Peter Leonard - Voices of the Dead

They walked past Irena’s desk into another room.

“This is my office,” Lisa said.

There was a desk and a couch and two chairs. Harry went to the window and glanced down at the street below. Lisa turned on a lamp and sat behind her desk, opened a drawer and took out a stack of photographs.

“Harry, I want you to see these.”

Harry and Martz sat across from her, Lisa showing them shots of neo-Nazis, different angles, walking down a Munich street, carrying ax handles, broken store windows in the background.

“Jewish shops on Maximilianstrasse,” Lisa said. “Looks familiar, doesn’t it?”

“These could’ve been taken thirty years ago,” Harry said.

“I know. That’s what’s so scary. And it’s going on all over the country.”

She picked up a piece of paper and read. “A bomb attack wounded ten people leaving a synagogue in Stuttgart. A Jewish family was terrorized in Dresden. A prosperous Jewish couple, the Lachmanns, were murdered execution-style a few blocks from here last night.”

She put the paper down, looked at Harry. “And you were attacked. Another average day in Deutschland.”

Harry said, “How do you find war criminals?”

“We have a list of Nazi Party members, those who weren’t condemned to death, or are still serving time. What’s astonishing, many SS kept their real names after the war and became lawyers, judges, teachers, policemen, and politicians. It’s unbelievable when you think about it. A lot of the Nazis that were prosecuted had their sentences commuted.” Lisa paused. “A few weeks ago, a Dachau survivor saw a former SS officer coming out of a restaurant on Leopoldstrasse. Her name is Joyce Cantor. She was visiting Munich for the first time in thirty years and ran into a Nazi who tried to kill her.”

“Who was he?”

“The SS officer in charge of a killing squad one day in the woods outside Dachau. Harry, didn’t the same thing happen to you?”

“I remember him, but not his name or anything about him.”

“Joyce called the Anti-Defamation League in New York, and they gave her our number. I spoke to her. She was supposed to come in and look at our archival photographs the next day. But when she went back to her hotel room there was a swastika painted on the wall. Sound familiar? She was scared to death and flew out that evening.”

“Did she tell you what happened?”

“I have our taped conversation right here.” Lisa pointed to the recorder on her desk. “She had been driven to the woods outside Dachau with a group from the women’s camp. It was late in the afternoon. A pit had been dug, and by the time she arrived it was full of Jews, dead and dying. She was told to jump in the pit, the guards shooting at her. But by then they were drunk, and missed her. When it was dark she crawled out and escaped.”

Harry could picture the scene, remembered seeing someone running into the woods.

Lisa took out a stack of eight-by-ten black-and-white prints, placed them on the desk in front of Harry.

“These are the photographs I was going to show her. Look at them. You will probably see some familiar faces.”

The first one was a brown sepia tone shot of an SS officer, head and shoulders, the man wearing a peaked cap, eagle above the skull and crossbones, pale-gray uniform with a high collar and epaulets, arrogance evident in his thin-lipped grin.

“Martin Weiss,” Martz said. “Arrived the 3rd of January 1942. Took over for Alex Piorkowski who was eventually kicked out of the Nazi Party.”

“I remember Weiss,” Harry said. “He shot a man in the yard after roll call because his shirt wasn’t buttoned all the way.”

“We don’t have to worry about him any more,” Martz said. “He was sentenced at Nuremberg and hanged.”

“The question is, who did Joyce Cantor recognize?” Lisa said. “Forty-one other men at Dachau were tried with Weiss after the war. That seemed like a logical place to begin. All were found guilty of war crimes. Thirty-five were sentenced to death, the remaining six to various terms of imprisonment. Max Lengfelder, Sebastian Schmidt and Peter Betz — do you remember any of them? — received life sentences.”

Harry glanced at their photographs, but no one looked familiar.

“The final three, Hugo Lausterer, Albin Gretsch and Johann Schoepp, were given ten-year sentences. So any one of them could have been on Leopoldstrasse, coming out of the restaurant that day.”

He looked at their photos. “Familiar faces,” Harry said. “But not the one we’re looking for.”

Martz handed him another photograph. “You remember Egon Zill?”

“I do,” Harry said. “He’d have guards tie a prisoner’s hands and feet together and make them crawl, squealing like a pig. Food was thrown into the pigsty and the Jew would have to fight the pigs for it.”

“This is Himmler,” Martz said. “Remember the day he came, April 11, 1941.”

“We weren’t taken there till November,” Harry said.

“The SS were nervous, making the prisoners clean up the yard, the barracks, burning bodies in the morgue or burying them. Word was Reichsführer Himmler had a weak stomach.” Martz took a breath. “We were in the yard, standing at attention after roll call. Himmler came out to inspect us. I remember his eyes, dark and small, close together. He looked like some kind of rodent.”

“Here are a few more,” Lisa said, sliding the pile over the desktop to him.

Harry shuffled through the pictures and shook his head. “I don’t see him. Now what?”

The beer garden was crowded when Harry got there at 6:15. He had walked through the Augustinerkeller, and it was like going back in time, the beer hall much the same as he remembered it: dark wood, heavy pine tables, timber-frame ceiling, and animal heads on the walls.

He went out back and saw Colette sitting at a long table under the linden trees. She was with a group of locals decked out in Tracht clothing, home-sewn Tyrolean outfits that made them look like friendly mountain people, smiling ruddy-faced men and women who drank goat milk and lived humble honest lives.

They were talking, drinking beer, listening to the oompah band, its members wearing lederhosen, having fun. It was a scene from his past when everything was good, before all the craziness.

Harry watched Colette for a couple minutes, Colette the quintessential fräulein singing, hoisting her mug, enjoying herself. She looked over, saw him and waved. He walked to the table, sat next to her and met the people she was with. This was the custom, you found a space at a table and mixed with whoever was there. The waitress, a sturdy blonde with huge bazooms, came by and he ordered a beer. The band started up again and the Bavarians were singing and swaying in their seats, really getting into it.

“ Ein prosit, ein prosit der Gemütlichkeit, ” Colette sang, smiling at him. “Come on, Harry, try it.”

“I only sing in the shower,” Harry said.

“Here, everyone sings.”

“I better not.”

“Then you have to dance with me.”

Before Harry could object, Colette stood up next to him, took hold of his hands, pulled him up and hooked an arm around his, moving for the dance floor. He held her right hand and she put her left on his shoulder. He put his other hand on her hip and brought it up and felt the firm tautness of her waist. He twirled her a couple times, Colette really into it, laughing and grinning at him. When the song ended they went back to the table. Harry sang “ Ein prosit ,” loosening up a little, trying to put Hess out of his mind for a while. But he wanted to get out of the beer garden. He’d had enough of this Bavarian schmaltz, the oompah band and the cheeky German camaraderie.