Sonnenfeld’s tone was bitter. “Now it’s so easy to talk about clean
hands. But the result is that you’re here today. You exist because
your father made an unsavory deal to save his own life.”
Ben’s mind flashed back to the image of his father, old and frail in
Bedford, and the image of him, crisp and chiseled in the old photograph.
What he had to go through to get here, Ben couldn’t begin to imagine.
Yet would he really feel compelled to hide this? How much else had he
been hiding? “But still, this all leaves unanswered the matter of his
name on that document,” Ben prompted, “identifying him as
SS….”
“In name only, I’m sure.”
“Meaning what?”
“How much do you know about your father?”
Good question, Ben thought. He said, “Less and less, it seems.” Max
Hartman, powerful and intimidating, conducting a board meeting with
gladiatorial self-confidence. Hoisting Ben, age six, way up in the air.
Reading The Financial Times at breakfast, distant and elusive.
How I tried to earn his love, his respect! And what a warm glow his
approval gave me when he so rarely granted it.
What an enigma the man has always been.
“I can tell you this much,” Sonnenfeld said impassively. “When your
father was still a young man, he was already a legend in German
financial circles. A genius, it was said. But he was a Jew. Early in
the war, when the Jews were being sent away, he was given the
opportunity to work for the Reichsbank instead, designing intricate
financial schemes that would allow the Nazis to circumvent the Allied
blockades. He was given this SS title as a sort of cover.”
“So in a sense he helped finance the Nazi regime,” Ben said in a
monotone. This was somehow no surprise, but still he felt his stomach
plummet at hearing it confirmed.
“Unfortunately, yes. I’m sure he had his reasons he was pressured, he
had no choice. He would have been enlisted in this Sigma project as a
matter of course.” He paused again, watching Ben steadily. “I think
you are not very good at seeing shades of gray.”
“Odd talk for a Nazi hunter.”
“Again with that journalist’s tag,” Sonnenfeld said. “I fight for
justice, and in the fight for justice you must be able to distinguish
between the venial and the venal, between ordinary and outsized
wrongdoing. Make no mistake: hardship brings out the best in no one.”
The room seemed to revolve slowly around him. Ben clasped his arms
around himself, and breathed deeply, trying for a moment of calm, a
moment of clarity.
He had a sudden mental picture of his father in his study, listening to
Mozart’s Don Giovanni as he sat in his favorite overstaffed chair in
darkness. Often in the evenings after dinner Max would sit alone with
the lights off, Don Giovanni on the stereo. How lonely the man must
have been, how frightened that his ugly past would someday emerge. Ben
was surprised at the tenderness he suddenly felt. The old man loved me
as much as he was able to love anyone. How can I despise him? It
occurred to Ben that the real reason Lenz grew to hate his own father
was not so much the repugnance of Nazism as the fact that he had
abandoned them.
“Tell me about Strasser,” Ben said, realizing that only a change of
subject could diminish the vertigo he was undergoing.
Sonnenfeld closed his eyes. “Strasser was a scientific adviser to
Hitler. Gevalt, he was not a human being. Strasser was a brilliant
scientist. He helped run I. G. Farben, you know this famous I. G.
Farben, the big industrial firm that was controlled by the Nazis? There,
he helped to invent a new gas in pellet form called Zyklon-B. You would
shake the pellets and they would turn into gas. Like magic! They first
tried it in the showers at Auschwitz. A fantastic invention. The
poison gas would rise in the gas chambers, and as the level rose the
taller victims would step on the others to try to breathe. But everyone
would die in four minutes.”
Sonnenfeld paused, gazed into some middle distance. In the long silence
Ben could hear the ticking of a mechanical clock.
“Very efficient,” Sonnenfeld at last resumed. “For this we must thank
Dr. Strasser. And do you know that Alien Dulles, your CIA director in
the fifties, was I. G. Farben’s American lawyer and loyal defender? Yes,
it is true.”
Somewhere Ben had heard this before, but it still amazed him. Slowly,
he said, “So both Strasser and Lenz were partners, in a sense.”
“Yes. Two of the most brilliant, most terrible Nazi scientists. Lenz
with his experiments on children, on twins. A brilliant scientist, far
ahead of his time. Lenz took a particular interest in the metabolism of
children. Some he would starve to death in order to observe how their
growth slowed and stopped. Some he would actually freeze, to see how
that affected their growth. He saw to it that all the children who
suffered from progeria, a horrible form of premature aging, were sent to
him for study.” He went on bitterly: “A lovely man, Dr. Lenz. Very
close to the high command, of course. As a scientist, he was better
trusted than most politicians. He was thought to have ‘purity of
purpose.” And of course our Dr. Strasser. Lenz went to Buenos Aires
too, as so many of them did after the war. Have you been there? It is a
lovely city. Truly. The Paris of South America. No wonder all the
Nazis wanted to live there. And then Lenz died there.”
“And Strasser?”
“Perhaps Lenz’s widow knows the whereabouts of Strasser, but don’t even
think of asking her. She’ll never reveal it.”
“Lenz’s widow?” Ben asked, sitting upright. “Yes, Jurgen Lenz
mentioned his mother had retired there.”
“You spoke with Jurgen Lenz?”
“Yes. You know him, I gather?”
“Ah, this is a complicated story, Jurgen Lenz. I must admit to you, at
first I found it extremely difficult to accept money from this man. Of
course, without contributions we would have to close down. In this
country, where they have always protected the Nazis, even protect them
to this day, I get no donations. Not a cent! Here they haven’t
prosecuted a single Nazi case in over twenty years! Here I was for
years Public Enemy Number One. They used to spit at me on the street.
And Lenz, well, from Lenz this so clearly seemed to be guilt money. But
then I met the man, and I quickly changed my mind. He’s sincerely
committed to doing good. For example, he’s the sole underwriter of the
progeria foundation in Vienna. No doubt he wants to undo his father’s
work. We mustn’t hold against him his father’s crimes.”
Sonnenfeld’s words resounded. His father’s crimes. How bizarre that
Lenz and I should be in a similar situation.
“The prophet Jeremiah, you know, he tells us, “They shall say no more,
the fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on
edge.” And Ezekiel says, “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the
father.” It is very clear.”
Ben was silent. “You say Strasser may be alive.”
“Or he may be dead,” Sonnenfeld replied quickly. “Who knows about these
old men? I’ve never been able to make certain.”
“You must have a file on him.”
“Don’t speak to me of such things. Are you in the grip of the fantasy
that you will find this creature and he will tell you what you want,
like some genie?” Sonnenfeld sounded evasive. “For years I have been
dogged with young fanatics seeking vengeance, to slake some sense of
disquiet with the blood of a certified villain. It is a puerile
pursuit, which ends badly for everyone. You had persuaded me you were
not one of them. But Argentina is another country, and surely the
wretch is dead.”
The young woman who had answered the door when Ben arrived now
reappeared, and a murmured conversation ensued. “An important telephone
call which I must take,” Sonnenfeld said apologetically, and he withdrew
to a back room.
Ben looked around him, at the huge slate-colored filing cabinets.
Sonnenfeld had been distinctly evasive when the subject came to
Strasser’s current whereabouts. Was he holding out on him? And if so,
why?
From Sonnenfeld’s manner, he inferred that the telephone call was
expected to be a long one. Perhaps long enough to allow a quick search
of the files. Impulsively, Ben moved to an immense, five-drawer filing
cabinet marked R-S. The drawers were locked but the key was on top of
the cabinet: not exactly high security, Ben noted. He opened the bottom
drawer, found it densely packed with yellowed file folders and crumbling
papers. Stefans. Sterngeld. Streitfeld.
strasser. The name penned in brown faded ink. He plucked it out, and
then had a sudden thought. He went to the K-M file. There was a thick