Chapter 69 Chapter 68

In a wild valley in the high Carpathian mountains.A narrow path was lit by pale sunlight filtering through the yellowing leaves.This forest path may be a hunter's wild path, or it may be the track left by a wild animal, or it may not be a path at all but an illusion created by the sun falling between the trees.As the sun set and the clouds turned red, a bulky figure strode down the path, with a rifle slung over his back and a heavy package in his hand.This was a thin woman, her face was tightly wrapped in a thick gray scarf, and her breath immediately turned into steam.Passing the stump of a lightning-struck oak she vanished like a forest ghost.

She is not a ghost in the forest, but a so-called Mrs. Yazhai in the forest, that is, the woman of a guerrilla commander.She had jumped through a hole into the bunker.The entrance of the cave was covered with dwarf trees, and if it hadn't been for the oak tree that was struck to death by lightning, she might not have been able to find the entrance in the hazy night.Partisan discipline forbids such carnal pleasures for the average man, but a woman who sleeps with a leader is as much a symbol of his prestige as a brand-new Nagant, a private bunker or a Like a leather jacket.Siddall.Major Nikonov liked the Bronka more and more.Kingsberg.He possesses her more or less violently at first; besides using her body, he talks to her frequently and takes her advice.In fact, he was now waiting for her to help him decide whether to shoot the suspected infiltrator.The fellow was tied up and was lying in the cooking bunker.

The guy swore that he was not an infiltrator, but a Red Army soldier.He had escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp outside Ternopil to join a partisan unit that was wiped out by the Germans.He survived, he said, and has since wandered westward among the mountains, living on roots, berries, or handouts from farmers.His words were believable, and indeed he was dressed in rags and looked haggard.But his Russian accent is a bit weird, he seems to be over sixty years old, and he doesn't have any documents. Bronca.Ginsberg went over to look the man over.In the corner of the cooking bunker, Ben Riel.Jastrow was hunched over the dirt, the smell of food hurting him more than the ropes that tightened around his ankles and wrists.He took one look in her face and decided to take a chance.

"You're a Jewish girl, aren't you?" he asked her in Yiddish. "Yes. Who are you?" she replied, also in Yiddish. This southern Polish Yiddish was sonorous and sonorous, it sounded like music to him.He answered Blonka's questions truthfully. The two bearded cooks who were stirring the soup winked at each other at the Yiddish chatter.Bronca.They knew all about Kingsberg.Long ago the Major dragged this thin-lipped, unattractive girl out of a camp deep in the mountains where Jewish families were sheltering, to nurse soldiers wounded in an attack, and now this damned Jewish bitch Take care of it.But she is a skilled nurse and no one dares to mess with her.At least, whoever dares to look greedily at this woman will eat Siddor.Nikonov's bullets.

As she and the infiltrator babbled on in Yiddish, the two cooks were no longer interested.Since the guy was Jewish, he couldn't have been an infiltrator.There was no need for them to drag him into the woods to be executed.She will try to exonerate him.You can borrow it!How amusing it must be to watch these fellows beg for life!The cooks were Ukrainian peasants conscripted into the guerrillas, working in cooking bunkers where they were not afraid of the cold and fed their stomachs without having to take part in raids to loot food or explode railways.They loathe Bronca.Kingsberg, but didn't want to fight her.

Why, she asked Jastrow, did he not tell the truth to his captors?The guerrillas knew about the mass graves, so why did he invent a set of lies about Ternopil?He glanced at the two windows and said she should know how dangerous those backwoods Ukrainian forests were, even more dangerous than Lithuania.If Bingerovich's gang came across a Jew, they might give him something to eat or let him go on, but they might just as well kill him.Some of the worst guards at Auschwitz were Ukrainians, so he made up that story.The other guerrillas believed him and gave him food.Why do people here tie him up like a dog.

Bronca.Ginsberg said that a week earlier the Germans had infiltrated the ravine with a group of defected Russian soldiers in an attempt to wipe out Nikonov's partisans.There was one man who treated the Germans well and told the partisans about the situation.They had ambushed the group, wiped out most of them, and had been looking for anyone who slipped through. Jastrow was lucky, she said, not to be shot on the spot. Ben Real was untied and given some food.Later, in the cellar that served as a command post, he repeated the story in Russian to Major Nikonov and Comrade Polchenko, a political officer.Polchenko was a man with blackened teeth and a haggard face.Bronca.While Kingsberg sat mending, the two officers ordered Ben Real to cut out the aluminum tube sewn into the lining of the suit that contained the film.While they were carefully examining the aluminum tubes under the oil lamp, the broadcast of the Moscow Central Partisan Staff Headquarters began that night.They put the film aside and listened to the radio.From a square wooden box came a burst of chirping and screaming, followed by the grunt of the announcer, who read out urgent orders in plain language to the various code-named guerrilla detachments, it was later reported Victory west of conquered Kharkov, massive air raids on Germany, and the surrender of Italy were announced.

They revisited the question of Ben Riel.Political officials argued for the film to be handed over to the next arms flight to Moscow and the Jew released.Nikonov objected to this; the film might get lost, and if it did, no one would understand it.If the film had to be sent to Moscow, the Jew should go with it. The major was not very polite to Polchenko.Political instructors in partisan detachments are always unpleasant.Most of these guerrillas consisted of Red Army fighters who had fallen behind the German lines.They fled into the jungle to save their lives.They attacked enemy troops or local gendarmerie, sometimes to seize food, arms, and ammunition, and sometimes to avenge peasants who had been punished by the enemy for helping them.Still, stories of heroic guerrilla struggles are mostly played up for propaganda purposes.Most of these people have become beasts of the woods, and their first thought is their own safety.This situation naturally did not satisfy Moscow.So people like Polchenko were parachuted into guerrilla-infested forests to intensify guerrilla activity and ensure that orders from the Central Staff were carried out.

Nikonov's guerrilla group happened to be a rushing force, with an excellent record of disrupting German traffic.Nikonov himself is a regular Red Army officer, and he has to consider his own future once the war situation improves.But the Carpathians are, after all, beyond the reach of Moscow, and the Red Army is far away from the Carpathians.The Soviet bureaucracy represented by this black-toothed man does not play much of a role here; Nikonov is the boss here.That was the impression Baen Riel got as he listened worriedly to their conversation.Polchenko was also polite and even flattering when he debated with the boss.

Blonka being mended.Kingsberg looked up. "You're both talking nonsense. What's the trouble with this man? What use is he to us? Does Moscow want this man or his film? Send him to Levin's camp. They'll give He eats, and then he can go to Prague, or something. If his connections in Prague really do end up with the Americans, the New York Times might run an article about Sidor. Nikonov A story of guerrilla heroism. Is it?" She turned to Ben Real. "Will you praise Major Nikonov? And his partisans who blew up German trains and bridges all over Western Ukraine?"

"I'm going to Prague," said Banrell, "and the Americans will hear about the Nikonov Partisan Brigade." Major Nikonov's partisan force was nowhere near a brigade—only four hundred men, a loose four hundred that Nikonov had put together.The word "journey" made him happy. "Well, take him to Levine tomorrow," he said to Bronca. "You can go on mules. The guy is half dead." "Oh, he can drag his old bones uphill, don't worry." The political instructor grimaced in disgust, shook his head, and then spat on the ground. Dr. Levin's Jews were refugees who narrowly escaped the last massacre in Zhitomyr.They lived in an abandoned hunter's camp by a small lake not far from the Slovakian border.The carpenters had already repaired these unowned huts and sheds, the roof was no longer leaking, the gaps in the walls were plastered, shutters were installed, and some simple furniture was made, turning the place into a place for about eighty people. A temporary shelter for the survivors of the family.These Jews came from the East, and suffered from severe cold, hunger and disease during the long journey, and the number has been greatly reduced.Siddor when they first got here.Nikonov attacked them, taking most of their food and weapons, and Bronka.Bronka told him after being raped that Levin's men were Germans in Zhytomyr who did not harm artisans, electricians, carpenters, blacksmiths, mechanics, a gunsmith, a baker, A watchmaker and so on.Since then, the guerrillas have provided the Jews with food, bullets, clothing and weapons — small amounts, but enough to sustain them and enable them to repel the invaders — in exchange for repairing their machinery , create several new weapons, soil bombs and repair generators and communications equipment.They are like a maintenance battalion, very useful. This partnership is beneficial to both parties.On one occasion, an SS patrol was informed by an anti-Semite living in a low-lying swamp and climbed the mountain to prepare to wipe out these Jews.Nikonov warned them in advance, and they fled into the dense forest with the old, the weak, the sick, and the children.The Germans rushed to nothing.While the Germans were busy stealing everything that could be moved, Nikonov's partisans showed up and slaughtered them all.After that, the Germans never came to the Jews again.On the other hand, when Nikonov left the base to attack a troop train, a group of Ukrainian traitors happened to discover their underground shelter.After a brief but violent firefight with guards, they set fire to the weapons cellar.It burned for hours, leaving a disfigured, red-hot barrel billowing with smoke.The Jews straightened the barrel, repaired the launcher, fitted a new stock, and added the restored weapons to Nikonov's arsenal.Until Nikonov can seize more guns, the guns will still be usable. The two of them climbed up the mountain road, Blonka.Kingsberg told Jastrow the story above. "Sidor Nikonov, being a pagan, is not really a villain," she concluded with a sigh. "Not a brute like some. But my grandfather was a rabbi in Bryansk, and my father was the chairman of the Zhitomyr Zionist Association. And I, look! A forest Mrs. Yazhai. Ivan. Ivanovitch's concubine." Jastrow said: "You're an aishess khayil." On the mountain road, Blonka was walking ahead of him at this time, and she turned to look at him, a flush rose on her weather-beaten face, and her eyes blurred. Aishess khayil refers to a "heroic and fearless woman" in the Jewish scriptures, the highest religious honor a Jewish woman can receive. Late that night, Bronka was the only woman among those who were conferring in the shed.Except for the doctor's clean-shaven face, the other faces flushed by the fire were all rough and unkempt, with serious expressions. "Tell them about the chain," she said.Her face was as stern as that of any man present. "And about the dog. Give them that picture." Jastrow was reporting to the guerrilla executive committee headed by Dr. Levine.They sat around a huge fireplace in which huge logs were burning.Such a reminder was good for Jastrow.Especially since he had climbed a long mountain road and his stomach was full of bread and soup, he was so tired that he was drowsy. He said Blobel's gang of Jews had to work in chains since his friend fled the ranks, snatched a gun and killed several SS guards.One out of every four people was randomly drawn to be hanged by the people who were targeted.The rest of the group were chained around the neck, and each was shackled around the ankles.The number of police dogs watching over them has also doubled. Even so, the group had been plotting the escape for months.They waited for the two minimum conditions to occur at the same time: a river nearby and a strong wind and rain.During those months, they worked with chains and hid tools such as drivers, keys, and pickaxes they found among the dead.Sick, exhausted, and terrified, these men knew they should have been shot and cremated long ago.Therefore, even the weakest of them are willing to risk flight. One day they were working on a cliff near the Seret River in the forest outside Ternopil.When the sun was about to sink, a thunderstorm suddenly fell.The time they had been waiting for had finally come.There were a thousand corpses stacked on two steel frames, and they had just used torches to ignite the wood and waste oil under the corpses.A heavy rainstorm pressed the foul-smelling smoke on the SS men, forcing them to retreat with their dogs.Under the cover of thick smoke and heavy rain, Jastrow's gang quickly untied the chain, scattered into the forest, and rushed towards the river.As Jastrow sprinted and slid down the cliff, he heard dogs barking, yelling, gunshots, and screaming until he finally escaped to the river and jumped into the water.He let the current carry him far downstream, and climbed up to the opposite bank in the dark.The next morning, as he groped his way through the wet woods, he came upon two other fugitives, two Polish Jews heading towards their homeland, where they hoped to find food and hide.As for the others, he thought maybe half had escaped, but he never saw them. "You still have those films?" Dr. Levine asked.He was a round-faced, dark-haired man in his thirties, wearing a set of patched German military eyeglasses.His rimless glasses and genial smile made him look more like an urban intellectual than some of the gruff chiefs around the fire.Ronka had told him that Levine was a gynecologist as well as a dentist.Whether in villages on the hills or in the low-lying swamps, the locals love Levin.He always traveled long distances to treat the sick among them. "Yes, here I am." "Give it to Everim to rinse it out, okay?" Levin pointed his thumb at a man with a long nose and a red beard. "Efraim is our photography expert. Also a professor of physics. Then we can look at the film." "OK." "That's good. When you're better, we'll send you to people who can help you across the border." The red-bearded man said, "Is there a cremator in the photo?" "I have no idea." "Who took it? What did you use to take it?" "There are thousands of cameras in Auschwitz. There's a mountain of film." Ben Riel replied in a weak and impatient tone. "Auschwitz is the greatest treasury in the world. It's all looted goods from the dead. Jewish girls sit in thirty large warehouses sorting these stolen goods. All these things are supposed to be sent back to Germany, but the SS Fished a batch out of it. We stole too. There was a good Czech underground. They were amazing Jews, those Czechs. They were strong and united. They stole some camera film. They took These pictures." Ben Riel.Jastrow was extremely tired, and although he was still talking, he couldn't keep his eyelids open.He seemed to be dreaming of the long rows of stables at Auschwitz on the floodlit snow, with hunched Jews trudging along in their national coats, and those huge "Canadian" warehouses with waterproof walls Canvas-covered piles of booty were covered with snow; a little further off, black chimneys belched flames and black smoke. "Let him rest!" he heard Dr. Levine say. "Put him in Everym." Ben Real hadn't slept in bed for weeks.The straw mattress and torn blanket on the rough triple bed were a godsend of luxury.He didn't know how long he slept.When he woke up, an old woman brought him hot soup and bread.He fell back to sleep after eating, and it went on like this for two days.Now he is up and moving.When the midday sun warmed the icy lake, he jumped into the water to take a bath, then wandered around the camp, wearing the German winter uniform that Efraim had given him.The scenery in this area is unbelievably quiet. These mountain huts gathered by the lake are surrounded by peaks that have been dyed yellow by autumn colors. The worn clothes are drying in the sun. Women are washing clothes, sewing, cooking or Chattering; men sawing, hammering or hammering in the squat workshop.A blacksmith was burning a forge with long flames, while some children watched.Older children are taught in open-air classrooms.They made a monotonous and dull reading sound.They study the Talmud, mathematics, the history of Zionism, and even the Talmud.There are few books, no pencils and no paper.During class, students are required to recite the text repeatedly in Yiddish.The emaciated, ragged schoolchildren here look as bored and distressed as children in any classroom elsewhere.Some of the students were surreptitiously doing petty tricks, and that was the same as everywhere else.Boys studying the Talmud sit in a circle around a large book, and a few read from the text upside down. Young men and women armed with rifles patrolled the camp.Ephraim told Baen-Reel that sentries with radios were stationed far below along the roads and passes.This camp must not be attacked by surprise.Armed guards could deal with infiltrators or small groups of enemies, but in case of serious hostilities they had to signal Nikonov to provide protection.The best young men are gone to pay blood for the massacre in Zhytomyr; some have joined the famous Kovpak partisan group, others have joined the bandit led by the legendary Jew Uncle Moisha. guerrillas.Dr. Levine gave them permission to go. During the week that Ben Riel stayed here, he heard a great deal of the stories that circulated in this Jewish forest.Most of them are gruesome, some are heroic, some are comical.He also told about his adventures.One evening, at dinner, he was reminiscing again, recounting his days with the early Jewish partisans outside Minsk.Then he suddenly heard the news that his own son was still alive!You can't go wrong.A scrawny young man with a pus-filled face wearing an eyepatch had been with Cove Park's partisan regiment until a German grenade blew him out in one eye.He had been with a man named Mendel.Jastrow's men marched through Ukraine together for several months.He thus learns that Mendel is alive and a guerrilla fighter—the taciturn Mendel, a student of the unusually religious Talmud school.According to the last information the young man heard, Ban Riel also learned that his daughter-in-law and her children were currently hiding on a farmer's farm outside Volozin. This is the first time Ban Riel has heard from his family during his two years of wandering and being imprisoned.Despite all the insults, pains, and hunger he endured that nearly killed him, he never completely lost hope.He firmly believes that one day all hardships will come to an end.The news did not excite him too much, but it seemed to him that the darkest part of the night was beginning to pass away.He felt refreshed and ready to start his journey to Prague any moment. On the eve of his departure, in the Great Room of the Shed, Ephraim showed a selected group of adults a slide show: it was a developed and enlarged slide of Ben Riel's film, and the screen was a Sheets that have been used for a long time and have been washed many times have turned gray.That crude slide projector used an arc lamp consisting of two battery carbon rods.The improvised light source was constantly popping, flickering, and flickering, adding a creepy effect to the slideshow.Naked women who looked as if they were trembling walked into the gas chambers with their children.Some prisoners looked breathless and exhausted as they used pliers to pull gold from the teeth of the dead under the watchful eye of the SS; Special Squad personnel with meat hooks were dragging more bodies into the pit, which billowed with smoke.Some of the slides were too blurry to make out what it was, but the rest were enough to reveal what was going on in Auschwitz beyond doubt. The light is too weak, and the document is not easy to read.A long ledger page stated that several hundred people died of "heart failure" on the same day; Itemized and priced in neat German.A six-page medical test report shows that 20 pairs of identical twin brothers or sisters have been subjected to various experiments. The data include the response to ultra-high temperature and ultra-low temperature, the response to electric shock, how long it takes to stop breathing after injecting phenol, and Detailed anatomical statistical comparison data after autopsy.Ben Real had never seen the documents, nor witnessed what appeared on the slides.He was shocked and saddened, but also relieved to know that the incriminating material was so solid that no sophistry could overturn it. The people who had seen the slides left the shed in silence, leaving only the members of the committee behind.Dr. Levine stared at the fire for a long time. "Ben Riel, everyone in the village knows me. I escorted you across the border myself. The Jewish partisans in Slovakia are well organized. They will send you to Prague." The train from Pardubice to Prague was so crowded that the aisles of the second-class cars were full of people.Some Czech police officers checking papers patiently squeezed from compartment to compartment.The tame protectorate, betrayed by the Munich Agreement, had been annexed by Germany before the war and mortally wounded by reprisals for the assassination of Heydrich.Here, routine inspections on trains never happened.However, the German secret police headquarters in Prague requested that the checks continue. An old man who was reading a German newspaper was nudged lightly by the policeman who entered the compartment before he realized that he needed to check his papers.He absently pulled out an old wallet that contained his ID card and permit, and handed it to the policeman as he continued to read the newspaper.Reinhold.Hengel, a German construction worker born in Pardubice, whose mother's maiden name was Hungarian, explained his broad, clean-shaven Slavic face; With both hands of the first generation, he returned the certificate to him, and took over the certificate of the second person.That's it, Barrell.Jastrow showed up. The train races along the glistening river in the Elbe Valley, passing fruit-laden vineyards and orchards full of pickers and stubble-streaked fields.The other passengers in the car included a fat old woman with a sullen face, three smirking young women, and a young man in military uniform with a T-shaped cane.In order to deal with this interrogation by the police, Ben Real rehearsed for a week in advance, and now that he passed it smoothly, it seems that he made a short, meaningless joke in retrospect.He's had many indescribable moments, but this one transitions from the rampant world of mass graves and mountain guerrillas to what he once thought was everyday reality—a seat on a moving train, a well-dressed girl The laughter, the smell of cheap perfume on them, his own tie, his crumpled hat, and the collar of his white shirt that was tightly gathered—it really shocked him.Dead and resurrected feels like that at best.Normal life seemed to be a merciless mockery of reality, a hasty little game of deception that kept out the appalling realities that took place in the distance. Prague surprised him.He has been here many times before for business transactions, so he is more familiar with the situation here.From the perspective of this old, lovely city, it seemed as if the Great War had never happened, and the past four years which had stamped his soul seemed to be a long-drawn-out nightmare.Even in the days of peace, some swastika flags fluttering in the wind were everywhere in the streets of Prague, when the Nazis were agitating for the reclaim of the Sudetenland.As usual, in the afternoon sun, the streets were bustling with people, because it was time to get off work.Well-dressed people, seemingly content with reality, fill the sidewalk cafés.If anything, Prague today is more peaceful than it was in those turbulent days when Hitler was still viciously attacking Benes.In the crowd on the sidewalk, Ben Real couldn't see a single Jewish face.This is unprecedented.It was a clear sign in Prague that the war was anything but a dream. According to the instructions he kept in mind, if the bookstore was no longer there, he could find another address.But the bookstore is still open.It is located in a winding alley in the so-called "small town" area. N. Mastney's Bookstore - New and used books on sale A bell rings as the door opens.There are old books everywhere, the bookshelves are full, and there are piles on the floor, and the musty smell is very strong.An elderly white-haired woman in a gray smock sits at a table piled high with books, marking prices on bibliographic cards.She raised her head kindly, and the muscles on her face seemed to twitch when she smiled.She said something in Czech. "Do you speak German?" he asked in German. "Yes." She replied in German. 1. Are there any books on philosophy in your used books department? " "Yes, quite a few." "Any Emmanuel Kant's?" "I'm not sure." She looked at him in astonishment. "Excuse me, but you don't seem like a person who would be interested in a book like this." "I bought it for my son Eric. He's writing his doctoral thesis." She looked at him for a long time, then stood up. "Let me ask my husband." She walked out through the curtain at the back.A short while later, a short, stooped, bald man stepped out.He was sipping something from a glass.He was wearing a sweater with holes in it and a green eye patch on his head. "Sorry, I just made tea and it's still hot." Unlike other conversations, this is not a code word.Barrel didn't answer.The man walked to and fro in front of the bookshelves, sipping his tea loudly.He took the tattered volume from the shelf, blew off the dust, and handed it to Baen-Reel, the book's lining spread open, with a name and address written in ink. "A reader should never write on a book." This is a book describing a journey in Persia, and the author is irrelevant. "What a sin." "Thank you. But this is not what I want." The man shrugged, apologized in a low, expressionless voice, and disappeared behind the curtain with the book in his hand. This address is on the other side of the city.Ban Real took the trolley bus there, got off and walked a few blocks through a dilapidated area full of four-story buildings.There was a dentist's sign on the ground floor entrance of the house he was looking for.A buzzer sounded, and the door opened to let him in.On a bench in the foyer sat two poor old men waiting for a doctor.A housewife-looking woman in dirty overalls came out of the dentist's office, and there was the sound of drills and moans. "I'm sorry, the doctor can't see any more patients today." "This is an emergency, ma'am, a serious abscess." "Then, you have to wait until your turn." He waited for almost an hour.When he entered the examination room, the dentist, with blood splattered on his white smock, was washing his hands at the sink. "Sit down, I'll be fine soon." He turned around and said. "I was called by the owner of Mastney Bookstore." The doctor straightened up and turned around: thick sandy hair, broad square face, strong jaw.He squinted his eyes and looked up and down at Ban Ruier, and then said something in Czech.Ban Ruier connected with the password he remembered. "Who are you?" asked the dentist. "I'm from Auschwitz." "Auschwitz? Bring film?" "yes." "My God! We thought you were all dead." The doctor was very excited.He laughed.He grabbed Baen Riel by both shoulders. "We are waiting for you two." "The other one is dead. This is the film." Ben Real handed the tubes to the dentist with seriousness and excitement. That night, in the kitchen on the second floor of the house, he had dinner with the dentist and his wife.Boiled potatoes, preserved prunes, bread and tea are on the table.His voice was a little hoarse, for he talked too much as he recounted his long journey and his thrilling experiences along the way.He was now talking about a week at Camp Levine and the memorable moment when he learned his son was alive. The doctor's wife brought glasses and a bottle of plum brandy and said to her husband, "That's a strange name to say. Didn't someone mention that they had another name in Theresienstadt at the last committee meeting?" Someone named Jastrow? A well-known person?" "That's an American." The dentist gestured disapprovingly. "A rich Jewish writer, he got caught in France, the fool," he said to Ben Riel. "Which way did you take when you crossed the border? Was it by way of Turka?" Barrel was silent. The two men looked at each other. "What's wrong?" asked the dentist. "Ellen Jastrow? In Theresienstadt?" "I think his name is Ellen," said the dentist. "why?"