached for the driver’s side door handle to go and open the garage door. But Rebecca grabbed his right arm and held him back.
“Rebecca, we must leave now! Out the back gate, there’s no time!”
“David, where can we go? Where can we hide?”
“We can…we can go to my brother’s house, he will hide us!”
“And who will hide him, David?”
“But we can’t stay in here or we’ll…”
“When they take us, they will separate us, like they have all the others. Let’s stay together. Just the three of us…here.”
For several seconds amid the low murmur of the V-8, David pondered Rebecca’s meaning. “What about little Anna?”
“My sister will understand and watch over her. You know how Anna loves her and they’ll be safe in Zurich.”
“But…are you very sure we should…?”
“Staying together is best, David.” Rebecca slid next to David and placed her head on his shoulder, with Ari on her lap. Ari appeared confused and looked between his mother and father for some kind of explanation. Instead, David rolled down the driver door window and kissed his son’s forehead. He wrapped his arms around his wife and child.
Ari was still confused. “Papa?”
“We love you, Ari.” David explained.
Exhaust fumes rose from the Cadillac and within minutes the car was enveloped in a dense gray fog. From outside the garage, smoke could be seen as it seeped from the bottom of the garage door and floated skyward in a series of specter like wisps.
Inside one of the trucks waiting in front of the house, a young German soldier grew concerned. “Sergeant, they aren’t coming out of the garage, should we go get them?”
“Private, you’re too impatient. They make our job easier. Relax, we have plenty of time. The Jews go nowhere.”
Inside the Cadillac, Rebecca, Ari and David appeared asleep in each other’s arms. Thirty-minutes later, a hulking young German soldier, a handkerchief held over his nose, opened the door and entered the smoke filled garage. He made his way through the gray haze until he could see the Cadillac’s left rear bumper. He felt his way along the side of the Caddy, found and opened the driver’s door. He reached over three bodies and turned off the ignition.
After he left the garage and allowed the smoke to clear, the soldier returned several minutes later to, “clean up the mess,” as his sergeant had ordered. He pulled David and Ari from the car and haphazardly dropped them to the floor of the garage. He turned back to reach for Rebecca and saw her dress hiked up. The soldier could see her smooth thighs and white panties visible in the half light.
For several seconds the soldier stared at and was entranced by Rebecca’s sad, lifeless eyes, still moist with tears. He slid into the seat next to the dead woman unable to take his eyes off her. After a full minute, he reached out and tentatively fondled her right breast with his left hand, as if in fear she would awake and slap him for such temerity.
When she did not, he moved his hand down to her thigh. Then between her legs. All the while he gaped at her large dark brown eyes in fascination. He began to breathe heavily and sweat beaded on his forehead. He looked through the narrow back window of the Caddy and the open garage door. He saw no one. Why not? He shrugged his shoulders and unhooked his belt. But seconds later he heard sounds from the front yard. Cursing the noises and a lost opportunity, he re-hooked his pants, pulled Rebecca from the front seat of the Caddy and tossed her on the floor of the garage next to Ari and David.
The soldier slid back into the Cadillac’s front bench seat and sat behind the wheel of the high priced American symbol of luxury and affluence. He stroked its fine leather seats. He ran his hands over the shiny black steering wheel imagining a drive in the massive car to his girlfriend’s house near Munich. His thoughts about his new found respect for American engineering and design were interrupted by an impatient sergeant. “Private, I told you to move that rubbish out of here and pull that car into the driveway. General Eck has made a request for that make and model. Make sure it’s cleaned inside and out.”
“Yes sir.”
After the bodies were removed from the garage by the soldier, six more men entered the large three-story home. They began their systematic task with the care of professional movers. That was partly due to the fact that four of the men had been professional movers in civilian life. Yet they had never experienced as much work as they now had. Nor had they moved people and furniture from such grand homes.
At the bottom of the stairs leading from the large veranda-style front porch, the sergeant inspected the loads carried by his men. He made detailed notes in a thick brown binder that included a description of each item confiscated. He also listed the names and addresses of the Jews who had donated to the Führer’s cause. He wanted to make sure all the Jews in the neighborhood had an opportunity to pay their fair share.
He also had a message for his men. “After we’re done here, I’m going to search each one of you and if I find you’ve taken anything for yourself, you’ll get a year in solitary.”
A strapping young soldier presented a large jewelry case made of mahogany. “Sergeant, I found this in a closet.”
“Let me have it.”
Opening the box, the sergeant saw several rings, bracelets, gold watches and other pieces of jewelry. After he made his notes in the binder, he lifted the contents out of the box, and placed them in a large wooden barrel that sat by the side of the stairs. However, the sergeant did reward himself for work well done by palming an elegant man’s gold Rolex. After checking to be sure he could not be seen, he slipped the timepiece into his pocket. “Thanks, Jew boy. You had good taste.”
The soldiers methodically emptied the house except for specially requested items that were on a list provided by the next inhabitants of the Tudor home; a Nazi General, his wife, and three small children. In addition they searched the grounds, garage and storage bins around the house for valuables. One soldier even found a red toy truck in the grass and tossed it in one of the barrels at the bottom of the stairs.
By the next afternoon the Nazi General’s children were playing in their new grass green sandbox. In it they found a small brown canvass shoe and two toy trucks.
The blue wooden sandbox in which three-year-old Ari played, was littered with the small steel toy trucks given to him by his older sister Anna as a Hanukkah gift months earlier. When Ari drove them over imaginary roads he vibrated his lips and made motor sounds that caused spit to drop onto his red shirt forming a wet six-inch teardrop pattern below his chin. His brown hair was matted with sweat from his focused efforts in the mid-day sun. His beige shorts, white socks and canvass shoes were covered with the fine gray sand.
Ari looked up from his diligent work and squinted in the sunlight when he heard the rumble of three tarp-covered military trucks that pulled up in front of his parent’s large Tudor-styled home in an affluent neighborhood outside Berlin.
While the truck engines idled, Ari excitedly bounced up from his sandbox and ran toward the large Swastika emblazoned vehicles, his favorite red toy truck clutched in his right hand. When he crossed over the circular driveway and approached the front gate, he was intercepted by his mother who swooped him up on a dead run. When she turned back toward the house Ari wailed in protest and dropped his toy truck in the grass. “Mama, mama, truck, truck!”
His mother, Rebecca, a slender, attractive, twenty-six-year old, raven-haired woman, ignored her son’s protests. Instead she ran toward the garage where her husband David held the side door open. Inside the cool garage a dark blue 1937 Cadillac sedan sat in the shadows. After David slid in behind the steering wheel, Rebecca moved into the passenger seat. She held their only son who had grown quiet sensing his parent’s curious emotions.
David pumped the accelerator pedal twice, turned the ignition key, and the V-8 roared to life. He reached for the driver’s side door handle to go and open the garage door. But Rebecca grabbed his right arm and held him back.
“Rebecca, we must leave now! Out the back gate, there’s no time!”
“David, where can we go? Where can we hide?”
“We can…we can go to my brother’s house, he will hide us!”
“And who will hide him, David?”
“But we can’t stay in here or we’ll…”
“When they take us, they will separate us, like they have all the others. Let’s stay together. Just the three of us…here.”
For several seconds amid the low murmur of the V-8, David pondered Rebecca’s meaning. “What about little Anna?”
“My sister will understand and watch over her. You know how Anna loves her and they’ll be safe in Zurich.”
“But…are you very sure we should…?”
“Staying together is best, David.” Rebecca slid next to David and placed her head on his shoulder, with Ari on her lap. Ari appeared confused and looked between his mother and father for some kind of explanation. Instead, David rolled down the driver door window and kissed his son’s forehead. He wrapped his arms around his wife and child.
Ari was still confused. “Papa?”
“We love you, Ari.” David explained.
Exhaust fumes rose from the Cadillac and within minutes the car was enveloped in a dense gray fog. From outside the garage, smoke could be seen as it seeped from the bottom of the garage door and floated skyward in a series of specter like wisps.
Inside one of the trucks waiting in front of the house, a young German soldier grew concerned. “Sergeant, they aren’t coming out of the garage, should we go get them?”
“Private, you’re too impatient. They make our job easier. Relax, we have plenty of time. The Jews go nowhere.”
Inside the Cadillac, Rebecca, Ari and David appeared asleep in each other’s arms. Thirty-minutes later, a hulking young German soldier, a handkerchief held over his nose, opened the door and entered the smoke filled garage. He made his way through the gray haze until he could see the Cadillac’s left rear bumper. He felt his way along the side of the Caddy, found and opened the driver’s door. He reached over three bodies and turned off the ignition.
After he left the garage and allowed the smoke to clear, the soldier returned several minutes later to, “clean up the mess,” as his sergeant had ordered. He pulled David and Ari from the car and haphazardly dropped them to the floor of the garage. He turned back to reach for Rebecca and saw her dress hiked up. The soldier could see her smooth thighs and white panties visible in the half light.
For several seconds the soldier stared at and was entranced by Rebecca’s sad, lifeless eyes, still moist with tears. He slid into the seat next to the dead woman unable to take his eyes off her. After a full minute, he reached out and tentatively fondled her right breast with his left hand, as if in fear she would awake and slap him for such temerity.
When she did not, he moved his hand down to her thigh. Then between her legs. All the while he gaped at her large dark brown eyes in fascination. He began to breathe heavily and sweat beaded on his forehead. He looked through the narrow back window of the Caddy and the open garage door. He saw no one. Why not? He shrugged his shoulders and unhooked his belt. But seconds later he heard sounds from the front yard. Cursing the noises and a lost opportunity, he re-hooked his pants, pulled Rebecca from the front seat of the Caddy and tossed her on the floor of the garage next to Ari and David.
The soldier slid back into the Cadillac’s front bench seat and sat behind the wheel of the high priced American symbol of luxury and affluence. He stroked its fine leather seats. He ran his hands over the shiny black steering wheel imagining a drive in the massive car to his girlfriend’s house near Munich. His thoughts about his new found respect for American engineering and design were interrupted by an impatient sergeant. “Private, I told you to move that rubbish out of here and pull that car into the driveway. General Eck has made a request for that make and model. Make sure it’s cleaned inside and out.”
“Yes sir.”
After the bodies were removed from the garage by the soldier, six more men entered the large three-story home. They began their systematic task with the care of professional movers. That was partly due to the fact that four of the men had been professional movers in civilian life. Yet they had never experienced as much work as they now had. Nor had they moved people and furniture from such grand homes.
At the bottom of the stairs leading from the large veranda-style front porch, the sergeant inspected the loads carried by his men. He made detailed notes in a thick brown binder that included a description of each item confiscated. He also listed the names and addresses of the Jews who had donated to the Führer’s cause. He wanted to make sure all the Jews in the neighborhood had an opportunity to pay their fair share.
He also had a message for his men. “After we’re done here, I’m going to search each one of you and if I find you’ve taken anything for yourself, you’ll get a year in solitary.”
A strapping young soldier presented a large jewelry case made of mahogany. “Sergeant, I found this in a closet.”
“Let me have it.”
Opening the box, the sergeant saw several rings, bracelets, gold watches and other pieces of jewelry. After he made his notes in the binder, he lifted the contents out of the box, and placed them in a large wooden barrel that sat by the side of the stairs. However, the sergeant did reward himself for work well done by palming an elegant man’s gold Rolex. After checking to be sure he could not be seen, he slipped the timepiece into his pocket. “Thanks, Jew boy. You had good taste.”
The soldiers methodically emptied the house except for specially requested items that were on a list provided by the next inhabitants of the Tudor home; a Nazi General, his wife, and three small children. In addition they searched the grounds, garage and storage bins around the house for valuables. One soldier even found a red toy truck in the grass and tossed it in one of the barrels at the bottom of the stairs.
By the next afternoon the Nazi General’s children were playing in their new grass green sandbox. In it they found a small brown canvass shoe and two toy trucks.
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