Chicago, Illinois, January, 1993

They’re all here looking for justice, and if even one of them finds it, the federal court system will have had a better day than usual! Poor bastards! That thought flashed through David Berman’s mind as he pushed his way across the crowded plaza in front of the Federal Building, cursing softly at the icy wind that flung snow in his face and slapped at his coat. He ducked under the spindly legs of the bright orange Flamingo sculpture that stood in the center of the plaza and slid on the icy sidewalk, nearly colliding with a homeless woman pushing a metal cart piled high with green plastic bags. Just as he reached the corner, the “Don’t Walk” sign blinked. David skidded to a stop, tightened his grip on his heavy black trial bag, and stamped his feet impatiently. He hated cold weather, and today, especially, he missed the milder climate of Washington, D.C. where he usually lived and worked.

But to be in another city at this point in time was out of the question. As a trial attorney for the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, he was required to follow a case from beginning to end. Not that he minded; he loved his work. And the individual who was the subject of his current investigation lived on the southwest side of the Chicago.

Within the Justice Department, the Office of Special Investigations was unique. The department had but one mission−to investigate and deport individuals suspected of being Nazi war criminals.

The fit was perfect. David had been born just before World War II and had seen his family torn apart by Hitler’s atrocities. The thought that even one possible former war criminal might escape detection incensed him. And if, occasionally, the evidence against the people he was investigating (most of it now more than forty years old) was as cloudy and blurred as an ancient mirror, he knew better than most how to wipe away the haze so that a sparkling clear image emerged. As far as David Berman was concerned, every one of the Department’s suspects was guilty of something, and he intended to prosecute as many of them as he could.

The stoplight flashed green, and he crossed the street, ducking his head against the blowgun darts of sleet that slashed at his cheeks. As he zigzagged around two men waving “Jesus Saves” signs, one of them raised a bullhorn to his lips and exhorted him to “find God before it was too late.” Shaking his head, David strode toward the entrance of the black glass and steel monolith that housed the offices and courtrooms of the federal government. Find God? he thought. Where had God been when six million Jews were herded into gas chambers? David had given up on God a long time ago. In his experience, expecting divine intervention equaled a lifetime of waiting. “God helps those who help themselves,” came closer to his philosophy. He thrust himself through the revolving door so quickly that an exiting messenger found himself abruptly propelled around and back into the lobby.

“Up yours, asshole,” the young man yelled as he struggled to hold on to his plastic bag filled with envelopes.

The insult mingled with the melting snow on David’s back and rolled off his bulky shoulders as he paused inside the dim, cave-like lobby to stamp the snow off his feet, unbutton his coat, dig for a handkerchief, and wipe the streaming moisture from his face. He was a short, stocky man, barrel-chested, with a slight paunch that hung over his belt, causing his suit coat to strain against its buttons. The beginning of a double chin wobbled against his stiff white shirt collar.

David smiled as he shoved the square white cloth back into his pocket and started across the lobby, pushing through the clusters of people hurrying across the dull gray granite floor. The staccato clicking of their footsteps on the rough stone rose and fell like a thousand Morse codes tapped out on old-fashioned telegraph keys.

Suddenly a small group of reporters clutching minicams pushed past him and stopped.

Now what’s going on? He sighed as he caught sight of the object of their attention—Chris Gordon, his former law school classmate. David knew Chris lived and worked in Chicago, but it had been his fervent hope that, in the short time he expected to be in the city, their paths would not cross.

David started to edge past the small group, but curiosity held him back. He hadn’t seen Chris in person since graduation, but he had read about him frequently. Chris was now a partner at Atherton & Sloan, one of Chicago’s largest law firms with all the perks and privileges accompanying that position.

He watched as the reporters converged in a small semicircle and aimed their cameras at the tall, thin man whose stringy, carrot-red hair flopped across his narrow forehead. Standing beside Chris was an overweight man with a few strands of dark hair plastered to his high, round forehead, whom David recognized as George Black, the president of Western Trust, one of Chicago’s biggest banks. Despite the chill air in the lobby, the heavyset man was perspiring heavily. He drew back behind Chris and pulled his coat collar up over his chin while the reporters peppered the pair with questions.

“What about it, Mr. Gordon?” a reporter called. “Did the bank’s trust department really churn accounts to get more fees?”

David edged forward, wondering what his former law school classmate had to say. From what he’d read, the officers of Western Trust Bank were in a lot of trouble.

Chris Gordon stepped forward and flashed a genial, self-assured smile at the reporters. His cashmere topcoat fell open revealing his perfectly tailored, dark blue pin-striped suit. His bright blue eyes swept across the crowd.

“Gentlemen,” Chris said, drawing his client forward and placing an arm on his shoulder, “you know that I can’t comment on a case that is before the court.”

“From what I’ve heard, things don’t look too good for Western Trust,” one of the reporters commented.

Chris smiled again. “I’m confident that when the court hears all the facts, my client will be exonerated.”

“What have you got up your sleeve this time?” another reporter asked.

“Nothing but the truth,” Chris replied. He grasped his client’s arm and began to move toward the elevators. “And,” he added, “to paraphrase someone much more famous than I, the truth will set us free. Good day, gentlemen.”

“Speaking of the truth,” one of the reporters called out, “is it true that all the trust records for the bank’s biggest accounts have disappeared?”

His question went unanswered as Chris and his client tried to push through the crowd.

The truth? David thought to himself. Facts? Chris Gordon hasn’t used facts to build a case since we were in law school. In fact, even then, he only studied when he couldn’t cheat. I wonder what his partners and clients would think if they knew how close he came to flunking out of law school. Most likely he’s got the judge in his pocket—or his client does. Or he’s sleeping with the judge’s wife. Shaking his head, David stepped back into the small crowd that had gathered and stared at his former classmate as Chris and his client approached.

Suddenly David realized that Chris was staring at him. Chris’s bright blue eyes narrowed for a moment, then widened in recognition. He smiled at David and clapped him on the shoulder.

“David? David Berman?” Chris turned to his client and said, “Give me a second.”

A flash of pain shot through David’s shoulder, whether from physical or psychic discomfort, he couldn’t have said. He felt suddenly hot, and sweat trickled down his neck as he stared at Chris and automatically shook his hand.

“Hi, Chris,” he said.

“What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since law school. Didn’t you take a job in Washington?”

“I’m with the Justice Department,” David answered. “They transferred me here a few months ago to work on a case. I’m only here temporarily.”

He forced himself to smile as Chris threw an arm around his shoulders. “We’ll have to get together to talk over old times,” Chris said. Then he glanced at his wristwatch and drew back. “Look, I’m due in court. I’ll call you—we can do lunch one of these days, OK?”

“Sure,” David replied. “Anytime.”

Chris stuck out his hand again and as David shook it, he looked up at his former classmate. The years had been good to him. With the exception of a few lines around his eyes and mouth, Chris Gordon looked exactly like the student David had once known. Chris smiled and turned, took his client by the arm, and walked toward the elevators.

Old feelings of guilt and anger, feelings that he thought were long buried, streaked through David’s mind as he watched Chris and his client walk away. Then he stopped himself. He’d made his decision years ago. He had done what he had to do, and there was no point in looking back. Besides, he had no interest in practicing law the way Chris Gordon did. He had no interest in trying to extricate wealthy corporations from problems that were largely the result of their self-interest and greed.

David turned and walked rapidly toward the elevators, shaking his head at the memories of the gangly red head who had telephoned him at all hours of the night wanting to borrow his case analyses and class notes. It had seemed so innocent in the beginning.

The elevator doors whooshed open. David pushed the old memories out of his mind as he stepped into a waiting car and jabbed impatiently at the button for his floor. Yesterday, he had finished the Petrovitch investigation; and today, he would set wheels in motion that would, he hoped, lead to the prosecution of one more Nazi creep. Seconds later, he strode into his small office, dropped his trial bag next to his desk, and shrugged off his coat, tossing it carelessly onto a gray metal chair that stood in front of his desk. He punched a button on his phone, angled the receiver between his jaw and shoulder, hefted the trial bag to the top of his desk, and snapped it open. As he spoke, he pulled a stack of manila file folders out of the bag and set them on his desk.

“Hi, Marcia. I want a summons served this morning—arrange it please. I’m going to review the file one more time, so have the paperwork ready in about an hour. And bring me some coffee, would you please? I didn’t have time for breakfast this morning.”

He hung up the phone, set the heavy black trial bag back on the floor, settled himself in his worn black chair, and sighed. Marcia was a temporary employee who had been hired to work with him while he was in Chicago and she was still learning the job. David hoped she would learn quickly. His gray metal desk was piled high with files that needed attention, and the small bulletin board on the wall next to his desk was cluttered with notes and phone messages. He was reaching for the first file folder when Marcia edged carefully through the doorway balancing a large styrofoam cup of coffee on a small metal tray. She was a large woman with wide shoulders and full, heavy hips accentuated by the tightly-belted, full-skirted dresses that she invariably wore. Her short, curly, gray hair lay in precise ringlets around her full cheeks and broad forehead.

“Hi,” she said as she carefully placed the tray on the edge of the desk. “Who’s getting the summons?”

David leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers across his chest. His heavy black eyebrows beetled up and down and a self-satisfied smile played across his mouth as he rocked back and forth.

“Ben-ja-min Pet-ro-vitch,” he said, smacking his fleshy lips over the syllables, as though they were delicate tidbits of some gourmet delight. “If I had the time, I’d deliver it myself just to see the look on his face. He’s going to be one surprised little bastard.”

“I don’t really understand much about what you’re working on. Can you tell me something about this case?”

“Well, the information we initially got from Washington was sketchy. But we did our homework, and the evidence we uncovered is solid. It’s taken us almost two years, but we’ve got him.”

“But isn’t he Jewish?” Marcia asked.

“Yes, but his file from Auschwitz indicates that he wasn’t,” David replied. “He was classified as an Aryan political prisoner, and assigned to guard duty. I’m certain that he lied to the Nazis to save his own skin.”

Marcia pushed David’s coat aside and sat on the edge of the chair in front of his desk as she spoke. “Given what was going on in those camps, is that so terrible?”

David felt a surge of impatience, then realized how new Marcia was. “Yes, it is terrible. Look, this guy arrived at Auschwitz with a group of Jews from the ghetto in Riga—that’s a city in Latvia. That ghetto wasn’t that big. That means he was captured with people he knew. Only one person from that particular group survived—our Mr. Petrovitch.” David leaned forward, and his voice rose hoarsely as he spoke. “Don’t you understand? He helped kill his friends and neighbors.”

“Maybe he didn’t have a choice,” Marcia said.

“There’s always a choice. Even if you’re a prisoner in a concentration camp, you have choices. You can choose to live or die, submit or resist.” David sprang from his chair and began pacing back and forth across the small office.

“Look, the Nazis forced a lot of prisoners to work in the camps, Jews and non-Jews. But some of them just went through the motions. And they tried to help the other prisoners by smuggling food or stealing clothes and blankets for them. But not this guy. You should read the witness reports. He was an animal! I can hardly wait to meet him in court. And you know what’s really incredible? This man is a prominent member of his synagogue, goes to services every week, does all kinds of charity work. It seems to me that he got religion a little late. I don’t know how he lives with himself!”

“What I don’t understand,” Marcia said, “is how you can go after someone so many years later. Isn’t there a statute of limitations or something?”

“Not in cases like this,” David replied. “It’s really very simple. After World War II, a lot of Europeans wanted to come to the United States. Before they were allowed to come here, they had to fill out an application. And one of the questions on that application had to do with whether or not a person had ever aided or assisted in the persecution of civilians during the war. People who answered ‘yes’ to that question were ineligible to emigrate to the United States. So, of course everyone who came here had to answer ‘no,’ or they wouldn’t have been allowed into the country. But if they answered no and we discover that they lied, then we can deport them because they illegally procured their citizenship.”

“When you deport someone, where do they go?”

“Well, that’s a little more complicated. A person who is being deported has a choice of the country of his or her birth, the country he or she lived in before coming here, or, if those countries won’t take the person, the United States finds a country. Until about a year ago, most of the countries that these people came from were part of the Soviet Union, so that’s where they were sent. But, now, since the Soviet Union doesn’t exist, it’s more difficult.”

“Do you deport the whole family?” Marcia asked.

“Nope, just the person. The family can follow if they want to, but in most cases, they stay here.”

“It still doesn’t seem fair,” Marcia said. “After all these years. . . .”

“You can hardly call what the Germans did to the Jews fair,” David interrupted. “It doesn’t matter how many years have passed. Those people have to pay for their crimes. Now, you get that summons typed while I take one more look at his file. I want to be sure that it’s in order.”

“Right away.” Marcia left, closing the door to David’s office softly behind her.

David pulled the stack of files toward him. Each folder bore a neat white label that read “United States vs. Benjamin Petrovitch,” and identified its contents. He could remember, as if it were yesterday, the day this case became his top priority. He had sent one of his staff members out to investigate a report indicating that a Benjamin Petrovitch who had been a guard at Auschwitz was now living in Chicago. The investigator had delivered his report personally.

“Mr. Berman,” the young man said. “Here’s the report on Benjamin Petrovitch. And, you know, there’s something strange about this case.”

“Was this guy a guard at Auschwitz?” David asked. “That’s all I care about.”

“Oh, yes,” the investigator replied. “No question about that. He was at Auschwitz for several years. We found his name in the camp records; they list him as a political prisoner who was assigned to guard duty. But here’s what’s so odd—we also found a declaration, signed by Mr. Petrovitch, stating that he is of Aryan descent.”

“So?” David said. “The Nazis made everyone who wasn’t Jewish sign those forms.”

“But,” the investigator said as he handed the file to David, “Mr. Petrovitch is Jewish—at least, he is now.”

Puzzled, David had picked up the file and skimmed through it. Petrovitch had arrived at Auschwitz with a group of Jewish prisoners from the Riga ghetto. He must have been Jewish, David thought, or he wouldn’t have been in the ghetto in the first place. Somehow, the man must have been able to persuade the Nazis otherwise. The very idea ignited David’s anger, and the more he had learned about Benjamin Petrovitch, the more his anger grew. And as his investigation widened, he decided he needed to be in Chicago to finish it. It didn’t take much to persuade his superiors to assign him temporarily to the department based in Chicago.

He pulled the stack of files on his desk toward him. He selected one labeled “Eyewitness Testimony.” Seven people positively identified Benjamin Petrovitch as a particularly vicious guard at Hitler’s most famous death camp. He opened the folder, pulled out a thick sheaf of papers stapled in one corner and frowned as he began to read reports that described the ugly beatings and line-ups that forced prisoners to stand barefoot in deep snow or broiling sun for hours. One witness was able to identify him as one of the guards who participated in “selections,” the term the Nazis used to designate which prisoners would live or die. “We were forced to run naked in front of him,” he read. “Sometimes he looked for people with small hands, sometimes women with big breasts, and he would select—point with his baton: life, death, life, death.” David’s scowl deepened as he reread the transcript of his interview with Michael Wasserstrom. Mr. Wasserstrom had identified Benjamin Petrovitch from the group of photographs David showed him.   His memories were frightening.

“One incident—I can remember it as if it were yesterday,” the elderly man had said the day David interviewed him. “It was very cold. January, I think. We had been called out for a line up, and Petrovitch was counting the prisoners. They thought someone was missing, and we stood for hours while they counted and recounted. The day before I had fainted, and the guards beat me because I could not work. While we were standing in the field, I began to feel faint again, and someone passed me a crust of bread. Somehow Petrovitch caught me putting the bread in my mouth. He forced my jaws open and pulled the bread out of my mouth. He put his fingers down my throat so far that I almost choked. Then he beat me with a whip. My cuts became infected, and I still have scars on my back and legs from that whipping. I remember asking him how he could to this to a fellow prisoner, and all he said was, ‘I want to live.’ Mr. Berman,” Michael Wasserstrom had said quietly, “we all wanted to live.”

Mr. Wasserstrom was a short, stocky man with a round face and a receding hairline. As he spoke, sweat rolled down his cheeks and dampened his shirt collar. “I still don’t understand it,” he said at the end of the interview. “He was Jewish, although the Nazis, for some reason, didn’t know that. How could you turn your back on your own people?” The old man shook his head.

David set aside Mr. Wasserstrom’s file and picked up the transcript of his meeting with Barbara Kaufman. Mrs. Kaufman had come to his office last spring. He could still see her perched nervously on the chair across from his desk, a thin, birdlike woman with white hair and large, bright hazel eyes that glittered with tears several times during their interview. She was also able to identify Benjamin Petrovitch from a group of faded pictures he had shown her as one of the guards at Auschwitz.

Her face turned white as she stared at the picture. “That’s him,” she said decisively.

David asked her if she was certain.

“Absolutely,” she said. “I could never forget those eyes. They were blue, and as cold as ice. Even on the hottest days, when he looked at me, I always shivered. He had a way of staring at you that made you feel as though he was drilling holes through your body. But that’s not the only reason I remember him.”

“What do you mean?” he had asked.

“One of the women in our barracks was pregnant,” Barbara answered. “She was very young—only sixteen or seventeen, and she said she had been raped by an officer before she was sent to the camp. Marla managed to hide it—if the Germans had found out, they would have killed her. But she was careful, and we helped her. We found loose shirts for her to wear, and we tried to shield her whenever the guards were around. She went into labor one bitter cold January night and gave birth to a baby boy. Miraculously, he lived through the night. The next morning when they called us out for work, Rebecca was too weak to get out of bed. I was worried about her so I stayed in the barracks too. It was foolish of me, but I hoped that maybe, just once, they wouldn’t notice that two of us were missing from the line up.

Barbara paused for a moment to dab at the tears that were threatening to spill down her pale cheeks.

As she raised her arm, David caught sight of the faded blue number tattooed on the inside of her wrist. Bastards! he thought as he waited for Barbara to compose herself. They made sure no one would ever forget.

“You must understand what Auschwitz was like,” she continued. “The barracks were simple wooden buildings—just four walls and a roof. We slept on platforms, twenty or thirty people to a section that would probably have comfortably held eight people. There were no toilets, just buckets that we emptied every day. In the winter the slop was half frozen by morning. Because Rebecca was so weak, we had placed the bucket by her end of the platform, and that day it was almost full.”

She paused again, looked down at the floor, and took a deep breath. When she resumed her story, her voice trembled.

“Of course, I was wrong. They realized right away that two of us were missing. They began to search the barracks, and before long I could hear them shouting outside our building. I tried to think of some place to hide all of us, but there was nowhere for us to go. I was able to conceal the child at the foot of the platform under a pile of blankets. Two guards came through the door and began tossing mattresses and blankets on the floor. Then they spotted us and ordered us to go outside. I stood up, but when Rebecca tried to stand, she collapsed and the baby started to cry. I tried to distract them by screaming that Rebecca was ill, but it was too late. That one,” Barbara motioned toward the picture on David’s desk, “jerked the blankets back, saw the baby, picked it up and dangled it in the air. The baby screamed, and Rebecca pulled herself up on her knees begging him to give her the child. He refused, and the other guard grabbed one of the baby’s arms and began to pull on it as if to take the baby from Petrovitch. But Petrovitch pulled in the other direction until I thought that poor child was going to be torn in half. All the while, he and the other guard were shouting at each other. They spoke German, of course, so I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Rebecca wrapped her arms around Petrovitch’s knees, and screamed at him to stop, and he yelled back at her. Then, the other guard let go of the baby and began kicking at Rebecca until she fell back onto the floor. As soon as he had the child to himself, Petrovitch shoved it head first into the slop bucket and held it there until it drowned.” Barbara bowed her head and dabbed at her eyes again.

“It was such senseless cruelty. I’ll never forget the way he looked that day. His face was so twisted and contorted—like a monster almost, and his eyes were as flat and cold as those of a corpse. I still have nightmares about that day. A few days later, Rebecca disappeared from our barracks, and I never saw her again. I don’t know whether she’s alive or dead.”

Barbara’s face hardened. “Back then, I swore if I ever saw him again, I would kill him, and I haven’t changed my mind.”

David’s stomach had twisted with anger and his head began to pound as he listened to her story. He could almost hear the frantic screams of the anguished mother as she watched the body of her tiny infant being shoved into the filthy pail. Of all the stories he had heard over the years, this was one of the worst.

Now, almost a year later, as David sat alone in his small office rereading the transcripts, anger again flooded over him in hot waves. Some of his relatives had died in Auschwitz. That woman, Rebecca, that Barbara Kaufman had described, could have been one of them. It was even possible that either Mr. Wasserstrom or Mrs. Kaufman had known members of his family; he hadn’t asked. He set the file down and began slowly clenching and unclenching his fists. Every time he thought about the mindless brutality of the Nazis, his commitment to punish every last one them grew stronger.

“Petrovitch, he muttered, “I’d really like to know how you managed to fool them. But what goes around comes around—and I’m going to make sure you pay for this.

Again he reached for the phone and punched the button that connected him to Marcia’s desk. While he waited for her to answer, he stared thoughtfully at the back of his office door where a shapeless blue-and-white-striped shirt hung. One of the sleeves was torn, and the entire garment was stained and dirty. It was part of the uniform worn by prisoners in the camps, and David never looked at it without wondering who had worn it and what had happened to that person. The splotchy brown stains looked like dirt, but he knew some of them were dried blood. Then, in response to Marcia’s query, he cleared his throat and spoke briskly into the phone.

“Is that summons ready? Good—have it served right away. And one more thing. When I came in this morning, I saw a bunch of reporters in the lobby. Why don’t you see if any of them are still around. I think this case warrants a press conference.”

He hung up the phone and glanced at a picture in a small silver frame that sat near the center of his desk. His father’s huge burning eyes, topped by thick shaggy eyebrows, gazed back at him. David swung his chair around, glanced for a moment at the snow sliding swiftly past his window, then swung back, and again stared at the picture, as the memory of another winter day long past came back with a rush.

“I’m going after another one, Papa,” he whispered fiercely.

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To celebrate the release of Judy’s novel, No Justice!, a reading will take place this Saturday, September 3, at 2:30 p.m. The event will feature readings of short excerpts from the novel, followed by refreshments provided by the department. We hope you’ll join us at Columbia College Chicago, 618 S. Michigan Ave., Room 516.

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