Chapter Thirty-Two

GERMANY

DECEMBER 1946

IT WAS A bitter winter’s day when nearly a thousand war refugees boarded the SS Ernie Pyle, setting sail from the Port of Bremerhaven in northern Germany to America. Make no mistake, this was not a two-week luxury cruise. The grueling journey would be yet another pit stop in hell, after experiencing many months in dire conditions in various displaced persons camps in Germany on our way to America.

After nearly two years on the run, maneuvering through the forests of Warsaw and ultimately hiding in a decrepit old barn in northern Poland until the war ended, I wound up in Germany with thousands of other wrecked Polish ghosts. We were slivers of humans, with nothing left but the clothes on our backs and a will to survive. The Allies placed me in the Deggendorf DP camp in the Bamberg district of the American-occupied zone for almost six months, with two thousand other Jewish refugees—mostly survivors of the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

Deggendorf, with its “welcoming” barbed-wire fence, was a step up from ghetto life, but not by much—overcrowded, barely any food, contaminated water, and a shortage of medicine and necessities. But there were no Nazis, and that’s all that mattered.

Everyone’s story on the ship heading to America was some version of the same—death camp horrors, immense loss, and heroic and criminal means of survival. If you breathed the air of a refugee, you would know he or she had already faced their own death long before. Eyes were haunted and unblinking. Everything was seen in too sharp a light. Pain was silent, distrustful, and bottomless. Where we were now headed was shrouded in mystery, but we all knew collectively that nothing could be worse than what was.

As the days passed uneventfully on the ship, I kept to myself, remaining close to the railing, taking comfort in the mind-numbing monotony of the waves slapping against the hull. I wasn’t looking for friends. I was looking to forget. But five days into the journey, I saw a face across the ship’s deck that sent shock waves down my spine, jolting me awake, forcing me to remember. The face belonged to a Nazi who was masquerading as a Jew.

Rage—the kind that isn’t human—filled me like fuel pumping inside an empty tank. This Nazi blended easily into the refugee landscape because he could. In the same way I blended into the Aryan side of Warsaw because I could. He had dark curly hair, eyes the color of spoiled caviar, a scraggly unkempt beard, rags for clothes, and he was painfully thin—the special kind of gaunt appearance exclusive to survivors. It covered you like mold and moss even after you gained back some of the weight. No one would pick the Nazi out of this crowd unless you knew him. When he smiled politely at the woman sitting next to him, his hidden Nazi light burned brightly through his sallow skin like the eternal beam emitted from a lighthouse tower—I knew.

I saw the man in action only once, but I would carry his face for a lifetime. That day, after a year or so of living in the ghetto, I was on the Aryan side smuggling medicine. In the distance, I saw a group of Nazi guards gathered around ghetto entrance number 12, located at the northern tip and heavily utilized by our child smugglers, who could fit through the barbed wire and broken bricks in the wall.

The guards were aiming their rifles at three little boys who were no more than seven or eight years old, shouting at the crying children, who had stuffed their clothes with stolen food to bring back to their starving families. They decided to have some fun and began poking their rifles into one boy’s stomach, where the shape of a loaf of black bread was apparent beneath the child’s thin, tattered white shirt.

I slowly walked toward the children, wishing I could save them, do something—anything—to help them. I mingled with the crowd of Poles gathering behind the soldiers—parents with their own children who were watching the brutal spectacle, like it was a show. A cautionary tale. See, kids, this is what happens when you steal.

One of the boys tried to run away, and suddenly one of the Nazis stepped out of the pack, the only brunette among his flaxen comrades. He shot the boy in the back, then turned and shot the other two children execution style. Tak, tak, tak. Like dominoes they fell. The stunned crowd grabbed their kids’ hands and silently dispersed like ants on a hill. I yearned to pick up the three dead boys and bring them home to the ghetto, but someone pulled me out of harm’s way. I was in shock, couldn’t feel my feet move, and yet somehow I found myself across the street, hearing the soldiers behind me still jeering and laughing, then chanting in unison—“Heinrich, Heinrich, Heinrich”—as though demanding another round in a beer hall. I turned back, and there he was. Heinrich, the child murderer, smiling proudly, his Nazi comrades slapping his back.

And now the joke’s on him. Heinrich was sitting fifty feet away from me camouflaged as a Jew on his way to America. I felt my body elongating, my blood thickening as my calloused hands turned into iron fists.

This time, there would be no walking away. No fraternal pat on the back.

I waited it out another day, carefully scouted Heinrich sitting on the deck, watched him eat the crumbs they doled out to us, followed him from afar, biding my time until the right moment presented itself. And it would. I caught him alone in the late afternoon that sixth day. I purposely sat across from him but didn’t look at him. I felt his hot gaze infect me. Slowly, I turned and gave him the look. Chin down, smoldering eyes, lips pursed together. Nazi or Jew—doesn’t matter—the look never failed.

Predictably, Heinrich mistook the look for an invitation and walked over to the bench where I was sitting. He greeted me in Polish. Smart on his part. Most of the refugees on the boat were Polish.

I responded in German and watched him light up like a Christmas tree.

“German?” His eyes widened. “I thought Polish for sure. Where are you from?” He quickly shifted into a gleeful step-skipping German.

You mean where is Petra Schneider from?

“Hamburg. You?”

He paused, gathered his thoughts, his eyes clicking. “Munich. My name is... Haim Feinberg.”

Haim Feinberg from Munich. A fake identity, which I assume was stolen from a dead Jew. I laughed robustly inside. Zelda would have loved this.

“I’m Petra. Haim,” I repeated, throwing him a curveball just to see him squirm. “That was my husband’s name.”

“Your husband?” His beady eyes calculated the math and grew darker: Was... The husband is dead. She’s German. Married a Jew. That’s why she is here. German women who married Jews were the worst kind of betrayers.

He did a good job of reining in his revealing facial expressions, but I saw it all anyway. The blanching of his skin, the jaw jump, the scrunching of his brows.

“And you?” I asked. This was how Jewish postwar conversation unfolded: single words—a death code—indicated the lives of loved ones lost without asking specifics. “You” translated to: Are you alone? Any survivors left in your family?

He shook his head as though just admitting those mutilating words aloud was too painful. You bastard.

“I’m very sorry,” I mustered, touching his arm gently. “Do you have family in America?”

“Yes, in New York.”

Obvious answer.

I gave him a few moments to observe me up close, taking in my well-worn dark-blue dress and thinking about what’s beneath it.

“Well, nice to meet you,” I said as I stood up, counting slowly to myself as I walked away. One, two, three.

“Wait.”

And there it was, the mouse sniffing the cheese, just before the snap of a trap. I made a small pivot in his direction. “I usually take a walk on the deck late at night to clear my head... who can sleep?”

“Who can sleep?” he repeated.

“Care to join me, perhaps?” I lowered my eyes shyly.

“Ja,” he said emphatically.

Ja, I thought you would.

IT WAS NEARLYeleven p.m. when I felt Heinrich’s presence creep up behind me. I wore a thick shawl over my coat as I stood against the guardrail watching the surging whitecapped charcoal waves slam mercilessly against the ship. The spangled stars above were bright and shiny, casting a glittery sheen over the water. In somebody else’s life, this would have been the perfect setting for a romantic moment. Not mine.

“Petra.”

“Haim,” I whispered without turning around.

He sidled up next to me, leaving respectful space between us. “Peaceful here.”

“Yes. A refuge from the refugees.” I laughed softly.

He laughed too. But that’s all I gave him, nothing more. The quiet between us was deafening as we gazed out on the expanse of ocean and night. His shoulder grazed mine lightly. I looked around us quickly. The deck had emptied.

My body moved faster than my mind. Zelda’s knife, the one I’ve exercised on numerous key occasions over the past few years, slyly made its way out of my coat pocket and into my firm grip. I hid it beneath the wingspan of the shawl. When Heinrich leaned over the railing after spotting a large fish in the distance, I stabbed him hard in the back, digging the small, thick blade through his coat and into his skin like an ax felling a tree.

Shocked, he cried out for help, but I quickly stabbed him in the throat to shut him up. Not all the way. Not enough to kill him yet. He must know why... I heard Zelda’s voice bang inside my head.

“Those three little boys at exit number twelve,” I hissed into his ashen face. “I was there. You murdered them for trying to feed their families. This is for them, with love from the Warsaw Ghetto, Haim,” I spit out as he slumped down, grasping onto the railing for support. Still alive but barely.

He began to beg. Gibberish last-ditch breaths. I spread the shawl wide to shield us from any potential onlookers, then I quickly reached inside his coat pocket, grabbed his identification papers, and ripped off the gold mine taped around his body—thick wads of deutsche marks. I took it all. Heinrich’s fresh start in America would now serve as mine.

With all the strength I had left, I pushed the Nazi beneath the cable guardrail and through the open space, relishing the loud splash as he tumbled overboard into the ocean abyss. I stood and witnessed his arms flailing as the unforgiving water greedily devoured him.

My heart racing, I glanced at the fake papers and pressed them to my chest. Haim Feinberg, whoever you are, that was for you too.

Closing my eyes and clinging to the guardrail, I allowed the crisp night air to wash over me, basking in the exquisite cleansing sensation. I pictured Lady Liberty in the far-off distance welcoming me with her torch held high, promising a new beginning, and I vowed never to leave my past behind.