“You don’t need to tell me all this. I will check if Dr. Högn can see you.” She looked me up and down and told me to wait. As she walked away I noticed that her shoes were freshly polished and her graying bun was immaculately pinned to the middle of her head. Not a strand of hair was out of place. She stepped into an office down the hallway. I looked around and rubbed my drenched palms down the front of my trousers. A few minutes later she returned and asked for my name.
“Šebesta,” I said, “Jan Šebesta.”
“And you don’t have an appointment,” she stated, already knowing the answer as she signaled for me to follow her down the corridor. “Herr Dr. Högn will see you.” She took me to a bare office with three metal chairs and a desk by a window. A picture of the führer on the wall by the large window was the only decoration. I was faint with fear.
“This is Šebesta,” she said to the man behind the desk.
Högn was a bald man with a sweaty, ruddy face and glasses.
“Heil Hitler! Šebesta, I hear you want a job at Warnecke & Böhm?”
I wished desperately that I had listened more carefully to the endless work discussions between uncle Richard, my father, and Lotar at the table, instead of writing verses in my head.
“I am qualified in chemistry and while I studied I also worked in the summers in paint development at the Montana factory in Prague.”
I heard Zdeněk’s words of caution and added, “I worked mostly developing industrial paints.”
“And your papers?”
I explained,“The issue, you see, is I am a specialist in polymers and synthetic paints and my friend said that’s what you do here. If I had stayed in Bohemia, I would have been sent with all the men of my age to perform menial work for the Reich. Most of my friends are being sent to work in farms or mines and that would be a waste of my talents.”
“It is true, of course,” I went on with an assurance born of desperation, “that I am avoiding laboring in the mines or fields, but you have to understand that I came here not just for me but also for the good of the Reich.”
My interviewer looked up at me from his seat with steel-blue eyes that contrasted with the blood-red border of the swastika pin on his lapel. I could tell from the way he held his hands, both index fingers pointing upward, that he was giving my gabbled plea real consideration. I kept my own sweaty clenched hand behind my back and tried to smile.
After a pause, he pronounced, “We’ll give you a try. The problem is going to be getting you a permit from the Ministry of Work. We’ll have to say that we hired you in Prague. But you are in luck, Šebesta. You’ve come to the right man. I have a friend who works in the ministry. He’ll help us out.”
He disappeared for a few minutes and then came back saying he would accompany me.
“You have your own mind and I admire that, Šebesta, but you must not use it too much. That’s where danger lies.”
We crossed Berlin by train. I tried to make conversation and ask him about the city and about his powerful friends. Zdeněk had been right in saying that Dr. Högn liked to appear important; he was buoyed by showing off his connections.
Once inside the ministry, he approached a man in a brown suit. Wary, I hung back a few steps. They looked in my direction a few times as they whispered. From where I stood, I could not hear what they were saying, but I tried to hold on to the fact that both seemed to nod their heads more than they shook them. They came over and asked for my Czech identity card. I tried to quiet my terror as I handed them Míla’s forged one. The two barely looked at it as they completed pages of forms for what seemed hours. Then the man in the brown suit took me to present the papers at a teller’s window. The teller automatically stamped and returned them. Those were my forms, my proof that I was allowed to work, live, and get food in Berlin. I folded the papers and put them inside my breast pocket. I thanked them both profusely and bowed my head deferentially.
As we returned together to Warnecke & Böhm’s personnel office to obtain yet more documents, I pushed my luck and asked Dr. Högn if he knew how I could find a room to rent.
“I can do better than that.” He smiled. “I have a friend, Frau Rudloff. She lives here in Weissensee. She is a widow and is looking for a tenant for a room. She wants someone quiet and serious.” He called her then and there and told her that a sensible young man called Šebesta would be coming over to talk about the room.
Frau Rudloff’s dark apartment was very close to the factory, a minute’s walk away at number 108 Langhansstrasse. The widow seemed very old and severe. Her curled lips gave her a sour expression, but she seemed harmless enough and the room was clean and cheap. I unpacked the few items from my bag, arranged the lucky doll and books on the bedside table, and collapsed onto the wooden bed.
I was exhausted but trying to sleep seemed unnatural. As my body sank deeper into the mattress, I stared at the shadows on the ceiling and realized that I was shaking. As I tried to calm myself, Frau Rudloff knocked and opened the door. I sat up on the bed and covered myself with the gray wool blanket.
“Do you need something, Herr Šebesta? Can I get you anything at all?” I was startled by the kindness but the sight of her breasts, clearly visible through her nightgown, made me uncomfortable. The scarcity of men was noticeable. I thanked her, told her I definitely did not need anything, and wished her a good night.
My first day in Berlin and thus far all had accepted Jan Šebesta’s story. I had a job, papers consistent with my new identity, and a warm room in which to sleep. Miraculously everything had gone according to plan. I gave up my attempts to fall asleep and I sat down at the small desk to write to Míla one of what would be many almost daily letters. I wanted her and Lotar to know that my first day had gone well. I asked her to burn the letter immediately after reading it. I would do the same with her replies. They were coded but still there were risks you simply could not take. It was too dangerous to keep anything that could possibly identify me as a fraud and her as the accomplice of a man wanted by the Gestapo. I finished the letter by writing a short funny poem to cheer her up.
Eventually, I managed to sleep. The next day was to be my first day as Jan, the Czech chemist officially employed at Warnecke & Böhm in Berlin.
Jan Šebesta’s certificate of employment, stamped by Warnecke & Böhm
So Hans was now Jan, and Jan was employed in Berlin. The work insurance card issued to Jan Šebesta that my father left me gives a start date of May 3, 1943, the Monday morning that he arrived by train in Berlin. This would be the first of many official documents that he would amass under his new identity as the weeks passed—ration cards, address registration, tax forms—and that he would eventually leave for me in the box.
Jan Šebesta’s insurance card, stamped by the Reich authorities May 10, 1943
Hans’s absence did not pass unremarked in his parents’ letters. Precisely two weeks later, Otto wrote a coded latter to Lotar from Terezín:
We can only imagine all you have gone through and how upset you must have been with H’s illness. What a beautiful reward it is to hear that he recovered like Richard a long time ago. But you must not keep things from me, you did not relay his greetings while he was sick. I implore you not to hide the truth from us as cruel as it may be. As well you know, I also write about unpleasant things when the situation merits it.