“Who told you to leave the bunker?” Andrei snorted as Alex came alongside him.
“Since I have become a man of violence, I was certain you would not deny me the pleasure of this moment.”
“Get down below.”
“Please let me stay, Andrei.”
“Write your journal.”
“It’s up to date.”
“Shhh ... here they come.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Well ... it’s too late to send you down. Stay close to me and keep quiet.”
Andrei signaled to his people, then strained to hear.
“I don’t see them,” Alex whispered.
“Shhh ... shhh.”
Clump! Clump! Clump! Clump!
Andrei looked around for a return signal. A blue flag waved in a window on Zamenhof Street. “They’re coming down Gensia Street between the factory compounds. I hope Wolf lets them pass.”
Clump! Clump! Clump! Clump!
Andrei fixed the binoculars at the intersection of Gensia and Zamenhof, site of the abandoned Jewish Civil Authority building. The first of the black-helmeted, black-uniformed troops appeared. Stutze was leading them. They would be under the guns of Ana Grinspan’s company now. He signaled over the roof to hold fire, guessing they would come up Zamenhof into the central area.
“Halt!” The command broke the silence.
“Daggers ready!” The Nazi knives were unsheathed.
“Parade march!”
Clump, clump, clump, clump, they goose-stepped up Zamenhof Street.
“Look at those arrogant syphilitic whores,” Andrei hissed. “All bunched up like a rat pack, goose-stepping. We’ll scatter them, eh, Alex?”
Clump! Clump! Clump! Clump!
Andrei handed Alex the binoculars. He pushed his glasses up on his forehead and focused on the black waves of uniforms filling the width of Zamenhof Street, pouring around the corner at them in row after row. Alex felt a knotting of his stomach. He wished he had stayed in the bunker. Andrei was more concerned with the discipline of his troops. So far no one moved or made a sound.
On they came around the corner of Gensia. The line of Nazis stretched for a block, and still they came.
“Sing!”
A thousand hairy hands thrust a thousand daggers skyward. Clump, clump, clump, clump, they goose-stepped.
“When Jewish blood is squirting from our daggers!
Only then the Fatherland will be free,
When Jewish corpses rot and putrefy,
We’ll glory in Hitler’s victory.”
Clump! Clump! Clump! Clump!
Their voices and their boots grew louder, and the marrow of the Jews was chilled.
“When Jewish blood squirts from our daggers!
It shall make us doubly glad,
When Jewish skulls are stacked to the sky,
Good Germans shall not be sad.”
“Halt!”
The massed Reinhard Corps stopped at the intersection of Zamenhof and Mila streets. Sieghold Stutze called his officers together and huddled over a map and discussed the first phase of the operation. They stood directly below Andrei and Alexander. The Reinhard Corps was in the gun sights of the four companies of Jews awaiting the signal.
Andrei took out a pack of matches. He began to light the bottle but stopped. “I am a sentimentalist, Alex. I believe in historic justice. Have you ever lit one of these bottles?”
“Me? God in heaven, no.”
“I hereby commission you to signal the uprising,” Andrei said, thrusting the bottle into Alex’s hand.
Alex merely stared at it. “Well ... what do I do?”
“Light the wick and throw the bottle down on the street.”
“Light ... and throw ...”
“Yes, it’s very simple. You’re bound to hit one of those syphilitic whores. But hurry, before they disperse.”
Alex licked his lips. The challenge was too tempting, the honor too great. “I’ll try,” he said shakily. He carefully placed the bottle flat and struck a match. The wind blew it out.
He struck another and tried to touch the flame to the wick hurriedly, and the wind blew that one out too.
“Come along, Alex. Men of violence must act deliberately.”
Alex struck a third match and sheltered the flame by cupping his hands, but his hands trembled so violently that he could not steady it on the wick.
He gave up. “We all battle in our own ways. I can’t do it.”
“Try once more,” Andrei said.
Alex clenched his teeth, fired with determination, and struck the match. Andrei held his wrists, steadying his hands like a kindly father, and the flame touched the wick. It fizzed.
“Throw it!”
Alex flung it over the edge like a hot rock and it spiraled down to the street.
Whommmmmmm! Plow! Fzzzzzzzztttt!
The bottle smashed on the helmet of an SS man and erupted!
“Yaaaaaaahhhh!” the human torch screamed. The ranks around him split apart and became transfixed on him as he twitched and kicked and rolled in the streets, being consumed by fire. “Yaaaahhhh! Yahhh! Yaaaaaaahhhhh!”
They all looked up to the roofs simultaneously.
Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!
Blue flames spurted from hidden rifles and pistols, behind windows, doorways, the roofs.
Wissshhhh! Whoom! blew the fire bombs.
Sieghold Stutze’s eyes looked upward as Jewish guns vomited into their midst, spewing three years of pent-up rage. “Hans!” Stutze shrieked. “Look! A woman is firing!” He pitched forward on his face as a bullet tore at his chest. He crawled on his knees. The earth rumbled with deafening shocks of grenades. Nuts and bolts blew apart Sieghold Stutze’s stomach. He clutched at his guts spilling into the street. A fire bomb fell at his feet and whisshed up his boots, and he groveled and screamed and gagged and died. Human torches and bullet- and grenade-riddled Germans turned the intersection into a pond of carnage.
Oberführer Alfred Funk soaked luxuriously in a deep warm sudsy tub and sniffed the rising scented steam. The tones of Wagner’s Tannhäuser “Overture” crashed in from the phonograph in the living room. Between low points in the crescendo Funk could hear the sound of gunfire from the ghetto. He hummed in tune. “Da dam dam dam.”
His orderly lay a tray containing his shaving gear on the rim of the tub. Funk sharpened the razor, looking up with disdain at the orderly, who never did it properly. He flicked his thumb over the edge and was satisfied. “Dum de dum dum,” he sang, “dum de dum dum dum dum dum ... de da da da,” as he lathered his face.
“Hold the mirror still,” he snapped.
“Ja, Herr Oberführer.”
Horst von Epp appeared in the doorway, bleary-eyed, wearing a dressing gown over his pajamas. Funk looked contemptuously at him and snorted. “What gets you up at this hour of the morning?”
“You’d better drink this,” Horst said, thrusting the glass of schnapps forward.
Funk screwed up his face. “At six o’clock in the morning? Never. Dum de dumm. Da da da.” He stretched his skin so the razor could bite off the stiff chin hairs.
Horst took the mirror out of the orderly’s hand. “Alfred, put the razor down. You’re liable to cut your throat after what I tell you.”
Funk merely glowered.
“The Reinhard Corps has been massacred. Your men have been thrown out of the ghetto.”
“Damn you, Horst! This is the last of your nonsense I am going to tolerate!” He lifted the razor to resume shaving.
Horst lowered Funk’s hand slowly. “We have succeeded very well in drawing their fire. A hundred SS men have been killed. At least that number wounded. Our forces have fled beyond the wall.”
Funk blinked in disbelief, then smiled weakly. “There must be a mistake. Those are Jews in there.”