An Appointment With The Todesengel

“Wake up, Pavel. He is here. Wake up!”

The voice was little more than a raspy hiss in my left ear but I was awake immediately. I propped myself up on the bed, pulled the sheets back and swung my legs out to the cold wooden floor and sat upright. For a moment I became slightly dizzy and swayed a bit. I had eaten little over the last few days and I could see the immediate flare of concern in Viktor’s eyes as he looked at me, but I recovered quickly and took a deep breath to clear my head.

“Hand me some cards, right now. You hold some too. Quickly! We’re playing Belote. Eight cards each.”

My own voice was also a raspy hiss but Viktor heard me clearly enough and a moment later we were each holding a set of eight cards fanned out in our hands, intently staring at them and rearranging their order from time to time. I focused my attention solely on the cards and never once turned around to see the man walking up the aisle between the rows of beds. I never looked at this man, who was known as the Todesengel among the men and women of the camp, unless I had no other choice. No one did.

Viktor, however, was facing me, so he could clearly see the Doctor over my shoulder as he walked slowly from bed to bed. The smaller camp doctor with the scruffy salt-and-pepper beard walked nervously beside him wearing a baggy white set of pajamas with a black armband bearing the six-pointed Star of David printed in white; a prisoner who had once been a doctor somewhere in Eastern Europe before all of the madness began. Now he was a doctor here, where the rules were different. Initially he had refused to serve, until he witnessed the medical treatment that his fellow detainees were receiving from the Germans.

Todesengel, in his clean and neatly pressed black SS officer’s uniform, stopped at the head of one bed and looked down at the man lying there. It was hard to tell if he was speaking because of the surgical mask he wore over his nose and mouth, but he must have said something because the camp doctor quickly moved to the patient’s bedside, speaking rapidly and pointing at different places on the man’s body while reading notes off of a medical chart that he held in an old manila folder. 

I returned my attention to the card game that Viktor and I were pretending at. As always, the Doctor took his time walking the aisle, making short stops in front of the beds of some of the men who were weakest, asking brief questions that always sent the camp doctor into a fresh flurry of worried responses. They made their way down the corridor between the two rows of beds in this fashion and eventually reached the foot of my bed and stood quietly watching Viktor and I playing at cards for a moment.

I was born and raised in Lublin and did not speak much German at that time so I did not know what he said from behind his mask, but the camp doctor smiled and quickly moved to where Viktor and I were seated and placed one hand on my shoulder as he began to speak in his rapid-paced, nervous fashion. I understood little but I knew the doctor was making assurances of our quick convalescence and improving strength. All the while, I could feel Mengele’s eyes upon me; dissecting, evaluating, calculating, assessing.

The camp doctor said a few more words and stared at him nervously, awaiting further questions from the Todesengel with a tight little smile, but the Doctor wordlessly turned on his heel and walked across the aisle to Ezra’s bedside. A minute or so later they moved on down the aisle where the barracks hall terminated at the two doors located at the rear. Those doors always remained closed and only gave way to pained sounds of sporadic cries from time to time during the night.

First they went into the room on the right, and there they remained for quite a while before they emerged again and closed the door behind them. Then they entered the room on the left and less than two minutes later they returned, only this time they were followed by the two boys.

They were identical twins and tall for their 16 years, each bearing the same rough-hewn haircut and the same old worn gray cheap cotton suit hanging loosely on their thin frames. Mengele said nothing as he began walking back towards the front of the barracks and the twins walked side-by-side down the aisle behind him staring down at the floor, the camp doctor trailing right behind them speaking in Polish in a soft and reassuring tone. As they approached my bed the twins looked at me almost simultaneously and our eyes locked for just a moment before they passed on and returned their gaze to the rough wooden floorboards beneath their feet.

At the same time, as their group passed by the foot of Ezra’s bed Mengele wordlessly pointed one finger down at Ezra’s sleeping body and continued walking forward without ever turning his head. Viktor squinted his eyes tight for just a moment - Ezra was his nephew - and quickly returned his stare to the cards in his hand, shooting glances of thinly veiled hatred down the aisle once, twice, his eyes glossing over with tears that he quickly blinked away. Despite myself I turned my head to watch the small congregation moving down the aisle towards the front doors. As they passed by Arthur’s bed Mengele made that same silent gesture, holding an outstretched index finger pointed at Arthur’s body lying silently beneath a thin, sweat-stained cotton sheet without ever casting a glance in that direction. 

At the front of the room I saw the SS lieutenant who was smoking a cigarette by the front door briefly nod in return before making a few quick notations on his clipboard. Two sentries with dirty gray coveralls and heavy gloves stood behind him, a stretcher leaning against the wall beside them. Before the group of four coming up the aisle reached the front of the room, the man who later became known to the world as the Nazi “Angel of Death” made that same silent gesture at two more of the men sleeping in their beds, marking them for removal from the medical barracks, and then he walked directly out through the double doors into the weak morning sunlight, the twins resignedly trailing behind him and the camp doctor bearing the Star of David on his sleeve looking back just once in a calculus of self-doubt before clutching his manila folder and hustling off.

I never saw my younger brothers Isaac and Mikhael again.

Less than a week later we knew something had changed. For a day or so we heard the sounds of approaching battle and the next morning the German doctors were no longer making their usual rounds. The guards were also gone and while it was not uncommon for a mealtime to be missed here and there in the sick barracks we knew something was definitely happening when we missed three in a row.

Viktor and I were cautiously making plans to take a look around outside of our barracks hall after sundown that night when a few other Juden prisoners wearing off-white pajamas just like ours came in through the front door and told us that the camp had been vacated by the Germans. These men were making the rounds in search of food and seeking help from other able-bodied men so Victor and I went off with them, joined by several of the other men from our barracks, to provide assistance even though none of us were entirely well ourselves. Still, it felt good to help. It felt clean.

But when dawn rose the next day we watched in a half-starved and semi-delirious condition as the first of the Red Army soldiers walked cautiously out of the early morning mist and through the main gates of the camp in a wide-eyed procession of sympathy and sorrow and abject horror. It was only then that I realized what a tragic spectacle we had all become as I saw the pitiful nature of our existence reflected in the eyes of those battle-hardened Russian soldiers walking slowly through our midst, instantly stripped away of any notions that they had already seen the worst of what war had to offer or just how cruel man can be to man.

***************

After my release from Auschwitz I lived in Vienna for just over three years, working as a junior clerk in one of the city’s many banks, a job that I was most happy to secure. The pay was relatively poor and the hours were long but you must understand that decent employment was very difficult to come by at that time and my employers were kind enough to provide me with a place to live in an old apartment building that they owned nearby. During that time I walked numbly through my days in a haze of vague disorientation. I couldn’t think ahead or form any real plans. I couldn’t envision a place for myself in this strange and freshly-shattered world where I now lived. The place where I was born and the family that I loved had been turned to ash when the Nazis put everything to the torch and I simply didn’t know what to do next.

And then one day a letter arrived.

Dearest Pavel,

It brings my heart such great joy to learn that you made it out of the camp alive. I pray your brothers were able to do the same but I fear the worst for them based on what I have heard, and as much by what I have not heard, sadly, though facts are scarce during these times as you surely know.

As you probably have also learned by now, our Uncle Arnaud and his youngest brother Petr made it out of Poland safely just days before the SMS Schleswig-Holstein arrived at port in Danzig. They made it to El Salvador and were able to secure papers from there, ultimately arriving in Sao Paolo. They were forced to conceal their true heritage for a time but things are starting to change now that the war is over.

Arnaud and Petr are running a successful bank, one that is providing loans to the growing coffee industry here, and they are calling the family to join them. Arnaud and Petr have a job and a home for you, Pavel. I have enclosed their phone number and their address in the Bom Retiro district, not far from the Luz Train Station, along with the paperwork needed for you to board a Red Cross ship from Rome to Buenos Aires in three weeks time. Be on that ship, Pavel! I have been here half the year now and I look forward to embracing you with all the strength that remains within me when next I see you. You are going to love the sea and sun here in Brazil!

Be safe, Pavel. The worst is over. Come join your family in our new home.

Your Uncle,

Alexander

P.s. I have enclosed one last thing. Do you recognize the face in this picture? Yes, I suspect you must. I took this picture myself not three weeks ago on a brief trip to Bertioga. I will show you when you get here. It is a very beautiful place where beautiful things might someday happen. Long overdue things. Please dispose of this picture now.

***************

I arrived in Sao Paulo six weeks after receiving that letter from my Uncle Alexander and he was as good as his word on every promise made. My Uncles Arnaud and Petr were now well-established bankers in the small but well-respected Jewish banking community starting to flourish in Brazil and a warm welcome was made for me upon my arrival. Before long I was a working contributor at the growing family business and regularly shared meals at the dinner tables in my uncle’s homes. Furthermore, the tropical climate truly did agree with me and I was regaining the air in my lungs and the strength in my body quickly. I swam most mornings at the beach near my home. It felt good. It felt clean.

Near the end of a family gathering on Yom Kippur my Uncle Alexander pulled me aside and showed me a photo I had seen once before.

“I know you remember this man.”

I paused for a moment and my uncle started coughing so I crushed out my cigarette in an ashtray.

“I have been waiting for this discussion, Fetter.” My eyes never left the black-and-white photo. 

‘Now is the time. Come with me.”

He had a ‘49 Ford in black in the driveway and when I climbed into the passenger seat I found two things waiting there. The first was a pair of binoculars and the second was a Russian Magant 1895 pistol in a cigar box with a number of loose rounds rolling around inside. Alexander looked at me for just a second before starting the engine and pulling the Ford out onto the street. Some clouds began to roll in and we discussed the relevant details during the drive down to Bertioga.

“There he is, Pavel.” My Uncle pressed the pistol into my right hand as I stared through the binoculars held in my left. “I have not seen him with my own eyes, but you have. If this is the man I believe him to be, what must happen next is surely obvious.” I felt the warm embrace of his palm clutching my right hand over the steel of the pistol as I tried to hold the binoculars steady above the bushes that we were using for concealment beneath the shade of the treeline.

After a while I lowered the binoculars and took a few quiet steps further back into the shade.

“Show me the photograph again.”

He handed it to me, warning me that we might not have much more time.

I stared at it for a while, trying to draw the undeniable linkages between my memories of the face of the stout, clean-shaven and proudly uniformed Todesengel and the image of this bearded and casually-dressed man in the photograph. This man who was now picnicking with his family in a pleasant backyard garden in the suburbs of Sao Paolo, thousands of kilometers away from the smoky death camps of war-torn Poland.

My hand was steady but I could not be sure. And without being sure, I simply could not pull the trigger and murder this man in full sight of his family. I told my Uncle Alexander as much when I handed the pistol back to him and although he held my gaze with an understanding nod I could tell he was deeply troubled by what had not occurred that day. We drove home in silence and I would later learn that this was a rare opportunity. One that might not present itself again. What had I done?

My uncle Alexander grew increasingly ill and died early the following year. I spent many years regretting my missed opportunity and many nights parked in a darkened car outside that house in Bertioga. At some point my fire died down though and I just focused on my new life in Brazil. It was inevitable I suppose. Time wears down all ambitions with a steady sort of precision.

Then one day, many years later, the hand of fate presented me with an unexpected gift.

I was down in Bertioga on business for about a week shortly before my planned retirement and while I ate my breakfast in the hotel one day I spotted a familiar face at a table across the room. I knew that face then, despite all the time that had passed, and while he was going by the name Wolfgang Gerhard I knew his true identity immediately.

After breakfast I followed him out to the beach. I had already been planning for my morning swim so I had my swim trunks on under my slacks and a beach towel in my bag. I watched from a safe distance as he stripped down and entered the water and then I followed. I could see that his frame was thin and not particularly muscular.

Once he got out deep enough to begin he started swimming parallel to the shore about 30 kilometers off the beach. I waited until he reached the far end of the break and then I swam directly into him. I asked him if he remembered my face and he said he did not. I wasn’t sure if he was lying but when I called him Todesengel he blanched and I saw it. That’s when I grabbed him behind the back of his neck and pulled his head under the water, using my legs to keep him there until he stopped struggling. I held him under the waves for a while longer to be sure, then I released his body and swam back to shore. 

That night I ate the greatest dinner of my life and slept better than I have in many years. The Todesengel was gone from this earth and I laughed when I read the newspaper article saying that he had died of a stroke while swimming. My only regret was that I had allowed him to live so long. It felt good to know that he died with his lungs full of seawater but I felt that he deserved much worse. I know what King David said about vengeance in Psalms, but I was quite certain about the justice of this.

It felt good. It felt clean.

THE END