Suhren looked out his window over the camp below.
“How do we find them? H?ftlings are not going by their real numbers anymore.” His eyes were bloodshot. Had he been drinking? “At Appell, they just slip away. They exchange numbers with the dead.”
I stepped closer to him. “Most should be in Block 31—or hiding underneath. With the new facility—”
“Please, Oberheuser…”
Suhren didn’t like to talk about the new facility, and certainly no one spoke the word gas. His new staff members, just arrived from Auschwitz, had helped him cobble together a makeshift facility in an old painter’s shed next to the Krema. Not fine workmanship but it would make the whole business of silencing the Rabbits much simpler.
“I will have Binz secure that block and then call Appell,” said Suhren. “You will personally see to it that each Rabbit is caught.”
It was about time.
“Are you giving me permission to—”
“Do what you need to, Doctor. Just make sure no trace of them is found.”
1944–1945
On August 25, Roger phoned me up at The Hay and said the Free French and American troops were at the outskirts of Paris.
We were back in business.
It was a Saturday, so traffic was light as I drove into the city with the gas pedal to the floor, screeching by cars on the Taconic Parkway, until I saw blue flashing lights in my rearview mirror. Once I told the baby-faced officer the circumstances, he turned on his flashing lights and escorted me to the consulate.
In Roger’s office, we grabbed information from every source we could. We read telegrams and cables and listened to the radio all at once. When our troops made it to the Arc de Triomphe, we were overcome with joy and on the phone with Bordeaux and London. The U.S. troops, accompanied by General De Gaulle and the Free French army, marched into Paris from the south, along the Champs-Elysées in jeeps and on foot. Hordes of Parisians surged into the streets shouting, “Vive la France!” People streamed out of their homes, frantic with the joy of liberation, even while German snipers and tanks still fired here and there. Soon the Germans waved white flags of surrender from behind their bunkers, restaurateurs brought their last few bottles of champagne out of the cellars, and Paris went mad with happiness.
Later that day we watched from Roger’s office as Lily Pons, the Metropolitan Opera star, sang “La Marseillaise” to thirty thousand people gathered below us on Rockefeller Plaza to celebrate the victory.
We all agreed it was just a matter of time before Hitler capitulated and Berlin fell. The Allies would liberate all of the concentration camps. I sent telegrams and letters to possible repatriation centers across France inquiring about Paul. How would he get back to Paris?
—
THOUGH FRANCE HAD BEEN LIBERATED, the war dragged on. I sat at the dining room table up at The Hay the following April, still in my pajamas, writing a press release for orphans in freed France: These common things are most urgently needed in France TODAY: Rice. Sweetened cocoa. Powdered whole milk. Dried fruits. Tea and coffee for older children are next in importance….
How long had it been since I’d had that first letter from Paul? None of my inquiries had borne fruit. One last snowstorm had hit Bethlehem, but even winter was tired of winter, and quiet flakes covered the crusty snow in the yard like white flannel. Terrible snowball snow, Father would have called it.
Serge threw the mail he’d picked up from the post office onto the half-moon table near the front door with a thump and went about shoveling the front walk.
I made tea in the kitchen as the afternoon grew dark. On my way back to the dining room, I flipped through the mail stack. I found the usual envelopes. A flyer for Mother’s annual spring Bethlehem Horse Show, held on Ferriday Field behind our house to benefit the library. The monthly Elmwood Farm milk bill. An invitation to a handbell concert at the grange.
One envelope stopped me in my tracks. It was ecru just like the others he had sent, addressed in Paul’s handwriting—somewhat less crisp and strong, but unmistakably his. The return address read, H?tel Lutetia, 45, boulevard Raspail.
My hands shook as I ripped the side of the envelope and read the letter’s contents.
I grabbed my boots from the kitchen, threw Mother’s coat on over my pajamas, and ran across the front yard to Merrill Brothers General Store, cracking through the top crusty layer of snow with each step. I bounded up the stairs and found Mother standing near a wall of shelves with Mr. Merrill, a clear bottle of witch hazel in her hand. They separated, startled.
Mr. Merrill smiled when I entered, a porcupine of keys at his waist.
“Caroline. How’ve you been—”
“Not now, Mr. Merrill,” I said, grabbing the doorjamb as I tried to catch my breath. Though generally a concise man, handsome Mr. Merrill would discuss the pros and cons of the paper grocery bag ad infinitum if even slightly encouraged.
Mother turned. “Good Lord, what is it, dear?”
Unable to catch my breath, I waved the envelope.
Mother stepped to the door. “Close this, Caroline. For goodness sakes, what is wrong with you?”
“It’s from Paul. He’s at…”
“At where, dear?”
“The H?tel Lutetia.”
“Why didn’t you say so, Caroline?” she said, handing the witch hazel back to Mr. Merrill. “We’ll go tomorrow.”
After all, our bags had been packed for months.
1945
Beauty Road was no longer beautiful come February 1945. The Germans used the window boxes and many of the linden trees for firewood. The road’s black slag was covered with frozen slush, and snow was still piled high about the camp, a layer of ash collected atop it—fallout from the furnaces. The cage of exotic animals was long gone.
I dodged groups of women out braving the cold, some in gangs, some wandering alone. On Sundays, Beauty Road teemed with a rowdy jumble of women of all nationalities, some carrying a rinsed pair of bloomers or a uniform shift between them, airing it out to dry. The camp had become impossibly crowded as the Red Army pushed west across Poland and transports of prisoners the Germans evacuated from concentration camps like Auschwitz and Majdanek arrived hourly. We soon had prisoners from twenty-two countries. Poles were still by far the largest group, but we now had among us British prisoners, Chinese, Americans. Everyone knew Himmler kept many of his Prominente, special prisoners, in the bunker, including an American pilot who’d been found near Ravensbrück, having parachuted from his failing plane.
Though most of us wore the same blue and gray striped uniforms, we could guess a prisoner’s nationality by the way she wore hers. You could always tell a French girl. Each tied her kerchief in a unique, charming way, and they all sewed chic little bags called bautli from organized scraps to hold their mess kits. Some even stitched little white collars onto their uniform shifts and made lovely bows from rags. The Russian prisoners, many of them Red Army nurses and doctors captured on the battlefield, were unmistakable as well. They were a disciplined group and all wore their camp uniforms in exactly the same way. Each had kept her Russian-issued leather army boots and wore the camp head scarf tied in a perfect square knot at the nape of her neck.
It was easy to recognize newly arrived prisoners to the camp. Once camp authorities ran out of uniforms, new prisoners wore a crazy assortment of mismatched clothing taken from the booty piles. They looked like exotic birds in their parrot frocks, as we called them, a gaudy mix of ruffled skirts and bright blouses. Some were lucky enough to find warm men’s jackets, all chalked by camp staff with a big white Saint Andrew’s cross across the back in case the wearer escaped.