Von Strassen and his men pulled onto the town’s main street and drove immediately to the local police station, where the SS officer was directing all of the activities and tracking the progress of the air and ground units as well as those forces patrolling the Soła River and its banks. Von Strassen was given a briefing on what had happened thus far while his deputy reinterrogated the father and son who had reported seeing the fugitives several hours before.
“Your men are moving house to house, barn to barn, store to store, searching every possible hiding place?” Von Strassen pressed.
The SS officer assured him that every step was being taken and that his men were well-trained and well-briefed on what a high-priority operation this was.
“All nonessential vehicles are off the roads?” Von Strassen asked.
“They are now, Colonel. That took a while. But the roads are now clear.”
“Very well. Any leads?”
“We’ve gotten a flood of calls from citizens who think they’ve seen something. Most of it is, as you might expect, not helpful. But we are treating every call with great seriousness, and we are continuing to put out radio bulletins every fifteen minutes asking for more citizen help, as you requested.”
“Show me the grids of the areas you have completed searching so far,” Von Strassen demanded.
“Absolutely, Colonel,” the SS officer said. “We have the maps in the next room.”
– – –
“What town is this?” Jacob asked as he and Jedrick moved out to get Luc.
“It’s actually not a town at all,” Jedrick explained. “It’s too small to be a town.”
“Well, what’s the nearest town?” Jacob asked.
“Well, you’ve got Żywiec to the north; that’s about twenty kilometers away. Between here and there is the town of Cisiec. To the south is Milówka and then Rajcza, then Ujsoły and Glinka, and then you’re at the frontier with Slovakia.”
There was a pause, and then the man said, “I assume that’s where you’re headed.”
Jacob said nothing, but he figured his silence was confirmation. “Your wife said they’ve imposed a curfew,” he said instead. “They’re looking for the two of us?”
“They are,” Jedrick said. “They’ve even given out detailed descriptions of what you look like, and they mentioned that you have numbers tattooed on your arms, which I see you do.”
“Every prisoner at the Auschwitz camp is given one,” Jacob explained as they kept moving up the hill toward Luc.
Jedrick nodded but quickly backed away from the subject.
Jacob used the moment. “May I ask you a question, sir?”
“Of course.”
“Aren’t you worried about taking us in?”
“Well, sure, a little.”
“Why are you doing it?”
“Because the Bible teaches us to love the Jews,” Jedrick said without hesitation. “God told Abraham that he would bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him. When we stand before our Savior, we want to be found faithful, plain and simple. That, and the fact that the Nazis killed both of our boys right after the war started. It’s the least we can do to help you two survive this hell we’re all in.”
Jacob didn’t know what to say, so he just said, “Thank you.”
Together, Jacob and Jedrick walked over to Luc, who was still lying under the trees. Luc wasn’t moving. He didn’t even look like he was breathing.
Panicked, Jacob checked for Luc’s pulse, but he could not find one. He began shaking Luc, willing him to wake up, but his friend didn’t respond.
How was this possible—and now, when they finally had found people who could help them, who could feed them and keep them safe?
Jacob’s eyes welled up with tears, and he had to fight to maintain his control. He couldn’t lose it. Not now. Not out in the open. The longer they were out here, the more he was putting this man’s life, his wife’s life, his own life, and his entire mission in grave danger. And yet how could he not mourn? His friend was gone, and he hadn’t even had the chance to say good-bye.
“Get down!” Jedrick shouted all of a sudden.
He pushed Jacob to the ground under the grove of trees and flattened himself to the ground as well just as a pair of Luftwaffe planes came roaring overhead. This time Jacob had no doubt they were looking for him.
“Do you think they saw us?” he asked when the planes had passed out of view.
“I don’t know,” Jedrick said. “Probably not. But we’d better get moving. I will help you bring your friend. For now we can hide his body, and then as soon as we can, I will help you give him a proper burial.”
The two men struggled to carry Luc’s body down to the house. For almost the entire way down the hill, they were out in the open, utterly exposed if the search planes made another pass. But finally, soaked with sweat in the rapidly rising morning temperatures, they made it to the back porch of the house.
“Did you find your friend? Is he okay?” Brygita asked as she came to the screen door.
“He’s dead,” Jacob said numbly.
The woman put her hand over her mouth.
“Where can we put him?” Jacob asked. “There’s no time to bury him now.”
“No, there surely isn’t,” she said. “The radio says the Gestapo and the army are going door to door to search everyone’s house. The last report said they were just finishing Cisiec now. That means they should be here any minute.”
Jedrick thought for a moment. “I was going to say the barn, up in the loft, but with the storms over and the sun out, it’s going to be an inferno in there by lunchtime. The body will start to smell as it decomposes.”
“Do you have a basement?” Jacob asked.
“We do,” Jedrick replied.
“Is it cool?”
“Certainly cooler than the barn.”
“What’s down there?”
“It’s where we stack all our firewood to keep it dry. I have my workshop down there and my gun cabinet.”
“Is there a place to hide a body?” Jacob pressed.
“Yes,” he said. “Actually there is, and a place to hide you, too.”
“Then we’d better move fast.”
They quickly carried Luc’s body up the porch steps and into the kitchen while Brygita carried the shotgun and Jacob’s backpack. But no sooner had they set him on the floor for a moment to catch their breath than someone began pounding on the front door.
Brygita gasped. “It’s them,” she whispered with terror in her eyes. “It’s the Gestapo.”
But Jedrick didn’t flinch. “I’ll answer the door, keep them occupied,” he said. “Son, you take your friend downstairs. My wife will show you where to put him and where to hide yourself. Then, Brygita, you scramble right back up here and bring out cookies and milk or something, real hospitable. Got it?”
They both nodded even as the pounding grew louder.
Jacob lifted Luc into a fireman’s carry and hustled down the basement steps. Brygita was right behind him. When he reached the bottom, he saw a massive woodpile lining the far wall. Taking Jacob around the side, Brygita showed him a crawl space behind it that looked just wide enough for him to squeeze into.
“I’ve got to get upstairs. Hide here and keep quiet. And know this: we’re praying for you. God bless you.”
Then she handed him his backpack, raced up the stairs, turned out the lights, and closed the door.
Jacob was speechless.
And now he was alone in the dark with Luc’s body and no way to defend himself when the Nazis came down those steps.
97
Jedrick walked slowly, acting like a much older man, fumbling with his keys.
“Open this door!” someone shouted from outside.
Through the window Jedrick counted three heavily armed Nazis on his front porch and glimpsed at least three others bearing submachine guns fanning out over his property.
“Yes, yes, I’m coming; just a moment,??
? he said, moving as if he were in his eighties or nineties rather than his sixties.
When he finally opened the door, he said, “What can I do for you, gentlemen?”
“Are you the only one in the county who doesn’t know?” the lead soldier asked.
“I’m sorry,” Jedrick said. “Know what?”
“Don’t you listen to the radio?”
“Sometimes, but not today, I’m afraid. Why?”
“We are conducting a hunt for two dangerous fugitives.”
“Fugitives? That does sound dangerous. What kind of fugitives?”
“Murderers. Two of them.”
“Here, in the middle of nowhere?”
“We have reason to believe they may have come your way.”
“Well, I haven’t seen anybody out of the ordinary—except for you, of course.”
“Of course.”
“But if I do, should I call the constable?”
“Yes,” the soldier said. “But first we will make a thorough search of your house, barn, and property.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Jedrick said. “We will call if we see anything strange.”
“Ah, but we insist.” The soldier poked the muzzle of his submachine gun into Jedrick’s chest and backed him away from the door. “These men are psychopaths. We wouldn’t want you to be in any danger. Is the Frau of the house here too?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then all the more reason to be careful.”
Two soldiers stepped into the house as Brygita came in with a tray of cookies, a small pitcher of cold milk, and several glasses.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” she said, setting the tray on the coffee table in the living room. “What an honor to have you in our home. Can you stay for a while and tell us more about what is happening?”
“That won’t be possible. We are here not on a social call but in the interest of public safety.”
One of the soldiers headed upstairs, while another brushed past them and made for the kitchen. A third man stood calmly on the porch, neither entering nor leaving his post. He wore a long black leather coat and shiny black boots and displayed a classic officer’s uniform and bearing. Jedrick assumed he must be SS.
“Sit here,” the lead soldier said, gripping the submachine gun at his side. “You may not leave or move until I give you the all-clear signal. Have I made myself clear?”
The couple nodded and sat down on the couch, their hearts racing and mouths dry. Yet they dared not have a drink of milk. At this point, they dared not move at all.
98
Jacob heard the jackboots walking across the kitchen floor.
Then he heard the basement door handle turn, and someone flipped on the lights. Then, step by step, someone—a soldier, he had to presume—began moving down the stairs.
Jacob was not in the crawl space behind the woodpile, though his backpack was, along with the strongbox containing all the documents they had smuggled out of Auschwitz.
He had decided he would never be safe in a house crawling with Nazi soldiers, especially trapped in an enclosed space. A manhunt was under way. They were looking for him and Luc. A plane had just overflown them. How could he be sure they hadn’t been seen? How could he be certain they wouldn’t tear this house apart to find them? This was no time to hide. It was time to fight.
In a split second, Jacob had decided that his only hope was to turn the tables and go on offense. He had no idea if it would work, but he had made his choice, and now he would live or die by it.
So Jacob stood inside a storage closet with the door partially ajar. Now that the lights were on, his position gave him a rather commanding view of the main section of the basement. He watched the Nazi come down the last few steps and observed the soldier as he saw Luc’s body lying facedown on the floor.
The soldier raised his weapon and demanded that the man stand up. When Luc didn’t reply, the soldier kicked him, but again, of course, there was no movement. Now the soldier was poking and prodding him. When he was convinced the man was not a threat, he bent down to check his pulse.
That’s when Jacob made his move. He burst out of the closet and smashed a piece of firewood across the back of the man’s head as hard as he could. The soldier instantly collapsed to the floor on top of Luc, but Jacob didn’t stop. He couldn’t afford a fight with this man, a trained killer. So he smashed his head in until he was sure the Nazi was dead. Then he checked his pulse, just to be sure, rolled him off of Luc, and removed his submachine gun and his Luger.
Now Jacob had the initiative, and he used it to full advantage. Gauging the Nazi to be roughly his same height, Jacob quickly stripped him of his uniform and put it on himself. It wasn’t going to be enough to come up from the basement with guns blazing. He realized he was going to need an additional element of surprise both in the next few minutes and for his escape into Slovakia, if he lived that long.
A few minutes later he was ready, and just in time. For now another soldier was calling down the stairs.
“Hans, are you down there?”
“Ja,” Jacob said.
“There’s no one in the upstairs. Did you find something?”
“Ja, come,” Jacob said, muffling his voice a bit in hopes of convincing the man to accept the bait.
It worked. As Jacob stood there in the Nazi uniform, looking over the two bodies facedown on the floor, he heard the other soldier coming down the stairs, gasping and laughing with joy.
“Hans, you did it! You found them! Were they dead already, or did you kill them yourself? I didn’t even hear the shot.”
Jacob did not answer. Instead he quickly pivoted around, faced the second Nazi, raised the silencer-equipped Luger, aimed it at the man’s chest, and fired three shots in rapid succession. The stunned man died and collapsed to the floor before he even knew he was being ambushed.
Jacob’s heart was racing, but he didn’t dare let down his guard. He had no idea how many other soldiers were upstairs. For all he knew, there could be an entire battalion. But he had killed two, and if he were to die, he was determined to take more Nazis with him.
Taking the second man’s Luger as well, he fit it also with the standard-issue silencer in the man’s coat pocket. He also fished out of the man’s pockets additional ammunition for the pistol and the submachine gun and reloaded.
With the submachine gun from the first soldier he’d killed strapped to his side, he moved carefully up the stairs and entered the kitchen as quietly as he could. At that moment another soldier was coming up the steps onto the back porch. He smiled as he opened the door to the kitchen, ready to see a familiar face. Instead he found Jacob aiming a pistol at his head and firing twice.
The man dropped instantly, but unlike the others, he made a lot of noise as he fell backward and crashed down the steps.
Jacob scanned the backyard, the field, and the barn. He didn’t see anyone out there at the moment, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t there. Also, he had not yet cleared the living room, and he was worried that someone could catch him off guard and shoot him in the back as easily as he had taken down these first three.
He turned quickly and moved back through the kitchen, then pressed himself against the wall between the kitchen and living room and tried to calm his breathing. That proved impossible, and he feared someone was going to hear him and ambush him at any moment.
The only chance he had was to seize the initiative. The uniform had clearly bought him precious time. Perhaps it would do so again.
Jacob took a deep breath and then marched into the living room as if he owned the place. Remarkably, Jedrick and Brygita didn’t even recognize him at first. But he wasn’t looking for them. He was looking for other soldiers.
There were none in the room. He saw one outside by the car, taking a swig of water from a canteen. He was dressed differently from the others—in a long leather coat—and Jacob assumed he was a Gestapo officer, though at the moment the man’s back was to him, so he couldn??
?t get a good look at the exact type of uniform he was wearing.
To Jacob’s relief, there were no other soldiers in the front yard, so he headed upstairs. He went room by room, checking to see if anyone was up there. No one was, but through one of the bedroom windows he could see two soldiers in the barn, turning the place upside down in search of the two men from Auschwitz.
Jacob quickly looked out the other bedroom windows. There were no other soldiers to be seen. If he was right, then there were only two in the barn and the Gestapo agent out by the car.
This was his chance. But he had to move fast.
He raced down the stairs and blew past the Polish couple so fast they never had time to see his face. Then he rushed out the back door and ran across the backyard to the barn. Peeking through the window, he saw one soldier searching the loft and the other going through the pickup truck.
Gripping the Luger in his sweaty right palm, Jacob moved around to the door on the far side of the barn and entered quickly. The soldier looked up from his task of rummaging through the pickup. He saw Jacob and shouted to his partner. A split second later Jacob fired two bullets into his head. But the damage was done.
The soldier searching the loft swung around and opened fire with his submachine gun. Jacob dove behind the pickup truck, which was now being pelted with bullets. Shattered glass flew everywhere. Jacob suddenly found himself pinned down behind the truck, and his enemy had the high ground.
Another burst of submachine-gun fire ripped up the barn walls behind him, sending splinters of wood through the air like daggers. Jacob knew he desperately needed to regain the momentum. But he had to watch his back. All this gunfire was surely going to draw the Gestapo agent, and Jacob was going to find himself in a two-on-one gunfight with men who really knew what they were doing. Another burst of gunfire came his way. But when it stopped, Jacob could hear the soldier ejecting a spent magazine and loading a full one.
Releasing the safety on his own submachine gun, Jacob popped up from behind the pickup truck and fired his first burst, sending the Nazi diving for cover. He fired a second burst, too, then dropped back to his knees.