Chapter 9 Photographers in Salzburg - 8

At the end of May 1945, Captain Erezer Barazini (who had fought with the British in Libya as a commando and held a British rank) came to Austria.His mission was simple and clear: to recruit former concentration camp prisoners and secretly transport them to Palestine.The clear tendency is that it is best to recruit young men and women, very young, who are ready in battle to fulfill their potential, honed from the cremator fires.Barazini was born in Palestine. He was thin and small, and he treated people very politely. He had first met Reber Klimrod on July 5, 1945; to be honest, he hadn't paid much attention to Reber at the time.Klimrod is not a Jewish surname, not to mention that this young man who just arrived here from Salzburg is in such a pitiable state both physically and mentally that Barazini did not consider sending him out at first. Especially the secret delivery, it will be planned in a few weeks or even a few months.

On that day, Barazini, who was recruiting soldiers on behalf of the Jewish Brigade, had two other people in mind to send out, one of whom lived in the next room.The other was a Polish Jew who also happened to be called Reb - Reb Joel Bernisch, who arrived in Mauthausen towards the end of the winter of 1944-1945 of.In February 1945, three thousand prisoners (among them Simon Wiesenthal and a Duke of Ragievel) were taken from Buchenwald to this concentration camp in northern Austria. One of the batch of prisoners.Only a thousand out of three thousand survived to reach Mauthausen.In 1945, Bernie was nineteen years old.

Bernice was lying on the bed to the right of Reber Klimrod.He and Barazini talked for a long time in Yiddish (Note: An international language used by the Jews, which was formed by absorbing words from various modern languages ​​on the basis of ancient Germanic). Two days before the tanks of the British Seventh Army arrived at Mauthausen, Bernice broke the hip and femur with the butt of a rifle for an SS soldier and sent him to No. Shed Room A. Captain Barazini didn't have any special impression of Reb Klimrod who was lying next to them at that time, he only remembered that this sick boy was not interested in his conversation with Bernie.In addition, although Barazini can speak fluent Hebrew (Note: Jewish religious, literary and secular language, the official language of Israel) and English, it is very difficult to use Yiddish, so all his attention is focused on The conversation is on.

Bai Nishi quickly accepted Barazini's suggestion and agreed to leave as soon as his physical condition allowed. Barazini said before leaving that he would come back in two weeks. He did come. "I want to say a few words to you." This word is spoken in Hebrew.Barazini turned away, seeing no one at first.The corridors of the hospital were empty, as if there was no one there.Then he saw a tall, thin figure huddled beside a post in the corner of the doorway from which he himself had just entered.Barazini did not remember seeing the face before.However, those eyes that condensed extraordinary power took him by surprise.

"Who are you?" "Reb Michele Clemold. My bed is next to Joel Banich." His Hebrew was pure, but very slow, with a barely discernible French accent.He used to think about certain words, as if speaking a language he had almost forgotten.He must have seen the doubt in Balazini's eyes, so he added, "My mother is Jewish. Her name is Hannah Itzkovich. She was born in Lvov. She lived with my sisters in Belzec. Passed. My father taught me French, my mother taught me Hebrew and Yiddish. I also speak Italian and a little Spanish. Now, I am learning English." He came very slowly, and moved a large, thin hand from behind to his chest, holding—Ben Whitman's.But his eyeballs didn't move, he was still staring into Barazini's eyes, focused and aggressive.Feeling a little uncomfortable, Barazini blurted out the first question that popped into his head: "How old are you?"

"I will be seventeen on September eighteenth." At this moment, Barazini had a feeling he couldn't describe. "What do you want me to do for you?" "I want to go with Bernice, and if there are others, I want to leave here with them too." Although Klimrod was young, he did not embarrass Barazini.For many fighters of the "Israel Homeland" movement, seventeen is considered old, at least in the secret groups of "Irgon" and "Stern".It was another issue that had Barazini wary.For a few seconds, he wondered if this was an infiltration tactic used by the British?Because something like this has already happened, with the aim of thwarting the mass immigration to Israel that politicians in London fear. (Note: After World War II, in order to expand in the Middle East, the United States actively supported the Zionism Movement and encouraged Jews from various countries to immigrate to Palestine. In order to maintain its old power in the Middle East, the United Kingdom encouraged Arab countries to oppose the Jews.)

"You were in Mauthausen concentration camp?" "yes." "I want to verify. I will verify everything you said." Reb's gray eyes didn't even blink. "You'll make a mistake if you don't check. You don't have to answer me right away. I don't think it's serious if someone recruits me into their organization within a few minutes. Besides, I'm not in the right shape right now. travel far." "When will you be able to travel far?" "Same as Joel Bernice, in two weeks." Barazini conducted an investigation.He went out of his way to find some members of the Linz Jewish Committee, one of whom was Wiesenthal.They had never heard of the name Klimrod, and only one remembered seeing him in a concentration camp—"he was dressed like a woman, accompanied by a group of SS officers."

He managed to track down at least a dozen men and women from Lviv who were now awaiting deportation in Leondin.None of these people had seen a woman named Hanna Itzkovich Klimrod come to Lviv with her three children in July 1941. On or about July 20, Barazini reported to his superior, the future Israeli ambassador to France, Asher bin Nathan, who was then in charge of the project of concentrating the Jews in the American-occupied Austria Work.Barazini shared his doubts with him. "There is something about this young man that makes me uneasy. I can't tell what happened." "he is very smart?"

"Him? When I talked to him, I had the feeling that he was a grown-up and I was a child of three years old! His thinking speed was two or three times faster than mine. I couldn't put my words together." After finishing speaking, before he had time to ask a question, he had already answered me." "Perhaps that's what makes you uneasy," said Ben Nathan, laughing. "That would unsettle me, too." The two of them discussed and decided that Barazini should trust his instinctive feelings. On July 30th, Balazini came to meet Joel Banich and Reb Krimarosh.He announced his decision: the two of them would set off together on the night of August 6th.

Barazini finally hit upon a solution that, in his mind, would solve everything.For a period of time, Bernice should pay attention to Klimrod's actions, which is the first preventive measure.At the same time he took a second protective measure: he sent a message to Tel Aviv asking Dolf Lazarus to pay more attention to Reb Klimrod. Lei Bozhong went to help Bai Nishi, whose hips and thighs were still a little stiff until now.Reber pulled him into the truck.Eleven men and five women were already in the car, most of them between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.All were silent.Someone pushed up the rear tailgate and locked it, and fastened the tawny hood so that all light was blocked.Someone outside the vehicle whispered, then the engine started and the truck drove away.It was one o'clock in the morning on August 7, 1945.

Reber and Joel left the hospital before midnight in order to get to the appointed place.They crossed the city of Linz, bypassed the city center, and arrived at the first assembly point, which was near a warehouse in the middle of the various dock facilities along the Danube.There they were joined by two men and a young girl, but it had been arranged that they should not go together.They walked to the southern suburbs.Reber knew nothing about the agreed place, the meeting time, the identity of the companions, the departure situation, etc. During the rest of the journey, Reber made no effort to find out anything.After leaving Linz, the truck drove for more than four hours. On the way, a woman sang in Yiddish, but her face was invisible.There was a stop on the road for a short time to let everyone relieve themselves.Dawn had just dawned, and the mountains illuminated by the dawn had no name for Reber, let alone Bernice, who was not familiar with Austria at all.But a man said in Polish that this is the Kramm Pass, north of Bad Gastein. Bai Nishi smiled gently, "He also understands Polish, don't worry about it..." They drove for more than two hours, and the harsh morning light of the Austrian summer leaked in through the gaps in the canvas hood. They spent the day of August 7 in an exclusive village not far from Eagles.After dark they continued on their way, passing through Innsbruck about eleven o'clock.At this moment, Reber heard two men, probably soldiers, speaking French, one of whom had a pleasant southern accent.After that, Reber knew the way, it was the railway tunnel in Mittenwald, and the roar of the Inn could be heard.In the summer of 1938 his school (Reber was two years ahead of his age group) organized a trip to St. Anton, places that Reber remembered well. Reber thought their destination was probably Switzerland, but the truck turned left at Landeck.After an hour, the truck stopped, unloaded its people, turned around and began to descend the mountain. They followed a young man who emerged from the night on foot.The little boy warned them in German to never make a sound.After climbing for about three hours in the mountain forest, they reached a barely lit inn.They did not enter by the main entrance, but ascended by a ladder to the large Tyrolean balcony on the second floor.There was already another group of 20 immigrants there, these people were so afraid to make a sound, they took off their shoes, so as not to disturb the guests downstairs... ...and the guests downstairs were also extremely cautious.An hour after Leiber's party arrived, he looked out of a window and saw another group of men arriving, about fifteen or so, some of them middle-aged.Although these newcomers wore expensive civilian clothes and carried high-end suitcases, there was a military air in their manner and organization.They had been silent outside the house, but inside there was cheers, all in German, which were quickly quelled. The clerks of the inn shuttle back and forth between upstairs and downstairs to deal with Yuru. Joel walks over to Reber. "Are you thinking about what I'm thinking about right now?" Reb nodded. Across the floor, they could hear the people downstairs making preparations for the night.The Rays and Joel could put their bellies on the floor and listen to the whispered conversation downstairs if they wanted to.For a few seconds, a look of disgust distorted Joel's delicate features.He is a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto. "The Nazis are running for their lives!" he cried angrily. On August 8, the whole day was spent in this strange and abnormal state of being an enemy and a neighbor. Survivors of Mauthausen and other concentration camps and those who poisoned them and ruined their families lived together in this inn not far from the Reschen Pass, just a stone's throw away, To be fed by the same shopkeepers and led across the border by the same gang of smugglers—it was not an unthinkable event. Erich Steyr is no more.Over-Seitiniaz also thinks this is impossible because the dates don't match. But it was the same path he took, that's for sure. The next night they crossed the Austrian border with Italy.Two hours apart.The SS go first, they have priority. On Italian territory, a group of trucks apparently came to pick up Reb Klimrod and his companions.Together with several groups of pioneers who had crossed the Reschen Pass a few nights ago and found shelter in some Italian farmhouses, they numbered more than a hundred. Joel Pernich had a jovial disposition and an almost astonishing ability to take anything lightly.At Mauthausen he risked his immediate execution no less than twenty times by imitating the gait or the habitual twitch of a guard.Coming down from the pass this time, he hummed almost incessantly, or reproduced, with an almost gross irreverence, the features of a man named Sloeymelai, who was Bernie's near Lublin. The pride of the village in his hometown, he is a rabbi (Note: Rabbi and teacher of rabbi.), or almost a rabbi. However, when they saw the trucks and the uniforms of the soldiers waiting for them, even Pernich was stunned.There is no doubt that the trucks and uniforms are British.Only then did they realize that they belonged to "His Majesty's 412 Royal Transport Company".With these military vehicles and uniforms, despite the strict British blockade, they will all be sent to the south of Italy, and from there they will cross the sea to Israel. The 412th Royal Transport Company does not actually exist.It was the brainchild of a man named Yehuda Alazzi, the Italian leader of the "Mossad Alia Bet" organization.The self-defense forces of the Jewish colonies of Palestine, founded by the Hagna faction in 1937, are trying to strengthen the colonies through immigration. While the British were intensifying their pursuit of Alazir in Palestine, he landed in Italy, right behind the Allied forces.Among these allied forces, there were also sporadic Palestinian Jews scattered within the British army. There are four middle and upper class inside, one of them is Iriajo Cohen, known as "Ben-Hur", he established a Hagna armed organization named "Palma" in the Jewish ghetto, which later became The heart of the Israeli army. Alazie and the four sergeants worked out a plan very carefully for utilizing the supplies and supplies of His Majesty's troops.Alazzi also established a communication system from Antwerp via Paris, Marseilles, Athens to Naples.They set up a radio station in a town about 20 kilometers outside Milan, and kept the Hagna leaders in touch with Tel Aviv. In this partly occupied country, Alazir has trucks, personnel who speak English, and sergeants in regular uniforms.He actually created a fictitious unit, with fake rosters and real barracks: a large garage in the center of Milan that had been officially commandeered by the British Army.In addition to all this, he also set up a forgery workshop, specializing in the issuance of orders to fool the gendarme, and also provided false passports for refugees in transit.The so-called "412 Royal Transport Company" was formed in this way.It was not until April 1946 that this ruse was seen through by the British. On August 21, 1945, a group of thirty-five illegal immigrants boarded a twenty-five-ton fishing boat "Dalin" in Bali—actually the "Sirius" The port of registry is Monopoli, located on the Adriatic coast more than forty kilometers south from here. Seven days later, the first secret immigrant ship after the war arrived at the ruins of Caesar City in Israel without any accidents.Both Reb Klimrod and Joel Bernisch were on this ship.