Brothers Beyond Blood
BROTHERS BEYOND BLOOD
Can two young men who meet in a concentration camp become friends?
It’s possible and even probable. But what if one of them is a prisoner and the other is his guard?
Years after the end of WWII, when the two brothers Hans and Herschel Rothberg have passed on, a lawyer presents their surviving family with a letter, a document that completely turns their world upside down. This manuscript chronicles the relationship of two young men, boys actually, who are thrown together by their experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. It describes their amazing journey from the horrors of Kefferstadt to a Displaced Persons camp in Germany, and finally to the United States.
Herschel and Hans Rothberg were brothers in the truest sense of the word. Separately, they were doomed, but if they could find a way to work together, they just might be able to survive.
“I held my breath reading until the end! I absolutely could not put down this book until I found out what was going to happen to Herschel and Hans.”
J.M. Bolton author of “Alien Within”
“It’s so real, you feel like you’re actually there! What a great adventure. You couldn’t find two more unlikely allies, and yet Kafrissen makes it work!”
Marlene A Becker author of “The Deacon & the Demon”
“Brothers Beyond Blood tells the story of two German teen-aged boys enduring the horror of a World War II concentration camp, one a detainee and the other a guard. Their friendship becomes their redemption during the final days of the Nazi regime. This is a must for young adult readers who will form an instant bond with the boys and their victory over evil.”
Jerry Cowling, author of “Lincoln in the Basement”
BROTHERS
BEYOND BLOOD
by
Don Kafrissen
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locals is entirely coincidental.
BROTHERS BEYOND BLOOD
A book from IDBPI published by arrangement with the author
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2013 by Don Kafrissen
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
For information address: International Digital Book Publishing Industries
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ISBN 978 1 57550 033-1
Digital Books are published by International Digital Book Publishing Industries
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Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
The call came early in the morning from my sister Miriam. “Hullo,” I answered dully, not fully awake.
“Al, it’s Mim. Are you up?”
I licked my dry lips and sat up creaking. I blinked a few times trying to focus. “Yeah, Mim. I’m up. Not functioning yet, but up. What’s the matter?"
Even over the phone, I could hear her take a deep breath, “It’s Pop. He’s dead. A couple of hours ago. The hospital called me, but I had my phone turned off until just now.” I could hear her sniffling. She was speaking in a rush, trying to get it all out without me interrupting, “As soon as I turned my phone back on, there was a message. He died during the night. Oh, God, I should have been with him, but, Al, I’ve been there so much these last couple of weeks, and I just came home to try to get in a few hours sleep before going back. Oh, please don’t hate me, Al; I’ve been with him so much. Can you meet me here? Please come, Al. I need you here to help me. You know Sammy is no help and I ….”
I broke in as soon as I understood what she was trying to say. My father had died last night. Old Herschel Rothberg had kicked the bucket. “Take it easy, Mim. It’s all over now. Let me grab a shower and I’ll meet you at the hospital in an hour. I’ll call Sammy. You don’t have to.”
“Thanks, Al,” she whispered. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please hurry, and could you bring me a coffee? I don’t think I can stop. I don’t think I can face anybody right now.”
“Yeah, sure, Mim. I’ll be there. Drive carefully.” I hung up.
Son-of-a-bitch, so the old man finally cashed in his chips. Hell of a life, I thought. He and my Uncle Hans, what a couple of guys. Almost like a married couple.
My wife rolled over and without opening her eyes, she muttered, “Who was that, Al?”
“Nothing, Hon. Go back to sleep. I’ll tell you later.” And she did. My wife, Syl, was a doctor and didn’t get in until late most nights. It had become a minor sore spot with us over the last few months since she’d been transferred to the ER.
I showered and dressed before calling my brother Sammy. He lived in LasVegas, but he’d been here a month ago when the old man had taken a turn for the worse. He’d lasted a week and couldn’t stay. His job, he said. Some job, a dealer in Vegas. What kind of a job was that for a Jewish boy from Philly? With a sigh, I dialed his cell phone.
“Sam here, Al. What’s up? Talk fast, I’m in the middle of a shift.”
“Hey, Sammy. Just wanted to let you know that Pop passed away last night. We’ll schedule the funeral for a couple of days. Call me back when you get a chance.”
“No shit,” he said slowly, letting out a breath. “I’ll call you as soon as I get off. Love to Mim.”
The phone went dead in my ear. I shrugged. Sammy and the old man never did get along and he was gone the minute he’d graduated from high school, hitchhiking to California and becoming a surf bum. That had developed into a job making boards, then film school and he made a couple of documentaries. One was about surfing in Mexico, and the next one was about sailing, I think. I kind of lost track of him for a few years. I’d heard through Mim that he’d been married, divorced, had a couple of kids, sold insurance, and had and lost a few other jobs.
I kissed my wife’s forehead and walked out to my car, which was parked in the driveway. The sun was just coming up. It was going to be another sunny and dry day here in Philly. I stopped at the nearest Starbucks and picked up coffees for Mim and me.
Her car was in the visitors’ lot at Beth Israel when I got there, though parked crooked, like she’d been in a hurry. Why she was rushing to see a dead man in a depressing hospital was beyond me. The place was just a pile of bricks dating from just after the war, though I really didn’t know which one. The paint was peeling over the doors and the floor tiles were a dull green. As I walked in, a barely coherent message was sounding over the squawk box. The doctors and nurses must have figured out the language code being used. I sure couldn’t.
Mim was sitting on a couch in the lobby. I just handed her the coffee and sat beside her, our thighs touching. She was in a dark pantsuit and a white blouse with a skinny piece of ribbon tied droopily at her throat. Her eyes looked dark and she’d only run a brush a couple of times through her cap of black hair. I noticed a couple of gray hairs at her temples. It jolted me. I always considered her to be ‘the kid’. Sammy was the youngest but Mim was my kid sister and had always acted like one. I knew she was in her forties, but Mim with gray hair? Wow! She had been a high school teacher and had just the one kid, Joanie, now away at Berkeley. She and her abusive husband, French, had divorced a few years ago and, last I heard, French was doing hard time for screwing a bunch of retirees out of their life savings in some kind of Ponzi scheme. I wondered if Ponzi knew how famous he would become?
“You O.K., kid?” I asked putting my arm around her.
She nodded, tears running down her cheeks. “I couldn’t go in to look at him alone, Al.” She pulled out a crumpled tissue and wiped ineffectually at her eyes. “I’m glad you’re here.”
I sipped my coffee, “C’mon. Let’s get it over with.” I helped her to her feet and we took the elevator to the third floor. A nurse was just coming out of his room and held the door for us. I’d met her on several of my trips here and said, “Thanks, Doris.”
“I’m so sorry, Al, Miriam. I wasn’t on duty but Sheila said she was with him and he died quietly and didn’t suffer.”
We thanked her and went inside. The curtain was pulled around his bed. The other bed, the one closest to the door, was empty and had been for a few days. Nobody dying to get it, I thought. I went through the curtain, holding it aside for Mim. She went over to the opposite side of the bed and took a deep breath, steeling herself. After her husband left, she and Pop had gotten close. Little Joanie had spent a lot of time with the old man, telling each other lots of stories, some of them even true, no doubt.
She nodded and I pulled the sheet back. Pop’s face was pale; his hair sparse and neatly combed. I expect Doris or Sheila had fixed him up. He had a faint smile on his clean-shaven face. It was a strong face, square chin and a large hooked nose with close-set eyes. He looked like a cross between a human and an eagle. His lipless mouth just turned up at the corners. I always kidded him that he had Meg Ryan’s mouth. He still did. Mim was crying again, her shoulders shaking, her arms crossed in front of her chest.
I went around and held her tight, and she soaked my shirt. At last she stopped. I was about to pull the sheet back up when she stopped me. “Goodbye, Poppa. I love you.” She stooped and kissed him on the forehead, then turned and walked out.
I looked at the tranquil face. “Hell of a life, Pop. I loved you, too.” And I kissed him on the forehead beside Mim’s kiss.
After that, things became quite a blur of death certificates, funeral arrangements, canceling his credit cards, phone service, email accounts, and paying all the final bills. I took care of all this and the next day, picked Sammy up from the airport. Mim wasn’t much help, although she made the arrangements for the caterer after the memorial service to be held two days later.
Sammy helped her and the turnout was larger than expected. Pop had had a lot of friends and a lot of Uncle Hans’ friends showed up too. The big house was filled with people eating, drinking and talking. As I made the rounds, I kept hearing folks telling stories about the Gruesome Twosome, as they called my Pop and his brother.
Pop’s lawyer, Saul Goldman, was there and he pulled me aside, “Ancel, come and see me in a couple of days.” He looked at the calendar on his watch, “Say, Thursday around three and we’ll go over the will, O.K.?”
I nodded. Nobody but Saul ever called me by my given name. When I was growing up, our neighborhood had been heavily Italian and a kid with a name like Ancel would have been beaten up a lot. So I shortened it to Al. My Social Security card even listed me as Al. The Social Security lady wanted to know if it was Albert or Alfred or what, but I insisted, just Al and she finally gave in. It took my parents longer to accept the name change, but when I wouldn’t answer to Ancel, they got used to it.
Thursday came, and Sammy and I picked up Mim to go to the lawyer’s office. My brother was staying with Syl and me. We’d taken a couple of long walks, remembering Pop and Uncle Hans. We even went to the little park where they liked to sit on a bench and ogle the young mothers and nannies in the summer.
Saul’s office was in a tall, imposing building down near Market Street in the heart of the financial district. It had beautifully gilded doors that were curved at the tops like doors in the old cathedrals. That always impressed me whenever I’d gone there with Pop. It was funny, Saul was normally a very respectable corporate lawyer. I could never figure out what caused him to accept Pop as a client. Pop and Uncle Hans just owned a hardware store, and it wasn’t even incorporated, as far as I knew.
After we were shown into his office and seated, Saul’s secretary brought us coffee. After the usual amenities were concluded, I asked, “Saul, you and Pop were friends for a long time but you were always a big shot, and Pop, well, Pop was always, for lack of a better word, a little shot.”
“Yeah, Saul, what’s up with that?” asked Sammy.
Saul just looked at us for a minute. Then he pulled back the sleeve of his expensive suit jacket and removed the heavy gold cufflink from his crisp broadcloth shirt. He shoved the sleeve back and turned his arm so we could see the faded blue tattooed number inside his forearm. “I was in Auschwitz. Your father and Uncle Hans were in the camps too. That’s why.”
Sammy and I nodded. Saul pulled his sleeve down, inserted the cufflink and replaced his coat sleeve. A bond like that can be stronger than family.
Saul cleared his throat and read the will. Pop’s estate was to be divided equally among us, the house was to be sold and profits also divided among us. I was appointed executor, then Miriam, and then Sammy, in that order. Pop wasn’t rich just very comfortable, but the amount of the bequest was more money than I’d expected. Then Saul handed me a thick manila envelope, almost an inch thick. “Herschel wanted you three to have this. You’re supposed to read it together.”
“What’s it about, Saul?” Sammy asked.
Saul shrugged, “I don’t know. Your father and Uncle Hans asked me not to read it, so I didn’t.” He sat back, and his chair creaked. Saul folded his thick hands across his ample belly. “Any questions?” He looked from one to the other of us. Nothing. Smiling, he said, “No? Then get the hell out of here and let me get some work done!”
We decided to go back to Mim’s place. Joanie was at school, and the house was empty. I phoned my wife, told her what happened and that I’d be home later. She was at the hospital and couldn’t talk. So what else was new?
Mim made coffee for the three of us and brought out a plate of homemade apple strudel cut into pieces. When we were all seated, I opened the envelope.
Chapter 1 - Herschel and Hans
My Dear Children: Miriam, Ancel, and Sammy,
If you are reading this, I am dead. Dead, not ‘passed away’ or ‘deceased’. Let’s call it what it is. Your Uncle Hans is dead too, but we felt that there is something you ought to know. As they say on the television, things aren’t always as they seem. I leave it to you if you should share this information with Hans’ children, your cousins Ruthie and Nathan, though we felt that we’d leave it to you three, to decide if they should know too. My lawyer, Saul, has held this letter for many years. It’s sealed so he doesn’t know what’s in it. This is a story, your Uncle Hans’, and mine. I imagine you’re going to get upset because this story is quite different from what we told you when you were growing up. If so, please forgive us. The truth? Well, you’ll see for yourself.
First of all, your Uncle Hans is not really your uncle. What I mean is that he’s not really my brother, though a better brother in this entire world I could never hope to have. I once had an older brother named Isaac. I also had a sister named Miriam. Yes, Miria
m, you are named after her. I was the youngest child of three and we lived in a nice town in Eastern Germany called Teplice. My father and his father had been jewelers. The Nazis killed my family during the war. I saw my father and grandfather shot out front of our shop. My mother and sister were raped, and sent to the women’s’ extermination camp in Ravensbruck where I later learned they were gassed and burned. I’m telling you this in brutal terms so you will get a feeling for what we all went through.
I was separated from my brother and sent to the concentration camp at Kefferstadt. This was a sub-camp of Dachau. Being older, he went to a different camp. I never did find out what happened to him.
Did you know that the British General Herbert Kitchener, before he was awarded his Lordship, invented concentration camps during the Second Boer war? He rounded up guerilla fighters and civilians and concentrated them into large camps. Interesting, no?
Anyway, I met your Uncle Hans in the camp where I was a prisoner. At the time I was fifteen years old and he was sixteen. I’d been at the camp for almost three years before he showed up. This happened near the end of the war, as it turned out, only five months until the American army liberated us.
At the time, I was a Sonderkommando or Special Command Unit. These units were comprised of Jews whose job was to remove the corpses from the gas houses, transport them to the trenches and bury them. We also collected their possessions, pulled gold teeth and a sorted and catalogued the belongings. Yes, my job was as a Sonderkommando.
In the early days, when the camps were being set up, the people were told that they were going to shower. They were instructed to pile their clothes and possessions in bins we had made. The Nazi guards even went so far as to allow the men and women to be sent in separately. Later they stopped being so nice and we Sonderkommando had to strip both the men and the women of all their clothing. I had never even seen a woman naked. For years afterward I had terrible flashback images of all those naked women’s bodies. I even had bad dreams when I saw your mother naked, as beautiful as she was.