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A nine-year-old boy has to watch his father being cruelly killed in a concentration camp. He is traumatized for the rest of his life because he can never forget the names of those men who were involved in the murder. The boy comes to the USA, is adopted there and experiences a happy youth. He studies and starts a career with a New York advertising agency after graduation. At that time, horrific murders were happening all over the world. The criminalists are at a loss. Neither the motive, nor the perpetrator or the perpetrators can even be recognized to a degree. From Paraguay via Italy to Egypt, there is feverish investigation. In New York the circle closes at the end.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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The Butcher
Rolf Esser
Imprint
Author: Rolf Esser © 2022
Cover design & layout: Rolf Esser © 2022
ISBN Softcover: 978-3-347-75072-2
ISBN Hardcover: 978-3-347-75080-7
ISBN E-Book: 978-3-347-75107-1
Publication and distribution are on behalf of the author: tredition GmbH, Halenreie 40-44, 22359 Hamburg, Germany.
The work including its parts is protected by copyright. Any use without the consent of the publisher and the author is prohibited. This applies in particular to electronic or other reproduction, translation, distribution and public access.
The translation of this book was done with Google. There may be some mistakes and misunderstandings. Nevertheless, the reader should be able to see what is meant.
Rolf Esser
The Butcher
Crime Novel
Content
The people of the plot
1945
Chapter 1 - In the Concentration Camp
1945 - 1965
Chapter 2 - Youth, Studies, Profession
Chapter 3 - In Argentina
Chapter 4 - In Egypt
Chapter 5 - In Switzerland
Chapter 6 - In Paraguay
Chapter 7 - In Canada
Chapter 8 - In Hungary
Chapter 9 - In Italy
Chapter 10 - In Germany and New York
Chapter 11 - The Finale
Chapter 12 - The Letter
The Offenders
The people of the plot
In Germany
• Hermann Glockenspiel - German Jewish faith
• Iris Glockenspiel - his wife, not Jewish
• Erich Glockenspiel - her son
• Jakob Weisenfeld - aka Thomas Schäfer
In the concentration camp
• Hermann Glockenspiel - Jewish prisoner
• Erich Glockenspiel - nine year old, Jewish prisoner
• Iris Glockenspiel - murdered in Auschwitz
• Eduard Weiter - camp commander from Dachau
• Fritz Meinert - 1st protective custody leader, SS Obersturmbannführer
• Gisela Meinert, wife of Fritz Meinert
• Leonhard Eichenburg - 2nd protective custodian, SS chief officer
• Josef Jabol - 3rd Schutzhaftlagerführer, SS- Obersturmbannführer
• Michael Sass - Repeat leader, SS main group leader
• Heinz Trempler – SS Man
• Franz Bötticher - SS Oberscharführer
• Günter Liesert - SS Man
• Franz Heckmann - SS Hauptsturmführer
• Jakob Weisenfeld - SS Sturmbannführer
• Alfons Kropp - dreaded prisoner in Dachau - aka Egon Weiß, Egypt
• Johan Meansarian - dreaded prisoner in Dachau
• Albert Wernicke - feared functional prisoner in Dachau
• Karl Wagner - prisoner, camp elder
• Joe Harris - American sergeant, concentration camp liberator
• Bertram - American soldier with German roots, concentration camp liberator
• Colonel Sparks - American troop commander
In Dover Township (USA)
• Joe Harris - American sergeant, surrogate father
• Betsy Harris - his wife, surrogate mother
• Erich Glockenspiel, after the adoption of Eric Harris
• The Jordans - Eric Harris´ tenants
In Buenos Aires (Argentina)
• Juan Perón - Argentine head of state
• Fritz Meinert - aka Raúl Gomez
• Leonhard Eichenburg - aka José Ferrer
• Isabel Santos - friend of José Ferrer
• Santiago Verón - head of the homicide department in Buenos Aires
• Carlos Campillo - Deputy from Santiago Verón
• Juan Zapatero - employee of Santiago Verón
• Manuel Azamor - employee of Santiago Verón
• Egbert Braun - pastor of the German congregation in Buenos Aires
In Cairo (Egypt)
• Josef Jabol - aka Ronald Meier
• Malik Said - Commissioner General in Cairo
• Eddin Mohammed - Malik Said´s deputy
• Atif Samet - criminalist in Cairo
• Mike Taylor - mysterious American
• Aribert Heim - concentration camp doctor in Mauthausen - aka Tarek Farid Hussein
In Zurich and Lausanne (Switzerland)
• Michael Sass
• Annett Widmer - girlfriend of Michael Sass
• Ariane Meili - Head of the Investigation Department of Violence Crime, Zurich
• Leon Brunner - employee of the Investigative Department of Violent Crime, Zurich
• Gabriel Wyss - employee of the Investigation Department of Violent Crime, Zurich
• Martin Lüthi - Swiss official
• Rico Schüttli - unknown Swiss
In Asunción (Paraguay)
• Heinz Trempler - aka Fernando Lopez
• Gregorio Cruz - drug lord in Asunción
• Juanito Capilla - drug lord in Asunción
• Calvino Pérez - chief of crime in Asunción
• Miguel Gonzalez - Police officer in Asunción
• Patricio Díaz - police officer in Asunción
• Federico Serrat - Head of Drug Investigation in Asunción
• Jim Smith - anonymous account holder aka Meyer Lansky
In Toronto, Canada
• Franz Bötticher - aka George Adams
• Brian Cage - Chief Inspector of the Toronto Police Department
• Jean LaMotte - police officer in Toronto
• John Doe - police officer in Toronto
• Jill McGreen - criminal police officer in Toronto
• Elmyr de Hory - counterfeiters
• Fernand Legros - art dealer dealing in counterfeits
In Nyiregyháza (Hungary)
• Günter Liesert - aka László Pétek
• Bálint Szabo - Hungarian police major in Nyiregyháza
• Károly Kertész - Hungarian police lieutenant in Nyiregyháza
• Gergely Horvat - Hungarian police lieutenant in Nyiregyháza
In Sicily and in Rome (Italy)
• Franz Heckmann - aka Giovanni Tozzi
• Bishop Hudal - Austrian refugee resident in Rome
• Tiziano Soldáno - Mafia boss in Palermo
• Salvatore Soldáno - vice-boss, brother of Tiziano Soldáno
• Lorenzo Rizzoli - cousin of Tiziano Soldáno, substitute boss
• Stefano Barretto - Mafia boss in Palermo
• Cesare Manzino - Mafia Boss in Palermo
• Luigi Carreta - Mafia Boss in Palermo
• Carlo Fabris - Head of the Antimafia Police in Palermo
• Elio Ceccarelli - Antimafia police officer in Palermo
• Gabriele Bruzzo - Antimafia police officer in Palermo
In New York (USA)
• Eric Harris - agency manager
• George Harper - Eric´s deputy at the agency
• Lisa Ward - agency newcomer
• David McBride - agency newbie
• Jerry Walker - FBI New York
• Charles Cotten - FBI New York
• Riley Lewis - FBI New York
• The Boss - Mafia Godfather in New York
• Gaetano - the son of the mafia boss
1945
Chapter 1
In the Concentration Camp
Its five o´clock in the morning. There is order here. In German thoroughness, the men stand in rank and file, divided into groups, recognizable by their badges, the so-called corners, which were sewn to their striped garments: political, criminals, emigrants, biblical scholars, homosexuals, asocials and Jews. In addition, they must bear a number. Man becomes the number. He has no name, he loses his reputation and honor.
At this early hour, the men stood stiffly on the large square in front of the wooden barracks, ready for the count. Already at four o´clock they were awakened and had to clean the wretched rooms of their lodgings. It is still dark, bright headlights brighten the action. The April of 1945 is already well advanced, but the morning is still cool and the thin, emaciated figures freeze. Not to be compared with that night in January of the extremely severe winter, when they had to stand here collectively as a punishment for the escape of two prisoners in an ice cold. For fifteen men it was death.
They stand there and basically have no strength for it. They are all prisoners. In the morning they have to endure the torture of the Apell, which repeats itself in the evening. In addition, they are sent to the equally debilitating workplace: road construction, tree cutting, construction work, weapons factory - every slave work is conceivable as long as a profit is obtained from it.
There is a typhus epidemic in the camp. The barracks of the hospital are overcrowded. Those who are still able to stand on their legs must also take part in the towing table and be beaten to work. Many of them will not experience the evening.
All these men were taken into custody and went to hell. With the difference that there is not only a devil in this hell, devils are here in the dozen. Nine of them stand before them, all men of the SS-Totenkopfverband. The SS Obersturmbannführer Fritz Meinert, the first guard of the Schutzhaftlager, has the say. The prisoners are under the control of the Schutzhaftlagerführer in this concentration camp. His direct superior is the camp commander Eduard Weiter. He was not seen any more for a long time. The dirty business now deal with his merciless subordinates.
The Schutzhaftlagerführer Meinert is feared for the execution of punitive measures and executions. As late as September, he ordered ninety Russian prisoners to be executed. He is uncontrolled, enters the prisoners, beating them with a whip, or hounding dogs upon them.
They are there, thousands kept so by nine men who proudly wear their SS uniforms and feel themselves as masters, as lords of life and death. Also this morning, the piercing voice of Meinert penetrates deep into their brain. They will never forget it if they ever will survive this camp. "I will ruthlessly destroy anyone who does not devote himself to all his daily work. You are a miserable heap of plagues, pretending to be sick, to evade your duty. Have you ever wondered why you were put in protective custody? I will tell you, because you are, without exception, lazy, industrious rascals who use shamelessly the state´s well-being and the goodness of the Führer. "
So they hear it every morning. Before Meinert, it was another Schutzhaftlagerführer. They are all of the same kind, these SS perpetrators, animated by an order of extermination, which the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler has time and time again thrown in with them and underpinned with orders and ordinances.
However, in his most recent decree, Himmler ordered the prisoners´ labor to be secured. The prisoners are the only ones who can keep armament production going for the still raging and long-lost war. They must therefore no longer be unnecessarily punished or tortured. Such an opinion is not reached by Meinert. Not for nothing they call him the ´butcher´ in the camp.
Alone, as Meinert new arrivals is going to welcome, when they have crossed the camp gate, is unmasking. The whole sadism of this SS man unfolds in his first sentence, which he hurls out: "Here no one has to laugh! The only one who laughs here is the devil, and the devil is me!" He also never forgets to mention that there is only one way out of the camp, namely through the chimney of the crematorium.
The camp is surrounded by a high barbed wire fence, which is also powered by electricity. There are two SS guards with machine guns on eight watchtowers. Himmler had written down in the posting that prisoners had to be shot at once without warning. In numerous unnatural deaths, the concentration camp guards simply state that they had shot prisoners in an alleged escape attempt. As an escape attempt, you can only enter the wide safety strip along the fence. An actual escape attempt, however, is almost always fatal. And once he succeeds, the fugitives are almost always caught again, tortured them terribly, and then shoot them before all eyes.
For half an hour they had to listen to the salvating verbal excesses of Meinert. In the first row of a group stands Hermann Glockenspiel. Two yellow juxtaposed angles in the form of the Davidstern on his jacket, which the Nazis call ´Judenstern´, characterize him as Jew, as all here in this group. In the eyes of the SS, the Jewish prisoners form the lowest level of the hierarchy in the camp. Even in the rank order among the prisoners, they are at the bottom.
Hermann Glockenspiel is sick, he also has typhus. He could just drag himself to the pitch. Next to him stands the nine-year-old Erich, his son. Slowly Hermann disappear the senses, then he faints, falls forward and strikes the ground.
It is as if Fritz Meinert had been waiting for such an incident. Immediately, he grows up before the impotent and shouts: "You damned Judensau, just want to sneak out of work! We´ll drive you out, once and for ever!" A hint from him and two SS Sturmbannführer hurry up and grab the poor Hermann Glockenspiel, whose nose is bleeding from the fall. They drag him into the middle of the square. There is a kind of gallows framework that is used for all kinds of worst punishments.
The SS men tie Hermann´s arms on his back and pull him up with a rope back on the gibbet pile. Piling - a punishment, which is no longer welcomed by the SS leadership. Because of the preservation of the labor force. Meinert! does not care. In this medieval torture, the delinquent suffers unimaginable pain and agony.
Hermann is still powerless. Now the SS minions drag him down the jacket so that his upper body is free. Meinert pulls the whip out of his belt, which he always carries with him, and strikes Hermann Glockenspiel in the best way. Whether the intensified torrent of pain awakens Hermann from his impotence, he must suffer with all his still existing senses worst torments. He cries out all his misery. Then he fainted again.
Little Erich must look at it all. When the father begins to scream, he immediately wants to hurry to him. A Jewish fellow-inmate standing behind him can just keep him behind. Erich begins to weep. The fellow prisoner holds his mouth shut. It would be impossible to imagine what would happen. The first guardian of guardianship also does not stop in front of children.
Then the prisoners move out to work. Erich must go to the ammunition factory, where he has to sort and transport cartridge cases. He has to get together very much, he thinks of his father all day.
After the morning roll call, Fritz Meinert wants to have a second breakfast as always. He has to get out early every morning. He owes that to these bastards here. He goes over to the strictly divided SS area, which is twice the size of the prisoner area. Here are SS training camps with barracks and training rooms, workshops where prisoners also work, team barracks and officers´ apartments, a bakery and the administration building.
Meinert and his wife live in a spacious officer apartment. When he enters the apartment, it smells of fresh coffee. His wife Gisela knows his work rhythm very well, she has prepared everything for breakfast. Gisela is a thin, impoverished woman. She seems to lack any kind of zest for life. Basically, she knows exactly what her husband is doing there in the camp, alone, she doesn´t want to admit it. Certainly not to speak to him about it. An Aryan woman has a duty to perform: she must be loyal, willing to sacrifice, capable of suffering, selfless. In her courage role, she takes care of steel, ready to fight, she is the source of the nation and the keeper of high-quality genetic material. The decisions are made by the men.
The Meinerts have a grown son who left for London at the beginning of the war, when he was just 21 years old. He wanted nothing to do with the Nazis and their fatal longing for war. Although Fritz Meinert beat the boy almost bloody, he even refused to join the Hitler Youth. Such a son is a shame for an SS man. He died for Fritz Meinert.
The SS Obersturmbannführer is having a good time at the breakfast table. Nothing is missing. Bread, sausage, cheese, everything there. He also desperately needs it. The day is still long, who knows how much the prisoner pack will still annoy him? "This Jew!" it escapes him and he shakes his head. Gisela flinches. Secretly, she has an idea of what an SS man does to a Jew who beats his only son the way she experienced Fritz.
Gisela evades. "In the morning, a speech by Hitler was broadcast on the radio," she says. "And what did he say?" "We should persevere, face the enemy." Yes, that´s typical Hitler, Meinert thinks. He never thought much of that. Clear statements, clear orders never came. Always slogans. What should you expect from an Austrian? He doesn´t even look like an Aryan. Now he is probably sitting in his bunker while the soldiers fight for their lives outside. Men like Himmler are knitted differently. There are no ifs and buts.
Speeches by the Führer, perseverance slogans, Fritz Meinert is very little interested in all of this. It is important for him that he does his duty wherever he is used. A real German man always does his duty. And an SS man is always a real German man. Duty in his case means: Mercilessly and without consideration of any feelings, enforce the prescribed order of the concentration camp. What does an individual count when it comes to something as grand as the national socialist idea? Inspired by these thoughts, Meinert heads to the administration building to supplement the files, if only to document his own excellent fulfillment of his duties. Fritz Meinert is certain that there have never been institutions in Germany that have recorded their tasks and duties and the resulting results more precisely in writing. You have to be proud to be able to leave such documents to posterity.
When the prisoners return to the camp in the evening after dark, Hermann Glockenspiel is still hanging on the stake. The ritual of standing by the roll call is repeated. The inmate who pulled little Erich aside in the morning takes the boy aside again and stands with him in the back row. He can´t see the father there.
After a seemingly endless litany of Meinerts with wild threats and insults, the counting follows. While the roll call in the morning must not take too long because the work should start on time, it is extremely rare in the evening that it lasts less than one and a half hours, often two hours. If only one of the prisoners makes a mistake, it all starts again. The procedure can take hours. However, if counting means that a prisoner is missing, this will result in a collective punishment. More standing on the square until you drop, food deprivation, the whole range of what a criminal SS brain can think of. Prisoners who have been in the camp for a long time know that all camp inmates had to stand uninterrupted for a whole night and a whole day. You shouldn´t stir.
Today the number is correct. The prisoners are allowed to rack in their barrack. Time for the evening meal. Can you call what they get here a meal? There are 350 grams of bread as a daily ration. In the evening they receive 20 to 30 grams of sausage or cheese and threequarters of a liter of tea four times a week. They are given a liter of thin soup three times a week. Subtracting the permanent food deprivation for all types of offenses, there is hardly enough food left to survive, considering that they have to work hard all day long.
Shortly before the absolute night´s sleep at 9:00 p.m., the hated voice of the 1st protective camp leader resounds from the camp loudspeakers: "I hereby announce to everyone: The work-shy Jew has dared to evade further punishment and is dead. Who thinks himself to be able to withdraw from work by falling over at the morning roll call must face draconian punishments. We will not tolerate any refusal!"
The speakers crack, then there is silence. Everyone heard it. The poor Hermann Glockenspiel, suspended from the post, is dead. In this camp, death is a daily companion. It can affect anyone every day. None of the prisoners is therefore surprised or particularly shaken.
Little Erich heard it too. His father is dead. Now he has no one left. The mother had already been caught during the November pogroms in 1938 because she wanted to shop in a Jewish shop in Berlin. She couldn´t and didn´t want to give in to the SA and SS hordes. She was a strong woman. It was also fatal for her that she was married to a Jewish man, even though she was not a Jew herself. The Nazis called it racial disgrace. They were brought to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Later she was deported to Auschwitz, where she was murdered in the gas chamber. However, Erich will only find out this much later. At that time he was only two years old. He must have unconsciously internalized the mother´s sudden absence.
Hermann Glockenspiel nevertheless did not want to leave Germany. He was Jewish, but he was German. Basically, he had never cultivated the Jewish faith. His deeply religious Jewish father had fought for Germany in the First World War and had fallen on the western front. Hermann´s mother died soon after. After the unspeakable war sparked by Hitler in 1939, the situation for Jews throughout Germany became more and more threatening. One day Hermann Glockenspiel´s brother and sister had disappeared, along with other relatives such as uncles, aunts, cousins and nephews. The Jewish community in Berlin was systematically decimated by the Nazis. At first Hermann was able to hide with Erich from nonJewish German friends. There were also such people. When it became clear in 1942 that the Holocaust, the annihilation of the Jews, was a matter for the National Socialists, Hermann Glockenspiel decided not to put his friends at risk of fleeing to Switzerland with his son. Almost in the face of the Swiss border, they were seized and taken to this concentration camp.
Forsaken and saddened to death, Erich sits on his lousy sleeping place, a miserable shack in an miserable three-story structure. He cannot sleep. In any case, he has to share this bed, which can hardly be called that, with other prisoners. It got tight. There are a total of 34 barracks in two rows, with the camp street in the middle. Under a former commandant, the barracks were given the name "blocks". Each apartment block has two washing facilities, two toilets and four "parlors". Each room has a living room and a bedroom. Actually, 52 people are to be accommodated in each room, which means 208 prisoners per apartment block. But now up to 1,600 prisoners have to share an apartment block, that´s 300 to 500 people per room.
It´s strange. As late as 1942 the SS deported all Jewish prisoners to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Erich and his father came here later, which seems like a miracle, since Jews are usually deported to the extermination camps in the east without further ado. From last autumn, however, and increasingly since the beginning of this year, new transports with prisoners from the east are arriving. Rumor has it that the Russians keep advancing. The Americans are also said to be on the advance from the west. What is the point of clearing other camps? But the transports continue. In the meantime, around 35,000 prisoners are crowded in a confined space. New railroad trains arrive every day with sick and exhausted prisoners. When the death transport arrives from the Compiègne camp, 984 of the 2,521 prisoners are already dead. Now the camp is completely overcrowded. Life becomes completely unbearable for the inmates if you want to speak of life.
Every prisoner who arrives is dependent on the help of the inmates. You have to explain the new rules of conduct to him and give him the important hope of survival. Most newcomers experience a real shock during the admission procedure, which can often last for several days. The initial dismay gives way to outrage, which in turn triggers horror. The shock is all the more devastating the less you are psychologically prepared for this situation. At first, the newcomers are particularly at risk because the SS prefers to harass them. The highest mortality rate is recorded in the three months after arrival in the camp. During this time, the weak, the sick and those who are unable to adapt to the brutal living conditions die.
The blocks in the camp are sorted by nationality. The living conditions of many prisoners are based on their nationality. With the arrival of new groups of prisoners of a different nationality, those already present move up in the social structure. With the arrival of the Czechs, for example, the Austrian prisoners or the German "anti-social" got a higher status. With the arrival of the Poles and Russians, the Czechs moved up in the hierarchy.
The prisoners´ everyday lives are filled with work, hunger, fatigue and fear of illness and the brutality of the sadistic SS guards. In 1933, the first camp commander created disciplinary and street regulations, which later also applied to all other concentration camps. Since then, camp commandos have been operating in a legal space. You can switch and act as you like. It is at the discretion of every SS guard to determine alleged offenses committed by the prisoners, and it is usually completely unpredictable what can provoke the anger of an SS man and thus cause a so-called criminal report. A torn button on the jacket or a stain on the floor of the barrack, a short breather at work, or an incorrect answer - every prisoner can be punished at any time, which often amounts to a death sentence. One of the most common punishments was the corporal punishment, in which the prisoner was strapped to a wooden trestle and had to count the strokes of the bullfinch loudly to 25. If he loses consciousness, the punishment is repeated.
The particularly infamous thing about all the punitive measures is the fact that in most cases all prisoners have to attend the execution. Executions are not uncommon. This way, they can imagine what can threaten them every hour. Even little nine-year-old Erich and the other children in the camp are not spared. They too have to experience this and are psychologically damaged and traumatized for their entire life. Although it is certainly unbearable for adults. It is particularly bad for Erich. He had to watch the suffering that was done to his father.
The inmates are not only tormented by the constant reprisals by their guards. The so-called prisoner self-administration also contributes to this. The SS appoints certain prisoners to oversee the inmates´ duties. These are the functional prisoners. They are said to exert strong pressure on other prisoners, for example with regard to the order and cleanliness in the barracks and clothing. The positions occupied by prisoners remain largely in the hands of political prisoners, who organized themselves early in the camp, since they are mostly longest imprisoned, many since the camp was established in 1933. They bring with them a high degree of solidarity from their political past .
Prisoners organized the operation and maintenance of the camp largely independently. From the so-called "camp elder", who is made responsible to the SS as the spokesman and representative of the prisoners, to the "parlor elder", who is responsible for a "parlor" within a prisoners´ barrack for bed arrangement, cleanliness, meal distribution, etc. Warehousing organized hierarchically. The working groups are supervised and instructed by foremen, so-called Kapos. Most of the criminals are appointed to Kapos, perhaps because they are more brutal.
As soon as the prisoners do not do their job to their satisfaction, they lose their status again. Then they have to fear reactions of their fellow inmates if they see themselves as an extended arm of the SS and have thus gained advantages. In mid-April, the SS suspended Johan Meansarian and Albert Wernicke. They put the two functional prisoners feared by the prisoners in the bunker. One does not know exactly what they did wrong in the eyes of the SS. In any case, their fellow prisoners terrified them.
But there are also prisoners who are on the side of their fellow prisoners. Karl Wagner was recently relieved of the position of camp elder because he refused to whip a prisoner. He also came to the bunker, although everyone expected to be shot immediately.
The camp prison is initially to be understood as a bunker. But the sick SS brains came up with another form of "bunker": the standing bunker. This is a wooden box, about 70 x 70 cm wide and almost 2 meters high. There is no window in this box, so it is always dark there. The wooden boards are placed very close to each other, which prevents the oxygen flow. This punishment is particularly cruel because the prisoner loses all sense of time and orientation and cannot sit or lie in the box. He can hardly breathe. In addition to terrible hunger and thirst, thousands of lice torture those affected, who have optimal conditions in the warm crate. There are prisoners who spent eight days and nights there. Since they were not allowed to leave the box during this time, their faeces and urine burned their skin. They almost went mad, apart from the physical damage they suffered.
Such a concentration camp environment must be like a nightmare for a nine-year-old child. Actually, Erich cannot understand all of this. What are these bad people doing? Why do they do that? Every day a torture, every day an inferno of fear and feelings. The events collapse over Erich, he can no longer sort them out. The death of the father drives him into an infinitely deep depression, actually he also wants to be dead. He no longer has a person with his protective hand over him. But one thing has burned itself into his child´s brain for all time. He will never forget the names of those nine SS men who were actively or passively involved in the father´s death.
Something crucial is changing in the camp these days. The rumors seem to be true, the Americans are probably well advanced. The prisoners can already hear gunfire. Functional prisoners report that files are burned in the area of the camp command office. No sign of Commander Eduard. Has he already escaped?
On April 23, the order came that the more than 2,000 Jewish prisoners had to line up on the roll call area. They will be loaded into railway wagons that will not depart until April 26 due to continued air strikes. The representatives of the national groups of prisoners have made an appointment and are determined to sabotage the evacuation of the camp as far as possible. They hid the Jewish children and saved them from being taken away. So Erich was spared this lot.
A new instruction is issued on the morning of April 26th. All German and Soviet prisoners have to line up on the roll call area. The prisoner groups cannot oppose this, they would have shot everyone. By late evening, 6,887 prisoners in groups of 1,500 left the camp and head south. Later you learn that hundreds are shot on the way as soon as they can no longer go on, or they die of hunger, cold and exhaustion. The individual marching columns were only taken over by American troops at the beginning of May, after the accompanying SS guards had immediately sought to escape.
April 29, a Sunday, has begun. The tension in the camp has been high since yesterday. In the middle of the night, at three o´clock, the oppressive silence is suddenly interrupted by machine gun fire and the rattling of handguns. The 42nd Infantry Division and the 45th Infantry Division of the 7th U.S. Army stand in front of the camp. The few men of the Waffen SS who remained behind, mainly the shooters on the watchtowers, offer little resistance. The large camp gate opens exactly at 5.28 a.m. - after the commandant´s clock. At the sight of the first American soldiers, the tension of the past few days and hours is released and the jubilation of the prisoners breaks loose. Anyone who can stay on their feet somehow rushes to the roll call to see the soldiers personally, to greet them, to thank them or to cheer them on from afar, and suddenly they are waving next to the white flag of surrender the individual country flags of the prisoners that have been secretly prepared. The concentration camp is released.
The entire remaining SS team in the camp has disappeared. Not only are they sadistic and merciless, they´re also cowardly to the bone. But why should the Nazi staff behave more heroically than their oh-so-admired leader Adolf Hitler? He will evade responsibility on tomorrow and shoot himself. A day later his propaganda spokesman Goebbels and his wife will follow him, who also has their unfortunate six children killed with cyanide. The millennium has only survived for twelve years.
The American liberators are faced with enormous tasks: the care of more than 30,000 malnourished prisoners, the medical care of thousands, the containment of the typhoid epidemic that still prevails and the burial of the dead. The American military authorities initially quarantined the camp to prevent the epidemic from spreading.
Sergeant Joe Harris is one of the first Americans to walk through the camp gate. He knows there is a typhoid epidemic in the camp, but the American soldiers are vaccinated against all sorts of diseases. So Joe approaches the prisoners and is happy about their jubilation. He makes a tour of the camp. In a shack behind a barrack he finds countless bodies, tipped over like garbage. A wagon stands on a railroad track at the end of the camp, also filled to the brim with corpses. Joe Harris is shaken.
Then he goes to one of the barracks. He wants to see everything and know everything. The barrack is empty because the prisoners who have now been freed are all outside on the square. Not even dogs live that way, he thinks. He walks through all rooms, the same picture everywhere. The impression of a complete neglect, paired with a stench that reminds of decay. But there, what is that? Someone is still sitting there. Joe approaches and can see it now. There is a little, starving guy staring blankly in front of himself. It is Erich. He can´t be happy like the others, he can´t do anything anymore.
I can´t let the little one sit here, Joe thinks. He is a caring person and when it comes to children, he is ready for anything. "Come on," he says, holding out his hand to the boy. Erich is startled. Only now does he notice the tall man standing in front of him. He sees the outstretched hand. Suddenly he has the feeling that he has to take this hand if there is still a future for him. It seems to him like a saving straw. So he puts his small, dirty, almost only bone hand in the American man´s big one.
With the boy, Joe leaves the storage area and gets into his jeep standing in front of the gate. He drives into the field camp that the Americans have built in the outskirts of the nearby village. There he first goes to the field hospital. "Give this guy an antibiotic," he says to the doctor, "typhus is rampant in the camp. I don´t think the boy is sick, but it is safe to do it. And otherwise you can check him out. He looks very weak. I think he has lice too."
1945 - 1965
Chapter 2
Youth, Studies, Profession
Erich had arrived in America. He had flown across the Atlantic with Joe and many other soldiers, an exciting experience. From the Army base, the two of them then continued to Dover Township by bus. This is a small town in the state of New Jersey, located directly on the Atlantic coast, behind a chain of islands. It is not far from the major cities of New York and Philadelphia from Dover Township.
Joe Harris lived in Dover Township with his wife Betsy. His family had always lived here. His ancestors had probably once landed here from Ireland or Scotland - he did not know the exact details - and had settled here. It was a small, tidy place where almost everyone knows everyone. There were many fishermen here thanks to the proximity to the sea. Joe himself ran a small plumbing shop. During his military years, his journeyman had kept the shop going. Joe had quit military service upon his return and was able to go back to business. He got on well with it. There were always taps to be installed or gutters to be repaired.
Betsy was not surprised that Joe brought a little boy from Germany. Joe was always good for surprises. But the small, thin boy immediately awakened feelings of courage in her. She couldn´t have children herself. But she was already 50, Joe was 53 years old. So it seemed to her like a wink of fate to come to a child in this unusual way.
Joe and Betsy soon went through an adoption process and naturalized Erich. It was not easy because they had no Erich´s papers. Joe could only show his commandant´s order to take the boy to America. In the end, however, the authorities were always impressed by the fact that this German boy was a Jew who could be saved from a concentration camp. Jewish citizens have great influence in America, they would have protested massively if Erich had been denied naturalization.
Erich Glockenspiel eventually became Eric Harris and he felt comfortable in his new home. Betsy took care of him and Joe was more of a buddy than a father. Of course, Eric often had to think about his father and his bad end. He would never be able to forget that again. This horrible experience was deep inside him and became part of his personality. On the outside, however, Eric was a bright, inquisitive boy.
Soon after his arrival, he attended school and learned the new language in record time. It quickly turned out that he was highly intelligent. In high school he could even skip a class later. Joe and Betsy went out of their way to give him the best possible education. So the years went by quickly.
Eric also learned all the crafting skills from Joe, he was not only a theoretical genius, he was also extremely practical. Joe already hoped Eric would one day take over the small craft business. But when Eric got an excellent school-leaving certificate, it was clear that he would study. With his certificate, he was able to apply to the best universities in the country. He was not surprised that he was immediately accepted by the Harvard elite university.
Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the Boston metropolitan area on the east coast of the United States. The foundation dates back to 1636, when pious English colonists in Newetowne decided to set up a training facility for clergymen. This school gave birth to Harvard University, which makes it the oldest university in the United States. In international comparisons, Harvard regularly ranks among the best elite universities.
Cambridge was not that far from Dover Township, but Eric had to live there to study. Joe and Betsy were faced with high tuition fees, which were somewhat tempered by a scholarship that Eric received. Nevertheless: Joe had to screw on a few more taps and repair some gutters in order to bear the costs at all. But they did it. Eric was able to study free from all burdens and he was his parents, because they really had become, immensely grateful for that.
He studied economics and was one of the first to devote himself to marketing in the 1950s. Since he liked to be active in sports as a student, he joined university sports and took courses in various melee techniques. In karate he even reached one of the highest grades, the 8th Dan. This fighting technique suits him particularly, because it mainly acts without weapons with punching, kicking and blocking techniques as well as foot-sweeping techniques. In the advanced training, strangleholds and nerve point techniques are also practiced. A karate master can easily kill a person without a weapon.
Eric achieved dream grades at university degrees. Finally, he was offered to do his doctorate. At the same time, however, an agency in New York offered him a highly paid position. Eric did not graduate. He felt that he owed something to Betsy and Joe. With such a good salary, he could give them some benefits. They were getting old now. Joe had retired. He couldn´t work any longer because of back problems anyway. The journeyman took over the plumbing.
So Eric joined the agency, which dealt with economic issues, but wanted to take up more advertising and marketing. Eric was hired for this, and he soon worked his way up to a leading position. In a short time he was appointed deputy head of the agency, in which he then also joined as a partner.
These were exciting first professional years for Eric. In all that time a woman was never seen at his side. He had always told himself that he had no time for relationships. Behind the facade of the successful businessman, however, it looked different. Eric has always had problems with personal ties. The number of his friends remained manageable during his youth. During his studies, he was a loner. It didn´t matter at work. The main thing was that he ensured the success of the company.
Then Joe suddenly died of a stroke. Eric was pretty upset. Now he only had Betsy. He devoted himself to her. He often traveled to Dover Township and checked that everything was right. Betsy had loved her Joe very much and felt infinitely alone after his death. Then, for health reasons, she could no longer manage the house on her own and Eric got her a nice place in an old people´s home.
Eric´s leading position meant that he had to travel a lot. The agency is international. He was now on all continents. He has always avoided Germany. He sent a representative there if necessary. As soon as he only heard the word "Germany", the image of the screaming father hanging on the stake appeared in his mind´s eye. He couldn´t talk to anyone about that. As a leading employee of a successful agency, you had to be tough and couldn´t afford mental weaknesses.
In 1960 Betsy died at the age of 65. For Eric, it was like pulling the floor from under his feet. He had loved Betsy very much. Now he was all alone. He felt that something was wrong in him. His self was out of joint. Wasn´t it maybe that his self had always been out of balance - since that unspeakable time in this concentration camp and the horrific death of his father? Could he have replaced that as a new American citizen?
Eric took three weeks off and went to therapy. After two weeks he stopped the therapy. He didn´t want to meet this wounded self any closer. It frightened him. Instead, he plunged back into his work and devoted more time to it than ever before.
Whenever he was abroad, Eric looked around museums and historical sites. He was looking for data about his mother, who had already been deported in 1938. Then he was two years old. He can´t remember her. But the father had always told him about her.
Documentation about the victims of the Holocaust was always found, especially among Jewish organizations. His parents were not mentioned anywhere. When he finally did work in Rome, he decided to take a short trip to Israel. In Jerusalem there is the "Memorial to the Martyrs and Heroes of the State of Israel in the Holocaust" Yad Vashem. It is certainly the most important memorial that commemorates the Nazi extermination of Jews and documents it scientifically. It was founded on August 19, 1953 by a resolution of the Israeli parliament.
In the exhibition, the past overran him in all its cruelty. In the "Hall of Remembrance" with the commemorative flame for the victims of the Holocaust, there is a stone slab under which ashes from the concentration camps are buried. In the hall, the names of the 22 largest concentration camps are engraved on the floor, which are examples of all places of destruction. He saw pictures of the concentration camps, including “his" concentration camp. The barracks, the square with the stake, the barbed wire fence, the towers with the machine guns. It was as if he had to relive and survive every single day, yes, every hour in this camp.
