Jacob’S Legacy: Justice for Nazi-Looted Art

By Robert Lockwood

August 8, 1944, the war in Europe is bleeding to a close. The scion of a prominent New York family, US Army Lt. Col. Jacob Jay Rosenthal discovers six paintings, the works of great masters, in the bunker of a battle-battered mansion of a Nazi colonel in Frth, Germany. Deftly, he smuggles two of them to a Swiss bank vault, the others to New York City as hes deployed home. Three generations of Rosenthals commit themselves to finding the rightful owners, victims or heirs. Prophetically, Jay shunned restitution by governments, knowing that legitimate claimants would face the deceptions and ineptness of sputtering bureaucracies. The Rosenthals encounter illicit trading networks of ex-Nazis, tax-evading free-trade zone systems, and legal barriers and technicalities lobbied into place by a few great American and European museums. The Rosenthal weltanschaung never curdles, even as Jays daughter-in-law is murdered by hired German gangsters. Another family member dies mysteriously as her small plane hits a mountain near Nice, France, each having come close to finding the rightful owners. As Jacobs legacy seems a lost cause, his grandsons swampy deal to sell the billion-dollar collection suddenly disintegrates and for the right reasons. Set in New York City, the Hamptons, Monte Carlo, and Paris, the realities of illicit trade in Nazi-confiscated art coagulate into a corroborated denial of justice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503584747

Robert Lockwood

Robert Lockwood, a reformed Washington lobbyist, represented many Fortune 500 companies and institutions on matters of taxation, international trade, and defense.

Book preview

JACOB’S

LEGACY

JUSTICE FOR NAZI-LOOTED ART

A

NOVEL

BY

ROBERT LOCKWOOD

Copyright © 2015 by Robert Lockwood.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015911055

ISBN:      Hardcover   978-1-5035-8476-1

               Softcover     978-1-5035-8475-4

               eBook          978-1-5035-8474-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 07/13/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

CAST OF CHARACTERS

CHAPTER 1 IMMINENCE

CHAPTER 2 DISCOVERY

CHAPTER 3 RENDERING

CHAPTER 4 RESTORATION

CHAPTER 5 RED FACES

CHAPTER 6 FLIGHT

CHAPTER 7 FAMILY MITZVAH

CHAPTER 8 RENEWAL

CHAPTER 9 RESTRUCTURING

CHAPTER 10 LEVERAGE

CHAPTER 11 STRIPELESS DIPLOMACY

CHAPTER 12 DIPLOMACY SUSPENDED

CHAPTER 13 BIRTH TO A LEGACY

CHAPTER 14 MORE THAN A STATE OF MIND

CHAPTER 15 MOMENTUM

CHAPTER 16 DETOURS

CHAPTER 17 RIGHTFUL WRONGS

CHAPTER 18 RELIEF?

CHAPTER 19 NEW DIRECTIONS

CHAPTER 20 HAUNTING TRUTHS

CHAPTER 21 FATAL FOOTSTEPS

CHAPTER 22 L’AFFAIRE

CHAPTER 23 NEVERMORE

CHAPTER 24 THE INVESTIGATION

CHAPTER 25 BEGINNINGS … AND ENDINGS

CHAPTER 26 A NEW FAMILY TABLEAU

CHAPTER 27 RENEWED VIGOR

CHAPTER 28 HOPE … AND DISMAY

CHAPTER 29 STRESSED RECONCILIATION

CHAPTER 30 NORMALCY DEFIED

CHAPTER 31 CONTINENTAL DRIFT

CHAPTER 32 THE DEAL

CHAPTER 33 WORLDS COLLIDE

CHAPTER 34 WISDOM FROM THE GRAVE

CHAPTER 35 TOWERING EGOS

CHAPTER 36 CULTURES CLASH

CHAPTER 37 NEW CAVEATS

CHAPTER 38 DASH TO THE FINISH LINE

CHAPTER 39 SO MUCH DICTA

CHAPTER 40 JUSTICE CONTRIVED

BOOKS BY ROBERT LOCKWOOD

NONFICTION

French Nuclear Energy

Military Unions

Legislative Analysis

FICTION

A Culture of Deception

Political Ducks: Lucky, Lame and Dead

Au Revoir, Israel

Sweet Revenge

A Dragon Defanged

Artful Murder in the Hamptons

A Rogue’s Gallery

Jacob’s Legacy

An Artless Exhibit (in progress)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The Swiss and German governments, often subjects of scorn and suspicion in the pages of this novel, have come into the twenty-first century with open hands. Much credit goes to the enlightened leadership of the Swiss Federal Office of Culture (FOC), which strengthened the authenticity of such distinguished collections as those found in Kunsthaus Zurich, indisputably one of the world’s most prestigious art museums. Moreover, Switzerland has taken a giant step toward implementing the lagging 1970 UNESCO Convention on cultural property by legislating standards well beyond the UNESCO baseline. Switzerland’s 2005 Federal Act on the International Transfer of Cultural Property (CPTA) not only addresses the highly sensitive issue of provenance (rightful ownership) of cultural treasures but also fosters claims by other states regarding the return of certain items of cultural heritage.

The Koordinierungstelle Magdeburg has established Germany as what might be characterized as the best jurisdiction for claimant filings. The office is located in the town of Magdeburg, Germany. Since 1994, it has become the most reliable source of data on lost art, and its restitution functions were solidly backed by the German Federal Government and the regional Saxony-Anhalt government, which cohosts its site and work.

Regrettably, despite the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi Confiscated Art, America remains doctrinally straitjacketed to a body of claimant processes that directly conflict with the prospective acquisition and hoarding impulses of this immense market as well as the residence of perhaps the greatest number of claimants in the world.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

MAJOR CHARACTERS IN THE ROSENTHAL LINEAGE

Rosenthal, Sam - born: 1891, died: 1945. Founder of the Rosenthal Development Corp. (RDC); father of Jay.

Rosenthal, Jacob (Jay) - b. 1912, d. 1989. World War Two Army officer, who finds Nazi-confiscated art in an abandoned mansion of Nazi Col. Ernst Graf von Hacke in Fürst, Bavaria, Germany. He sequesters the art in Swiss and US bank vaults. Scion to the Rosenthal Development Corporation (RDC), a major New York realty company.

Rosenthal, Jane Grundig - b. 1918, d. 1995. Jay’s wife, who spearheads the family’s three-generation quest to find the rightful owners of the confiscated art.

Rosenthal, David - b. 1941, d. 2007. Son of Jay and Jane, who inherits the RDC and the commitment to finding the owners of heirs with legitimate claims to the art.

Stern, Susan Rosenthal - b. 1948. David’s sister, who marries Alan Stern, MD.

Rosenthal, Sandra Kaplan - b. 1948, d. 1980. David’s first wife, who is murdered by German assassins as she comes close to finding the likely owners of the art. She divorced David and had planned to marry a French aristocrat, Alexis Puget.

Rosenthal, Peter - b. 1972. Son of David and Sandra. Ultimately assumes control of RDC and is designated by David as sole owner of the art that he ultimately decides to sell.

Rosenthal, Betsy - b. 1972. Daughter of David and Sandra and Peter’s sister, who becomes a medical doctor and spends her professional life aloof from the family in Napa Valley with her vintner husband.

Esch, Becky Stern - b. 1974. Daughter of Susan and Alan Stern, granddaughter of Jay and Jane, who, with her husband, Martin Esch, are partner owners and manager of the Stern-Mayer Art Gallery. The Sterns share a wedding gift to Becky from Dr. Alan Stern, who inherited the gallery from his family.

Rosenthal, Linda Esch - b. 1944, d. 2012. Second wife of David, who mysteriously dies in a small plane crash in the French Alps en route to visit a key individual with information regarding the original owners of the Nazi-looted art in the Rosenthal’s custody.

Esch, Martin - b. 1973. Son of Linda’s first marriage to Rupert Esch, who died at age thirty-seven. Married to Becky Stern, Peter’s cousin. Martin is Peter’s stepbrother.

OTHER MAJOR CHARACTERS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

Fouquet, Pierre Malot - b. 1955. Senior adviser to His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco. Key player in developing Monaco’s museum, cultural and commercial infrastructure.

Greenspan, Gilbert, MD - b. 1908, d. 2002. World War II US Army Medical Corps officer and Columbia University Physicians and Surgeons Medical School professor. Wartime colleague of Jay, who later became the family doctor.

Lang, Julien - b. 1918, d. 2000. French art collector and dealer in Paris, who successfully defied Nazi thefts of victims’ art. Develops a brief romantic relationship with Jane Rosenthal.

Morris (Morey) Mayer Lambert - b. 1973. The eighteenth Vicomte of Montolivo; son of an American mother, who was an original partner in the Stern-Mayer Art Gallery and an aristocratic French father, who was a renown Postimpressionist artist and professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. A later business partner with Peter.

O’Dwyer, William - b. 1890, d. 1964. Former NYC mayor (1946–1950), whom Jay helped get a Truman nomination as US Ambassador to Mexico following his resignation from the mayor’s office.

Orlov, Fedora - b. 1980. Peter’s fiancée and daughter of Lazar Orlov, Russian billionaire of Irkutsk Timber Corp. of Siberia. She manages the company’s overseas operations from Monte Carlo and lives part of the summer in Southampton, Long Island.

Orlov, Lazar - b. 1942. Russian billionaire close to the Russian federation leadership, including Pres. Vladimir Putin. Conspires with Peter to buy the Rosenthal art trove and put it beyond the reach of any legitimate claimants.

Puget, Alexis - b. 1922, d. 2003. A high-level French aristocrat as the Marquis de Puget-Théniers. As a youthful French Résistance fighter and neighbor, he knew the mother of Linda Langer Esch Rosenthal, Vivienne Rothberg Langer, who gave birth to Linda in Neuilly, Paris. Sandra Rosenthal and Alexis had planned to marry after she left David and before she was murdered.

Von Hacke, Ernst Graf - b. 1918, d. 1945. German Army colonel and Bavarian count, who was a favored collector of seized art for Hitler’s private collection. He ultimately lost Hitler’s support and was killed on the streets of Paris by the fleeing Gestapo as the French and American armies approached the city.

OTHER CHARACTERS WHO APPEAR IN THE STORY

Billingsley, Sherman - b. 1900, d. 1966. Mercurial owner of the famous NYC Stork Club.

Grower, Marie Goodkind - b. 1920, d. 2014. A Polish-Lithuanian Jewish baroness married to Sir Robert Grower, eighth Earl of Granville, who was the senior British diplomat in Austria at the time of the Nazi takeover.

Harris, Stephanie Grower - b. 1973. Granddaughter of Marie Goodkind Grower and sometime lady friend of Peter.

Koch, Ed - b. 1924, d. 2013. NYC mayor (1978–1989), who assisted Jay and Jane in getting more cooperation from NYC museums believed to be holding looted art.

Kissinger, Henry - b. 1923 in Fürth, Germany. Former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State to Presidents Nixon and Ford.

Langer, Johann - b. 1906. Husband of Vivienne Rothberg Langer (b. 1910, d. 1959), Linda Langer Esch Rosenthal’s mother. A well-known Austrian art dealer living in Paris. He was killed by the Gestapo in Paris in 1942.

Moynihan, Daniel Patrick - b. 1927, d. 2003. US Senator from New York and Chairman of US Senate Finance Committee who sponsored the ambassadorial nominations of Sandra and Linda.

Murphy, Morgan - b. 1988. Counsel to Morey Lambert’s Centre de Recherche International de Monaco, a Wesleyan University overseas study center. The couple lived together.

Rudenko, Viktor - b. 1904, d. 1990. Former Procurer General of the Soviet Union.

Streeter, Harry - Peter’s young assistant. The son of a close friend and recent Trinity College graduate, Harry was learning the global real estate business.

Truman, Harry S. - b. 1874, d. 1972. President of the United States, 1945–1974, and strong supporter of the Rosenthal quest for claimant justice, appointing Jane as an ambassador for cultural affairs.

Von Hacke, Countess Sasha Drzebicki - b. 1911, d. 1944 at Dachau. Daughter of the distinguished Jewish General Berek Drzebicki of the Polish army. Hitler long tolerated Von Hacke’s wife because of Colonel Von Hacke’s successful acquisition of victims’ art. Also close friends with Countess Zielinski and Lady Marie Goodkind Grower.

Von Schill, Georg - b. 1915. Former Nazi general and major assembler of stolen victims’ artifacts who was exonerated at the Nuremberg Trials as a minor figure in the Nazi hierarchy. In retirement, he managed the Koordinierungstelle, a Würzburg-based database of known stolen artworks, through which he managed to conceal legitimate claimant information. Instrumental in Sandra’s murder.

Wagner, Robert - b. 1877, d. 1953. US Senator from NY, 1927–1949. Lobbied in behalf of Jay and Jane, getting them appointed as roving ambassadors for cultural affairs by President Truman. A major player in getting the United Nations Building implanted in New York City rather than Geneva.

Zielinski, Countess Sabine - b. 1910, d. 1942. Jewish Polish Countess and close friend of Marie Goodkind Grower. Died in the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Married name not known.

CHAPTER 1

IMMINENCE

GERMAN SURRENDER IN THE CARDS, screamed the headlines of the Stars and Stripes. The raggedy GI tabloid was the only source of news for the weary and reddened eyes on the dog-faced, haggard men of the Two Hundred Forty-Second Regiment of the Forty-Second Infantry Division. Here it was, May 7, 1945, barely a month after the hand-to-hand murderous combat at Schweinfurt. Then there was the suicidal German resistance at Fürth near Nürnberg. The Rainbow Division had been through the worst of the worst, so they all thought. The GIs, perplexed by the end-of-war resistance in the region, were so close to the Austrian border.

What in hell were they defending? I was soon to answer my own question, Maj. Jay Rosenthal had found himself thinking again and again. The fatherland, we’re in their knickers. They knew there was no hope, yet the German infantry, some with young teenage boys in their ranks, fought with utterly reckless disregard for their lives. Major Rosenthal, the former commander of the Forty-Second Quartermaster Company, had provisioned the unit through the long carnage from the moment the 42ID, as the Rainbow Division was referred to in military talk, landed at Marseilles on December 8, 1944.

Not that the route toward the Austrian border hadn’t been bloody enough. There was the battle at Schweighouse-sur-Moder and Neuborg. The regiment, normally fronting a 2,500-meter battle line, was spread across a perimeter three times that size. They were slammed with a two-hour artillery bombardment followed by an attack led by the German Twenty-Fifth Panzer Grenadier Division reinforced by two other divisions—one a parachute unit, the other straight leg infantry.

We beat the bastards back, but what a hell of a price in casualties. I did everything I could, but we were still at a point with fewer than thirty-five rounds of ammo left for the entire regiment, Rosenthal thought, putting down his paper. He leaned back in his rickety wooden office chair. He looked at his GI-issued watch. The always reliable Timex told him it was just after 7:00 a.m. Gotta get to the cables, he realized, glancing down at the two messages brought to him earlier by the Army Signal Corps sergeant running the message center in the partially destroyed mansion in Fürth. It was the temporary forward headquarters of the division. Rosenthal was now on the general staff; his achievements as a regimental quartermaster were worthily acknowledged. His superior officer, Lt. Col. Carl Maller, had been killed in action at Neuborg. A sniper caught him as he ran under fire to a refueling tanker; the nozzle had jammed. The West Point-educated mechanical engineer could fix just about anything. Rosenthal was given a spot promotion from captain to major and appointed as Colonel Maller’s replacement by the assistant division commander, Brig. Gen. Marty Foery.

Keep up the good work, Jay, Foery said to him, adding, You could be the first Jewish guy to command the whole damn division. Rosenthal knew he was joking, but he liked Foery, who was a year younger. He was born in Brooklyn and went to St. John’s Prep and the university. He was a tough guy who grew up in an Irish community that celebrated the end of the workweek with fistfights. They didn’t mess with Big Marty, even though he was a drama minor with an engineering major at St. John’s.

General Foery knew Jay’s background. He was the son of Sam Rosenthal, who was one of New York City’s foremost real estate developers. Sam had offices in the famous Flatiron Building, lived in New York’s most exclusive apartment building at 834 Fifth Avenue, and was always in the newspapers. Archbishop Francis Spellman leaned on Sam for many of his charities, including the annual Al Smith Christmas Dinner, a white-tie event where Sam sat on the dais with Spellman and other city dignitaries. Sam’s son, Jay, was also as ecumenical as they came, proud of his Jewish heritage but tolerant of the ceaseless ribbing and even prejudice that he experienced because of it. Sam wrote Jay that Archbishop Spellman tried to become an Army chaplain but couldn’t meet the height requirements. But as Apostolic Vicar for the US Armed Forces, he could be found with the troops each Christmas in various war theaters in Europe and the Pacific.

Two military cables lay under Jay’s paper. He scanned them. There was the decision that had been expected from Maj. Gen. Harry Collins, the division commander.

Change to operational plan, annex G-4: effective immediately: Maj. Jacob Rosenthal, Army of the United States, is promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, Army of the United States, and assigned as Assistant Division G-4. Lieutenant Colonel Rosenthal will assume staff responsibilities for the continued rescue, recovery, and rehabilitation of prisoners and other displaced persons held at Dachau.

Rosenthal’s eyes welled up. He had been among the first through the Dachau gates that the combat engineers had blown off their brick posts. The division’s infantry had killed almost the entire German sentry unit. Better off dead, Rosenthal recalled. The inmates would have torn them from limb to limb as they did with the kapos, Rosenthal thought of himself as a toughened soldier at this juncture of the war. He saw little direct combat himself as a member of the Jewish Infantry as the quartermaster units were sometimes characterized. They tended to attract soldiers with good heads for numbers, and in the Rainbow Division, with its roots in New York and Southern New England, Jews seemed to be disproportionately situated in the logistical as well as certain other combat service support or technical units.

But Dachau had addled every neuron in his brain. The so-called kapos, derived from the German word, kameradschaftpolizei, included Jewish inmates, who collaborated with their SS guards in disciplining and administering prisoners. Some were no less brutal as the Germans themselves. A few were quietly killed by other inmates when the opportunity for revenge arose. Kapos avoided situations where that could and did happen, responding to an emergency in a prisoner barracks, for example. The division’s morticians told some gruesome tales regarding the fate of some kapos after the camp was liberated.

—

He wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve, encrusted with the perpetual dust and dirt that had become companion to the interminable body odor and other scents of war; they accented every breath of air. He had been told by Marty that a promotion was in the works. But the combined effect of that and the Dachau experience seemed to net out any particular joy. It was wartime. Promotions depended on the fluidity of battles, or so it seemed. Even Marty was a reserve captain now serving on active duty as a one-star general. He pulled up the next cable, another from the division commander.

Change to standing orders: the Supreme Allied Commander, General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower, United States Army, has directed that all allied units will stand down effective 2359 hours ZULU time.

Rosenthal was almost giddy. My god, I’m going home. I can’t believe it. Staff meeting! He jumped from his aged chair, its wheels flattened with time and misuse; the chair toppled. He left it in place, walking toward the heavy oaken door that was always ajar, as its rusted hinges had angled away from the door frame. He could hear activity in the old ballroom as he approached, its doors always open.

Entering, there were congratulations all around. The other general staff members welcomed him as if he had just pledged a fraternity, which, in a way, was much the same. In wartime, senior staff positions are earned on the battlefield, and soon-to-be Lt. Col. Jay Rosenthal was now one of the division’s peers, two battlefield promotions in less than a year.

But the real excitement, of course, was in Ike’s dictum: stand down but remain vigilant and, for the 42ID, attend to the urgencies of evacuating Dachau. General Foery said as much as he acted in the place of the division commander, General Collins, who remained at division rear, available to his boss, the commander of the Seventh Army, Lt. Gen. Alexander Patch.

It’s not over yet, guys, so keep your ammo dry. Besides, let’s not forget our soldiers on the other side of the world, General Foery was saying, referring to the continuing island-hopping warfare in the Pacific.

I knew President Roosevelt when he was governor of New York. His death last month may make a difference in the Pacific. His emphasis was always on Europe. We’re just about done here. Harry Truman is a different sort. He’s gonna take us right to Japan and soon. Just watch. And it may mean that some of us will find ourselves there, Foery said. FDR had died on April 12, 1945, and was succeeded by VP Harry S. Truman.

Rosenthal came to his senses. Yeah, guess I missed that. I could end up in the Pacific, he reasoned, noticing the change of expressions on many faces in the room. There had been high hopes before, hundreds, maybe even thousands of times, in skirmishes, small and big battles, in hoping a buddy would survive devastating wounds.

I spent two years in the Pacific, Foery was saying. He had won the coveted Silver Star for valor in the battle for Saipan just a year earlier. "The Japs don’t give up easily. So let’s get down to business.

Next up, Adjutant General, read the order of the day, Foery directed. Jay, please stand, he said to Rosenthal.

A staff colonel also stood. By order of Maj. Gen. Harry Collins, United States Army. Maj. Jacob Rosenthal, Army of the United States, serial number 14012511163, is promoted to the grade of lieutenant colonel effective immediately.

Foery walked up to Rosenthal, removing the brass oak leaves on the two epaulets of his combat fatigue uniform and replacing them with silver oak leaves. Congratulations, Jay, Foery said and then returned to his seat as the room broke into applause. Jay acknowledged as many felicitations as he could as he too returned to his seat, the slaps on his back continuing.

General Foery then took reports from his staff: G1, the state of force manpower; G2, intelligence, which confirmed the Germans had run out of just about everything: ammunition, fuel, fresh troops, and medical supplies and were even deserting in some frontline units; and G3, operations. The divisional units now controlled the border with Austria and had captured the Alpine Fern Pass and Brenner Pass into Italy, reuniting the Seventh and Fifth Armies.

The G4, the newly minted Lt. Col. Jay Rosenthal, was making his first report as a member of the general staff. Simply stated, sir, the division is provisioned for further operations. All logistical units are at a sufficient state of readiness in accordance with the current Ops Plan. Our mortuary units are especially taxed right now with the evacuation of Dachau, and we are conscripting the former guards and other SS members into burial details.

There was a pause in the room. Dachau was as gruesome a sight as even the most war-hardened fighter had ever witnessed.

I loved seeing those SS Death’s Head bastards cleaning out the toilets. Many of them were from the German aristocracy. Hitler knew they couldn’t fight worth a shit, so he gave them the concentration camp duties. Their brutality was probably some sort of sick way of self-compensation for their own military and personal inadequacies, Foery said, referring to the Death’s Head ring on the caps of the Schutzstaffel or SS unit members. The SS under Heinrich Himmler was responsible for the majority of serious crimes against humanity during the later Nuremberg war crime trials.

Getting back to the meeting, You’re the man for coordinating the Dachau evacuation, Jay. No one could do it better, General Foery said and then moved on to other matters, including transportation, medical services, signal communications, and combat engineering.

The staff meeting had been thankfully short. Jay walked out into the spring air. The poplar trees had retained their color, and some shrubs around the former mansion seemed to flourish. The residual agrarian smell of the crisp air made him think of his days at the Horace Mann School, then NYU. Spring was always a special time for city people. As an ROTC cadet, the NYU corps of cadets would march on the campus of Horace Mann’s Four Acres Field. He wore the cadet uniform proudly in the 1930s, on the subway, everywhere. The Depression was at its height, but a young man in a military uniform seemed to inspire those around him; they would smile, and their expressions betrayed their thoughts, which told it all, America is iconic. We’ll get through it.

After NYU, working with his father, Sam, keeping the Rosenthal Development Corporation in business was a challenge. Much of the work came from government spending on public works. Sam taught Jay much about bidding and lobbying the right public officials to get a contract. Jay continued to do his reserve time with the division, never really expecting the war to explode as fast and as far as it did. But he knew he would honor his service commitment, even voluntarily extending his reserve obligation so as to get promoted to captain.

Then came his activation notice in early 1943. Jane cried when he told her. She was the perfect wife. They yearned for children but could never seem to get it right for the first four years of their marriage. And now, suddenly at age thirty-two, he would be gone for God only knew how long—maybe forever. Jane moved in with Sam when Jay was called up. Sam had been a widower for ten years, living alone in a six-bedroom, six-thousand-square-foot apartment on Fifth Avenue. Jane lifted his spirits. He loved her like the daughter he never had.

Rosenthal walked over to the divisional motor pool. He trusted the staff transportation chief but wanted to determine for himself if he had a fleet of trucks that could transport men and matériel on demand while at the same time meet the increasing pressures posed by the evacuation of Dachau. It was his business experience. Trust but verify. He smiled to himself, adding, I guess I’ll never change.

He entered the outside vehicular maintenance area; the motor pool sergeant called the workforce to attention. There was a metallic clank of dropping tools as the enlisted force stood at attention, however briefly as Rosenthal directed. As you were, gentlemen. Most smiled, commenting that he was wearing silver oak leaves. So Jay’s a light colonel now, one grease monkey from Brooklyn said to another, referring to him by his first name, something he would never say to the face of Rosenthal or any other officer. Yeah, the only one who ever calls us grunts ‘gentlemen.’ They laughed. Lieutenant colonels in the field armies usually commanded battalions; they had a high death rate, third in percentages, right after lieutenants and captains. The grunts rarely came face to face with them.

Sir, the general’s lookin’ for ya, said the motor pool sergeant. There’s a signal phone on the field table, over there, by the coffee, sir.

Rosenthal thanked him and found the phone simply by following the smell of coffee so old and thick it made the pouring spout of the pot look like a charred chicken’s beak.

Lieutenant Colonel Rosenthal, sir, Jay said as General Foery came on the line.

Jay, big deal comin’ your way. The Red Cross wants a powwow on the disposition of Dachau survivors. I need you to do the numbers and get whatever list we can compile to them, ASAP, Foery said.

Not a problem, sir. I’ll get to it right away. Do we have a meeting time and date? Jay asked.

Only that it’s next week, in Geneva, came the reply.

Geneva, Switzerland? he asked, his face suddenly red as he realized he had asked such a stupid question. Thankfully, he was separated by a phone line.

That’s the only Geneva where the Red Cross is headquartered as far as I know. It sure as hell ain’t the one in Upstate New York. Otherwise, I’d be goin’, Foery said.

They both laughed.

I’ll be ready. I’ll line up transportation. I’m at the motor pool right now.

Thanks, Jay. Take care of it for us, will ya?

Yes, sir, came the reply as the general hung up.

CHAPTER 2

DISCOVERY

Jay Rosenthal found a letter from his wife, Jane, as he returned to what served as a desk—a battered oaken table with unstable legs and gouged surface. He uprighted the fallen chair and dragged it over, opening the letter with his thumb. It easily slid through the thin paste used by army censors to resecure the envelope’s flap.

It was dated April 17, 1945, but he didn’t care. The army placed a high priority on getting mail to the troops. Two weeks late was not that bad, considering the rate at which the division had been moving through Germany, not to mention the pace and intensity of battles it had encountered. Mail was generally inspiring. Rosenthal always noticed a renewed determination among the troops after mail calls. Most saved the letters as best they could, even if the dampness blotched the ink. Few would ever admit these missives ended their lives as toilet paper, an outcome almost inevitable in the austere battlefield environment.

He read

My Dearest Jay:

I have been following the news reports on Seventh Army progress after it crossed the Rhine. I’m not sure where you are but know instinctively that you are making a supreme effort in all that you are doing. That is your nature, my love, and it is the part of you that cradles in my heart each night as I search for sleep through the pesky veil of persistent worry. I am no different from the millions of other women back home, I suppose.

Pop and I are together constantly. Having lost my own father in my teens, I am luxuriating in his endless regard for my well-being. He speaks of you constantly, not only to me but in every social setting we find ourselves, and I suspect no less during his working hours. He understands what you are doing and could not be more proud of you. He is forward looking, as always, and is already preparing for your return, designating various development projects that you can undertake in sustaining the company’s growth.

New York City is alive again; the war has revived its spirit. People cooperate, help one another, and sympathize with each of the many stories we all have regarding family members in the service.

I have been active with the Fifth Avenue synagogue, assembling so-called caring packages for our members serving overseas. I work also with the Hadassah ladies in doing much the same, including visits to needy families left behind, of which many are Jewish, perhaps too many. We don’t distinguish by faith. We administer to everyone. Most in our group, like us, have little need for rations, so we pool them to buy food and other essentials, even gasoline, for our charges. Pop takes good care of us. The owner of Café des Beaux-Arts in the Flatiron office building has more than a few good produce suppliers, who add a little extra each month for the owner’s good friends, of which Pop, of course, is one.

Our house always seems to be readying itself for the next dinner party, which for Pop is forever about business. Sherman Billingsley, who you may recall owns the Stork Club, has been catering for Pop’s dinners. Pop wanted it that way. We avoid Sherman’s restaurant. Walter Winchell and other society writers are too keen on what goes on there. Pop wants a low profile, especially where there’s an appearance of extravagance. Billingsley is a very entertaining fellow and a close friend of Ethel Merman, just how close, I can’t say. But she manages to get theater people to support our many wartime charities. She brought over Irving Berlin recently. He played gloriously on the Steinway and sang a number of his wartime favorites. After the singing, there were a lot of tears, including my own. No one is really that happy.

Speaking of the apartment house, we’re in the process of combining apartments 13 and 14A into a duplex. This will be our own home, dear Jay, at last. Pop considers it a good investment and is happy to finance the changes. He had considered buying the Warburg house at Ninety-Second and Fifth. Frieda put it on the market after Felix died. But she told Pop that Felix wanted it donated to the Jewish Theological Seminary; he couldn’t disagree with that. I think we’ve made the right decision to stay at 834 Fifth.

So much for the news, dear Jay. I pray constantly for your return and consult the psalms almost daily for relief from fear.

Your loving wife,

Jane

Jay read the letter two, three times. It was such a different world now. Jane and Pop had little idea how much it had changed, of that Jay was certain. How could New York City be so immune to what has happened? She never mentioned Dachau or Auschwitz or the other horrors. And this in a city that probably has the highest concentration of Jews outside of Palestine. And Pop, somehow he’s not getting the message. It must be censorship. I’d write them about it if I could, but the censors would redact any suggestion of our location. The war’s ending here, I hope. I’ll write them when I’m cleared to do so.

Jay called the regimental commander charged with evacuating Dachau. He knew that Col. Tom Perkins would not welcome interference from division staff. But Jay would be executing the direct order of General Foery, and Perkins knew that any lack of cooperation could get him in trouble. The war was winding down, and missions and tasks that compose them were becoming very different. There was more emphasis on management, a word that the usual gung ho, hard-charging operational unit commanders hated. They were fighters, tacticians, strategists; the managers were the government civilians back in Washington.

Colonel Perkins, sir, the commander of the Two Hundred Forty-Second Regiment said in answering the phone. It surprised Jay, who had assumed that all of Perkins’s calls would be filtered by his Signal Corps phone trooper.

Morning, sir. It’s Lieutenant Colonel Rosenthal, Jay said, being careful to insert the word lieutenant in his title. There was a very big difference between the two ranks. Full-bird colonels, who always see themselves as future generals merely perching on a branch until their time comes, can be a little uneasy when the next lower grade pretends to be real colonels, although service protocols allow for lieutenant colonels to refer to themselves as colonel when using their last names in conversations.

Jay, congratulations, buddy. Sorry to have missed the staff meeting and your promotion ceremony. It’s a wild scene out here as you no doubt know. How can I help you?

Thanks, sir. General Foery is dispatching me to the International Red Cross headquarters to get more assistance with the evacuation. I’m tryin’ to compile a list, names, numbers, whatever you might have at this point, Jay replied, deliberately dropping an occasional g.

Not a hell of a lot of information available. We have lists of victims. The Nazis were obsessive record keepers. But survivors’ names are takin’ a little longer. I’ll send over whatever I have, say, tomorrow. Will that be okay?

Yes, sir. I’ll look for it, Jay replied. He knew that Perkins would welcome just about any help he could get from any source.

They hung up. Jay glanced at his Timex. It was 1010 hours on the twenty-four-hour military clock. Might be a good time to search the cellar. No one’s been down there. I need to get more storage space. I’ll sleep better if I can unload some of these documents from my office, he thought, having been sleeping, like everyone else, in his office. General Foery occupied the only real bedroom in the large house that had been badly damaged but still looked like the original domicile occupied by the family of a Nazi colonel.

—

The house had belonged to the family of Col. Ernst Graf von Hacke. Graf, the German term for count, means a member of the nobility, in Von Hacke’s case, the Bavarian brand. The Bavarian nobility literally flocked into the Nazi’s arms, as Hitler was thought to be committed to the restoration of the monarchy. The house was a neoclassical structure designed and built in the 1880s on about one hundred acres. It easily accommodated the forward headquarters of the Forty-Second Infantry Division. The first floor contained a massive library connected to a large ballroom. The library housed the offices of General Foery’s immediate staff. The ballroom had been converted into a large conference room. Foery’s office was in the former north library, a type of anteroom to the main library. The dining room was left intact, complete with a large banquet-type table that could seat twenty-four and where the staff dined nightly. The combat engineers wired the kitchen, restored the propane-fired stove burners, and quickly rebuilt the separate wood-burning ovens.

The house was captured after a brief skirmish with some SS troops that ran for their lives as the combat elements of the division began rolling in. The fighting reputation of the 42ID was already legendary. A lavish dinner highlighted with venison steamed on the dining room table as the first US infantry soldiers entered the house; once the house had been secured, they sat to the best meal many had eaten in years. The fighting outside lessened but was of little consequence to the hungry troops. All quarters of the house had been thoroughly searched. The basement had been generally ignored, as command planning and operations demanded the focus of all.

Jay found the staircase to the basement. Guided by his brown GI-issued flashlight, he descended the wooden stairs, rickety with shaky rails and occasional rotted-out steps. The air was stagnant. Ventilation ducts in the stone walls of the house’s foundation had long been blocked by furniture, old draperies and curtains, and other household items heaved against sides of the cellar.

Rosenthal coughed, thinking, There has to be an air pocket somewhere. The open door has created some type of draft. The dust in the air is moving in the flashlight’s rays. At the bottom of the stairs, he turned left, following a path between the piles of furnishings. He came to a wall covered with a thick gray drop cloth. It was secured to a primitive track embedded in the ceiling; it reminded him of a massive shower curtain. He coughed again as he pulled the end back. Behind it was a wall of bottles. The wine cellar, he immediately realized, sectioned by region and wine qualities. He pulled a few bottles out—French champagnes from the late 1930s and other wines from Bordeaux and Bourgogne.

Knowing little about wine, he held a red vintage bottle up, examining it with his flashlight. It was a Montrachet, he read on the decomposing label. Its sediment is thick and the wine … light, almost grayish white. Hasn’t been turned in a long time, maybe years.

He looked into the socket from which the wine bottle had been removed. Another curtain, the same as that covering the wine cellar’s wall. He reached his arm through the socket to the fabric; it moved with the pressure of his hand. Something behind there. He looked down, the wall of wine was on a track along the floor. He gently pushed the six-foot-high section to the right. The wall moved easily, exposing a passageway covered by the curtain behind the wine.

It’s a blind. The wine wall covers something here, he thought as he pulled apart the curtain, the dust becoming even thicker. He removed the buff-colored ascot from his neck. It had been worn for his promotion ceremony and was in the color of the army’s Quartermaster Corp. He tied it around his face, shielding his nose and mouth from the thickening dust in the air.

A brown-bricked wall lay behind the curtain. In its center was a thick cast-iron door, looking like the large metal firewall customarily attached to the rear wall of ancient European hearths. Flanking the door were two ventilation ducts; they emitted mild currents of air. Jay examined the ducts with his flashlight; there was little dust coming from the ducts.

It’s not locked. The latch seems to be hanging freely. He pulled on the door, which swung open with surprising ease on three large hinges despite its size and weight. He shined the light around the room. My god, it’s a bunker! Bunk beds, a cooking area. It’s well provisioned—barrels of something, probably flour. What’s that? In the right corner, there was a three-step staircase into an elevated compartment.

Making his way easily through the room, approximately twenty by fifteen feet in size, his hatless head felt air movement from above. He looked up. An air vent, somewhere to the outside. There, a lantern. Gotta save these batteries. He found a tinder box with strike matches alongside the lantern. The wick in the lantern was dry. He opened the lantern door, inspecting the fuel well from which the wick protruded. There was fluid, smelling like liquid propane. He removed the fuel cell, tipping it gently to allow the wick to become moist, and then lit it. The room erupted in light, the flame vibrating in moving air, now pleasingly colored with a warm brownish hue. He reached back and closed the bunker door. The flame stopped flickering, and he closed the small hatch on the lantern; the flame looked healthy enough to sustain itself. He pulled the ascot scarf down from his face; it hung around his neck.

Holding up the lantern, he looked around. Looks like it was designed for two, maybe three, persons. Who lived here? The colonel and his wife, I thought. Why a third bunk? Not important right now. Let’s see what’s in this section. He climbed the three steps, each a stone slab atop a frame, extending from the two-foot-high concrete platform walled with brown brick.

Must be valuables room, a vault. This thing was constructed to safeguard something, Rosenthal thought as he unlatched yet another unlocked iron door. The light from the lantern showed little effect of moisture, nor were there the same cobwebs found elsewhere in the vault, approximately eight feet by eight feet in size. The room was unventilated and smelled slightly musty, designed to be a sealed vacuum of sorts. A pallet, made from heavy oak, was in the rear of the small room. He moved over to it, securing the lantern on a ceiling hook that looked like it could have supported a winch. Might have been intended for heavy items, he thought, noticing that the hook traveled on a ceiling track to the door.

Six upright well-wrapped items on the pallet. They look like frames. A lot of work went into securing them, he thought. The items were enclosed in a brown paper that show no signs of rot; in fact, they were free of dust, dirt, or other particulates, he noticed, as he ran his hand along the top of the first frame. Carefully, he undid the seam on the rear, which had been secured with an easily removed piece of hemp tying cord.

The paper’s waxed on the inside. Something perishable, but it looks like a painting. He found as he undid the cover. He lifted a wooden panel, about three by five feet, overlaid with a type of cheesecloth, which he carefully pulled back with his right hand as he held the panel, balanced on a frame next to it with his left hand.

What is this? A masterpiece, by whom, of what, he thought, wishing he had paid better attention in his requisite art appreciation course as an NYU undergraduate. He slowly spun the painting around. Chalked on the back was, in German, Gehrechte Richter. Then in what he was quite sure was Dutch, the words, "Het Lam God. Ghent. Van Eyck."

Having studied German as his foreign language at NYU, something his grandparents and father spoke from time to time, he translated the German to read, righteous judges. The Dutch is easy: Lamb of God. And Van Eyck … Jan van Eyck! Ghent, in Belgium. It could be a Talmudic reference, the Old Testament. But the characters, they’re too modern—the horse covers, clothing, headpieces. Hitler liked art that fulfilled his Aryan illusions and hated the modern stuff that he considered degenerate. But he collected both. If it’s a Van Eyck, my god, what, fifteenth century? he correctly guessed. What in hell is it doing in the basement bunker of a Nazi colonel, unless he looted it for himself?

What else do we have here? He had secured the wrapper then proceeded to undo the next frame that had been sealed identically. The cord removed as he deftly undid the cover, revealing, again, a thin cloth veil over the work.

Jay gasped. It’s an old master of some type, he thought then hastened to turn it over for more information. Again, in German, Rafaello Sanzio da Urbino: Raphäel. Privatsammlung. His hands shook as he held the masterpiece. A Raphael. Is this possible? The umlaut over the second a in his name. It makes no sense, either in German or Italian. He pondered the presence of the two dots in Raphael’s name as written on the rear of the wooden panel. On the front of which was the oil painting of the image of an evidently well-dressed aristocratic young man. I find it hard to believe that the German who wrote the inscription was too uneducated to understand the usage of the umlaut.

Four more works … Let’s see what we have. He rewrapped the Raphael and lifted the next frame from its rack atop the pallet. As the wrapper fell away, he removed the cloth veil. Looks like a Cézanne. His style is inimitable. Maybe my NYU art course wasn’t as boring as I thought. He laughed to himself. It was indeed a Cézanne, with the artist’s name clearly drafted on the right lower corner of the front of the framed painting. In the center of the frame bottom was a brass plate, which read, Bain du Soleil d’ une Jeune Fille. 1880. Nothing mysterious … other than its presence here. Onto the next one, he thought as he rewrapped the Cézanne then undid the cover of the next frame.

Une Danseuse dans la Chambre, Henri Matisse, 1910, read the plate affixed to the frame. The collector, whoever it was, obviously liked the subject of young girls, he thought as he examined the image of a young ballerina, practicing a few poses before a mirror in what appeared to be her bedroom.

Moving to the next frame after reinserting the Matisse back into its place, he examined what appeared to be an oil painting by Raoul Dufy, which was quickly confirmed by the artist’s written name on the front of the work. The brass plate on the frame read, La Mer au Cap d’ Antibes (de l’ Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc). Ironic. Cap d’ Antibes. That’s close to where we landed when we entered France at Marseilles, Rosenthal thought, reminding himself the 42ID invaded along the Riviera, then making its way toward Nice and northward through the Alps-Maritime region of Southern France, and into Germany.

He repositioned the Dufy back on its rack then lifted the sixth and last frame, removing the cord and unsealing the waxed paper. What, another Dufy? He read the plate on the frame. "Le Nouveau Pavillon du Cap-Eden-Roc, 1915." Was the colonel a collector of works from the south of France? Or should I say the collection he looted was from someone with those preferences? Matisse lived and worked near Grasse. I remember that young corporal in my unit telling me as much. What was his name, diAngelo, Jack diAngelo? He had been an art major at City College before volunteering for the draft. Poor kid. Killed as we just finished crossing the Rhine. Dufy is unforgettable. He painted boats and coastal scenes in vivid colors with flat long brush strokes as I had been told. Jay’s mind was always saddled with the experience of war in a way that even this trove of precious art could not mask.

Rosenthal quickly realized the dilemma. The market for Nazi-looted art is rabid. Do I report the find, turn it over to the investigators? How do I know it’ll ever get to the rightful owners? I hear they’re just more of the government’s bureaucratic follies but in uniform. Can I do any better? He asked himself variations on these questions over and over. If I can get it to New York, Pop and I have a fair chance, maybe even better than these art investigators of finding the owners or their heirs. Much of this stuff belonged to victims in the camps.

How can I get this to New York? I can’t ship it with my goods. They won’t examine my shipments that closely, and I’d still have to await the end of the war, but they would be found. I’d be accused of theft. Where can I stash it here? When the war ends, the Germans will rebuild the place. They’re not like the French and Belgians, who just seem to be happy with even the damaged structures the First World War left the way they were.

Can I do both? Take some of it back to New York and store the rest here, somewhere in Europe? Then a thought occurred. He sat on the crates, rolling out more wick as the lantern’s flame dimmed along with his hopes to get the art into rightful hands.

Switzerland! I have to go to Geneva. I can go down through Basel or even Zurich, find a bank. Those SOBs have been stashing Jewish values stolen by the Nazis for years. That I know. Some of it’s even coming from Jewish dealers approved by Hitler as his art acquisition agents. I read about that back in New York a couple of years ago. I’ll get a vehicle from the motor pool big enough to carry the items, or some of them, but which?

He diligently weighed all the variables in his plan, finally making a decision. The Van Eyck and Raphael