Mila 18 - Leon Uris [6]
He walked along the edge of the Saxony Gardens, past the blocks of government buildings and palaces and art museums. All this granite and marble were not of his sinew. In the beer halls, in the homes of his own people, German people, was where he belonged. Here Dr. Franz Koenig was a respected man. Here they spoke of great things without shame or fear.
He stopped before the Square of the Iron Gates just beyond the Saxony Gardens.
A sickening odor of half-rotted vegetables, unwashed peasants, squalling chickens, haggling, screaming barterers and beggars, and a thousand pushcarts pleaded for the zloty in the most primitive form of trade.
“Used neckties, good as new!”
“Pencils!”
“Buy from me!”
Old women squatted on the cobblestones with a few eggs, thieves and pickpockets roamed about, and lines of pushcarts dangled secondhand shoes and greasy jackets. The noise of the iron rims of the carts roared and echoed over the square.
“Buy from me!”
Bearded Jews, bearded Paul Bronskis, argued endlessly to save a half zloty in hand-waving Yiddish, a language cruelly butchering the beautiful German tongue.
A drunken soldier was hurled from a café and fell at Koenig’s feet.
Drunk as a Pole—that is what they say, Koenig thought. Drunk as a Pole. Such fitting words.
All of Poland had passed before him in two short squares. How wrong is Hitler’s disgust of the Slavs? A nation of thirty million people with only two million newspaper readers. A nation of feudal lords and serfs in this, the twentieth century. A nation which worshiped a black madonna as African Zulus prayed to sun gods.
This was Poland to Franz Koenig. Five per cent Paris, walled behind marble mansions and ruling decadence. Ninety-five per cent Ukrainia ... abominable ignorance.
What could the good industrious German folk have done with the fertile flat lands and the bursting mineral deposits of Silesia?
“Buy from me!”
Who was this mass of dirty people with their childlike mentality to hold back the German people, who had contributed more to the world’s enrichment and knowledge than any other race?
Franz Koenig knew that no matter what small injustices the Nazis perpetrated the final result of a greater Germany justified the means.
Koenig circumvented the confusion of the market place and entered Hans Schultz’s bar.
Schultz smiled. “Guten Tag, Herr Doktor, Guten Tag.”
“Hello, Schultz. Anything new?”
“Ja. Herr Liedendorf is unable to come out these days. He said that our work is done and you should stay home and wait.”
Dr. Koenig downed his beer and nodded to Schultz, who smiled as he wiped the bar.
In a few moments he entered his flat and put his hat neatly on the rack and placed his cane directly below it. He looked at his fat Polish wife, whose mouth was sucking in and out like a puckered fish, and he could not hear what she was saying. She walked and her flesh wobbled.
He envisioned her in the bed, which sagged on one side because of her immensity, and he saw her flabby buttocks and her hanging breasts.
Koenig walked to his study and slammed the door behind him.
He turned on the radio. It was always set now on Radio Deutschland.
A rally from Hamburg!
“We Germans cannot tolerate the outrageous treatment of our citizens in Poland, where German women and children are unsafe from Polish vandals ... where German men are beaten and murdered!”
“Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”
And soon ten thousand voices shattered the air waves, singing “Deutschland über Alles,” and Dr. Franz Koenig closed his eyes and tears fell down his cheeks, just as they had fallen down the cheeks of his students.
And he prayed that his liberators would be coming soon.
Chapter Four
Journal Entry
WONDERFUL NEWS! ANDREI CAME home on leave unexpectedly! We of the Bathyran Zionist Executive Council have a lot of things to talk over and decide. With Andrei here it will give us a chance to get together.
ALEXANDER BRANDEL
The army truck came to a halt before the northernmost bridge that spanned the Vistula