Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 70 of a new online serial novel, Nine A.M., by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters.
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This note is personal—please don’t tell anyone else that you got it! The offer is for a small group of people for whom it is noge’a.
If you want to join a group to learn sefer Chovos Halevavos, under the guidance of the Rav, please tell Binyamin Schvirtz. The group will probably gather on Motza’ei Shabbos to learn. Binyamin has more details.
Binyamin swallowed a yawn and read his draft for the eighth time. He deliberated whether or not to erase the secrecy warning at the beginning. Maybe it was better not to make it too mysterious; on the other hand, when their meetings would become known—and they would—it wouldn’t be good for them to be something that was open to everyone.
Some would see it as haughty on his part; others would be offended that he had not chosen them for the learning group. But he hoped they’d forgive him soon. Especially when the day would come—halevai it should be soon!—and they would also understand what was really behind this handpicked group.
He copied the note over five times in his best handwriting and glanced toward the window. Gauging by the darkness, he should get ready to go to Shacharis. Then he would climb up again to his secret place from yesterday and call Hanter. Rabbi Schwartzbrod had also advised him, just to be safe, to try to raise some matters of Yiddishkeit in the phone call, just to make absolutely sure that they were indeed Yidden and this was not some type of trap.
Elimelech Yehuda Kush had entered the shul before him; he was one of the people on the list. The list also included Yidel, Aunt Chani’s husband. Daniel Landau. Baruch Hertzlich. Yosef Posen. If all of them would want to join, of course. It was safe to assume that they would at least come over to him to find out more details, so they could decide if they wanted to join, and then they’d hear that it wasn’t only about learning.
He didn’t count himself, David, and Zeide, who would be giving the shiur.
Or Aryeh.
“Excuse me, Reb Meilech Yehuda,” he said, patting the other man on the shoulder, and without another word, stuck the small note into his hand. Appearing as if he’d long been used to getting secret notes like this, Reb Meilech Yehuda slid it naturally into his pocket and continued walking further inside.
Slowly, the people gathered for davening, including the other four men on his list. One by one, Binyamin slipped them the notes. He purposely did not keep an eye on them after that, and hoped that something about the secrecy in which he’d cloaked his words would make it obvious to them that there was something here beyond a learning group.
After davening, he spotted Uncle Yidel trying to make his way over to him through the other people, but Binyamin did not wait for him. His time was short right now; he had to speak to the man from the spice factory!
Once again, he climbed between the trees, where the mountain became very steep, every so often glancing behind to make sure no one was following him. When he reached the top, at the foot of the wall, he stood for a few seconds and scanned his surroundings. He couldn’t see the shul and that whole area from here. He whispered a tefillah that everything should work out for the best—both regarding the people he had chosen, and here, with what he was going to do now.
“Hello, good morning.” This time, in contrast to yesterday, the phone was picked up right away, as if the man had been sitting and waiting for his call.
“Good morning,” Binyamin replied. “It’s…it’s me.”
“And that’s exactly what I wanted to ask you: Who are you?”
“I told you already.” Binyamin toyed with a dry twig on the ground. “My name is Binyamin Schvirtz. We are a group of Jews who live here, in a closed compound that is owned by Nazis. My grandparents were brought here a few years after World War II broke out, and we’ve been here since.”
“Who is ‘we’? Your grandparents and you?”
“It wasn’t only my grandparents—it was a whole group of Yidden.”
“A whole group! How many are you today?”
“More than one hundred fifty, kein ayin hara.”
“Including children and everything?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “On Chol Hamoed Pesach, a baby was born here to one of our young couples.”
“I’m having a hard time believing you,” the other man said bluntly. “Where exactly are you? In a huge bunker? Where have you been hidden for almost fifty years?”
“It’s not a bunker,” Binyamin replied as he looked around. “How can I describe it? …It’s a woodsy slope of a mountain, and beyond us there’s a deep valley and then mountains all around. I think it’s a very remote location, far from any city, village, or town. It seems to be in Austria. Or maybe Germany? I don’t think so, but we’re not exactly sure about anything.” He paused. “Every time strangers come to the area, we have to hide. We always thought it was so that we should not be discovered and killed. Now I realize they have other reasons.”
“Who?”
“The Nazis who are hiding us.”
“Who are they? What are their names?”
Binyamin was quiet for a long moment. “I prefer not to give over details, for now,” he finally whispered. “I’m really…scared.”
“What have you been doing there all these years?”
“We work for them, of course.”
“A hundred fifty people! How many servants do they need?”
“There’s a factory here,” Binyamin replied, and then fell silent. He’d spoken too much, and maybe, despite it seeming unlikely, the one who was speaking to him was a friend of Wangel’s, and now it would be clear that he was speaking to one of the forced laborers from Samson Lager?
“A factory for what?”
“I prefer not to answer that right now. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions instead?”
“Again about the Fuehrer and the Wehrmacht and the end of World War II?”
“No, I got those answers from you already. Could you tell me how many parts of Shulchan Aruch there are?”
“What is this, a test?” Bentzy chuckled, but then grew serious. This time, the phone call, aside for being recorded, was on speakerphone; his father was sitting across from him, listening to every word attentively.
“I need to make sure you are really Yidden,” Binyamin said very quietly.
“Alright. So there are four parts of Shulchan Aruch.”
“I wonder if they have one there,” Bentzy’s father whispered.
“Do you even have a Shulchan Aruch where you are?” Bentzy asked.
“Yes, we have a shul here and a few sefarim. The first Jews who came here brought some sefarim and tashmishei kedushah with them, and then the Nazis took care to provide more.” His lips were terribly dry, but there was no water anywhere nearby. “Can you tell me how you call the order of when we make Kiddush and Havdalah together, on Motza’ei Shabbos that is Yom Tov?”
“Yakneha”z,” Bentzy said, studying the small reels of tape turning in the answering machine on the desk. “Can I also ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“Umm…when don’t we take haircuts?”
“Now, during Sefiras Ha’omer,” Binyamin replied. “There are a different minhagim exactly until when.”
Bentzy and his father exchanged glances. “This is insane!” Bentzy said. “We have to get you out of there, the faster the better!”
“But if he doesn’t know where exactly they are, then how can we do it?” his father asked reasonably.
Binyamin stared at the receiver. Had the voices been switched suddenly? Then the first voice spoke again. “What’s the problem? We can search for them. It sounds like the Alps, or maybe the Black Forest. Hello? Hello? Can you try to describe a bit more about your surroundings? What is there? Mountains? Rivers? Plains? …Hello do you hear me?”
“I…yes, I hear you,” Binyamin whispered. “But someone else was suddenly talking.”
“It’s me, Max Hanter,” the older voice said.
“It’s my father,” Bentzy explained. “He’s the owner of the spices factory. And I’m his son, Bentzy Hanter. I called my father to be part of this conversation, because your story has taken us by a storm here.”
“Yes, I can understand that. But you’re not talking to anyone about it, right? You won’t tell anyone about my phone, will you…? You understand that if they find out here that I called you, they will kill me.”
“If so, then of course we won’t spread it in the community.” After a moment’s silence, the father spoke again. “But I do suggest that we reach out to the Austrian police. They have helicopters, and they can be sent to find you in a place that meets your descriptions.”
“No, no police, please!” Binyamin cut him off in a terrified voice. “They have collaborators in the authorities, I—” He wanted to say, “I know,” but he suddenly caught himself. He knew about Wangel’s collaborators based on the longstanding lies. But now it was not at all certain that their friends who came here once in a while belonged to the Austrian authorities.
But still, to reveal their existence here to the authorities? The fear was too ingrained in him. He tried to force himself to say that, on the contrary, they should turn to the police and they would find and rescue them.
But maybe Wangel’s collaborators did exist. And if the Hanters went to the police, those collaborators would hurry to update Wangel that someone named Schvirtz had made contact with Jews on the outside!
“If they have collaborators, it really does complicate things,” Hanter senior said. “Fine, we’ll have to think about what to do so that—”
“For now, don’t do anything!” Binyamin wiped his forehead. The sun hadn’t yet penetrated the thick copse of trees, but he was still dripping with sweat. “Realize, please, that they have weapons, and they have, in the past, killed someone who discovered their secret. We can’t just end this story easily. It has to be planned out well.”
“B’ezras Hashem, we’re going to think about this really carefully,” Bentzy’s father said authoritatively. “We won’t do anything hasty to endanger you, don’t worry. But without knowing where you are, we can’t rescue you in any way.”
“I ask just one thing.” Binyamin’s voice trembled a bit as he rose to his feet; he had to end the call already. “If it comes to the point where we need help from the outside…will you be ready to come?”
“B’ezras Hashem,” Bentzy and his father answered in unison, and then the call was cut off.
Father and son looked at each other.
“Is this for real?” Bentzy asked.
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