as Cybele scurried to answer the door.
It wasn’t. Not unless one considered it “good” to have an armed SS officer pay his respects.
Rudely refusing the offered cup of coffee, the SS officer at the front door ordered Moshe to leave the house. Since Osman and his family were non-Jews, the SS officer had no interest in them. If he wondered why a wealthy tobacco merchant was hosting an impoverished Jew, he made no mention of it.
“You cannot take him!” Osman had protested, clearly upset. “Moshe Benaroya is my brother!”
The SS officer mirthlessly smiled. “Then you will want to accompany him to the train station.”
A stunned silence ensued. The adults in the room were well aware that it wasn’t a suggestion; it was an order.
Although he was only five years of age, Mercurius intuited that something momentous had just occurred. Running across the drawing room, he threw himself at his father.
Bending at the waist, Osman scooped him up in his arms and held him close. “You must always remember, little one, that you were named for the Bringer of the Light.”
Moshe Benaroya, standing beside them, placed a comforting hand upon his tousled head. “Do not fear the Light, Merkür. For it will lead you to your life’s purpose.”
Osman de Léon never returned from the station. And neither man ever returned from Auschwitz.
As the throng of “passengers” bound for Poland were marched through Plateia Eleftherias—Freedom Square—the citizens of Thessaloniki stood silent. Yes, some cried. And a few helplessly shook their heads as the bedraggled stream of humanity passed before them. But no one raised a gun, a finger, or even a voice in protest.
Mercurius and his mother stood silent with the other bystanders. Terrified, the entire time he’d clutched her leg. Overhead, cotton clouds turned bloodred, saturated with the rays of the setting sun. Day was dying, and he feared a new day would never dawn.
It did. But not before three thousand Jews and one Ma’min Muslim had been tightly packed onto the waiting train, leaving behind their property, their history, and their cherished memories of the “new Jerusalem.”
Over the course of that heartbreaking spring, nearly forty-five thousand Jews from Thessaloniki were transported to Auschwitz. Most, when they first arrived, were handed a bar of soap and sent directly to the “showers.”
Lost in the horrific memory from that long-ago spring night, Mercurius raised the small cup of Turkish coffee to his lips and took a measured sip.
On that fateful day in 1943 when the unexpected knock sounded at the front door, he’d been taught an indelible lesson . . . that evil is birthed in silence.
CHAPTER 13
“I don’t care what the homicide detective told us,” Edie said as she walked into the living room of her Adams Morgan row house. “I’m not buying that it was a crime of passion. It was . . . I don’t know, too much like an execution. An aggrieved lover wouldn’t kill from a distance. A person consumed with jealous rage would have stabbed Jason Lovett thirty or forty times. At least that’s how it always plays out on those true-life crime shows.”
Carrying a brown paper bag, Caedmon followed in her wake. “I, too, am lukewarm to the scenario concocted by the police. However, there’s a possibility that it was an act of violence aimed at the Freemasons. The group has incurred many enemies over the centuries.”
“Again. Doesn’t ring true,” Edie countered, taking the paper bag from him. “The lecture was open to the general public. And if someone was PO’d at the Freemasons, wouldn’t they have gone on a rampage?”
As she spoke, Edie removed several food containers from the bag and placed them on an oversized bronze platter. Supported underneath by a matched pair of Indian stone elephants, the gigantic platter did double duty as a coffee table. Her next-door neighbor Garrett never failed to mention that her living room looked like the inside of
It wasn’t. Not unless one considered it “good” to have an armed SS officer pay his respects.
Rudely refusing the offered cup of coffee, the SS officer at the front door ordered Moshe to leave the house. Since Osman and his family were non-Jews, the SS officer had no interest in them. If he wondered why a wealthy tobacco merchant was hosting an impoverished Jew, he made no mention of it.
“You cannot take him!” Osman had protested, clearly upset. “Moshe Benaroya is my brother!”
The SS officer mirthlessly smiled. “Then you will want to accompany him to the train station.”
A stunned silence ensued. The adults in the room were well aware that it wasn’t a suggestion; it was an order.
Although he was only five years of age, Mercurius intuited that something momentous had just occurred. Running across the drawing room, he threw himself at his father.
Bending at the waist, Osman scooped him up in his arms and held him close. “You must always remember, little one, that you were named for the Bringer of the Light.”
Moshe Benaroya, standing beside them, placed a comforting hand upon his tousled head. “Do not fear the Light, Merkür. For it will lead you to your life’s purpose.”
Osman de Léon never returned from the station. And neither man ever returned from Auschwitz.
As the throng of “passengers” bound for Poland were marched through Plateia Eleftherias—Freedom Square—the citizens of Thessaloniki stood silent. Yes, some cried. And a few helplessly shook their heads as the bedraggled stream of humanity passed before them. But no one raised a gun, a finger, or even a voice in protest.
Mercurius and his mother stood silent with the other bystanders. Terrified, the entire time he’d clutched her leg. Overhead, cotton clouds turned bloodred, saturated with the rays of the setting sun. Day was dying, and he feared a new day would never dawn.
It did. But not before three thousand Jews and one Ma’min Muslim had been tightly packed onto the waiting train, leaving behind their property, their history, and their cherished memories of the “new Jerusalem.”
Over the course of that heartbreaking spring, nearly forty-five thousand Jews from Thessaloniki were transported to Auschwitz. Most, when they first arrived, were handed a bar of soap and sent directly to the “showers.”
Lost in the horrific memory from that long-ago spring night, Mercurius raised the small cup of Turkish coffee to his lips and took a measured sip.
On that fateful day in 1943 when the unexpected knock sounded at the front door, he’d been taught an indelible lesson . . . that evil is birthed in silence.
CHAPTER 13
“I don’t care what the homicide detective told us,” Edie said as she walked into the living room of her Adams Morgan row house. “I’m not buying that it was a crime of passion. It was . . . I don’t know, too much like an execution. An aggrieved lover wouldn’t kill from a distance. A person consumed with jealous rage would have stabbed Jason Lovett thirty or forty times. At least that’s how it always plays out on those true-life crime shows.”
Carrying a brown paper bag, Caedmon followed in her wake. “I, too, am lukewarm to the scenario concocted by the police. However, there’s a possibility that it was an act of violence aimed at the Freemasons. The group has incurred many enemies over the centuries.”
“Again. Doesn’t ring true,” Edie countered, taking the paper bag from him. “The lecture was open to the general public. And if someone was PO’d at the Freemasons, wouldn’t they have gone on a rampage?”
As she spoke, Edie removed several food containers from the bag and placed them on an oversized bronze platter. Supported underneath by a matched pair of Indian stone elephants, the gigantic platter did double duty as a coffee table. Her next-door neighbor Garrett never failed to mention that her living room looked like the inside of
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