Exodus - Leon Uris [80]
His line moved into the station room. The large line was split into four single lines, and each line moved toward a desk set up at the far end of the room. A German doctor sat behind each desk, and around each doctor stood a dozen guards and assistants. Dov fixed his attention on the desk ahead of him to try to find out what was happening.
The doctor quickly looked over every person as he or she stepped to the desk. The doctor would then order the person to go off in one of three directions.
The first way was out an exit on the right side of the room. Dov began counting; seven out of ten people were sent out that way. These people were old or children or appeared in bad condition. Since he assumed the buildings on the right were gas chambers, he came to the conclusion that those being sent out the right exit were going to be put to death immediately.
The second way was out an exit on the left side of the room. This exit led to the outside where the line of trucks was waiting. About two out of ten went that way and all of them appeared fit and well. Dov assumed they were being sent to the labor camp.
The right door meant death and the left door meant life!
There was also a third group. These people, one in ten or even more, were mostly young women, some quite beautiful. A few teen-age boys were ordered to join this group. Dov Was certain the girls would be used as German field whores and the boys for homosexual activities with the German officers.
He drew in a dozen deep breaths as his line inched forward. He was a pack of bones and he knew he didn’t stand much of a chance of being sent through the left exit to the labor camp.
In the next line a woman screamed and half a dozen guards converged on her and flung her to the ground and ripped away her skirts. The woman had been trying to hide an infant.
“Right ... right ... right ... right ...” the doctor kept ordering the victims.
Dov Landau stopped before the desk.
The doctor looked up and glanced at him. “Go to that exit on the right,” he said.
Dov smiled softly. “You are making a mistake, Doctor,” Dov said with infinite calm. “I am an expert forger and counterfeiter. Write your name down on that piece of paper and I’ll show you.”
The doctor sat back, stunned. Dov’s coolness impressed him, for he obviously knew what awaited him. The youngster had put a sudden halt to the monotonous death march. The doctor caught his bearings and a smirk crossed his lips. Two guards grabbed Dov and began to drag him away.
“Wait!” the doctor commanded. He looked at Dov again and ordered him to turn around. For a second he became tired of the foolishness. The boy was making a clever bluff. He was about to order him out of the right exit, but his curiosity got the better of him. The doctor scribbled his name on a pad.
Dov wrote out six duplications of the signature and returned the pad ... “Which one of those did you write?” Dov asked.
Half a dozen guards peeked over the doctor’s shoulder and stared in amazement. The doctor looked at Dov again and then whispered to a guard who walked off.
“Stand over here to one side,” the doctor snapped.
Dov stood by the desk and watched the line of people move toward him. He looked at them being condemned at the rate of four a minute.
Dov looked into the eyes of the guards and he looked at their truncheons and at the snarling dogs. He glanced at the right-hand exit and whistled a shaky tune half beneath his breath.
Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. The line coming in from the platform seemed never to end.
The guard returned with another man who was obviously a high-ranking officer, Dov thought, for his chest was filled with medals. The doctor handed the pad of signatures to the officer, who studied it for a full minute.
“Where did you learn this?” the officer snapped.
“In the ghetto at Warsaw.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“Passports, travel cards, any kind of paper. I can duplicate anything.”
“Follow me.”
Dov passed through the left-hand door.