CHAPTER ONE FROM THE BOOK

Prague
March 15 1939

      A little before ten in the morning, Willy Kohut stepped from the slush of Masná Street into the warmth of his men’s drapery store. Perspiring and breathing hard, he unbuttoned his galoshes, hung up his wet homburg and overcoat, and inhaled the familiar smell of polished wood and woolen fabrics. Thank God, I’m still in one piece.

      The crowd of customers at the Dresdener Bank had fought like wild dogs, arguing and shouting, even punching each other to get to the tellers’ cubicles. Surrounded by jostling men, some still with snow melting on their shoulders, Willy had managed to withdraw 70,000 korun. Threading his way down the marble steps, he had stopped, transfixed. A few hundred meters away, columns of German soldiers accompanied by armored cars, half-tracks, and motorcycles were moving steadily along Na Přikopě Street. Panicked, he dodged his way home through the back streets and alleys of Old Town Square. His first priority: put the moneyin the office safe and then see whether Sophie managed to get the extra food.

      Comforted at being home and safe, Willy laid his briefcase on the shop cutting table, wiped the moisture off his spectacles, and surveyed the neatly stacked bolts of woolen fabric lining the shelves all the way to the ceiling: cheviot tweed, cashmere, worsted, and herringbone. Thank God, Dikybohu, everything looks normal. He wrinkled his nose and frowned: cigarettes. Zakázáno, forbidden—he had banned smoking in the store because of the fire risk. It has to be Laci, the revolutionary. “Laci,” he shouted, “where the hell are you?”

      As he picked up his briefcase, he noticed wet footprints on the carpet. Not good. He’d left Laci and Janko strict instructions to keep Anglotex closed. Employing cousins in the family business had its drawbacks, especially if they were only a couple of years younger than the 26 year-old boss. Hefty, emotional Laci and thin, indecisive Janko were good-hearted fellows, but they had recently begun showing reluctance to take orders. A year working in Prague had changed the two respectful, small-town Slovaks into habitués of pubs, chasers of women, and frequent requesters of cash advances. He wasn’t going to tolerate the insolence of that potz Laci—the lazybones should have been unpacking the latest shipment from England instead of smoking and listening to the news in his boss’s office.

      Quickly, Willy’s feeling of relief, at making it home safely with his money, dissipated as he strode toward the back office. How can I feel relieved with Nazis in Prague? As he passed the stacked shelves, he ran his fingers along the stacked bolts of fabric and smiled: such beautiful merino wool. Bože můj, my God, open only a year… and such success. This time Father will really be proud of me. Hearing footsteps in the apartment above, he smiled again; perhaps Sophie was already back from Zoryk’s grocery. He was very anxious to find out how she had managed buying the food—probably the same kind of unpleasantness he’d encountered at the bank. His heart jolted. God, I hope she didn’t come across any soldiers. She would have been terrified.



      It had been three hours earlier, during his usual breakfast of coffee, hot rolls, and Duerr’s English marmalade, that Willy had first heard Rádio Mělník and then Rádio Praha announce the devastating news: German army units had crossed the Czech border and were driving unopposed toward the capital. The advance panzer units would reach Prague by midmorning.

      Astonished and cursing himself for attempting to wait out Czechoslovakia’s repeated crises, Willy woke Sophie and sat on their bed trying to wind down her panic with kisses and reassuring words. Afterwards, as he shaved and dressed, the obvious implications of the radio announcement began whirling through his head. With the Nazis about to take control of the country, his half-formed plans to sell Anglotex and leave Czechoslovakia hung by a thread. Everything was about to change for Jewish families like his, and he didn’t know what that would be or how it would happen.

      While 18-month-old Pavel slept in his cot, Willy and Sophie gathered the domestics around the dining table. Elena the maid and Nanny Ludmila were uneducated village girls who shared a rented room in the city during the week. Elise, the part-time cook, usually arrived at eleven. Willy’s report of the radio broadcast was met with shocked silence and then tears, fearful looks, and questions: “What shall we do?” “What will happen to us?” “Please, can we go home?”

      “We have two hours before the Germans get to Prague.” Willy tried to convey calmness and authority, though he could not stop the uncontrollable jiggle of his right foot. “Elena, you go to Zoryk’s grocery on Železná Street. Buy canned food and anything else you think we might need for the next two weeks. Take Pavel’s perambulator and fill it up. Madame will give you the money. Everyone else stays indoors, especially Pavel.”

      “Elena shouldn’t go out by herself,” Sophie countermanded, the soft skin of her cheeks flushed with nervousness or excitement. “She’s only eighteen, and it’s too risky on the streets. Zoryk’s opens at half past eight. I’m the one to go. I’ll decide what we need. Elena and Ludmila will look after everything until the master’s cousins arrive.”

      Willy looked at Sophie in surprise. She was being more practical than he had expected. He slid his hand over hers and gave her a complimentary, admiring smile. She was proving to be more than a beautiful, dark-haired wife who enjoyed bourgeois life—servants, fashions, and the social whirl of the city. She’s showing practical initiative. “Good for you, strudel.” He rose from his chair. “Most of all, we need money to see us through the next few weeks. I’ll go to the bank; I expect there’ll be a rush, so I want to be there as soon as it opens. Janko and Laci are supposed to here at nine. Tell them to keep the store closed.”

      Bundled up in warm clothes and furs, Willy and Sophie stood at outside the lobby of their apartment building, number 19 Masná Ulica, with fine snowflakes billowing in their faces. “For God’s sake, make sure you’re back before ten,” said Willy, pulling back the soft fox fur to kiss her cold cheek. His pulse was racing. The last time he had felt panic like this was in October of ’37, when Vlajka thugs had attacked him during the riot at the Košice peace marathon. He wasn’t going to let panic stop him from protecting his family

***

Moving past the wall of stacked fabrics Willy heard the radio playing in his back office. He swung the door open and took a few seconds to adjust his senses to the scene: cigarette smoke, filing cabinet drawers awry, and half-opened files strewn across the floor. A shorthaired, lanky man in feldgrau uniform, a swastika band on his left upper arm, sat behind his desk. Two heavily built German soldiers in steel helmets stood beside him, taciturn and menacing. They carried machine pistols. A Czech voice burbled on the shelf radio, but Willy wasn’t listening. Like horses breaking loose from a burning shed, his thoughts raced in all directions. Here already? What the hell? Why? Have they been up to the apartment? “You are Kohut?” asked the officer in a calm but grating voice. “I sent your employees upstairs to be with your wife. They said you speak German. Das ist ganz gut. We won’t have to waste any time.”

      Willy’s skin turned cold; his stomach churned. He took a deep breath. What do the bastards want? He didn’t dare ask about Sophie, not yet. He paused for a moment to clear his head. In excellent German, he replied, “I am Kohut Vilém Those employees, they are my cousins. We are a family business. Please, what is happening here?”

      “Hauptmann Kreutz,” said the officer with a crisp nod. “The German army is in Prague to protect the civilian population from unrest. From now on, I ask the questions and you give me answers. Understand?”

      Willy tried to bottle his fear. They’re looking for something, but what? Seconds passed as his mouth dried and his hands began to shake. For God’s sake, don’t show the bastards you’re afraid. He wetted his lips and swallowed. “I’m a respectable Prague businessman. I’ve done nothing wrong. What are you looking for in my files?”

      The officer checked the document in front of him with a forefinger. “It says in my file that you are a Jew, a Slovak from Košice in the south, age twenty-six, married to a Hungarian woman with an eighteen-month-old male child. You have owned this store, Anglotex, since one year?”

      Willy blinked assent, his pulse galloping. How did they know all this? The pale, sharp-featured officer noted down something with a silver pencil. “You sell English fabrics for making men’s suits and overcoats? Is this correct?”

      A wave of outrage destroyed Willy’s effort to stay calm. “Herr Hauptmann, what are you doing with my files?” He was unable to keep himself from accusingly accentuating the “you.”

      Hauptmann Kreutz glanced pointedly at the corner of the desk where his Luger lay nestled in a holster. “This is the last warning. No more questions.” With a grim smile, he flapped a blue folder in the air. “This is a list of Czech citizens the Gestapo knows to be dangerous and destabilizing elements. You and your fine British store, mein Herr, are on the list. That is why we are here.”

      Fear washed away Willy’s temper. He felt sweat under his arms. “Aber…—”

      The officer leaned forward, his eyes glittering with contempt. “You do business with the British, and you also spy for them. We know this from an informant.”

      A spy! An informant? This is madness. Willy was silent for a moment, shattered by how confidently Kreutz had made the accusation. His heart skittered. Spies were routinely tortured, even executed. What to say? His brain stalled; his usual quick thinking and resourcefulness deserted him. “I’m not a spy,” he finally said, racking his brain for who the informant might be.

      Kreutz came around the desk, slid his hand into the inside pocket of Willy’s jacket, and removed Willy’s wallet. After a cursory examination, he passed it to one of the soldiers. “Just a temporary confiscation, Herr Kohut.” His cold eyes probed Willy’s face, finally coming to rest on his chest. He bent forward to finger the lapel of Willy’s jacket and grunted. “Merkwürdig, interessant. This is a very unusual buttonhole.”

      Momentarily confused, Willy looked down at his jacket. “It’s a dragontail buttonhole—the signature of a famous tailor here in Prague, a trademark.” He held his breath at the faint sound of footsteps again in the apartment above. The pattering ones he knew belonged to Pavel, but he could only guess at the others. Is Sophie back yet? Have the Nazis already been up there? He was afraid to ask.

      Curling his lip as if he didn’t believe a word, Kreutz signaled for the soldiers to come and look for themselves. “Is it possible that this buttonhole is a clever way for British spies to recognize each other? A spy trademark?”

      The soldiers nodded their understanding. “Nein,” said Willy bottling up his anger.

      Kreutz glanced down at Willy’s briefcase and abruptly pried it from his grasp. He clicked it open, peered inside, and pulled out a thick bundle of banknotes with an exclamation. A smile broke across his face as he riffled through them. “Ah, wunderschön. You are most thoughtful, Herr Kohut. The Third Reich is happy to accept charitable donations.”

      “Mine,” said Willy, instinctively grabbing at the officer’s hand. He was aware of a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye just as his shoulder exploded in agony. Staggering sideways from the soldier’s blow, he felt the coldness of a gun barrel pressing against his temple. His wire-rimmed spectacles slipped sideways, hanging from one ear. A muscular arm held his neck in a suffocating lock.

      With his head agonizingly tilted, Willy was forced to watch as Kreutz stuffed the money inside his field jacket. As the pressure on his windpipe increased, his rasping breath vibrated through his chest. His knees felt like rubber, and the room began to sway.

      “Let the Jew go,” Kreutz said, turning to the other soldier. “You—bring empty boxes from the staff car and fill them with the papers from this desk. The Gestapo will sift through the rest of this mess when they come for a more thorough search.”

      “What about this Czech filth?” grunted the soldier who had applied the arm lock, shoving his Mauser into Willy’s midriff. “Blindfold him and stick something in his mouth. He comes with us.”

      Willy’s insides twisted. Feeling the urge to urinate, he tightened his bladder muscles, determined not to show weakness. Someone pulled off his glasses from behind, tied a cloth over his eyes, and stuffed a large ball of crumpled paper into his mouth. His hands were tied behind his back. The crazy thought that this was what a trussed goose at the Holešovice market felt like vanished under a salvo of questions exploding in his brain. Have they been upstairs? Where is Sophie? What are these bastards going to do with me?

      In the back of the car, squeezed between two soldiers and his own whirling thoughts, Willy listened to his captors boasting about how easy it had been driving in convoy from the border, watched by peasants and the pathetic fragments of the Czech army, and how many more victims they were supposed pick up before lunch. Twenty minutes later, they pulled Willy out, still blindfolded. He stumbled, trying to keep pace as they dragged him along the pavement. Is this the end? Arrested for nothing, killed for nothing.

      He heard the creak of a door, the sound of barked orders and echoing footsteps. They were inside now. After a few steps, he was pushed up a flight of stairs and along a corridor: a loud click and a shove in the back. Someone released his hands and pulled off the blindfold.

      Willy spat out the sodden paper as the door slammed shut behind him. He stood blinking in a large, dimly lit room with a conference table that could have seated 30 or more, if there had been any chairs. Several men stood around the table, hands in pockets. Others sat on the floor, faces turned toward him as he stumbled into the room. Everything was out of focus. He patted his jacket pockets hopefully and, with a surge of relief, discovered his glasses. He felt less helpless. More than that, he felt lucky to be alive.

      A curly-bearded, pug-nosed man, a couple of inches shorter than Willy’s five foot six, approached him. “Hullo, my new friend,” he said with a sardonic look, grabbing Willy’s arm. “Welcome to the emergency meeting at the Novotný Legal Chambers.” He jerked his head toward the shelves lined with gilded tomes and then pointed at the portraits of serious-faced men in high collars and legal robes. “Consider the irony of our situation, new friend: undesirables like you and me, held prisoner in the offices of a famous law firm. I’ve been here an hour. The guard said we can expect many more arrivals.”

      “What is this? What’s happening?”

      The man shrugged, spreading his hands and then running fingers through his halo of wiry hair. “It seems we are here for processing—detailed interviews: who we are, what we do, where we live, what possessions we own. They come for us one at a time. My name is Ožtek, Otto, electrician extraordinaire and trade union official. And you are . . . ?”

      Willy was impressed by Ožtek’s articulate words. So, a well-educated electrician.

      “Kohut Willy, a fabric merchant.” They shook hands. “Do you think we’ll be here long?”

      Ožtek indicated the galvanized steel buckets lining the back wall. A man was noisily urinating into one of them. “As you can see, this is no hotel. No one is allowed to leave the room unless called.”

      Panic overtook Willy again. How will Sophie and Pavel manage without me? Laci and Janko would offer practical help and muscle, but only Sophie knew about the money hidden behind the stove and the counterfeit passports in the flour bin—part of his clandestine preparations for leaving the country. Now that the Third Reich was here, something Willy never expected would happen, it was tabula rasa, a blank slate for the Kohuts’ lives. He knew what monstrous things the Germans were doing to their own people. God forbid they might do the same in Prague.



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    Original content © Peter Curtis
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