Emma's Secret

  ‘I do.’ Winston Harte took a deep breath. ‘American troops marched into Buchenwald yesterday…Thursday the twelfth of April, 1945. Don’t forget the date. What they found boggles the mind. Prisoners in such appalling and horrendous condition the Americans thought they were dead. But they weren’t. Just tortured beyond belief. It’s been wholesale murder for years. The Nazis have committed the most vile atrocities imaginable. They’ve murdered millions. It’s genocide…’ Tears were running down Winston’s face, but Emma was sure he didn’t know, so emotionally disturbed was he. He stared at her, then brushed his face with his hands, absently. ‘David Kallinski was always right, Emma, when he told us the reports were toned down, minimized. Millions and millions. The Nazis have murdered millions of Jews…’

  She was looking at him almost uncomprehendingly, and then she said, very slowly, ‘But Winston, they wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘They dared,’ he said.

  They walked across Commercial Street to the back entrance of the newspaper company, which faced the front of Harte’s store, the most important and imposing in Leeds. They entered the building through the circulation department. Here the vans waited to be loaded with the newspaper’s edition, which was then distributed throughout the city and suburbs, as well as outlying districts and other nearby towns.

  The familiar smells of damp newsprint and ink greeted them as they went in, making Emma feel instantly at home. These were her newspapers and she loved them; she nodded to the men who turned to greet her, wished them good morning.

  As they went up the back stairs to the offices of the Yorkshire Morning Standard and its sister paper, the Evening Standard, Winston suddenly drew to a halt and took hold of Emma’s arm.

  They had barely spoken since leaving the store a few minutes earlier, both caught up in their troubled thoughts. Now he said, very quietly, ‘Brace yourself, love. You’re in for a shock.’

  She simply nodded and they continued on up the stairs, through the linotype room, where the typesetters waved to her or called out greetings. Finally they came into the corridor of the editorial offices and hurried down to Martin Fuller’s office. It seemed to Emma that an air of gloominess pervaded the newspaper company this morning. Usually she was energized by the activity and excitement of news-gathering; today it was oddly absent.

  Just before entering Marty’s office, Emma straightened her black jacket, adjusted the collar of her white silk shirt. Then she nodded to Winston. They went in.

  Only twenty-seven, Marty was a boy genius in Emma’s eyes, very much from the same school as Arthur Christiansen, editor of the Daily Express, where her brother was the leading columnist. Chris, as he was called by everyone, had changed the look of the Daily Express. Marty had done the same with the Yorkshire Morning Standard and the Evening Standard.

  Marty was on the phone, but he said goodbye and instantly hung up at the sight of Emma, and Winston, his immediate boss.

  After they had greeted each other, Emma said, ‘Winston tells me the news is horrendous.’

  Marty nodded, but said nothing.

  She suddenly noticed the strain on the managing editor’s face, his pallor. ‘We’d better get to work. It’s a matter of urgency because of the next edition, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘I had to let that one roll, Emma. It’s got to be on the streets at ten o’clock and it’s already nine-twenty. It’s printing now as we speak. If we make some quick decisions I can revamp the front page, maybe more, for the noon edition.’

  ‘Let’s go to the newsroom then,’ Winston said.

  ‘I’ve got everyone working at the conference room table. The editor, the chief sub, the news editor, the pictures editor, my layout man, several of our top reporters…it seemed easier to have them all together, Emma.’

  Emma sat in the midst of Marty’s team, a group of hardworking newspapermen with their sleeves rolled up ready for action, their eyes on her, but also occasionally glancing at the big clock on the wall opposite. The deadline for the next edition was creeping closer and they were all fully aware of that.

  ‘Some of the national dailies have carried stories this morning, but not too many pictures. Remember, they were going to press last night, and in the early hours of this morning, when the story was breaking,’ Eric Knowles, the editor of the Evening Standard, reminded her. As he spoke he pushed the papers towards her, but she barely glanced at them.

  ‘Are you telling me we have much more information already?’ she asked Eric, pinning her eyes on him intently.

  He nodded, and turned to the news editor, Steven Bennett. ‘Tell Emma what we have.’

  ‘Loads of stuff has been rolling in all night, from Reuters and the other wire services and our own correspondents. We certainly have a lot more information now than was available last night. It’s still coming in. And we have the pictures.’

  Jack Rimmer, the pictures editor, interjected, ‘They’re horrific, Emma. Almost unbearable to look at.’

  Swallowing hard, she said, ‘I’d better see them, Jack.’

  He pushed a pile of wire service photographs towards her, and she began to shuffle through them. Horror spread across her face and her eyes held a stunned expression as she looked up, and stared for a moment at the pictures editor. She couldn’t bear to look down again at the photographs spread out before her, but she knew she had to do so. They wanted her to make the decision about what went in the paper…it was clear that, in this instance, it was her responsibility.

  Finally she lowered her eyes again and focused on the pictures once more.

  They were graphic; told a foul and inhuman story of torture and the most unspeakable brutality and cruelty ever known to man. It was mass murder of innocent people on a grand scale, a scale so vast it stunned in its magnitude, and Emma was speechless with shock. Naked and half-naked people, emaciated beyond recognition as human beings, were hollow-eyed and without hair, living skeletons as they stared out at her from tiered bunks and from behind the barbed-wire fences of the camps. The images were chilling.

  There were more photographs equally as disturbing and horrific, of gas ovens and torture chambers and piles and piles of dead bodies dumped carelessly like so much rubbish in mass graves. All victims of the highly efficient and relentless Nazi death machine…She was nauseous, could think of no words strong enough to describe this atrocity, so appalling was it.

  Emma could not stop trembling and her eyes filled with tears. She compressed her mouth and snapped her eyes shut for a moment, striving for control, not wanting to break down completely in front of these tough newspapermen. But when she finally opened her eyes a moment or two later and looked at them she saw their sombre, ashen faces and the horror and pain in their eyes also. Groping for a handkerchief in her pocket, she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, but the tears started again and it took her a moment to compose herself.

  Taking a deep breath, she said, ‘This has to be the most heinous and barbaric crime against humanity that has ever been committed in the history of the world.’

  ‘It is,’ Marty agreed. ‘Millions have been killed. And the wire service stories now coming in are predicting a lot more dire news. Other camps are being liberated by American and British troops as we are speaking…they’re starting to go into Dachau, Belsen, and Ravensbruck, to name only a few. God only knows what other atrocities they’ll find.’

  Winston glanced at his watch and said, ‘Do you have some front pages for us to take a look at, Marty?’

  The managing editor nodded, and beckoned to Johnny Johnson, his brilliant layout man. ‘Bring those front pages over here, Johnny, for Emma and Winston to see.’ As he spoke Marty also looked at the clock on the wall. ‘Time is ticking,’ he muttered.

  The layout editor spread the first mock-up in front of Emma and Winston, who was sitting next to her.

  Emma stared down at it, and shuddered involuntarily. There was a large photograph of the skeletal prisoners staring out hollow-eyed from behind barbed wire, and a banner headline
of one word only: GENOCIDE.

  The next mock-ups they were shown were of a similar nature, a shattering, graphic photograph with a damning headline. She read: CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. And then looked at the next one, which announced MASS MURDER, and at a third, NAZI DEATH MACHINE.

  Emma did not have to ask anyone’s opinion or discuss it. She knew very well which banner headline had the most impact, and swiftly she said, ‘I think we must go with this one. Genocide. It says it all. Now what are you carrying inside, Eric?’

  The editor told her, ‘We’ve a number of stories, very detailed, about the camps, and we can keep updating the stories for later editions as the news keeps breaking.’

  ‘Good.’ She took another deep breath, and continued, ‘I don’t think you should pull any punches, either in the text or in the pictures. Our readers have to be told about this in detail. Unflinching detail’

  ‘Leeds has a big Jewish population,’ Marty remarked. ‘They’ll want to know.’

  Emma looked across at him and nodded. ‘That’s true. But even if there were no Jews living in Leeds, I’d still play this to the hilt. The whole world must know what was perpetrated by Nazi Germany. We’re in the business of news, so let’s do our best to present this most…heartstopping story…’ Her voice unexpectedly broke, but she recovered fairly swiftly, and finished, ‘…in the most dignified way we can, but without minimizing it to protect people’s feelings. The pictures are horrific, harrowing to look at, heartbreaking, unbearable. But we must show them. One picture is worth a thousand words, so I’m told. We have to run with this, give it our all. And use everything. Cut down on local news, if that’s necessary.’

  Eric Knowles jumped up, and exclaimed, ‘You’re right, Emma! And I’d better go with Johnny and get things rolling. Genocide it is, right? That’s the headline you want?’

  ‘Yes. It says it all in one word.’ Emma then asked, ‘Will we make the noon edition?’

  ‘Just about.’ He ran out, followed by Johnny Johnson, the news editor, and the reporters.

  Emma stared at Winston, then focused on Marty. ‘I want a special edition devoted entirely to this story.’

  ‘When for?’ Marty asked, staring at her worriedly.

  ‘Can we get it out today?’

  ‘Not if we want to do the story justice. There’s a lot more coming in on the wires out of Germany, as I told you earlier, not only from Reuters but also from the Associated Press. Obviously all of the wires are carrying it. And we have our own reporters on the job in London. Let’s face it, it’s the biggest story of the century.’

  ‘Of any century,’ Winston murmured. Turning to Emma he said, ‘Let Marty and his team do the story right, Emma.’ Addressing Marty, he suggested, ‘Why not do a special edition for the weekend?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Marty exclaimed.

  Emma said, ‘I agree.’

  Later, when she was back at the store, Emma wept in the privacy of her office. The horror of what she had just seen would not leave her consciousness and the images in the photographs kept floating in front of her eyes. And she would begin to weep again.

  But eventually she gained control of her swimming senses and picked up the telephone and dialled David Kallinski’s number at his office.

  ‘David, it’s Emma.’

  ‘Hello, Emm. How’re you?’

  ‘So so. Can I come and see you?’

  ‘Is something wrong? You sound upset.’ His voice echoed with sudden concern.

  ‘David, some of the national papers carried stories this morning…about the Americans liberating the concentration camps in Germany. Did you see any of those stories?’

  ‘No, I left for the office very early, and the paper hadn’t arrived.’ There was a small silence, then he said, ‘It’s…bad, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very bad. Worse than bad. Horrendous.’ She tried to swallow. Her mouth had gone dry. ‘Let me come and see you, David darling…’ With one hand she flicked the tears from her damp cheeks.

  ‘Yes, I’d like that,’ he said in a voice that was suddenly hoarse. ‘You’ve always been a comfort to me, Emma.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful, Winston, that the war’s over!’ Emma ran across to her brother as he came into her Leeds office, grinning, his face alight with happiness, relief reflected in his eyes.

  ‘Thank God, that’s all I can say.’ Winston hugged her to him, kissing her on the cheek. ‘All of our boys are safe and soon they’ll be coming home, and finally, at long last, we can get back to normal.’

  It was Monday 7 May, 1945. That morning, in the early hours, at 2:41 a.m. precisely, General Alfred Jodl, the representative of the German High Command, and Admiral Hans von Friedeburg, empowered by the Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, the designated head of the German state, signed the act of unconditional surrender of all German land, sea and air forces in Europe to the Allied Expeditionary Force and simultaneously to the Soviet Union. The war with Germany was suddenly and finally at an end.

  Walking with Emma to the small seating area near her library table of family photographs, Winston went on, ‘Marty called me a few minutes ago. Apparently it’s now official. It’s been declared V-E Day in Europe…tomorrow May the eighth. So we can all celebrate. I thought it might be a nice idea to throw a little party for the boys over at the newspapers. They’d love it, I know. I tested the waters with Marty, and he reacted in a very positive way.’

  ‘Then do it, Winston. Let’s show our appreciation. Have Marty arrange it.’ She frowned. ‘But where will they have it? In one of the pubs?’ She shook her head. ‘No, it wouldn’t work. Perhaps a private room in a restaurant?’

  ‘That sounds better, but don’t worry about it, Emma. Marty will handle it. I just wanted to be sure the idea had your approval.’

  ‘Of course it does. They all deserve it. They’ve worked like demons all through the war years, done a terrific job, considering they’ve been understaffed. And the special editions they did in April, when the death camps were liberated, are masterpieces of twentieth-century journalism. I’m very proud of the staff, and of the specials.’

  ‘Yes, they were superbly handled,’ Winston agreed. ‘Are you staying in Leeds for the rest of the week, Emm?’

  ‘Yes, I am, Winston, why?’

  ‘Well, since it’s V-E Day tomorrow, I thought you might like to celebrate with me and Charlotte.’

  ‘There’s nothing better I’d like to do. Thank you.’

  It seemed to Emma that the city of Leeds went crazy on V-E Day night. The red, white and blue Union Jack hung out of every window, fluttered from every flagpole, and was waved in the hands of most children and adults as they crowded into the streets. The air of festivity was beyond belief.

  People danced and sang, cheered each other and laughed; they hugged and kissed, strangers as well as friends; and they shouted out their pride and happiness at their victory over tyranny. They were jubilant, full of high spirits.

  Streaming rivers of light, from windows no longer blacked out against enemy bombers, illuminated the streets like sunshine. Bonfires blazed on every corner, as if it were Bonfire Night in summer, and effigies of Hitler were sacrificed to the flames.

  The pubs were filled to overflowing, the customers spilling out into the streets, and everywhere there were patriotic songs, and toasts to the brave boys in blue and khaki and navy, and cheers for Winston Churchill. ‘Long live Winnie!’ they cried, affection filling their voices. ‘He’s brought us through. Our British bulldog has brought us through. Long live Winston Churchill!’

  Charlotte had cooked a wonderful dinner, and when Emma arrived at their lovely house in Round-hay she felt her nose twitching. For the first time in weeks she was suddenly hungry.

  After Winston had opened a bottle of champagne, they toasted each other, and their sons, and finally Emma said, ‘Here’s to our Prime Minister, the greatest leader we’ve ever had.’

  The following morning she thought exactly the same thing, experie
nced the same sentiments as she opened the Yorkshire Morning Standard, and saw his speeches printed on the front page. She had asked Marty to make sure the paper carried them in full, and the managing editor had obliged.

  As she began to read the report of the event she truly wished she could have been there. Thousands had assembled near the House of Commons, and they had roared their approval of Churchill as he had appeared with some of his colleagues on the balcony of the Ministry of Health in Whitehall. He made two brief speeches to the vast crowd. After the words, ‘This is your victory,’ the crowd had roared back, ‘No, it is yours.’ According to the correspondent of the Morning Standard, who was covering it, this response had signified an unforgettable moment of love and gratitude.

  She read on, savouring every word Churchill had said last night:

  ‘God bless you all. This is your victory! It is the victory of the cause of freedom in every land. In all our long history we have never seen a greater day than this. Everyone, man or woman, has done their best. Everyone has tried. Neither the long years, nor the dangers, nor the fierce attacks of the enemy, have in any way weakened the independent resolve of the British nation. God bless you all.’

  According to the reporter, a respectful hush had fallen over the crowds, and they had stood in silence, waiting to hear him speak again, seemingly unable to get enough of him.

  Emma began to read the second speech he had made to those crowds, and her heart swelled.

  ‘My dear friends, this is your hour. This is not victory of a party or of any class. It’s a victory of the great British nation as a whole. We were the first, in this ancient island, to draw the sword against tyranny. After a while we were left all alone against the most tremendous military power that has been seen. We were alone for a whole year.

  ‘There we stood alone. Did anyone want to give in?’ The crowd shouted ‘No.’ ‘Were we downhearted?’ ‘No.’ ‘The lights went out and the bombs came down. But every man, woman and child in the country had no thought of quitting the struggle. London can take it. So we came back after long months from the jaws of death, out of the mouth of hell, while all the world wondered. When shall the reputation and faith of this generation of English men and women fail? I say that in the long years to come not only will the people of this island but of the world, wherever the bird of freedom chirps in human hearts, look back to what we’ve done and they will say “do not despair, do not yield to violence and tyranny, march straightforward and die if need be–unconquered.” Now we have emerged from one deadly struggle–a terrible foe has been cast on the ground and awaits our judgement and our mercy.’