“No,” said Yatom cautiously, “I guess not. So you are saying, essentially, that this is what has happened to us?”
“Yes,” said the scientist.
“So we can get back home without creating a causal paradox!” said Mofaz, his voice now dripping with hope.
Feldhandler rocked his head atop his sore neck back and forth non-committally.
“Yes or no!” barked Yatom.
“Yes. But returning presumes we had control over the device, which we do not.”
“But communication could possibly be reestablished,” insisted Yatom. “One galaxy—or timeline—to another so to speak.”
“Theoretically. But you would need me to do it, and I won’t.”
Feldhandler quickly raised his hands toward Mofaz, as if to ward of a bad spirit. “Wait. Mofaz!” he stammered as the commando lurched toward him again. Yatom again stopped the Major with a wave of his hand.
“Wait for what,” grunted Mofaz, his face contorted in rage.
“I will work on the problem,” promised Feldhandler, “in return for your continued commitment to your duty in this timeline.”
“Meaning?” said Yatom.
“Sobibor was only one of three major death camps in eastern Poland in 1942—not counting Auswitz and Chelmo, which were somewhat different in their own ways.”
“The others?” asked Yatom, realizing now that he was negotiating a bizarre contract with a madman, for their very lives.
“Treblinka and Belzac. Take them and I’ll do what I can to reestablish communication and get you back. No guarantees.”
“Get us back. What about you?”
“What do you care, Yatom? I have no desire to return—one way or the other.”
Yatom looked at Shapira and Mofaz in turn, and then Perchensky.
He said, “Do we all agree in principle to this?”
Shapira shrugged—he didn’t seem disturbed by the situation. Perchansky shook her head, and Mofaz said no.
“Looks like we do not have a deal, Dr. Feldhandler,” said Yatom.
“Beseder. Let Dr. Perchensky take you home. In English they say this is biting off your nose to spite your face. But if that is what you want, so be it.”
“You know,” said Shapira, “if you all insist on demonstrating Israeli stubbornness, then nothing will be accomplished here. You” he pointed at Mofaz and Perchansky “won’t ever return home, and you Dr. Feldhander, will have destroyed one death camp—which won’t much slow the Holocaust, much less stop it.”
“So lieutenant,” said Mofaz in a tone equally smooth and hard, “what do you propose?“
“Major, what was it like today when those men from Camp 3 welcomed you when you emerged from the Himmelgang?” asked Shapira.
“Smelly,” said Mofaz coldly.
“Do you not see them as real people, as human beings?” pressed Shapira. “Fellow Jews?”
“Don’t try to equate me with the Nazis lieutenant,” said Mofaz slowly. “I have a hard time accepting all of this.”
“This world is as real as our own,” said Shapira. “It is our world, even if it is a different timeline now. You’re a Jewish soldier put down in the middle of the Holocaust—by a trick, or chance—whatever. But it doesn’t change our present reality.”
“What do you want Lieutenant Shapira?” asked Perchensky.
“What I propose is this—the sayeret takes Treblinka. I’ll take Belzac myself if I have to. Once Treblinka falls, Dr. Feldhandler does what he can to get everybody home that wants to go. Fair enough Doctor?”
“I agree,” said Feldhandler.
“Is everyone agreed to this?” said Yatom.
Mofaz nodded his head. Perchansky said nothing.
“Mofaz, get the men together. Ron, root through the German headquarters for maps and anything else that might be useful.” Yatom paused and played with a potato on his plate with his combat knife.
“We also have to divide up the weapons, evaluate the motor pool, develop a plan for ourselves and the refugees from this camp, deal with the prisoners, and get out of here before dawn tomorrow. If possible we should sleep too. Let’s get going.”
Mofaz was happy to leave the orders group, and set out to gather up the commandos. He found most of them singing Israeli folk songs around a makeshift fire with De Jong’s men a few dozen of Sobibor’s former prisoners. Once the sayeret assembled, Yatom briefed them, not offering the commandos an option out, but presenting their next mission—the storming of Treblinka—as if it were an ordinary assignment. The men accepted this, with little grumbling and few questions. They were trained to focus on their missions, not to philosophize—it made life simpler.
Of Treblinka and Belzec the Yatom knew little, other than a vague recognition of names. Treblinka and Belzec, Feldhandler explained, lay inconveniently both to the north and south of their current position. Treblinka lay about 70–80 kilometers northeast of Warsaw and twice as far from Sobibor. Feldhandler’s books showed the general locations of the camps, but nothing else. Shapira found several detailed maps in Stangl’s headquarters which were hard to read but useful. The sayeret would have to do without GPS and use the maps and compasses to reach their targets. Sobibor had a small motor pool which the Yatom ordered commandeered, along with all the gasoline that they could carry.
Shapira proposed to take half of De Jong’s men with the sayeret as well as the Sonderkommando Sandler and a dozen of the prisoners from Camp 3—Shapira figured that these men would be the toughest and most committed of the lot. The former prisoners would all need arms, and the sayeret itself could use a fine German MG-34 or two as well as mines and grenades. Otherwise the remaining weapons would go with the former prisoners of Sobibor.
Yatom decided that De Jong should lead the Sobibor prisoners and half his own men back to Jezek, and the refugees from the train, with most of camp’s weapons as well as all the food they could carry. With such a force, De Jong and Jezek could protect the refugees in the woods, or as Feldhandler proposed, move into a nearby Polish village. The sayeret and the rest of the Jewish commandos would move on to Treblinka.
As to how the sayeret would actually take the second German death camp was a tactical problem Yatom decided to leave for later. He was intent on getting the sayeret some sleep. One way or another, they would have to be out of Sobibor by dawn.
Chapter 16
By the late evening May 25 1942, the freed Sobibor Jews had largely collapsed into an uneasy and exhausted sleep around the open areas of Camp 2, either unwilling or unable to return to their fetid bunks in the former prisoner’s barracks. The Jews allowed the chilly Polish night air to envelope them like a fresh blanket. A few determined young men kept a steady watch on the German and Ukrainian prisoners in the Forward Camp, Mueller and the Stangl among them. Many of the Germans and Ukranians slept soundly as well, unconsciousness offering an easy release from the anxiety of guessing at their fate in the morning. Stangl didn’t join them in oblivion, but lay awake through the night moaning and clutching at his shattered shoulder.
Yatom ordered the sayeret to sleep in shifts, team by team. The commandos quickly and lightly dropped off where they sat in the dirt, their weapons easily to hand. Wearily Yatom returned to the camp table where Feldhandler and Perchansky sat together uneasily. Yatom assumed that they had been talking, but when he arrived they both bent silently over the remains of the evening meal. Feldhandler was jittery.