Chapter 37 Chapter Thirty-Six

At the beginning of August, at the American embassy in Berne, the Jastrow-Henry case suddenly arose. Dr. Heyou, Sloter's friend at the Swiss Foreign Office, has returned from Rome with amazing news; Jastrow and his niece have been given an unusual privilege of being allowed to go to the seaside for a vacation, and they have taken the opportunity to break their oath. Also implicated in the incident was a Sienese Jewish physician who was a secret Zionist.The Italian authorities were outraged, and Dr. Hersey was summoned to the German embassy for questioning.The rosy-cheeked, squat diplomat told Sloter all this in the little sidewalk café, describing in detail how he had talked to the first secretary of the German embassy, ​​a man named Werner.Baker's grim, sinister fellow was talking to hell with him, half a chocolaty custard trembling on his fork.Hussey believes that Jastrow and his niece are now hopeless.If they hid, they would be discovered; if they tried to escape Italy, they would be caught.Once recaptured, they were immediately sent to an Italian concentration camp.The government has already seized Jastrow's villa, his bank balance and the contents of his rented safe.

Oh, God--thought Sloter, listening to this disturbing story--Natalie was such an old temper, throwing herself headlong into unpredictable peril, and this time it was Bring the kids in too!He resolved not to inform her mother and Byron of this grave development--he was writing incessantly asking for information--until he had further information himself; and for this he decided that a trip to Geneva would be necessary.Major Jewish organizations, including the Zionist Organization, have Swiss offices there.The American Consulate has always dealt with them; it also has contacts with the Jewish underground.He may not know much about this escape.On the other hand, in Geneva, one can hear some startling news from the Jews, and such news is generally reliable.

Horrible tales of the extermination camps by the Germans trickled down through these points of contact.Sloter had already taken an indifferent attitude towards the news.Ever since his failed attempt to confirm the Wannsee Minutes, since Father Martin's sudden and inexplicable death, he has felt powerless, even dangerous.First of all, you should save yourself from going crazy.In the final analysis, who is he and how can he change history?The Alps were snowy and postcard beautiful, but there was not just a big war going on on the other side of the mountains, but—he was convinced—a secret massacre.Meanwhile, the sun rises every day, you eat and drink, and your desk is filled with work.Some are receptions and banquets in the diplomatic community.Wartime life in Bern was pretty good when you think about it; and the city itself is so tidy, quiet and charming!On the clock tower, the little funny figures jingled the time, the golden giant lifted the hammer to ring the big clock, and the puppets danced once.The tame bear in the pit staggers awkwardly into a waltz to eat some carrots.On a day when the warm wind blows away the clouds and mist on the Alps, the snow-covered Oberland Ridge leaps into view. The white snow, red rocks, and blue sky can almost climb up the stairs and reach the sky.Only one thing had anything to do with the horrible world outside the beautiful mountains, and that was the steady stream of refugees outside the gates of the American Legation, all with terrified eyes.

Slote boarded the train for Geneva, feeling melancholy.When he returned to Bern three days later, his office was already full of business documents.He and his secretary buried themselves in this mass of papers, grateful to be able to devote their minds to rational matters.At the end of the day, he declined an invitation to dinner with two other unmarried colleagues who were accompanied by French ballerinas who had come to perform.Back at the apartment, there was a call from a married Swiss woman with whom he occasionally slept secretly, which he also excused.After hearing such news in Geneva, mere sensual pleasures had become base and dirty in his mind.He ate some bread and cottage cheese, and took a bottle of whiskey and poured it into the armchair.

About Jastrow and Natalie, all he had heard was a third-hand rumor; nonetheless, he found it credible and welcome.Unfortunately, and against his will, he got a lot of information about the extermination of the Jews.The idea of ​​quitting his job and quitting the diplomatic service lingered in his mind, like an aphorism in a flashlight advertisement, recurring time and time again.Flashing immediately behind it was an epigram written in red ink: CONSCRIPTION IMMEDIATELY. Leslie.Sloter unconsciously fell into deep thought, recalling his aspirations, his life experience, his moral standards, and his hopes, and went through the pain of analyzing himself layer by layer, as if facing a major decision, he decided to try A new career for life, to decide to break up or marry a girl.He never cared about the Jews.He grew up in a suburban Connecticut town where it was not easy for Jews to buy a house and make a home.His father was a calm, philosophical Wall Street lawyer who had never made close friends with any Jewish people.At Yale University, Sloter always kept his Jewish classmates at arm's length, and even in his unknown social life, he never ran into a Jew.Natalie.Jastrow's Jewish identity, Sloter also felt for a while, was a pity, compared with a black man, there was a difference of fifty miles and a hundred miles.

He hasn't really changed.Whether now or in the past, he has always only cared about himself, but it happened that the document of the Wannsee meeting fell into his hands.He understood German history and culture, and he believed in some things that others would find absurd.He was already a suspect between the time after the Minsk papers and his uproar over the Wannsee minutes.If he now speaks out about this new evidence, he will forever be branded a "Jewish gang" in the State Department.So Slote slumped in the armchair, thinking, the whiskey in the bottle dwindling. Yet even the new evidence from Geneva - shocking as it is, repulsive as it is - is not incontrovertible.How can such a thing happen?Where are the dead Jews?You can't infallibly prove a murder without a single dead body -- and in this case there would have to be mountains of bones or the many mass graves where the bodies were buried.Who can get such evidence in their hands?Photography can be faked.Never expect irrefutable evidence until the war is over; and even then the Confederates must have won the battle.The evidence in Geneva, like the minutes of the Wannsee meeting, is nothing more than a theory: the oral statement, the written statement, and other statements mixed together, all are just hysterical nonsense, and there are others. Theories, such as stories about making soap out of dead men, are trite propaganda carried over from the last war to exaggerate the atrocities of war.

Such an inconceivable, appalling massacre was beyond belief, and Sloter could not blame them.The collective killing of Jews in the Tsarist era is an old story. After all, the number of dead people in such a collective killing is limited.The Nazis didn't bother to cover up their persecution and looting of the Jews; the stories of the secret killings of innocents, hundreds of thousands of millions, kept coming and growing, which the Nazis dismissed as either Allied propaganda or The Jewish dream eats.And yet the carnage continued, or at least Sloot believed so.The plans in the minutes of the Wannsee meeting were indeed being carried out, in a world of horrors of either killing or being killed, a world that, like the side of the moon facing away from the earth, could never know its truth.

Glass after glass of whiskey and soda was poured down his throat, leaving a hot aftertaste that comforted him and made him feel buoyant.He was almost like a disembodied soul, looking back at this scrawny, bespectacled version of himself, stretched out on the armchair and ottoman, and feeling sorry for the clever fellow, who might have Sacrifice his future for the bloody Jew.What can he do?He is a member of humanity, and sane.If a sane man knows such a heinous thing and doesn't fight it, how much hope is there in the future of mankind, isn't it?And who can say what is beyond the reach of one man, if he finds the right words to speak to the world, to proclaim to the world, to appeal to the world?Carl.How did Marx do it?How did Jesus Christ do it?

Sloter knew that enough was enough to drink away his sorrows alone to the point of thinking of Marx and Christ.It is also time to go to bed and rest.He went to bed too. The next morning he was rolling up his shirtsleeves and typing a letter to Byron on the typewriter.Henry, tell him what you can find out about Natalie.His secretary came in, a voluptuous blue-eyed blonde named Heidi.Heidi was flirtatious when she saw Slote, but to him she was like a piece of cream cake wrapped in a dress. "Wayne at the Geneva Consulate. Mr. Bill said you had an appointment with him." "Oh, yes. Ask him to come in." He locked the letter in a drawer and pulled on a coat hastily.Wayne.As soon as Bill came in, Heidi couldn't help sending glances to the handsome young American vice-consul.This man was short in stature, and his front hair was already bald a lot, but his waist was straight, his belly was flat, and his eyes were bright, so the baldness on his forehead was not worth minding.He had dropped out of West Point because of a heart murmur, and at thirty he still walked like a cadet and was trying to get back into the Army.Heidi walked out in a pretentious manner, and Bill watched her back, as if in a daze.

"You didn't bring the documents?" Sloter closed the door. "Damn it, no, my hair is standing on end for fear of losing something like that on a train. If the Minister is determined to do something, I'll send him everything I have." "I have an appointment with you to see him at ten o'clock." "Does he know it's for this?" "certainly." Bill was having a hard time, his brow was wrinkled. "I'm baffled by it, too. Rice, you're talking too, aren't you?" "No. People say I'm crazy about it."

"Damn it, Leslie, who said you're crazy? You've read the files. You know who gave it. Your talent is known. I'm far from it. Fuck it , come on, Les." Sloter felt helpless and had a premonition that something was wrong, and said, "But you have to speak alone." The envoy wore a cool summer suit and whitewashed leather shoes.He said he was going to a garden party, so the meeting had to be a good one.He sat down in the swivel chair and fixed his good eyes on the two people sitting side by side on the couch. "Mr. Minister, I thank you for taking this time out of your busy schedule," Bill began, with a tone and gesture that could not help but be a bit over the top. The envoy waved his hand, neither impatient nor appreciative. "What news do you have?" Wayne.Bill immediately started giving a verbal report.Two separate pieces of solid evidence of the Holocaust reached his office, both from above.He also obtained sworn witness statements from a third source attesting to the true nature of the mass killings.He went into great detail, and said a great deal about unprecedented catastrophe, American humanitarianism, and the wisdom of a minister. The envoy, leaning his face on one hand, looked like an impatient judge, and asked: "Who was it confirmed to you by someone at the top?" The vice-consul said that one was a well-known German industrialist, and the other was a Swiss official of the International Red Cross.If the Minister needed to know the names, he could seek the consent of the two gentlemen to reveal their real names. "Have you talked to them yourself?" "Oh, no, Minister! No one will confide in an American official unless they know him very well." "So how did you get their reports? How do you know they're true?" Bill, slightly embarrassed, said it was from Jewish sources: the World Jewish Congress and the Bureau for Jewish Affairs in Palestine.Sloter noticed that the envoy suddenly lost interest: the prosthetic eye wobbled, and the shoulders slumped. "Another report that flipped hands," Tuttle said. "Mr. Minister," Sloter couldn't help it, "what else could there be about a secret Hitler project?" He couldn't keep the anger out of his voice. "As for the German industrialist, I spoke to him myself in the WJC, and he put—" "What's up with WJC?" "The World Jewish Congress. He told me everything except the name of the man. I know who he was talking about. The man was a tycoon of German industry. I also saw the documents of the sworn testimony of the witnesses. It was all a devastating revelation in flesh and blood." "I'm not done with my report, Mr. Minister," Bill said. "Oh, what else?" The envoy picked up an ivory paper knife and slapped his hands. Bill talked about how both he and the British consul in Geneva sent identical coded telegrams back home about the new evidence for secret transfer to the Jewish leaders.The British Foreign Office immediately forwarded the telegram to specially designated British Jews, but the U.S. State Department seized it.Now the Jewish leaders in the United States and the United Kingdom are not only talking about the newly revealed situation, but also feel righteous indignation because this move of the State Department has been discovered. "I will inquire about that," said the Minister, throwing the paper-knife on the table. "I'll tell you later, Wayne, and now I have something to talk to Leslie." "Very well, Mr. Ambassador." "Meet me in my office, Wayne," Sloter said. Bill went out, closed the door behind him, and the envoy looked at his watch, rubbed his good eyes, and said to Sloter, "I've got to go. Listen, Les, I don't like this seizure of telegrams." The European Affairs Division really baffles me. It ignored my two letters, one about the visa regulations and the other about your photocopies." "Did you write for the photocopy?" Sloter asked hastily. "when?" "When the Polish government-in-exile released the material. It made me reconsider. How could they fake all this? Statistics, specific locations, carbon monoxide sealed vans, sudden raids on Jewish ghettos in the middle of the night? Searches of women's dead anuses and vulvas What is it for, looking for diamond jewels? Who can imagine such a thing out of thin air?" Sloter stared at the minister, and he was dumbfounded. "Even if we admit that the Poles are unreliable. Even if we also think that they are deliberately trying to smear the Germans to cover up their own goddamn things, what happened in Paris? The Vichy police put thousands of Tens of thousands of immigrant Jews were separated from their young children, and the parents were shipped away, God knows where! This happened in front of the camera lenses of reporters. There is no secret. I Received a detailed report from the YMCA. It was very distressing. At that time I wrote to the State Department for your photocopy, but it was just like throwing a stone in a deep well. Still Something about that visa, Rice, is just too much." "My God, I suppose you mean proof of character!" exclaimed Slote. "I've been fighting that bastard thing for months." "Exactly. I can hardly look the Swiss officials in the eye, Leslie. We're not making fun of them, we're just embarrassing our own country. How can a Jew get a share of his money?" What about the good character certificate issued by the police station in Germany? This is clearly a deliberate nail to keep more and more Jews stuck here. We must abolish it." Sloter was pale, watching Tuttle clear his throat. "You make me feel the warmth of the world again, sir." The Minister stood up, combed his hair in front of the mirror in the closet, and put the wide-brimmed straw hat on his head. "Besides, the intelligence on the railway is also strange. Those super-long trains that were full were indeed carrying civilians from all over Europe to Poland, and then turned around, and all the trains that came back were empty. Here Meanwhile, the German army is anxious about not getting the carriages and the locomotive. I know it's true. There must be something weird going on, Leslie. I'll tell you something, Only you and I know that. I wrote a letter to the President on the matter, but I tore it up. We're losing the battle, and there's nothing else to burden him with. Yes. If the Germans win, the whole world is going to be a massacre, and not only the Jews will be executed." "I believe so, sir, but—" "Okay, you go tell Wayne. Bill puts all his stuff together. Go up to Geneva and do him a favor. If you can, try to get that big Red Cross guy what he knows. write down." "I could try, sir, but these people are terrified of the Germans." "Okay, just do your best. This time I'm going to send the materials directly to Sumner Wells. Actually, you can be the courier." He looked at Slote with admiration. . "You? What do you think of the idea? A nice short vacation back home?" Slote realized at once that such a mission would ruin his career in diplomacy forever. "Isn't Wes Bill just a ready-made messenger, sir? He collected all the materials." "The focus is not on the material. He's not as familiar with the subject as you are." "Mr. Tuttle, the car is waiting," rattled the desk loudspeaker. Tuttle was out.Sloter walked back to the office, and when he opened the door, he heard laughter inside.Wayne.Bill and Heidi stood inside, looking embarrassed, and Heidi hurried out the door.Slote relayed the envoy's instructions to Bill. "The sooner we start the better, Wayne. The Minister is finally getting enthusiastic about the matter, so we'll have to strike while the iron is hot. Shall we take the two o'clock train to Geneva?" "I just made an appointment with your secretary to go out to lunch." "Oh I see." "Yeah, Les, I'm going to spend the night here, but—" He gave Sloter a knowing man-to-man smile. "You do not mind right?" "Oh, just stay with me. We'll go tomorrow." Slote immediately heard another burst of laughter from the next room.After all, a beautiful girl who gets his hands is more important than millions of people suffering in the distance; it is nature, and it can never be changed. In the morning mail on the desk was a formal report from Dr. Hussey outlining the Henry Jastrow case.Sloter filed it into a folder labeled "Natalie," and tore up the unfinished letter to Byron.There might soon be good news from some consulate on the Mediterranean coast, perhaps even from Lisbon.Bad news can come anytime.