Prologue
Berlin Central Train Station
Spring 1942
Berlin Central Train Station Spring 1942. Standing on the now vacated grey concrete platform, his hands in the pockets of his long beige coat and his classic top hat slightly atilt on his head, not paying attention that the wind caused by the leaving train lightly whipped the edges of his coat around his legs, Solomon Dzubas was deep in thought. He was musing to himself, "How odd it is. Whenever I come to the train station I get these fuzzy images in my mind of trains loaded with immense blocks of stone and with long cedar logs pulled by teams of oxen in a semi-tropical hilly setting. It's a view so like what I see in the Holy Land when I go there to arrange where to place the children, but the images are of a land lusher than what is found there today. And someone is shouting in Hebrew 'For Solomon the King!' Maybe what old Bentsion said ……"
Woo woo fooooshshhsh fooooshshhsh woooo woooooooo
“Soli, Soli, come down out of your clouds, the train has gone. Let’s go, you told me yourself that we should leave the station as soon as the train goes. Nu … Soli”, called Becka his wife while gently pulling on his coat sleeve.
The middle aged couple was standing on the emptied platform number four of Berlin’s Anhalter Bahnhof Train station. Solomon Dzubas was almost six feet tall and handsome with graying satin-blond haired and ice blue eyes, while his delicate beautiful wife, deep blue eyes and a small wisp of her raven black hair peeking out from her wind whipped kerchief was only five foot tall, if that can be called tall at all.
The bustling Anhalter Bahnhof station was a particularly large one for its time. Inside the hulking steel and concrete edifice there were four tracks and their platforms with high overhead bridge walkways connecting them.
Near the grand entrance were the ticket office and the schedule notice board for arrivals and departures. The building façade had the typical post World War One Germanic stern yet grandiose decorations.
Behind the building was a vast, but well organized, network of tracks, switch boxes, side tracks, work buildings, coal storehouses and all the regular equipment of a well built busy railway station.
Though not the newest or fanciest, it was the busiest of Berlin’s three railway stations. Therefore they chose using this station, for there was the least chance that much attention would be paid to the travelers or anyone accompanying them.
Aside from the familiar original arrangements of the station, there were the changes. Shortly after the beginning of the new war some seemingly small but important changes had come to this grand edifice. Outside in the open track area another “workhouse” had sprouted. But this was actually a barracks building for SS troops.
Inside the station the first thing the visitor was confronted with was a second notice board. This one bearing the infamous emblem of a spread winged eagle sitting atop a red disk with the black swastika. This notice board did not announce normal train schedules. It carried notices to the public from the Wehrmacht, orders to the general public, and notices specifically relevant to the station and train travelers.
Along with that was the ominous change of the once comfortable waiting room having been transformed into an in-place office and interrogation room of the dreaded Gestapo! At the back wall of this room had been added another exit door to ….
“Nu Soli!”
“Yes my precious Becka. You’re right let’s go. The children’s train has gone Barukh HaShem (Bless God). At least this one is a train to life”, Solomon said half absorbed in his thoughts.
“What are you talking about Soli?”
“Hmm, what did you ask Becka?”
“You said ‘a train to life’. What do you mean? I know you. You may be a dreamer at times, especially since we started this project, but when you say something I know it has meaning. Even if it’s a meaning most people don’t catch onto, don’t understand. I know you and sometimes understand you more than others do.”
“These days there are train rides that don’t lead to life, rather to …. You know all too well what I am referring to.”
Clang clang vrrrappp, clang …Waoaoao wawoaoao. The clanging of a train bell, its blaring horn along with a siren in the station itself joined to create an ear rending ruckus. “Achtung, all civilians must evacuate platforms 2, 3 and 4 immediately. All civilians must evacuate platforms 2, 3 and 4 immediately. Seig Heil!” called the coarse voice over the station’s announcement system.
SS troopers in combat gear poured out of the barracks building in the train yard taking positions by the train entry to the building to await and guard the incoming troop train, also at the platforms ends and the stations gateways.
“Becka, let’s get out of here fast, but not running so we don’t arouse suspicion! There’s a troop train coming in! We don't those evil creatures checking our identity papers.”