Mila 18 - Leon Uris [236]
The Germans have dropped barbed wire into the sewers at most of the manholes leading from the ghetto. However, the sewer networks are so vast and tricky, we can bypass the wire. We have also formed a special squad called the “Sewer Rats,” whose duty it is to duck beneath the running sewage and cut the barbed wires in the main sewers.
Jules Schlosberg delivered the land mine to my son Wolf. It took longer than expected to manufacture because Wolf was adamant about wanting to be able to control the detonation. Wolf reasons he can get the maximum number of the enemy this way. It is fixed to be discharged by a spark from a hundred and fifty yards’ distance. The mine is a true curiosity; flat and nearly five feet in diameter. Jules says it has the power of a one-ton bomb, and there are so many nuts and bolts stacked in it that he calls it the “kasha bowl.” I think Jules likens all of his inventions to food simply because he is hungry; the pipe grenade is called “long strudel,” the nut-and-bolt grenade “matzo ball,” and the fire bottles “borscht soup.”
Simon, Andrei, and Wolf argued lengthily over the placement of the “kasha bowl.” Wolf wants to plant it under the Brushmaker’s main gate. He reasons that the Germans are too arrogant to enter the factory in spread formations and they’d march right in on top of the mine. Both Andrei and Simon, who are military men, doubt if the Germans have such a lack of judgment. But Wolf won out. Under the gate it goes. Wolf is quite stubborn in his own quiet way—like his mother.
We have not been able to find a safe route for Christopher de Monti. We cannot take any chances of his being captured. He is fit to be tied; particularly because he must stay with the “women and children” in the bunker when the Fighters go to the roofs on alerts. Simon assures him it is far more difficult to stay than be upstairs. Simon almost dies with tension during the alerts.
Optimism continues, but my own personal view is that we cannot hold for a week in light of the power the Germans have massed in Praga.
ALEXANDER BRANDEL
Oberführer Alfred Funk glowered majestically before the assemblage of officers of his Death’s-Head Brigade. The swastika and the skull and crossbones were in evidence everywhere. With pointer in hand, he crisply explained the disposition of troops.
“Are there questions?”
Naturally, there were none.
“I read you now a message from Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler.”
Everyone leaned forward in anticipation.
“ ‘This is a page of glory in our history, which has never been written and is never to be written. We have the moral right, we have the duty, to our people to destroy the sub-humans, who want to destroy us. Only through the ruthless execution of our duty will we attain our rightful place as masters of the human race.’ ” Alfred Funk breathed deeply, awed by the words. He folded the document and placed it in his breast pocket. “Sturmbannführer Sieghold Stutze. You will step forward.”
The Austrian limped crisply to the general and cracked his heels together with vigor.
“To your Reinhard Corps has fallen the great honor of leading the Death’s-Head Brigade into the ghetto to initiate its liquidation. Befitting this monumental occasion of the obliteration of the largest European Jewish reservation, I am pleased to notify you that you have been promoted from Sturmbannführer to Obersturmbannführer!”
Stutze was hit with a wave of nausea. Not even for the rank of Obergruppenführer