Black Cross

“I realize that,” Stern said carefully.

The women looked at each other in puzzlement.

“What are you saying, my son?” Avram asked.

“I am saying that not everyone can be saved.”

There was a long silence.

“What about the bomb shelter?” someone asked. “All prisoners could fit in there.”

Jonas shook his head. “The SS are trained to run for the shelter during an emergency. Prisoners trying to take shelter there would be shot out of hand.” He did not say that if things were working out properly, the SS shelter was already booby-trapped.

A middle-aged woman stood up in the center of the group. “Who claims the right that is God’s alone?” she asked. “Who would say who shall live and who shall die?”

Stern closed his hand around the Schmeisser. This would be the mad minute, as each woman grasped exactly what he was suggesting.

“I’m glad there are no rabbis here,” said a very old woman from the floor. “What an endless argument we would have to listen to. Sometimes one must follow the heart. And common sense.”

“And what does common sense say here?” asked the woman who had stood.

“It is simple,” said the old woman, speaking with calm certainty. “This camp is like a sinking ship. The E- Block is the lifeboat. There is a law for that. Unwritten perhaps, but sacred. Everyone knows it. Women and children first. And the young women before the old. The ones still able to bear children.”

These words silenced the block.

“You speak wisely,” Avram said to the old woman. “It is not an easy thing to do. But necessary.”

Another woman stood up suddenly. “What are you saying?” she asked in a French accent. “That we should save ourselves but ignore the Gentile women?”

“They’ve ignored us long enough,” said a bitter voice.

“And the children? Do we let the Christian children die? And what of the men? They have no right to live?”

“Of course they do,” said the old woman. “But they do not have the duty to choose. That has fallen on us. We cannot take the opinion of every prisoner in camp. The secret could not be kept. It was wise of this young man to wait until the last minute to tell us.”

“You knew about this attack two nights ago?” asked the Frenchwoman.

“Of course he did,” said another.

Avram raised his hands. “Let me speak, please. With only minutes, we would only cause a general riot by telling the other blocks. The fact is that the E-Block is the only shelter, and it will only hold a few.”

One of the women Rachel called the new widows stood hesitantly. “My daughter is in the children’s block,” she said in an almost inaudible voice. “If we are going to die, I want to be with her.”

“We can save the children,” Jonas said. “And some of you. But we must hurry and decide the issue.”

“Some of us?” It was the Frenchwoman again. “You can’t even save all the children! Now you’re going to condemn some of us?”

“Keep your voice down,” Jonas said sharply.

“How many?” asked a familiar voice. It was Rachel Jansen. “How many people can be saved in the E-Block? I have been inside it, and it is very small.”

“The E-Block was designed to conduct tests on ten men,” Jonas said. “The number that can be saved is determined by space and oxygen. They’ll need at least two hours of air.”

“How many?” Rachel asked again. “That’s all we need to know.”

Stern nodded, grateful for her pragmatism. “Fifty children,” he said. “Every child in the Jewish Children’s Block.”

“And women?”

He hesitated. “Thirty-five.”

In the tomblike silence that followed, he looked at his watch: 7:23. It was taking too long. He removed the British silencer from his boot and screwed it onto the Schmeisser’s barrel. “Talk among yourselves,” he said. “I must speak to my father alone. But I warn you: if anyone tries to go through that door, I will have no choice but to shoot.”

He took his father’s hand and led him into the darkness beyond the circle of women.

“Mother will not believe it,” he said, sitting on one of the narrow bunks. “Everyone tried to convince her that you were dead. To carry on, I told her that myself.”

“I was dead,” Avram said, taking a seat beside him.

“It doesn’t matter now. God has given us a second chance. No matter what the women decide, I am taking you out when I go. You will pretend to be my prisoner. In five minutes you will be outside that fence.”

Avram Stern looked into his son’s face. “Jonas, I told you before. I cannot go out with you. Please, listen. I cannot leave women and children here to die.”

Jonas took his father’s arm. “You’re not responsible for their deaths! It’s the Nazis! The British and the Americans!”

“I would be responsible for one death, Jonas.”

“One? Whose?”

“The child you could take out in my place.”

“What are you talking about?”

“How many people can you take out with you? Out of Germany?”

Stern heard sibilant voices rising and falling as the women argued in whispers. “I’m not supposed to bring anyone out. We’re going out by British submarine. Then from Sweden to England by plane. The plane is small. In the worst case, I’d planned to send you on from Sweden in my place and find another way back myself. Or we could both try to reach Palestine by an illegal route. I know some people.”

Avram was shaking his head. “Stop worrying. You’re going out just as you were supposed to. I’ve lived a long life, Jonas. My old friends are dead. I am not destined to go with you. But someone else is. You can take one Jewish child.”

Stern opened his mouth to argue, but his father clenched his arm with the iron grip of a man who has labored a lifetime with his hands. “Listen to your father! Even those who survive in the E-Block may die in reprisals. That’s how things work here, Jonas. The person that goes with you has the best chance for life. It must be a child. Small enough for you to carry in your arms, to smuggle into your submarine, to hold on your lap in the airplane. One child to live for all the thousands who have died in this insane country.” Avram held up his right hand and closed it slowly as if around some precious treasure. “One seed, Jonas. One little seed for Palestine.”

“You expect me to leave you to die again?” Stern said, seething with frustration. “What could I say to Mother? She would hate me forever.”

Avram shook his head. “No. Your mother is a practical woman. When I refused to leave Germany, did she stay behind to die? No. She carried you as far as she could from danger. My son, it is the fulfillment of my life to know both of you reached Palestine. I was wrong in 1935, but this time I am right. You must do as I tell you.” He looked up and motioned to someone in the darkness. Rachel Jansen appeared and knelt beside the bunk, her eyes wide with fear and hope.

“You remember her?” Avram asked.

Jonas nodded. The bright black eyes were not easily forgotten.

Avram reached out and squeezed Rachel’s hand. “Both nights since then she has smuggled her children here on the chance that you might come back. She knew you must have told me to wait here in case you returned. She is a brave girl, Jonas. She is like the daughter of Levi, who put Moses into the ark of bulrushes. And you are her ark, my son.”

Rachel’s lips quivered as she watched Avram’s face. “Is it—?”

“As I suspected,” Avram said firmly. “One child, Rachel. One can go. One must stay with you. You must decide.”

Jonas saw the young woman sway slightly on her knees. When she spoke again, her voice was barely a whisper. “How long do I have?”

Jonas looked at his watch. 7:26. “Father,” he whispered. “I beg you—”