The Bridge to Holy Cross

  “He doesn’t speak English. Do any of you speak Russian, or do I have to get an interpreter?” asked Bishop.

  Martin volunteered Tatiana. “She speaks Russian.”

  She would have to talk to him about volunteering her for things.

  “Tania, you don’t mind translating, do you?” said Penny.

  “Not at all. I do my best,” Tatiana replied, and then took Penny a side. “Penny,” she whispered, “don’t call me Tania, all right? We’re in Soviet territory. Don’t call me by my Russian name. Call me Nurse Barrington.”

  “I didn’t even think, I’m sorry,” Penny said and smiled. “All that lovin’ must be going to my brain.”

  “Did you take your penicillin shot today? Yesterday you forgot.”

  “I took it. I’m nearly all better. Thank God for penicillin, huh?”

  Tatiana smiled wanly, cringed slightly.

  The buildings on the boulevard Unter den Linden in the district of Mitte that had been commandeered to quarter the Soviet army were as decrepit as the hostel Tatiana had slept in. Tatiana was stunned most of all not by the destruction, but by the absolute and foreboding lack of reconstruction, a year after the war.

  New York, which was not even bombed, was building feverishly as if it were gearing up for the next century. Yet the eastern section of Berlin was stagnant and ruined and sad.

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  “Commander Bishop, why is it so quiet here? Why isn’t Berlin rebuilding?”

  “We are rebuilding. Slowly.”

  “Not that I can see.”

  “Nurse Barrington, the tragedy that is Berlin I cannot explain in the five minutes before we meet the Soviet garrison commander. The Soviets don’t want to pay for the rebuilding. They want the Germans to pay for the rebuilding.”

  “All right,” said Tatiana, “Berlin is a German city. They should.”

  “Ah. But first the Soviets want to rebuild the Soviet Union. It’s only right.”

  “It is.”

  “So there is no money for eastern Berlin. Or brains. They’re sending all the engineers and all the money to the Soviet Union.”

  “Why don’t the western Allies help?”

  “If only it were that simple. The very last thing the Soviets want is our help in their occupied zone. They hate us being in Berlin. They wish we weren’t here. They’re going to try to force us out, you’ll see. They accept nothing from us. You’ll see how impossible it will be to convince the garrison commander to enter the concentration camps even for humanitarian reasons.”

  “They just don’t want us to see how badly they’re treating German men,” said Tatiana.

  “Maybe. But they want us out. I’m not looking forward to this meeting.”

  The stairs inside the building were marble. It was broken and chipped marble, but it was marble nonetheless. The lieutenant general was waiting for the four of them in his quarters.

  They went in. He turned around and smiled. Tatiana gasped out loud.

  It was Mikhail Stepanov.

  Penny and Martin turned around to look at her. She stepped behind Martin to collect herself. Would he recognize her with her black hair and no freckles and all that makeup? After making the introductions, the governor said, “Nurse Barrington, will you come forward and translate for us, please.”

  There was nowhere to go. Tatiana stepped forward. She did not smile and Stepanov did not smile at her. He stood completely still and his eyes barely blinked. The only movement his body made in acknowledgement of her was his hand gripping the edge of his desk.

  “Hello, General Stepanov,” she said in Russian.

  “Hello, Nurse Barrington,” he said.

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  Her lips were shaking as she translated for the military governor. The Red Cross was offering to help disperse much needed medical help to the thousands of Germans held by the Soviets in eastern Germany.

  Could they have permission to administer the aid?

  “I think they will need quite a lot of aid,” said Stepanov. He still stood straight, but he looked older. He looked tired. There was a worn-out expression in his eyes that said he had seen too much and was finished with nearly all of it. “The camps are not run very well, I’m afraid. The Germans were taken prisoner as part of the reparations effort to help rebuild Soviet Russia, but we’re finding that many of them have simply lost their will to work.”

  “Let us help them,” said Tatiana.

  Stepanov invited them to sit down. They sat. Tatiana fell into her chair. Thank God she didn’t have to stand anymore. “There is a real problem, unfortunately,” Stepanov said, “and I don’t know if your little parcels are going to do the trick here. There is a growing hatred toward the German prisoners in Berlin and the surrounding areas, a lack of the military discipline essential for running the camps properly, no training for our prison guards, no experience. This all provokes an endless cycle of crime—escape, resistance to the guards and violence. The political costs are quite harsh. Many German workers, who would otherwise work for us and help us, are refusing. In their rebellion, the workers are fleeing to the western zones. It’s a problem that we’re going to need to address, and soon, and I fear that the Red Cross might simply inflame an already unstable situation.”

  When Tatiana translated Stepanov’s words, Martin said, “The lieutenant general is absolutely right. We have no business here. We don’t know what we’re playing with.”

  But Tatiana did not translate that into Russian. Instead she said, “The International Red Cross is a neutral body. We do not take sides.”

  “You would if you saw these camps.” Stepanov shook his head. “I have been trying to get something done about the inequitable distribution of food, the unsanitary conditions, the arbitrary and unfair enforcement of rules. Four months ago I ordered the squalid conditions of the camps to be corrected, to no avail. The army contingent responsible for the Russian camps refuses to punish abuses in its own ranks, leading only to more hostilities.”

  “The Russian camps?” said Tatiana. “You mean the German camps?”

  Stepanov blinked. “Russians in there, too, Nurse Barrington,” he said, staring at her. “Or at least there were four months ago.”

  Tatiana began to tremble.

  “What army contingent is responsible for the camps? Maybe I—we—should go talk to them.”

  “You’d have to go to Moscow and speak to a Lavrenti Beria,” said Stepanov. He smiled grimly.

  “Though I wouldn’t recommend it—rumors say thathaving coffee with Beria can be a life-ending experience.”

  Tatiana clasped her hands between her legs. She did not trust her body to remain impassive. So the NKVD governed the concentration camps in Germany!

  “What did he say, Ta—Nurse Barrington?” Penny asked. “You’re forgetting to translate.”

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  Martin said, “Our minds are already made up. This is a waste of our resources.”

  Tatiana turned to him. “We have plenty of resources, Dr. Flanagan. We have the whole United States of America as our resource. The commander is saying that camps desperately need our help. What, are we going to back out now when we discover to our dismay that they need help even more than we thought they did when we came here?”

  “Nurse Barrington makes a good point, Dr. Flanagan,” said Penny, keeping a serious face.

  “The point is to help those who have a way of saving themselves,” Martin declared.

  “You know what? Let’s help first, then we let them sort out if they can help themselves.” She turned back to Stepanov. Quietly she said, “Sir, how did you get here?”

  “What are you asking him?” said Bishop.

  “They transferred me after the fall of Berlin,” Stepanov replied. “I was doing too good a job in Leningrad. That’ll teach m
e. They thought I could do the same here. But this isn’t Leningrad. Leningrad doesn’t have any of these problems. Different problems, with food and housing and clothing and fuel, yes, but Berlin has all that plus a clash of countries, of people, of economies, of justice, of reparations, of punishment. The morass I’m afraid is sinking me.” He fell quiet. “I don’t think I’m going to last much longer here.”

  Tatiana took his hand. The military governor, Martin, and Penny all gaped at her.

  “He who brought your son back,” she breathed out. “Where is he?”

  Stepanov shook his head, his eyes on the hand that held his.

  “Where?”

  He raised his eyes. “Sachsenhausen. Special Camp Number 7.”

  Tatiana squeezed him, and released him. “Thank you, Lieutenant General.”

  “What did the general say about Sachsenhausen?” Martin said. “You’re forgetting to translate. Maybe we should get an interpreter.”

  “He was telling me where I’m needed most,” Tatiana said, with an effort getting up out of her chair and standing on her unsteady legs. Her mouth was dry. “We would appreciate directions to the camps, sir.

  Maybe a relief map of the area, just in case? Will you please telegraph them to let them know we’re coming? We will telegraph Hamburg for more Red Cross convoys to come to Berlin. We will get enough kits and food into your camps, we promise. It won’t correct all the ills, but it will be something, it will be better.”

  They all shook hands. Stepanov nodded to Tatiana. “Go soon,” he said. “The Russian prisoners are doing very poorly. They’ve been getting transferred to the Kolyma camps over the last several months.

  You may already be too late for them.”

  As they were leaving, Tatiana turned around one last time to glance at Stepanov, who was once again

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  standing stiffly beside his desk. He raised his hand. “You’re not safe,” he said. “You’re on the class enemies number one list. I’m not safe. And he is not safe most of all.”

  “What did he say?” asked Martin as they left.

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh, it’s ridiculous! Governor.” He turned to Bishop. “Nurse Barrington is obviously keeping important information from us.”

  “Dr. Flanagan,” said Bishop, “you obviously don’t speak another language. Whenever you translate, you translate only the salient points.”

  “I have certainly done that,” said Tatiana. When they got outside, she had to sit down on a hunk of mortar that was lying near what used to be an esthetically pleasing fountain.

  Bishop came over and perched next to her. “He said the wordvrag to you as we were leaving. I know that means enemy. What was he saying?”

  Tatiana had to take a number of breaths before she could find her composed voice. Quietly she said,

  “He told us the Soviet army regards us—the Americans—as the enemy. Nothing we can do about that. I didn’t want to say that out loud. The doctor”—she nodded in Martin’s direction—“is weak-stomached as it is.”

  The governor smiled. “Understood.” He patted her arm, looking at her with approval. “Not like you?”

  They walked back to Penny and Martin.

  “Governor,” said Martin, “do you think we should go to Sachsenhausen?”

  “I don’t see how it can be avoided, Doctor. That’s what you came here for. Your nurse here got him to agree to let us into the camps. How did you do it, Nurse Barrington? That’s a huge breakthrough for the Red Cross efforts. I will telegraph Hamburg immediately, ask them to send another forty thousand kits.”

  “Wait, Tania,” said Penny, “I want you to explain how you took hold of a Soviet general’s hand, got him to let us into the work camps, and not have him call the secret police on you?”

  “I am a nurse,” said Tatiana. “I touch them all.”

  “You shouldn’t be getting so friendly with the Soviets,” said Martin censoriously. “Remember we’re neutral.”

  “Neutral does not imply indifferent, Martin,” said Tatiana. “Neutral does not mean unhelpful, uncomforting. Neutral means we do not take sides.”

  “Not in your professional life,” said the governor. “But Nurse Barrington, the Soviets are barbarous. Do you know that they closed off Berlin for eight days after the German surrender? Closed it off to our armies. For eight days! No one could get in. What do you think they were doing here?”

  “I don’t want to guess,” she said.

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  “Raping young women like you. Killing men like Dr. Flanagan. Pillaging every house still standing.

  Burning Berlin.”

  “Yes. Have you seen what the Germans did to Russia?”

  “Ah,” said Martin. “I thought we did not take sides, Nurse Barrington?”

  “Or the enemy’s hands,” said Penny.

  “He was not the enemy,” Tatiana said, and turned away from the others so they wouldn’t see her cry.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Sachsenhausen, June 1946

  MARTIN WANTED TO STARTthe next day. Tatiana said no. They were going immediately. They were getting into their jeep and driving. Immediately.

  Martin had a hundred reasons why they should wait until tomorrow. Stepanov’s telegraph wire would not have reached the camps yet. They could wait for more Red Cross jeeps and go as a true convoy, the way the Red Cross entered Buchenwald after the war ended. They could have more support. They could go via the hospitals in Berlin itself to see if they needed help. They could have some lunch. The military governor invited them to lunch and was going to introduce them to the generals of the U.S. Marines stationed in Berlin. Tatiana was listening while making them sandwiches and taking all their belongings into the jeep. Then she took Martin’s keys, unlocked the doors, pointed to the wheel and said, “Tell me everything, but tell me on the way. Should I drive, or do you want to?”

  “Nurse! Have you not been listening to a word I was saying?”

  “I’ve been listening very carefully. You said you were hungry. I have sandwiches for you. You said you wanted to meet a general. You will meet the commandant of the largest concentration camp in Germany in just over an hour if we hurry and don’t get lost.” Sachsenhausen was about twenty-five miles north of Berlin.

  “We need to call Red Cross in Hamburg.”

  “Governor Bishop is doing that for us. It’s all taken care of. We just need to go. Right now.”

  They got into the truck.

  “Where do you think we should start?” said Martin in sulky capitulation. “Apparently Sachsenhausen has one hundred subcamps. Maybe we should start with a few of those. Show me the map. They’re small, we could get through them quickly.”

  “Depending on what you find there,” said Tatiana. “But no, we should head for Sachsenhausen.” She did not show Martin the map.

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  “Hmm, no, I don’t think so,” said Martin. “On my information sheet it says the population of Sachsenhausen is twelve thousand prisoners. We don’t have enough kits.”

  “We’ll get more.”

  “What’s the point? Why don’t we just wait until we get more?”

  “How long would you wait to give life support, Dr. Flanagan?” said Tatiana. “Not too long, right?”

  “They’ve waited for us all these months, they can wait another couple of days, no?”

  “I don’t think they can, no.”

  Evgeny Brestov, the commandant of the camp was surprised, “shocked, actually,” to find the three of them at his doorstep. “You’re here to inspect mywhat ?” he said to Tatiana in Russian. He had not asked to see her credentials. Her uniform seemed to be enough for him. He was an overweight, underwashed, sloppily dressed man who quite obviously drank unconscionably.

  “We’re here to tend to
the sick. Hasn’t the military commander of Berlin been in touch with you?”

  Tatiana was the only one able to speak to him.

  “Where did you learn Russian?” he asked her.

  “At an American university,” Tatiana replied. “I don’t think I’m very good.”

  “Oh, no, no, your Russian is excellent.”

  Brestov walked with them down the road to his administrative offices where a telegraph wire from Stepanov marked “Urgent” was waiting for him.

  “Well, if it’s urgent, it’s urgent,” said Brestov. “Why hasn’t anyone brought me this!” he bellowed. And then, “Why such urgency now, I don’t understand. Everything is good. We are keeping up with the new regulations. If you ask me there are too many of them. Regulations. They ask us to do the impossible, then they complain when we don’t do it to their liking.”

  “Of course. It must be very difficult.”

  He nodded vigorously. “So difficult. The guards have no experience. How are they going to manage a trained killing force like the Germans? You know they put up that sign on the gate to the camp, ‘Work Makes You Free’ or something. You’d think the Fritzes would do a little bit of it.”

  “Maybe they know it won’t make them free,” said Tatiana.

  “It might. We’re discussing terms with the Germans. It certainly won’t if they continue to be so recalcitrant.”

  “So who does the work?”

  Brestov fell quiet. “Oh, you know…” he said, and changed the subject. “I’m going to introduce you to

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  my superintendent, Lieutenant Ivan Karolich. He oversees the daily routine of the camp.”

  “Where can we safely keep our truck?”

  “Safely? Nowhere. Park it in front of my house. Lock it up.”

  Tatiana looked down the wooded path and saw that the commandant’s house was several hundred yards from the camp’s gatehouse. “Could we park it inside the camp? Otherwise, too hard for us to carry thousands of kits. You have what, twelve thousand in there?”