The Heritage Paper

Chapter 10



Ben Youkelstein remained calm in the sea of panic. If there was anything he felt comfortable doing in this world, it was tracking down a predator.

The general consensus of the others was that one of two things occurred. The best case was that Jamie, stung by his punishment, ran away to make a statement.

The other scenario, and the more troubling one, was that Jamie was abducted by the Apostles. Every brittle bone in Ben’s body told him that Ellen was telling the truth, meaning the children were in great danger. But he doubted that Jamie was “taken.” This group thrived for decades by fitting into the background, and they weren’t going to start seeking the spotlight as they closed in on their goals. Police involvement and Amber Alerts didn’t fit their profile.

After Principal Sweetney called the authorities and began the process of locking down the school exits, Ben wandered off on his own to find the boy. He figured if he could find Mengele in Bertioga, then this should be a piece of cake. With Aligor’s stinging words still lodged in his craw, he moved as swiftly as his ancient legs would allow across the school grounds, leaning on his trusty umbrella.

He first crossed paths with Aligor Sterling at the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. It was December of 1944 and Ben was at his lowest moment. Aligor saved his life that time. When Ben met up with him years later, Aligor would change it.

He could feel the cold steel flow through his veins when he thought back to that time. It seemed like just yesterday when the Gestapo raided his Munich apartment, and he and his fiancée, Esther, were transported to Terezin. The Nazis also took his parents. His mother died of typhus in Westerbork, a transit camp, while his father, a well-respected doctor in Munich, was taken directly to the extermination camps on the charges he provided medical assistance to communists and Jews.

At first, Ben found the experience at Terezin strangely rewarding. The conditions were bad—in 1942 alone, almost sixteen thousand residents died of starvation—but Terezin provided a sense of community and he felt it an honor to be surrounded by such creativity and culture.

Terezin was where they took the “privileged” Jews. It was full of artists, writers, and scientists. There were so many musicians that four concert orchestras operated at the camp and several stage performances were put on each year. Ben and Esther even tried their hand at acting. The Jewish elders took it upon themselves to make sure all the children continued their education, and many chipped in to help teach them.

Thoughts of the children still burned the pit of his stomach. Of the fifteen thousand children who passed through Terezin, only about a thousand survived, which was probably an optimistic estimate. But that was just a small portion of the death at the camp, as most of Ben’s friends were either transported eastward to Auschwitz for execution, or succumbed to the conditions at the camp. He was one of the rare survivors, but sadly, Esther was not.

From the moment she was taken from him, Ben wanted to join her in death. The only reason he was still alive was the slave labor he performed, whether it be splitting mica rocks, or spraying German military uniforms a white dye to help camouflage Nazi soldiers on the Russian front. But he’d been stricken with typhoid fever, and a sick man had no value to the monsters. It was a certain death sentence, but a sentence he welcomed.

That was when he met a young man who arrived at Terezin in late November 1944. His freshness reminded Ben of himself when he’d first arrived. And like him, the young man was also a medical student who was the son of a doctor. But he nursed Ben back to health with his friendship, not medicine, and more importantly, built back his will to live. He used to make Ben vow that when they got out they’d seek revenge on the Nazis.

Ben couldn’t picture them ever getting out, but didn’t want to squash Aligor Sterling’s idealism. It’s what kept them both alive as long as it did, he was convinced. But then a miracle did happen, or so he thought. On February 5, 1945, Himmler allowed the transport of twelve hundred Jews from Terezin to Switzerland in an agreement with Swiss President Jean-Marie Musy. Ben would later find that Himmler did this as a PR move, hoping to save himself, with Germany’s war effort on the brink of collapse. He’d always been convinced that Himmler had survived the war, and Ellen’s tale validated his thoughts.

Ben remained in Switzerland following the war. He resumed his medical studies and eventually became a forensic surgeon. He settled into a prosperous life with a fulfilling job and a supportive wife. But he still craved justice—he couldn’t let it go. And that’s why he felt compelled to pilgrimage to Israel in 1960 for the war crimes trial of Adolf Eichman, one of the chief executors of the Holocaust, who had been captured in Argentina after years on the run. It was there that Ben again crossed paths with Aligor, who’d made a similar journey, fueled by the same pain. It had been fifteen years since they’d last seen each other, but to Ben it seemed like five minutes.

Aligor had also completed his medical degree after the war, but never became a practicing physician. He still healed wounds, but in a different way. His wealthy and influential family migrated from Prague to New York. Aligor’s father, Jacob Sterling, a concentration camp survivor himself, opened an organization called Sterling Center, to further Jewish causes and keep history from repeating itself. By the time of the Eichman trial, Aligor had taken over the leadership of the organization. And while his father’s mission statement was to always look ahead, Aligor knew the only way to future peace was to get justice for the atrocities of the past. And during their chance reunion in Jerusalem, he’d found a partner in this quest.

After a series of small but satisfying captures, they hooked their first big fish—Hitler’s private secretary Martin Bormann, who supposedly had died while trying to escape Berlin. Aligor used his many contacts to track him down in the remote, treacherous hills of southern Chile. Bormann’s final words had stuck with him for all these years. And after today’s events, they took on greater meaning.

With over forty years of hindsight, Ben would admit the prudent thing to do would’ve been to keep Bormann alive. If his claims about Himmler were just a con to buy time, as both he and Aligor were convinced they were, then what was the harm of finding out for sure? But there was something about the arrogance in his voice, and how he talked down at them, just like the guards at Terezin did—the animals that killed Esther in cold blood. They snapped, and by the time Ben pulled Aligor from beating Bormann’s bloody body, he’d already been dead for five minutes. They took his head as a souvenir. Ben considered it a symbol of justice.

Over the years, some got justice in a courtroom for the world to see, while others like Mengele, the “Butcher of Auschwitz,” received a more personal brand—they left his stroke-ridden body in the Brazilian surf like floating garbage.

Up ahead he noticed the young boy’s head peeking out of a slow moving car. It was moving toward the exit of the school grounds. Ben walked, slow but steady. He moved under a Career Day banner and toward the car, which had stopped to allow a group of students to cross the street. He moved to the open window of the vehicle and placed the pointed tip of his umbrella at the neck of the driver.

“You’re not going anywhere with that child.”