The Hunt

Adler awoke with a splitting headache. He was lying on a cot in a dark room. He sat up slowly, his feet groping under him for the floor. Then he saw his satchel, sitting beside the bed. The top was flared open and the satchel was empty. A light suddenly burst on. It was about thirty feet away, a spotlight aimed straight at him. A man sat silhouetted on a chair in front of it.

“Who are you?” Adler demanded, squinting into the light. “Why are you doing this to me? I have nothing . .

The silhouetted man’s arm moved. There was a flare of light as he threw something toward Adler. The file folders from his satchel smacked the floor and slid to his feet, the contents splayed out around them.

“You are wrong, Herr Adler,” the silhouetted man said in a flat monotone that sounded as if he were purposely disguising it. “You do have something. What is this, work in progress?”

“That is none of your business.”

“We know everything you have done. Fifteen families, sixty- four people, all sent to the work camp at Dachau. You have become an executioner, killing your own people.”

“They are not my people.”

“They are the same blood.”

“Leave me alone!” Adler said miserably.

“We have an offer for you, Herman Adler. We will take you out of Berlin tonight. By this time tomorrow you will be in a neutral country with a passport and tickets to either England or America. But first, you must tell us what you reported to Vierhaus.”

“I cannot leave Germany . .

“Of course you can. You live in a hovel like a cockroach and you betray your friends. You cannot keep it up, Herr Adler.

Accept our offer and you will be a free man with a job awaiting you.

“As what, an apprentice gem cutter to some English snob? I am a German! This is my country.”

“No. It is no longer your country or my country. We can’t vote, own property, go to decent restaurants, have a job. For God’s sake, man, they took your property, your bank account, your home, everything you own. How can you spy for them?”

“I am trying to stay alive!” Adler cried out passionately.

“We all are. That is why you cannot keep this up.”

Adler squinted across the room at him. “And what are you going to do if I refuse? Kill me?”

The silhouetted man paused for several seconds. He stood and walked out of the halo of light. Adler squinted and turned his face, blinded temporarily by the spotlight. The man stood in the darkness, the tip of his cigarette glowing intermittently.

“No,” he said, finally. “What we will do is this. We will print your face on the front page of The Berlin Conscience with a story listing every Jew you have given to them. We will see that every Jew in Germany knows who you are and what you do. Since you will no longer be of any use to the Judenopferer Vierhaus or anybody else, they will either kill you or send you to Dachau with the people you have betrayed. Think about that.” He used the harsh term Judenopferer, which meant “Jew sacrificer” rather than the slightly less offensive Judenhascher.

Adler shook his head violently. “No, no! I can’t do it. They will kill me.” Adler felt a familiar tremor in his chest.

“You have no choice. Freedom and forgiveness now, or you are most certainly a dead man. Who did you give up tonight, Adler? We may still have time to save them.”

“Nobody,” Adler lied. “Vierhaus sent for me.”

“Why?”

“I told you, to meet me.” A sudden pain fired deep in his chest. He began to rub his chest with the flat of his hand.

“Why did he want to meet you? Did he want you to make some earrings for him? Or fix his cuckoo clock? Why did he send for you, Adler?”

“He lectured me to do better in the future.”

“You are lying.”

“No, no, I . .

“Shh, shh, shh, Herman.” Another voice spoke up, this one from the shadows behind the lamp. “You are lying and we know it.’’

“You know how we know you are lying?” Still another voice said. “Because you are the best of the Judenhascher who work for him. The best, Adler, how does that make you feel, eh?”

“Did he bring you in to give you a medal, Herman? To kiss you on both cheeks and congratulate you for being such a good Jewish Nazi? Is that why you were there, Herman?”

“And what do you get for this?” The first voice said from the darkness. “Your room? It is not much bigger than a prison cell. You do not have enough food to feed an ant. They give you ration food and a few marks, isn’t that true? Good God, man, how do you live with yourself?”

“Do you ever consider the consequences of your actions?”

“It is the law!” Adler shrieked. “You are the traitors, not I.”

“It is not law,” the gravelly voice snapped back angrily, and there was a moment when it sounded vaguely familiar to Adler. “It is immoral. It is degrading. It is a violation of everything that is human and decent.”

“Why don’t you just kill me? That is what it is all about, isn’t it?” Adler said with a sudden burst of bravura and anger, straightening his shoulders and glaring into the shadows. The pain had subsided momentarily.

“We don’t kill, that is their game. We are trying to reason with you as we did with Schiff and Nathan.”

“And did you provide the rope Kefar used to hang himself?”

“Nein. His conscience tied that knot,” the gravelly voice answered. Adler sat for a moment, staring away from the spotlight, trying to pick our forms in the shadows. The gravelly voice sounded more familiar.

“Listen to me, Herman,” the first man said in a sympathetic voice. “Stop now and I promise no one will ever know what you have done. We understand the pressures. But if you continue, there is no way you will ever wash the blood off your hands. Your people will shun you and the Nazis will break you like a twig.”

“Stop it!” the little man cried. The excitement of the meeting with Vierhaus coupled with his fear at the hands of his kidnappers began to take its toll on Adler. He was breathing hard. Sweat stained his shirt collar and bathed his face, which had turned the color of wet clay. He squeezed his chest with one hand and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace.

“1 need my pills,” he said, frantically searching his pockets. “Please, where are my pills?”

“There were no pills in your pockets, Herr Adler. I searched you thoroughly.”

“Of course there are pills,” he gasped. “I go nowhere without my pills.”

He stood up, lost his footing and one of his captors jumped from the darkness and grabbed him.

Adler clutched at the man’s shirt. “My pills,” he croaked. “Help me please.” And then his eyes bulged as he looked up at the man. He was short and broad-shouldered, a young man in his twenties with a heavy black beard and long hair. It took a moment for Adler to recognize his nephew.

“My God, Joachim, what are you doing?” he cried. “I am your Uncle Herman!”

The young man steered him back to the bed.

“Where are the pills, Uncle?” he asked in a calm voice.

“V-v-vest pocket . . .“ His voice had diminished into a terrified whine. His hands trembled uncontrollably as he fumbled through the pockets. “Here, they are here.” But there were no pills and the realization added to the stress and anxiety Herman Adler was already experiencing. His heart was racing out of control, sending lightning streaks of pain into his chest and stomach. He started gasping for breath.

“Oh my God,” he croaked. He clutched his chest with both hands and bent over so his head was almost touching his knees.. “Help me. Help me.”

The other two captors had joined Weber. They loosened Adler’s tie and unbuttoned his collar.

“Take it easy,” the taller one, the silhouetted man, Avrum Wolffson, said gently, and began rubbing his wrists. “Try to relax. Your pills must have fallen out of your pocket. Take slow, deep breaths, don’t make it worse. We will try to get you a doctor. Get him some water, Werner.”

Adler looked up, his breath coming in short rushes. “Why?” he asked pitifully and collapsed on the bed. By the time Werner Gebhart came back with the water, Herman Adler was dead.