The Heritage Paper

Chapter 42



Maggie and Jamie held their half-eaten cones in their hands as if they were gold. Maggie initially claimed they couldn’t leave the area without permission, but after a little ice cream Youkelstein was convinced that they would’ve willingly followed him to the depths of hell. A place that was not unfamiliar to him.

After exiting the cab, he led them over the cobblestone street to his SoHo apartment. His legs felt like they were going to give out, but he was fueled by adrenaline. He was so close to solving the puzzle.

They entered his apartment building, which was an abandoned warehouse before he renovated it in the mid-1970s. He and his wife lived there until she died, seven years ago—a kind woman who embraced the burdensome challenge of following Esther into his heart. He loaned the other apartments, with no charge, to many of the great artists he’d met in Terezin, who’d made the pilgrimage to the United States following the war. Most of them had sadly passed on, so their children currently occupied the apartments. His business manager constantly scolded him about the free rent.

A service elevator took them to his top-floor loft. With its wide-open space, it still had a warehouse feel. A very popular style with the many artist types who “discovered” SoHo back in the 1970s.

The children were awed by the size of the place. “This is way bigger than our apartment … I mean our old apartment.” Maggie said.

“It’s as big as my school!” Jamie added with exuberance.

And Youkelstein needed every inch. Books were scattered everywhere, a slide projector was set up on one wall, and a huge map of Germany circa 1945 filled the entire wall behind him. Maria, his longtime assistant, tried to clean it up during his frequent travels, but since he forbid her to touch his cluster of notes that were scattered across the floor, she rarely made a dent.

The children were met by his fluffy white cat. He explained that he’d gotten Leo after his wife died because he needed someone who would always agree with his crazy theories like she always did.

“My dad died,” Maggie offered, probably detecting his sadness in his voice when he discussed the loss of his wife. “It really sucks when people die.”

Plato or Aristotle couldn’t have articulated it any better. The girl had a way of getting right to the point, a skill many twice her age had yet to master. “I’m sure your father is in heaven.”

“I don’t think so,” Maggie replied.

“And why’s that?”

“Because it can’t really be heaven unless the whole family is together. So I think he’s waiting for us. Kind of like on Christmas morning when the parents get to go down and see the gifts first, but nobody is allowed to open the gifts until the kids get there.”

“That’s an interesting way to look at it, Maggie. I’m sure one day your family will be together again,” Youkelstein said.

“Hey, do you still get Christmas presents even though you are soooooo old?” Jamie asked.

Maggie rolled her eyes in disgust. “He’s Jewish—they don’t celebrate Christmas, stupid.”

Jamie scrunched his face in thought. “If you don’t get Christmas, why would you be Jewish?”

“It wasn’t a choice,” Youkelstein answered. “It was the destiny I was born into.”

“I’m sure glad I’m not born Jewish,” Jamie said, letting out a theatrical sigh of relief.

“You are part Jewish,” his sister replied, incredulously. “Oma is Jewish, so that makes Dad half Jewish, which makes you a quarter Jewish.”

“Does that mean I only get part of my Christmas presents?”

Maggie just shook her head in disgust. But Jamie had already moved on. His attention locked on an object that took up most of a dining room table. “Cool—what’s that?”

Youkelstein maneuvered to the table and proudly stated, “This is a model of the Führerbunker.”

“The what?” Maggie asked.

He took a moment to explain the glorified air-raid shelter the Nazi elite used as a hideout in the last days of the war. Despite grand descriptions from the Nazi spin-doctors, the bunker was nothing more than a claustrophobic tube in which its occupants had to duck debris when a bomb struck nearby. The lower part, where Hitler resided, was made up of fifteen rooms that were divided by thin partitions and connected by a narrow central passageway. The feared Reich went down with nothing more than a whimper, hiding like rats. A concept Youkelstein once took great satisfaction in, but now with the puzzle pieces coming together, he was questioning their true motives.

“It made no sense that Hitler would be here,” he said to nobody in particular. “He should have been close to the command center at Zossen, south of Berlin. It never made any sense.”

“What didn’t make sense?” Maggie asked.

“Nobody in this room is making any sense,” Jamie added.

Class was now in session and Professor Youkelstein was presiding. “Hitler made all the wrong moves at the end of the war, to the point most observers believed he’d been rendered insane. He was sick, yes—he suffered from debilitating Parkinson’s and syphilis. And he was never the most grounded fellow. But crazy? I’m not so sure.

“He did make a convincing case to those around him that he’d lost his marbles. He would give an order to send a tank brigade to Pirmasens, then change his mind and send it to Trier, and then to Koblenz. And as erratic as that seemed, the final result would have been the same, regardless—they were all suicide missions! I should have seen it before,” Youkelstein’s voice turned anguished and he pounded his fist against the table.

“Seen what?”

“That he’d already put into motion his escape plan—the Apostles. Even when he declared Himmler a traitor for negotiating peace with the Allies in the last days of the war, that was just another con to throw his enemies off the trail. He was crazy … crazy like a fox.”

“That’s what they said about Oma. But I still don’t get it,” Maggie said, growing frustrated.

“It was right in front of my face and I didn’t see it,” Youkelstein said and moved to a contraption sitting on an end table, and clicked a button. The out-of-date slide projector shot a large photo of Martin Bormann on the wall.

Jamie must not have been impressed, because he declared himself “bored” and began chasing the cat.

“Who is that?” Maggie asked. She wasn’t going anywhere—he had her full attention.

“Martin Bormann was Hitler’s secretary and some would say closest confidant after Rudolph Hess left. He was a cruel murderer, even by Nazi standards, and a professional weasel whose claim to fame was the trust Hitler put in him. Without Hitler he was nothing, and now it makes sense.”

Youkelstein reached into a drawer and pulled out the gold cross with v^988v^ engraved on it.

Maggie inched back. He’d scared her. “Oma said only Apostles have those—you’re one of them!”

He flashed a comforting smile. “No, my dear, I got this from Bormann. I’d always assumed he was on the run from the authorities like the rest of the Odessa rats running around South America, but he was on the run from something more deadly. If he was a member of the Apostles, why was he unable to make safe passage into the US like the rest of them?

“That’s why he planted that skull in Berlin, hoping to be declared dead. That is why he created false sightings in places like Chile and Argentina—not to throw off the authorities, but to divert Himmler. That is why fear filled his eyes—because if we were able to locate him, then Himmler had already found him.”

“But why would Himmler be after Bormann? They were on the same team.”

“Himmler was anything but a team player, and Bormann knew things that could threaten Himmler’s power within the group.”

“What did he know?

“That Himmler was the one behind the murder of Adolf Hitler.”