The Fugitive

Chapter 1

The first time Erick von Roesler saw Brazil was in June, 1939. He crossed on a special summer cruise of the Hamburg Line, ostensibly the managing director of a large company manufacturing agricultural machinery. He dined at the captain’s table, contributing little to the stilted conversation, watched the swimming pool antics from the lonely height of the deck rail above, the evening dancing from a comfortable chair in one corner of the spacious salon, and spent most of his deck hours either calmly contemplating the pulsing sunlit waves, or jotting notes in his voluminous diary.

They docked at Rio de Janeiro on a cool misty morning, with the famed heights of the city lost in a bank of fog that blanketed the mountains and drifted down to muffle the waterfront sounds and clothe the tall buildings with eerie mystery. The ship was scheduled to spend a day in port, unloading machinery from Europe, wines from the Rhine and the Madeiras, tin plate from Spain, and all the miscellaneous welter of cases, casks, boxes and crates that make up the lifeblood flowing along the arteries of commerce. Von Roesler spent the greater part of the morning on deck, leaning curiously over the rail as disembarking passengers dashed back and forth, screaming to their friends on the dock below, or brusquely commanding blue-jacketed porters doubled under towering loads of luggage. His shipboard acquaintances would trot up for a hasty goodbye, a self-conscious handclasp, and immediately forgetting him, dash down the gangplank to be kissed by women and hugged fiercely by men clustered on the dock. Children indeed, he thought, with some satisfaction; children indeed.

The fog was burning away and the sun now glistened from the white buildings and lit the bay. The giant cranes creaked and groaned as they dipped their snouts into the hold, swaying gently under the tension of the rising loads, and laying them gracefully upon the cobblestones of the dock. People below ran back and forth, searching the railing for familiar faces; a vendor of pineapple had opened his stand at the foot of the gangplank, and was busily slicing his wares and spreading them out. The purser, a hulking blond man in his late twenties, leaned on the rail beside von Roesler, frowning.

“A circus!” he said bitterly. “What we load in Hamburg in four hours, we must fight in order to unload in a full day here!” He pointed below; a playful wrestling match had developed among the stevedores, laughter rose from the group. Some had gone to the pineapple stand and were eating and talking; the crane-load waited patiently for someone to unhitch the ropes. “Schnell!” the purser screamed, leaning over the rail perilously. No one paid any attention; the purser slapped the rail in disgust. “Brazilians!” he said bitingly, and stamped back to the hold cover shaking his head.

After lunch von Roesler carefully locked his diary away and left the ship to walk about the nearby streets. The tropical sun burned, even in the winter month of June. He was sorry he had come with vest and jacket, but reminded himself that a person in his position could scarcely appear otherwise. He also reflected that his regular uniform would have been even more uncomfortable. The beggars about the Praça Mauá instinctively withdrew their hands as he passed. They knew authority and coldness when they saw it, as well as the futility and danger of importuning such authority.

He crossed the bustling square and walked slowly along Avenida Rio Branco, staring curiously in shop windows at the myriad temptations for tourists there; the butterfly trays, the inlaid cigarette boxes, the badly tinted postal cards, the rough wood carvings, the colorful handkerchiefs printed with scenes of the beaches, of swaying palm trees, of Pão de Açúcar and Corcovado, of all gay Rio de Janeiro. The broad sidewalks were crowded; people pushed past him, jostling him as he stood and watched the scene. A man, speaking rapidly in Portuguese, waved a fountain pen in his face, obviously attempting to make a quick sale; he turned away, and immediately found himself beset by another with a string of lottery tickets. He shook his head coldly and continued his walk.

The excited chatter from a group at a sidewalk cafe caught his attention and he turned to watch them with interest. This was not the relaxed pause of Paris, an aperitif and a moment’s contemplation of the passing scene; nor was it the calculated minute’s rest with a cool drink of bustling Berlin, when past actions were studied and future ones planned. This had a feeling of now in it; the laughing group flung money on the table, hugged each other enthusiastically, and hurried apart, calling and shouting back over their shoulders. The complete divorce from Europe suddenly struck him; the patterned sidewalks, the predominance of black faces in the crowds about him, the shop windows filled with gay but useless bric-a-brac.

He turned back to the ship, walking slowly, pondering his thoughts. Children, true, and decadent children. But with a certain vitality; yes, a definite vitality. Which someday we shall turn to an advantage, he concluded. For children can be led, and we have the destiny to lead.

Chapter 2

He left the ship at Santos early the following morning. His bags, neatly labeled and stacked outside his stateroom door, were marked for storage at the residence of the German consul in São Paulo. He carried with him only a small bag with a change of clothing, and a briefcase with his diary and his papers. His passage through customs was accelerated by the presence of a rigid young man who presented himself on board with a note from the consulate, and who returned immediately aboard ship to handle the transfer of the other luggage.

A car was waiting outside the customs shed, and a chauffeur sprang down to take the bags and open the rear door. Von Roesler nodded to the silent figure within and, closing the door, leaned forward to slide shut the glass partition behind the driver’s seat. They pulled away from the docks, bumping over the rough pavement. It was not until they were through the city and speeding past the banana plantations at the foot of the mountains that von Roesler turned to the silent figure at his side.

“Well?” he asked coldly.

The elderly man beside him, muffled in an overcoat despite the growing heat of the day, smiled wryly. “Not even a ‘hello’ first, Erick?” he asked gently.

Von Roesler clamped his jaws on the first words that rose to his lips; this was no time for temper. To cover the silence that had fallen, he reached over and opened the window a crack. “I’m sorry,” he finally said, forcing humiliation into his voice. “But you know the situation, Uncle Ernst. Or you should. Time is running out, and I have a job to do.” He paused and stared out of the car window. They were climbing the winding road of the mountain, and the ocean was spread below them, a scene of incredible beauty, but he saw none of this. He tried to smile casually, hating the feeling of inferiority, of callowness, that he had always suffered as a child with his father’s brother. He’s a senile old fool, he thought, and I am Erick von Roesler of the SD. “How have you been, Uncle Ernst?”

The old man looked at him sideways, crouching in his overcoat. “Cold,” he answered grimly, honestly.

Von Roesler laughed. “After fifteen years in the tropics? In Brazil? Uncle, Uncle! You were born cold!”

There was a sudden rustling from the other, as if he were attempting to burrow deeper into his overcoat. “Yes,” said his uncle slowly. “You and I. We were both born cold.” He hastened his next words, as if to pass an unpleasant moment. “And how is your mother?”

“Fine. She is in Berlin, you know, visiting with Monica. You saw Monica’s last picture? No, I suppose not; not out here. But you knew that she had become an actress? Quite a good one, as a matter of fact, or at least so they say. She goes by another name, of course. Oh, things are going quite well, Uncle!”

“Are they?” The tone was querying, impersonal.

“Yes, they are.” Enough of this, von Roesler thought. “At home things are fine. How are they here?”

The old man thought before answering. They were high up on the serra by this time, and the scene below was one that he well remembered and had always loved. The island port of Santos hemmed in by rivers glistening in the sun, the lacelike beaches of São Vicente and Pria Grande to the right, the breakers visible as dancing white lines on deserted Guarujá to the left. Fifteen years in Brazil, and now what?

“What is going to happen, Erick?” The old man held his breath a moment, expelling it in his next question, as if it were forced from him. “Will there be a war?”

Erick shrugged. “You overestimate my place in the councils of the Reich, Uncle. But I should say, not necessarily. Only if it is forced upon us.” He looked over at his uncle. “Have you arranged the meeting?”

The old man shrank back into his corner, pulling the heavy coat about him. “At my chácara. Tomorrow.”

“Chácara?”

“My fazenda. The farm, Hartzlandia, you know. We should be there by evening.”

“By evening?” Almost instinctively, von Roesler glanced at his wrist watch. “My God! How far is it?”

The old man smiled. “Two hundred kilometers from here, and very close as they measure distances in Brazil. This is a big country, you know, Erick, and our roads aren’t the autobahns of Germany.”

Erick frowned. “Who will be at the meeting?”

“Everyone that I could think of. Or rather, that I could get. It was not easy, believe me,” the old man continued calmly. “There have been some bad frosts these past two weeks, and many of them did not want to leave their farms. But the majority finally agreed to come.”

“And they represent...?”

“The most influential of the German settlers here. You said not to bother with official representatives here...?” There was a question in his voice but the younger man disregarded it.

“Good.” They had passed the lip of the serra and the ocean was now hidden. The car had left the paved São Paulo highway and was following a winding dirt road; clouds of dust swirled behind them. There was a new sharpness in the air, and Erick rolled the window closed and leaned back. “Now exactly, who are they?”

The old man thought. “Well, first, there is Goetz. He comes from Blumenau. He makes wines; I came to Brazil with him fifteen years ago. And then there is Gunther, from Florianopolis. A schoolteacher, but quite influential. Head of the Turnverein, and the German club. Lange has a cattle ranch in Rio Grande do Sul, I don’t know how many head, but it’s a big one. Then there is Riepert from Paraná; he has a lumber business there, sawmill and cutting rights for large pine stands near his mill.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Strauss comes from São Paulo, from the city, that is. He imports and exports, and is mixed up in local politics to some extent. And Gehrmann from the fazenda next to mine, also coffee. And a little sugar, but not much.” He paused, counting. “That’s the lot.”

“They are all rich?”

The old man smiled, “Rich? There are no rich men in Brazil today. You have to remember, we burned our coffee only three years ago. Land-rich, if you will; or better say land-poor.” He looked at the other sardonically. “Why? Did you come to ask them for contributions to the Winterhelf?”

The younger man disregarded this. “You told them the reason for the meeting?”

The old man shrugged. “How could I tell them what I don’t know? I simply wrote that you were coming on an official visit, and wanted to speak with them all together. I think they’ll come; I seldom ask favors.”

“Very good. Uncle Ernst.” Unconsciously the condescension had crept back into his voice. Erick leaned back, smiling at the older man, satisfied. “I think I’ll take a brief nap, if you don’t mind.”

He settled himself in one corner, closing his eyes. The old man sighed and stared broodingly out of the window. The scrubby bushes at the side of the road bowed beneath the heavy dust, shaking themselves slightly as the car swayed past. He pulled his overcoat tighter about him; even in the sun it seemed desperately cold.

Chapter 3

Chácara Hartzlandia covered an area of twelve thousand hectares, spread along the Rio Taquary, and running almost to the little village of Itapeva. It was principally a coffee fazenda, although it also raised its own necessities in beans, rice, potatoes, and corn. The rolling hills were lined with the neat rows of bushy covas, rising and falling over the undulating land to disappear in the green distance. The drying sheds and the workers’ shacks were located in a sprawling banana grove at the side of the river, well out of sight of the big house; the stables and barns had their area further back in a thick stand of pine. The house stood alone on a hummock; below it the gardens ran in riotous color past a rough-stone-edged pool down to the river.

It was a great chalet, the gently sloping roof overhanging balconies that encircled the building at each floor, joined by wooden stairways. Huge hand-hewn beams of dark wood supported the stained plank walls; leaded glass windows studded the high walls and winked in the afternoon sun. It might have been transplanted intact from Württemberg, or Ostmark, Erick thought; it could have fronted the icy Bodensee, or stared down on Innsbruck from the challenging rocks above. His eyes unconsciously swept the horizon for snow-tipped mountains, and the growing sense of displacement that he had felt since leaving the boat slowly seeped away. “Beautiful,” he said sincerely. His uncle smiled slightly, but it was difficult to tell if the smile indicated sympathy or amusement.

They dined by flickering candlelight, although the farm boasted a modern generator, and afterwards in the huge living room listened to phonograph records before a crackling fire. The night had turned cold, and the fire was cheerful and welcome. They talked of family and the past; the subject of the meeting and the reason for Erick’s trip was avoided as if by mutual unspoken consent. His uncle was bending over the ancient phonograph, changing a record, and Erick was preparing to offer excuses for an early bedtime, when headlights swung into the driveway from the river road, and they could hear the labored clanking of an old car pulling up before the house. The motor coughed itself apologetically into silence, a car door slammed.

“Von Roesler!” a deep voice bayed. “Gott im Himmel! Why doesn’t the old man put a light on this verdammt driveway? Von Roesler, you old swine! A light!”

The old man rushed to swing back the door, and yellow light poured over the balcony, spilling down to the huge blond figure standing beside a battered Ford. “Goetz!” he cried in delight. “Come up! Come up! How did you ever make it in that wheelbarrow? From Blumenau, yet!”

“Wheelbarrow, eh?” said Goetz, clumping up the stairway. “This wheelbarrow will be running when both you and your fancy hearse have long gone to the graveyard!” He paused at the top of the steps, a wild-looking giant wearing a leather jacket over a turtle-neck sweater, his curly hair rumpled, eyeing the two men calmly. “So this is little Erick, eh? For whom we make long trips when we have a million things to do! Hello, little Erick! How is the Vaterland?” Erick felt his face reddening. The big man pushed past him almost brusquely, his handshake an obvious thing in passing, quick and almost insolent, going to warm himself at the fireplace. “Von Roesler! Even in the uncivilized south we at least have a little common hospitality! What do you have to drink?”

“Goetz! So you came!” The old man bustled about, dragging glasses and bottles from a dark sideboard made darker by its place in the shadows. “And Lange? And Gunther?” He was obviously delighted with the other; the vitality of his huge visitor seemed a physical thing in the room, passing itself as animation to the old man, making the room gayer.

“I dropped them at Gehrmann’s. With pleasure. They’ll be over in the morning.” He shook his head comically, although his voice remained serious. “A day and a half in the car with them was more than enough!”

“Only a day and a half?” The old man paused with the glasses in his hand. “You made very good time.”

“With two flat tires, also. But it’s been dry down our way for some time now. And the road has been scraped.” He frowned at the old man fiercely. “I see it’s dry up here, too. Do we drink or do we spend the night chattering like old women?”

The old man giggled. “We drink, of course. And then play chess. Or are you too tired?”

“Asleep I could beat you. Set up the men.”

Erick stood forgotten to one side, the white heat of his temper solidifying into a hard core of hate. This one he would remember! Little Erick, eh? The feeling of strangeness was back in strength, the room and the house suddenly foreign; but the cold stab of hate swept aside all other emotions. “Uncle,” he said when his voice could once again be trusted. “I’ll see you in the morning.” “Of course, of course,” said the old man absently. He was setting the chess men up on an inlaid table before the fireplace.

Goetz nodded abruptly; he was filling a water glass with brandy. “Sleep well, little Erick!” He looked at the younger man humorously, quirking his massive eyebrows. “Pleasant dreams!”

Brandy and chess, giggling and horseplay! They have become soft and childish like the Brazilians, Erick thought bitterly as he went along the balcony to his room. Little Erick, eh? We shall see!

Chapter 4

They were standing about the room drinking coffee and speaking desultorily when Erick entered the next morning. His uncle introduced him to each in turn, and they all shook hands silently, wonderingly, diffident in the presence of a man they knew held office in the Third Reich of Hitler. The chairs and couch had been drawn up to form a rough semicircle about the fireplace, and Erick placed himself with his back to the mantel, waiting silently and aloofly while they quietly seated themselves. He stood erect and calm, sure of himself and watched them coldly as they seated themselves. Then, suddenly flinging his hand in their faces, he snapped, “Heil Hitler!”

There was a moment of startled silence, then “Heil Hitler!” loudly and enthusiastically from Gunther and Strauss; a further pause and a more subdued “Heil Hitler” from Gerhmann and Lange. A snort from Goetz. Silence from the old man von Roesler, and from Riepert, the lumberman from Paraná. Erick smiled grimly to himself as he filed the reaction of each in his sharp memory. He waited until the renewed shuffling had again subsided before beginning to speak.

“Gentlemen. Citizens of the Third Reich. You are all aware, I am sure, of the situation that exists today in the homeland. The Führer has made exceptional efforts to avoid war, and these efforts, so far, have been successful. But our enemies are not satisfied to allow this peaceful situation to endure.

“German nationals, who have played the greatest part in the development of every country in the world, are being persecuted and made to suffer today for no reason other than the fact that they are German! This is the truth, gentlemen; the international conspiracy of Jews and so-called Christian Democrats will not be satisfied until every man, woman, and child in the Reich is driven into starvation and despair!”

He paused and studied the faces before him. Goetz was eyeing him coldly, almost sardonically; his uncle sat huddled in one corner, blankly studying his veined hands. Gunther was leaning forward excitedly, drinking in the words; Strauss was vigorously nodding his head. The tension had disappeared from the faces of Lange and Gehrmann; they looked interested. Riepert was staring out of the window, his face disclosing nothing.

“Gentlemen. In this situation, to be blunt, the Fatherland calls upon all of its loyal sons and daughters in all parts of the world for support. These hostile elements that surround us on all sides have long taken advantage of our weakness, of our lack of organization, of our sincere desire for peace. As Germans we are beginning to once again raise our heads under the inspired leadership of our beloved Führer; we are throwing off the shame of the past, we are beginning once again to stand on our feet. But these elements will not leave us in peace! It is only a question of time until they change their attacks from verbal and economic ones to actual intervention in the internal affairs of the Reich!” He eyed them all coldly, conviction in every line of his taut body. “And when that time comes, they will be smashed down; taught that we Germans also have a right to live, and to grow, and to fulfill the destiny of the Third Reich!”

His voice had risen despite himself; he found himself pounding the stone mantelpiece for emphasis. A pity, an inner voice whispered, to waste this oratory in a farmhouse in this backward place, but then didn’t the Führer himself start in a Brauhaus in Munich? There was an embarrassed shifting of bodies, but no one spoke.

“Gentlemen. We cannot wait for the blow to fall before preparing ourselves for it. Even as I come today to Brazil, others have gone to Argentina, to Sweden, to Canada, to the United States; to all of the countries that owe so much to their German population, and who yet hold us down so much. What is the answer? The answer is that we must organize ourselves; organize into Bunds. Prepare ourselves for the day when the Reich will be forced to defend itself on the field of battle against these enemies!”

There was a sudden movement as Goetz heaved himself to his feet. He stood towering over the silent group, eyeing them with cold disgust; then his huge head swung toward Erick. “Enough is enough,” he said, his big fists clenching and unclenching. “You are mad! You and your crazy Schicklgruber! You come here to Brazil to tell us about Germans suffering in other countries. When have you ever seen Germans suffering in other countries? What do you know about how Germans live in other countries? When have you ever been out of Germany?” His face was reddening with his growing anger. “To take a bicycle trip to Vienna? To go visit the whorehouses of Paris?” He snorted. “You talk of suffering! Suffering!” He looked about the room. “Everyone in this room today can thank Brazil for everything he has!”

“Goetz, Goetz!” cried Gunther, his little body shaking with conviction as with an ague. “He’s right! It’s changing! He’s right! They are talking now of even forbidding the teaching of German in our schools in Santa Catarina!”

“It gets harder each day to import from the Fatherland,” interposed Strauss sullenly. “The verdammt Americans get preferential treatment.”

“Why?” Goetz roared, his patience snapping. “Why? What does Germany have to export? Guns? Airplanes? Tanks?” He turned fuming to the silent waiting figure of Erick, watching this display with icy calm from the fireplace. “Ask our young friend here, he was still wet behind the ears when I left Germany. Ask him what Germany has to export! Hate? Poison? Little men like this — this...” Words failed him. He pushed to the door, seething. “My God, but you are fools! Von Roesler, I go! You will pardon me if I do this to your hospitality, for you are an old friend and I do not hold this against you, but this is too much! For this idiocy I drove two days, yet!” They heard his feet go pounding down the stairway. Riepert rose to his feet.

“I think I also go,” he said quietly. “I am over twenty years in Brazil. I think maybe you exaggerate. However. Von Roesler, good day.” He nodded stiffly to the others and left the room. The grinding of the Ford’s starter came from below.

“And now,” said Erick softly in the shocked silence that had fallen, “are there more to leave? Does the Reich have more traitors in this room?” No one answered. He studied their faces, studiously avoiding his uncle’s look of misery, but somehow strengthened by it. “You are all sure? You have no doubts?” His eyes flashed from one to the other; they all stared back in waiting silence. “No? Then let us get to work!” He seated himself at the table and drew his briefcase toward him. “The plans are all drawn. We shall discuss them. Actually, the situation is not very different between the different countries...” The others moved around him as he spread his papers upon the table top and continued to talk.

This was the young Captain Erick von Roesler of the Sicherheitsdienst, provisionally assigned by the SD as Gauleiter-to-be for the country of Brazil, in South America, in the month of June, in the year of 1939.

Chapter 5

When the patience of the leaders of the Third Reich could no longer tolerate the constant attacks to which they were viciously and unfairly subjected, they established their first line of defense in Poland. This was in September of 1939. This proved so successful that further defense lines were later established even more to the east.

In those early days, the assignments given to Gauleiters-to-be in the countries-defended-as-yet-not were many and varied. Captain Erick von Roesler, his voluminous notes on Brazil largely unread and buried in the vast archives of some obscure bureau of the SD, was first assigned to Lithuania as assistant to the Gauleiter of Riga. His enthusiasm in this first opportunity to prove to the Führer as well as to his superiors his complete devotion to the sacred cause eventually led even the Gauleiter of Riga himself to complain directly to Rosenberg. “To have buried alive seriously wounded people,” ran the astonishing report, “who then worked their way out of the graves again, is such extreme beastliness that it should be reported to the Führer and Reichsmarschall...” Since the Gauleiter of Riga merely proved in this purposeless complaint to be either extremely naive or poorly indoctrinated, von Roesler earned no reprimand. Instead, he was awarded the Iron Cross and his military grade raised to major. However, in the interests of peace-the-family-in, which at that stage of the military effort was easily afforded, he was reassigned and told to report directly to Reichsminister Saukel in Paris.

His new post required him to concentrate on the recruitment of foreign workers into the slave labor program. In this new assignment, von Roesler was again swept with an excess of enthusiasm which bore no relationship to the purposes of the program; or possibly he felt that the impressing of labor was an end in itself. At any rate, the result was the same. Since dead slaves do no work, he found himself once again reassigned. This time there was no promotion attached.

His new position was more logical; he found himself posted to Dachau, where his activities, rather than causing unfavorable comment, aided his commendation record.

Von Roesler had finally found his forte. In quick succession, Auschwitz saw him, and Birkenau. To his surprise, he discovered that he had a certain talent for organization, combined to some extent with a technical ability almost bordering on engineering. Through his efforts he was able to increase the daily output of the cremation ovens spectacularly; even the technicians whose function it was to see to the proper operation of the ovens had to admit that von Roesler played no small part in the success of the extermination program.

But it was actually not until early in 1943 that he really felt settled. This was when his service was finally recognized, and he was transferred on a permanent basis to the long-established camp at Buchenwald. The years had given him maturity; victims capable of working were no longer whipped into the false showers; those who could walk and bend over were saved for the factories of Weimar, their place in the daily file to the ovens taken by the utterly decrepit, or the women too weak to contribute, or the useless children. His title in his new position was Assistant to the Obergrüppenführer, and it also carried a promotion to the level of colonel.

The mental development of Erick von Roesler in these years might be interesting to study, were it unfortunately not so standard. The vital necessity for furthering the destiny of the Third Reich, which had manifested itself in the excesses of Lithuania, had turned in his months with Reichsminister Saukel to bitter resentment at his victims for having forced these very excesses. From this resentment to a state of active hatred was a short step. Hatred being a reason in itself, no feeling of guilt could, or ever did, accrue to his activities.

His hatred had no particular focus. He hated all his enemies, but particularly he hated the Jews, because the ones he encountered at Buchenwald were German, and because they were not in the camp for sabotage or political acts against the Reich. He secretly considered du Waldeck and Koch weak and almost degenerate, for they seemed to kill and torture from pleasure, rather than from his more exalted hatred.

Brazil seemed far away in those days of daily tasks, but von Roesler never forgot it. He kept a map of the vast country on his desk and in free moments would pore over it, tracing with his finger the tiny path that led from Santos, winding erratically along the coast to cut in to Itapave. He never ceased being amazed at the insignificance of what had been a full day’s journey, when compared with the great reaches of the country that dwarfed this minute part.

The winning of the war having already been assured by the constant elimination of enemies, either in the bloody blitzkrieg battles to the east, or in the gas chambers, he often sat back at night and planned his future. Goetz! Without any doubt tainted by more than a little Jewish blood. And Riepert; not a common Jewish name, no; but certainly a Jew. Little Erick, eh? From his office he could see the huge prison yard, and the floodlights bathing the area in cold shadowlessness; he looked back in his memory to Dachau, and Ausehwitz, and Birkenau. Little Erick, eh? Hartzlandia would rise before him, the Berchtesgaden of his future. His foolish uncle was growing old, senile; imagine the old man inviting Jews to that meeting! And then, having invited them, imagine the old man feeling miserable because they left! Well, when the time came, the old man would pose no problem. Von Roesler’s fingers would stroke the warm wood of his pipe rhythmically, the sinuous twisting trails of smoke blending in the air with his lush dreams.

All this, of course, was before the bombings. It was only at Hamburg, on that fateful night of August 3, 1943, that the first maggots of doubt ever entered his mind. The order had come crisply to the apartment of the Obergrüppenführer and had been routinely transferred to his office. A swift call to Weimar started a priority train on its way to the camp; within thirty minutes three hundred inmates had been brutally routed out of their tiered shelves, certain that their final hour had arrived. Von Roesler supervised the loading of the cattle cars personally, saw the last frightened animal beaten into withdrawal from the doors, the panels slammed into place and latched. He nodded to the signalman, who waved his red lantern and scrambled aboard to join him in the small coach at the rear.

“What’s up?” asked the signalman cheerfully. He was not at all impressed by his companion’s uniform. In those days of the war, trainmen were as valuable as colonels.

Von Roesler silenced him with a look, but for the first time he felt a twinge of uneasiness. It was quite unusual, this. It was the first time that inmates had been removed so far from camp as a work party. Usually they either left as part of the daily working units that went into Weimar to the factories or they left the camp for their last trip to some mass grave beyond the walls. This was very unusual.

The sight of Hamburg, while the train was still fifteen miles away, was incredible. A wall of flame tapering upward into a twisting tower that reached higher than the eye could see, past the sky, farther than the mind could encompass; columns of smoke shot through with fiery red flares that appeared and disappeared, winding about fiercely through the black pillars, all and everything fighting madly to climb into that holocaust that raged higher and higher, wider and wider, over the city. As their train inched forward, they could hear the hungry roar of the firestorm; a rain of tiny debris pattered against the coach roof; through the window the wind could be heard, rushing insanely into that unbelievable vacuum. The train ground to a shuddering halt; von Roesler dropped to the ground and ran panting past the now silent cattle cars to stand by the engine, frozen with disbelief and horror.

There, to the left, where the docks had stood, nothing but a solid wall of searing flame! And Hohelft, Barsbeck, Elmsbüttel, one gigantic and growing pyre! Harburg and the Borstelmannsweg section shooting howling fire to the skies! This could not be Hamburg! This mass of crackling, snarling, howling fire crazily twisting into the sky could not be Hamburg! It was impossible; one could not encompass the disaster. What had happened to the Luftwaffe? What had gone wrong with the vaunted radar guns? Hamburg, best-protected city in the Reich, in the world; Hamburg, whose civil defense was so developed, so famed, as to serve as the model for all cities of the Reich facing air attacks! It was impossible! Impossible! Who had failed? Fear, for the first time, came to Colonel Erick von Roesler.

They worked in the smoking skeleton of what had once been Hamburg for one month. They damped down still-smoldering ash-choked blocks; they cleared rubble from streets that still smoked beneath their feet. Burned trucks and cars were pulled away and thrown into the growing rubbish piles that took the place of the once famed factories of Hamburg. The network of canals and waterways that spanned the city were dragged and cleared of the twisted bodies that choked them; shelters were opened and the ghastly melted things that had once been human bodies were shoveled into carts and taken to the long shallow mass graves dug by the inmates of Buchenwald. And through all the work and the horror and the sleepless nights, von Roesler’s hatred grew, satisfied by the gruesome sights that presented themselves daily for his inspection; but the fear grew, also, and the doubts.

In the latter part of September they were replaced by groups from other camps; they returned to Buchenwald. Seven inmates had died on the trip to Hamburg; forty-three from the fumes of opened shelters, or the gases trapped in the shambles of flooded basements and torn pipes. Eight had been shot while attempting to take advantage of the situation and escape; four had been shot when burns suffered in their duties prevented them from joining their working parties. Ten had died in the Hamburg barracks, reason unknown. One had fallen into a mass grave and stayed there. Twelve bodies had remained in the cattle cars upon their return. Erick von Roesler wrote up his report mechanically, his mind far away.

The famous Luftwaffe had failed; the impenetrable defense of Hamburg had failed. He sat that night in his quarters, unconsciously listening for the terrifying soft roar of approaching airplanes, numbed. The map of Brazil remained folded in its usual place on his desk, his fingers stroking it absently. A word born of his need to escape the horror he had seen, to explain the fear that crowded him, grew in his mind: Betrayal! His mind studied the word and found it good; it satisfied his doubts and fed his hatred. Germany had been betrayed! He turned off his desk lamp and sat staring in the darkness, his ears pitched for the whisper of propellers in the distance; his delicate fingers stroking his warm pipe, his mind savoring the marvelous escape of that wonderful word. Betrayal!

Chapter 6

On June 6, 1944, at five P.M. London time, Allied planes and gliders sweeping low over Normandy dropped the first contingent of paratroopers on Contentin Peninsula, and the invasion of the German stronghold of Europe had begun. On June 7 the British took Bayeux; Carentan fell on June 13. United States troops captured Cherbourg on June 27. British-Canadians took Caen July 9; Falaise fell to the Canadians August 17. On August 25 French troops, supported by the American forces, entered Paris.

With the breaching of the coast, and the recapture of Paris, the war was forever lost for Germany. The most fanatical could no longer dream of the invasion as being only an enlarged Commando landing force which might possibly be pushed back into the sea. Each day saw a greater number of Allied troops landed on the beaches and rushed to the ever-widening front. Everywhere the forces of the Reich were being pushed back, leaving behind valuable stores and further diminishing the dwindling stocks of ammunition, arms, and foodstuffs needed for successful defense. In the East, the fury of the Russian bear was being unleashed. The ring was slowly closing about the heart of the Reich.

There were, in those curtain-dropping days, many responsible Nazi officials and Wehrmacht officers of high rank who felt that an immediate petition for peace was necessary; surrender on any terms in order to at least salvage a possible base for future growth. Their requests were denied; the suicidal intent of the Führer permitted no deviation. Those who persisted in arguing died a few months before their time. Their coadjutors maintained intelligent silence. Those who fell back toward Berlin were resigned to die for their beliefs, or were merely postponing the inevitable, for the talk of War Crimes trials had already been heard in both London and Washington.

Erick von Roesler belonged to neither camp. After the shocking experience of the Hamburg holocaust, he had withdrawn into himself, living alone with his hate, which had widened to include both the betrayers and the betrayed. When Paris fell, he coldly accepted the fact of defeat and put into practice a plan that had been maturing since the latter days of 1943. The passports and identity cards were not merely correct in every detail; they were authentic. He had obtained them in Paris on leave in February of 1944. On August 26, 1944, he requisitioned a car from the motor pool at Weimar, stationed his own taciturn chauffeur at the wheel, and left Buchenwald for the last time. His sister Monica, laden with the other accounterment necessary for the plan, was met by arrangement in Frankfort, and they sped westward across Germany. Her presence was due less to family loyalty than to the feeling that she might be useful both to his escape and to his future plans.

The highways were crowded with troop carriers and trucks, but despite this they made fair time. The presence of a woman in an official car seemed to excite no undue notice. There were many official cars on the roads those nights, traveling in both directions, and no one was of a mood to question or pay particular attention to their occupants.

They crossed the border at Mulhouse and drove south through Besançon toward Creuzot. Monica had provided sandwiches and wine, and they ate as they drove, throwing their litter carelessly out of the window, as being almost symbolic of their nonreturn. At Montceaules-Mines they stopped to fill the tank with gasoline from cans they had carried in the luggage compartment, and immediately resumed their journey. Just beyond the outskirts of the little town they left the main highway and bumped over a winding road that twisted through the low hills leading toward the Loire. They had been driving eighteen hours when they finally pulled up at their destination.

The ramshackle farmhouse was where he remembered it, abandoned and umninded as per his cabled instructions. Even in those terrifying and confused days the instructions of the SD were properly attended to. They changed clothes in the car and with the help of the driver dragged their stores of potatoes and turnips into the shallow vegetable cellar. When the car had turned about and sped away for the border, they cut small holes in some of the potatoes, secreted their small stock of cut diamonds inside, and replugged the holes. These potatoes they scratched for identification, and buried them at the bottom of the ragged jute sacks. After that they had only to wait for the front to pass them, which was much simpler than attempting to pass the front.

December saw them settled in a refugee camp outside of Paris: M. Jules Richereau and his wife Jeanne. There they stayed for over six months, waiting for papers permitting them to emigrate to Portugal. Erick read in the papers, in black headlines, that Buchenwald had been liberated, and some of the inmates had been transferred to hospitals and camps in the Paris area, but fortunately these were not assigned to the same camps that held rehabilitated French. Monica stayed close to camp; Erick went into the city on very rare occasions, and then only to check on their exit request. The other inmates of their camp considered the couple morose; the aura of hatred that surrounded Erick was visible for all to note. However, since everyone felt the hatred to be directed against the Germans, the strange couple were sympathetically left in peace by their neighbors.

In July of 1945 they were finally notified that their papers were ready, and directed to appear at an office which had been established by the Portuguese Embassy to handle such requests. The office was located in the center of the city, and they made their way there as quickly as possible. The papers were ready; they had only to sign them, get their copies, and leave. On their return to the camp, they passed a long line of ragged people standing forlornly before the Refugee Committee Headquarters; the same long line that had stood there in desperate hope every day for wearisome weeks. The sudden glimpse of a blue-eyed corpse staring blindly in their general direction sent von Roesler stumbling in sudden terrified fright around the corner, dragging Monica with him, expecting every moment to hear a scream of denunciation and the terrible threat of pounding feet. Of all the inmates of Buchenwald, the blue-eyed one was probably the only one that von Roesler could remember or recognize, possibly because of that startling contrast between the so-Aryan face perched precariously on top of that Jew-concentration-camp skeleton body. One of the survivors of the Hamburg trip, von Roesler also remembered as he hurried away, suddenly seeing again the flame-scarred wreckage of Hamburg and the tattered, blue-eyed prisoner lining up each morning to go out with the Decontamination Squad. How had that one ever survived? He pulled Monica along roughly, his terror communicating itself to her through the urgency of his sweating hands; the thought of falling into the claws of that mob filled him with nausea. But there was no outcry behind him; they returned to camp, frightened but safe.

They spent almost seven years in Portugal, at a small town called Trafaria, across the Tejo from Lisbon. It was a place where the presence of strangers was not so unusual as to excite constant surveillance. Still, it was safely away from the standard trail of refugees who constantly beat their bewildered way across the world through the portals of Lisbon. His trips to the capital were rare, and then mainly to exchange one of his dwindling stock of cut diamonds for money, an operation that caused neither surprise nor suspicion in that city of international barter.

In Trafaria, he read of the Nuremberg trials, and noted with calm indifference that Eichmann and Bormann had also managed to escape. The details of the depositions and sentences of the others did not interest him; whatever they got, they deserved; they had betrayed the Third Reich. He folded the paper to the sports section and sipped his aperitif as he read of the prowess of Real of Madrid. In February of 1952, they finally became citizens of Portugal, and in March of the same year they emigrated again, this time legally and safely, to Brazil.

The second time that Erick von Roesler saw Brazil was in April of 1952, from the second-class deck of a second-class steamer of the Companhia Sul Americana de Navigação. Monica was below in the stuffy cabin, tying their belongings into shabby bundles; he was alone on deck, peering ahead through the early dawn. They crept into Rio de Janeiro through a low fog, as on his first visit; the faint outlines of the tug pulling them appeared ghostly at the ship’s side. Brazil was always my destiny, he thought, his fist tightening against the smooth, damp railing. Here the betrayals shall be punished; here we shall build anew with no mistakes, for we shall base our building on the honest and sweet fact of hatred.

He stared ahead at the city he could faintly hear but not see. Brazil was the same; it had not changed, but Erick von Roesler was older, more bitter, the lines of his face etched in the acid of his thoughts, his hair sprinkled with streaks of white, his tall figure beginning to stoop. I shall never leave Brazil, he thought. Here I shall stay. Brazil has not changed, nor has my hatred on which I live, and on which I shall grow...