Amerikan Eagle

Sam laughed. “Humanitarian! Are you out of your mind?”

“No, I’m not. Every Jew here is a Jew that’s saved.”

“Some saved,” Sam said. “Worked hard, barely dressed, barely fed—”

“But saved nonetheless, compared to what awaits them in Europe,” Hanson insisted. “Morgenthau doesn’t like it much, either, even though he’s running the program, but… it’s better to be here, overworked and underfed, than to be back in Europe, slaughtered.”

Sam kept quiet. He didn’t know what else to say. Hanson sighed. “Look, Sam. You’re in a very dangerous position. You now know one of this country’s deepest and darkest secrets. And you need to tell me: What do you plan to do about it if you get out?”

Sam said, “Nothing.” He waited, then added, “For the moment.”

Hanson said sharply, “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said,” Sam said, not liking the smooth way Hanson was talking, how comfortable and clean he looked in his uniform. Sam was sure his boss had eaten a good breakfast before coming here. Sam went on. “Maybe I’ll keep quiet. Maybe I won’t. Maybe the American people need to know what the hell their government is doing and how they’re treating refugees here. Maybe they have a right to know these poor bastards are being worked nearly to death.”

“Who gave you that right to say anything?”

Sam said, “I’m a free American, that’s all the right I need.”

Hanson shook his head. “Maybe that was right years ago. But not now. And you’re making an assumption. That you’re getting out of here.”

“You didn’t put on your dress uniform and travel a couple of hours by train to just to have a talk with me, did you?”

“That’s exactly what I did. To have a talk with you and see how smart you are. Let’s say Sam Miller, crusader of the truth and defender of whatever, convinces the Boston Globe or New York Times or New York Herald Tribune to break this story. What happens then?”

“I don’t know.”

Hanson reached into his uniform jacket, pulled out a sheaf of black-and-white photographs. “I’ll tell you what happens then. Chaos. Violence. The camps are discovered, and maybe some of our jobless, they break into these camps and beat up or kill the Jews because they’re stealing jobs at slave wages that they feel belong to true Americans. Maybe the ghettos in California and New York and Miami are attacked, and there’s a pogrom here in the United States. That’s one thing. The other is that the deal between Hitler and Long to ship the Jews here, the deal is dead. It only works if it’s kept a secret, and with the secret out, Long will drop it like the proverbial hot potato. Then the Jews stay in Europe. No more cargo ships across the Atlantic. This is what awaits them. Look. I got these photographs from a friend of mine in army intelligence.”

The first photo showed a country landscape, a hillside overlooking a ditch. There were German soldiers, laughing, rifles in hand. The next photo showed a line of people herded into range. Men with long beards, young boys, grandmothers, women, some of the women carrying children, and young girls as well.

They were all naked.

Another photograph, Hanson silently dealing them out as if they were some obscene set of playing cards. Most of the men, desperately trying to be modest, cupped their genitals with their hands. The women held one open hand below their bellies, others holding an arm across their breasts, some of the women using the infants to shield them.

Another photo. Sam forced himself to look. The Germans had lined up in good military order, rifles up, and were shooting at the line of naked men, women, and children.

Shooting at them all. The rustling sound of photo paper was all that Sam could hear. Most of the naked men and women had fallen forward into the open ditch, but others had crumpled to the ground. An officer holding out a service pistol was standing in the pile of bodies, aiming down to shoot the nearest ones in the head.

The final photo. One German soldier, grinning widely, was kicking at the body of a bloody infant, as if kicking a football.

Hanson held that last photo out the longest, then put the photos back in his pocket. He wiped his hands together as if they had been soiled.

Sam looked away, bile in his throat. Hanson said softly, “We can’t save them all, Sam. But we can save a lot, and we can continue to save a lot. This truth gets out about the camps here in the United States, and the deal is done.”

“Deals?” Sam forced himself to speak, even though he felt like throwing up. “We’re making deals with a government and army that can do that?”

“We deal with who we have to, even if it’s the devil himself,” Hanson replied. “You saw those photos. If we hadn’t brought over the refugees working in this quarry, that’s the fate waiting for them.”

“But we’re better than that.”

“Maybe so, but none of us have clean hands. None of us.”

Sam said, “Speak for yourself.”