The German guards in their greatcoats, heavy boots and thick gloves laugh as the once proud stage slowly disappears into the voracious maw of the furnace. From somewhere they have acquired a large gas heater, which, as they often tease us, keeps them “nice and toasty” in the balcony office they have converted to a small barracks.
I remember too, how the basement and back rooms are jammed with looted treasures from Belarusian homes, churches, cathedrals, and theatres. All being stored for that “glorious” day when Herr Hitler rules the world and the Swastika flies from every flagpole. Tapestries, antique furniture, silverware, paintings, sculptures, and other priceless works of art await that “new dawn” when they will adorn the homes, churches, cathedrals, and theatres of the new “supermen” who are creating for us all Hitler’s Thousand-Year Reich.
As with cream, the very best is being skimmed off the top almost daily by those destined to be the leaders of this grand “new world order.”
It is my job to record all items as they are dumped onto the main floor of the Opera House and present my list to SS General Kurt von Gottberg who arrives each evening in a chauffeured black limousine accompanied by six armed guards.
The routine is the always the same. Each evening I stand, “loot list” in hand, just outside the main entrance to the Opera House. At precisely 6:30, the limousine pulls up, a rear window rolls down, a gloved hand extends, fingers snap and the list is slapped into the glove which quickly disappears into the darkness of the rear seat as the heavy vehicle and its guards speed away. I never really get a good look at the General who, although neither of us knows it, will soon replace Satan himself.*
*FACT: Kurt (sometimes spelled Curt) von Gottberg did replace Wilhelm Kube as Generalkommissar for Belarus.
If the looting and pillaging has gone particularly well and things get a bit bogged down in the Opera House with an overabundance of “loot,” I will sometimes be ordered to pick up a hammer or crowbar and either help unpack some of the arriving boxes or, if a treasure is heading out the door to a “superman’s” home or office, I might cobble together a crate sufficiently strong enough for shipment through what is becoming increasingly dangerous territory for the Germans.
Sitting now in the warmth and comfort of this splendidly refurbished Opera House, I am startled as Aida appears to turn directly to me and begins to sing “Oh, my country, what you cost me!” Raising her arms she points and there it is! Yes, over there, just to her left. The memories flood in! I see it again as though it was only yesterday: a magnificent marble statue of the crucifixion! Look closely, Aida. One of the thorns from the crown that adorns Christ’s head is missing!
Escape
THE GHOSTS TAKE ME BACK now to the time of deliverance from this place—March 5, 1942.
During the night, I tape the marble thorn to the inside of my left thigh, using a stolen strip of masking tape.
At dawn the next day we set to work building a solid wooden crate large enough to accommodate the ten-foot high statue with its nearly six-foot-wide cross. We are told the statue will be loaded aboard a transport truck that evening, but we know it won’t actually leave Minsk until well after dark, in order to lessen the risk of partisan attacks.
Fully believing I am under God’s protection and having observed previously that none of the guards know anything about carpentry, I begin to construct a base for the crate that is more than six feet square, with full expectation that no one will recognize it doesn’t need to be nearly that large. I am right. By the time our breakfast of black bread and thin potato soup arrives, I have completed the large platform my plan requires.
It’s early March and all the Jews have “disappeared” from the Opera House work camp that now accommodates some 20 of the “cleaner ones” like myself, all in reasonably good condition. It takes all of us to hoist the statue onto the base. The rest is relatively easy. With the assistance of two other “slaves,” we complete the crate well before the truck arrives.
As the time for my salvation draws closer, my heart begins to beat faster. Adrenaline pounds in my ears. “Stay calm,” I warn myself, “slow your breathing. Don’t give them a reason to suspect anything. Slow down, slow down!”
I touch my thigh. The thorn is still there! The panic abates.
As it is obvious I am the only one with the faintest idea of what is required to build a crate large and strong enough to protect a prize this valuable, the guards are only too happy to “let Igor do it.” If anything goes wrong you can guess where the fingers will point, which is exactly what I am counting on. That and the fact the Opera House guards are lacking in a good deal more than just crate-building skills. Describing these wormy slugs as not exactly Rhodes Scholars is an understatement!
Thus I had no qualms yesterday suggesting that while the top of the crate could be left open, a large tarpaulin was needed to cushion the statue against the bumps, jolts and flying stones bound to be encountered on the long trip to Berlin. When I saw the tarp unloaded along with the lumber last night, I knew for sure God hadn’t finished with his miracles!
My main worry is that my plans may be thwarted by the Berlin-bound truck arriving before I am able to hand my “loot list” to the good general. When a guard finally points at me and then to his watch, I breathe a sigh of relief. Almost 6:30; no sign of a truck yet. Out the front door the limousine pulls up, right on time, the list is slapped into the gloved hand, and I am quickly back inside. Now deadly calm.
As usual at this time of evening, my fellow “slaves” are gathered over the feeble heat of the furnace grate, devouring their meagre meal. The guards, also as usual, having finished their meal, are off in a far corner playing their nightly game of cards. No one pays the least attention to me. They aren’t really worried about anyone escaping anyway. All the doors are barred; besides, in our tattered and filthy clothes, and with no identity cards and Minsk crawling with German troops and police, where would we go? Unless you have outside help and a good plan, your chances of escape are virtually nil. I have both. God is my outside help. The time has come to implement my plan.
Quickly, in the darkness settling over the Opera House, I climb up the side of the crate, silently drop down inside, crawl beneath the tarpaulin draping the figure of Christ, wrench the thorn from the tape on my thigh and with an astonishingly steady hand ready to plunge the cold stone into my breast, I huddle against the base of the Cross.
With Christ’s feet caressing my head, I wait. And pray the truck will arrive soon. I know full well that the longer the delay the greater the chances of a guard noticing my absence. I have nothing to fear from my fellow inmates whose senses are so blunted by cold, hunger, fatigue, fear, and hopelessness they would scarcely notice if I, or anyone, dropped dead in front of them.
I need not have worried. The shouts and laughter of the card-playing guards are abruptly stilled by the whack of the massive front door of the Opera House being thrown open and a truck, a large one by the sound of its engine, backs up to the entrance.
Cards abandoned, the guards become the models of efficiency. I hear them shouting orders now, much running about, confusion, more shouts, more orders, and then the crate with its precious cargo—the statue and me—is jerked into the air.
For once I am glad of the starvation diet that has reduced my weight to the point where it will be masked by that of the statue.
For a moment my heart pounds as the crate tilts and we come perilously close to being spilled onto the floor. I clutch my weapon even more tightly. There’s more shouting and the dangerous tilt becomes slightly less precarious. Slowly, with much grunting, groaning and cursing in several languages, I sense us moving forward, until with a great thump and more shouting we land inside the truck, thank heavens upright.
This is something I had not considered. I don’t panic, but I am very worried. Instead of being loaded onto the back of an open truck, as I had expected, it is obvious from the sound that this time they have sent an enclosed van. I hear the door thud shut and a scraping noise