Read Silesian Station (2008) for Free Online Page A

doing his compulsory year's service in the Arbeitsdienst public works programme, and would be shifted to auxiliary military duties if war broke out.
    The two men sat in silence for a moment.
    'So you're seeing the SD tomorrow,' Thomas said eventually. 'How are you going to spend the rest of today?'
    'Worrying. And working, I suppose. I have a new job, by the way. Central and East European correspondent of the San Francisco Tribune. Salary, expenses, the works.'
    'Well, that makes a welcome change. Congratulations.'
    'Thanks. I met the Editor in New York - Ed Cummins. An amazing old man, very pro-Roosevelt.' Russell smiled. 'He wants me to wake America up. Particularly those Americans with their roots in Germany and Germany's neighbours. The Jewish-Americans of course, but the Polish-Americans, the Hungarian-Americans, all of them. He wants them to know what's really happening in the old countries, and to get really angry about it. And not to go along with all that crap - to use his own words - about it being none of America's business.' Russell laughed. 'Of course, we weren't reckoning on the SD and Gestapo breathing down my neck. I'll just have to convince the bastards that retaining my credibility as a journalist is in their interests too. Because if I suddenly start sucking up to them in print, no one who matters will trust anything I do or say.'
    'I suppose not. Are you going to be covering the day-to-day stuff?'
    'Not really - they'll carry on using the agencies for that. I'm more comment than news - the big diplomatic stories and whatever else strikes me as important. The first thing Cummins wants is a piece on how the Czechs are doing under occupation. And I thought I might visit that agricultural school in Skaby that the Jews are running for would-be emigrants to Palestine. I can't believe the Nazis are still sponsoring it.'
    Thomas grunted his agreement as another suburban train headed for Gor-litzer Station. One carriage seemed full of over-excited young boys, most of whom were hanging out of the windows. A school trip, Russell supposed.
    'Talking of Jews,' Thomas said, 'I've got a mystery of my own to solve.' He brushed a speck of dirt off his trousers. 'I had an employee by the name of Benjamin Rosenfeld. A good worker, he started here five or six years ago. A Jew, of course. About six weeks ago he came to ask if I had a job for his seventeen-year-old niece. Her family are farmers in Silesia, the only Jews in the area apparently, and she was being harassed - perhaps more, he didn't say - by the local boys. Her parents thought she'd be safer in Berlin.' Thomas's shrug encompassed both the sad absurdity of the problem and the impossibility of knowing where a Jew might be safest in such times. 'As it happened I'd just lost a young woman - her exit visa had arrived that week and she was off to Palestine - so I said yes. Rosenfeld arranged the trip, sent the ticket, and arranged to meet her at Silesian Station. That was on the last day of June. Almost three weeks ago.
    'As far as I can make out, on the day she was supposed to arrive Rosenfeld left here with the intention of walking straight to the station - it's only about three kilometres away. Somewhere along the way, some thugs decided he needed beating up. Storm troopers probably, from their barracks on Kopenicke Strasse, but they weren't in uniform according to Rosenfeld. Someone took him to one of those makeshift Jewish hospitals in Friedrichshain, and he was in and out of consciousness for several days. I didn't know he'd been attacked until one of the workers told me on the following day. I wondered what had happened to the girl, but assumed she had managed to make contact with Rosenfeld's friends, and that she'd turn up for work on the Monday. But she didn't. I had no proof she'd ever left Silesia, and the fact that she hadn't turned up seemed like a good reason for doubting it. I told myself I would contact the parents when Rosenfeld had recovered sufficiently