Black Cross

The shoemaker began to pray. Nothing else would do any good. He had made his mistake years before, when he refused to flee from Germany with his wife and son. At least they were safe now, he thought—he hoped—safe in the Promised Land. Palestine. He was certainly luckier than the Jansen family on his right. Tonight the old grandfather would lose his son, the young wife her husband, and the children their father. He saw panic in the woman’s eyes as she sought some means of protecting her husband. There was nothing. This was Nazi Germany, and Sergeant Sturm was getting closer.

“You!” Sturm snapped, pointing his finger. “Out of the line!”

The shoemaker watched a forty-year-old clerk from Warsaw shuffle out of the line and join the doomed men huddling in the center of the frozen camp yard. Rosen was his name, but no stone would ever mark his remains—

“You!” Sturm bellowed. “Out of the line!”

From the corner of his eye the shoemaker saw the young Dutch father turn and look into his wife’s face. His eyes showed no fear for himself, only a withering guilt at leaving his family to suffer without his protection, however meager it might be. Their two children, a tiny boy and girl, clung to the hem of their mother’s gray shift and stared up in mute terror.

“Austreten!” Sergeant Sturm barked, reaching for the Dutchman.

The young man raised one hand and tenderly touched his wife’s cheek. “Ik heb er geen woorden meer voor, Rachel,” he said. “Take care of Jan and Hannah.”

The shoemaker was German, but he knew enough Dutch to translate: I have no more words, Rachel.

As Sergeant Sturm’s hand closed on the young Dutchman’s sleeve, a white-haired man bolted from the ranks and threw himself at Sturm’s feet. The shoemaker cut his eyes up the line. Forty meters away Major Schörner was engaged in conversation with Dr. Brandt. Neither had seen the movement.

“Spare my son!” the old man begged in a whisper. “Spare my son! Benjamin Jansen begs you on his knees for mercy!”

Sergeant Sturm waved away a storm trooper who was hurrying over with a dog. He drew his pistol, a well-oiled Luger. “Get back in line,” he growled. “Or we’ll take you instead.”

“Yes!” said the old man. “That is what I want!” He rose to his feet and capered like a madman. “I will serve just as well!”

Sturm shoved him back a step. “You’re not what we need.” He pointed his pistol at the son. “Move!”

The elder Jansen’s right hand burrowed inside his coat pocket. Sergeant Sturm pressed his Luger to the Dutchman’s forehead, but the wrinkled hand emerged from the pocket holding something that flashed like stars under the arclights. The shoemaker heard Sturm catch his breath.

The Dutchman’s palm was full of diamonds.

“Take them,” Ben Jansen whispered. “For my son’s life.”

The shoemaker watched Sergeant Sturm’s face go through several changes of expression. He could hear the thoughts turning in the sergeant’s brain. Who else had seen the diamonds? What were they worth? A small fortune, by the look of them. How long would he have to carry them before he could hide them in his quarters?

“They’re yours,” the old man whispered, pressing the gems toward Sturm’s pocket.

The sergeant’s left hand closed over the diamonds.

The shoemaker cringed. He knew what would happen now. He saw Sturm’s finger tighten on the Luger’s trigger—

“What is the delay here?” asked a sharp voice.

Sergeant Sturm froze as Major Schörner leaned over his shoulder.

“Yes,” said Doctor Brandt, who had walked up beside Schörner. “What is the problem, Hauptschärführer?”

Sturm cleared his throat. “This old Jew wants to take his son’s place.”

“Impossible,” Brandt said in a bored voice. He turned and stared impatiently at the front gate.

“I beg you, Herr Doktor!” Jansen implored. The old man had been astute enough to pick up on Brandt’s preferred title. “My son has young children who need him. Herr Doktor, Marcus is a lawyer! I am but a tired old tailor. Useless! Take me instead!”

Klaus Brandt pivoted on his heel and regarded the old man with a sardonic smile. “But a good tailor is infinitely more valuable here than a lawyer,” he said. He pointed to a nearby prisoner’s tattered shift. The skin beneath it looked blue. “What need has he of a lawyer?”

With that, Brandt turned and moved a few steps up the line.

Benjamin Jansen stared after him with wild eyes. “But Herr Doktor—”

“Quiet!” Sturm roared, reaching for Marcus Jansen, who had knelt beside his children.

The old man shook as if from palsy. He reached out and caught the back of Major Schörner’s gray tunic. “Sturmbannführer, take half the diamonds! Take all of them!”

Schörner turned back with narrowed eyes. “Diamonds?”

“I’m ready,” said Marcus Jansen. The young Dutchman stepped resolutely from the line. His wife crouched and hugged her children, hiding their eyes.

Sergeant Sturm grabbed the lawyer and jerked him away.

With a wild shriek Ben Jansen clenched both hands into fists, took an uncertain step toward Major Schörner, then lunged to his right in the direction of Dr. Brandt.

The shoemaker felt something inside him snap. Despite the risk to himself, he threw his right fist and caught Ben Jansen on the side of the jaw. The old Dutchman dropped flat on his back in the snow in the same moment that the shoemaker whipped back into line and stood rigidly at attention.

It happened so fast that no one knew quite what to do. Sergeant Sturm had been a fraction of a second from shooting the old man. Now he looked uncertainly from the shoemaker to Schörner, then to Brandt, who had turned to see what was happening. Marcus Jansen stared in horror as Sturm’s pistol hovered above his father’s head.

The sudden blast of a car horn saved Benjamin Jansen’s life. Its blaring echo reverberated over the snow like a royal clarion.

“It’s the Reichsführer!” shouted Sergeant Sturm, hoping to turn all attention toward the front gate.

For the most part he succeeded. But while Klaus Brandt hurried toward the gate with an honor guard of SS troops, and the shoemaker wondered if he had actually heard the word Reichsführer, Major Wolfgang Schörner said in a soft voice: “Open your left hand, Hauptscharführer.”

“But the selection!” Sturm protested. “I must finish!”

Schörner’s hand closed around Sturm’s thick wrist. “Hauptscharführer, I order you to open your hand.”

“Zu befehl, Sturmbannführer!” Sturm’s voice was tight with fear and anger. As the roar of engines drew nearer, he opened his hand.

It was empty.

Major Schörner stared into the hand for a moment, then said, “Remain at attention, Hauptscharführer.”

Without hesitation Schörner reached into Sturm’s trouser pocket. A pained expression came over his face. He dug in the pocket, then removed his hand and opened it inches from the sergeant’s face.

The diamonds glittered like blue fire.

“I thought we had settled this issue,” Schörner said quietly.

Sturm lowered his eyes. “We did, Sturmbannführer.”

“Then would you like to explain these diamonds to the Reichsführer?”