The Holocaust Diaries: Book II
The Righteous and the Just
by
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It was just after Werner finished toweling her off that she heard the first of several chilling, nightmarish screams. There, again. And then again.
Werner seemed oblivious to them. He dried her hair and whistled, acting as if the shouts of pain were normal everyday sounds heard in the midnight wood.
A cold tingle shot up her spine. She could sense the hair on her neck beginning to stand erect and the goose bumps rise on her arms.
She tried to swallow, but somehow nothing worked.
"I'm coming," he shouted. The heavy banging on the door startled Racine. She quickly wrapped her towel around her.
More knocking. Suddenly, the crucifix fell from the wall above the door. "Okay. Okay," Werner said. Kicking the crucifix aside, he opened the door.
Racine gasped at the sight of his bloodied hands.
Maurice was crying, lying in the doorway at the feet of the two guards and shaking and sweating profusely and begging and praying and gagging on his own spittal.
"Please, make them stop. I told them all I know." He covered his mouth with his bloodied hands, splattering droplets of blood on the wooden floor as he pleaded for mercy. "Please! Sweet Mother of God! Heil Hitler! Sacred Heart of Jesus! Make them stop!"
"Shut the fuck up, you fucking French flower," Holtz lashed out, kicking him on the side of his head with his freshly-polished, black boot.
Racine put her hand over her mouth, but couldn't stop the tears from flowing. The nails on the last three fingers of Maurice's hands had been removed or were dangling in place. One of the guards still held the red, blood-stained pliers in his hand. In the other guard's hands rested the two bars of gold. He presented them to Holtz, holding them as if he were a priest consecrating the host at a joyous Catholic Mass.
"You were right, Commandant Holtz. We found them after a little coaxing and rewarding of Maurice here under the front seat of the car."
Not entirely pleased, he growled, "And? No more? Anything else?"
"Nein, Herr Commandant." The demeanor of the two young men changed rapidly. Fright quickly replaced the worry on their faces. They feared this look of his. Both had seen it once before when Holtz discovered a young Jew disguised as an Italian priest smuggling Swiss francs across the border in the hem of his black-robed cassock. He hanged him with the rosary-beaded, rope belt that surrounded his waist. And then, removing a bayonet from one of the guard's weapon, he used it like a saw to decapitate the boy, who was still struggling and gasping an
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About the Book
Book Two
THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE JUST
The Holocaust in the Italian occupied zone in southern
France during World War II
Before an Allied military presence exists on the continent, Roosevelt sends Allen Dulles, the future head of America's CIA, to Berne, Switzerland. Through the American legation in Berne and his myriad financial and diplomatic associates in Europe, Dulles courts numerous liaisons to Heinrich Himmler and to the conspiracy groups inside of Germany, assists in the planning of several assassination plots on Hitler's life, and participates in the initial schemes to covertly transfer millions of US dollars from "the Joint" -- the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee -- to various outlets in Europe. Roosevelt and the WEJ back these transfers of "Joint” and US funds to Joint and WEJ contacts in Europe to save or ransom or assist Jews anywhere even if the funds fall into enemy hands as bribes or pad their bank accounts. And one such rescue attempt crops up almost immediately for Dulles and Roosevelt and the WEJ in southern France.
In the summer of 1943 with Allied armies poised to invade the continent, Pius and the Vatican, the Italian government and its military, and Roosevelt and the WEJ combine and collaborate with a Jewish-Italian banker, Angelo Donati, and his personal and close confidant, a Capuchin monk, Pierre Marie Benoit, in a bold and courageous scheme to rescue fifty to one hundred thousand Jews trapped in Nice and along the Cote d'Azur of southern France and evacuate them to North Africa.
Leo V. Kanawada, Jr.
About the Author
Dr. Leo V. Kanawada, Jr. was born in 1941 in Flushing, Long Island, New York, and educated at Bucknell University, where he received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Secondary Education. His Masters of Arts Degree in American History was awarded by The Maxwell School at Syracuse University, and his Ph.D. in History by St. John's University, Jamaica, New York.
After serving as a decorated captain of Infantry, United States Army, with the Second Infantry Division in 1966 in South Korea and in the Vietnam War in 1967 with the 71st Assault Helicopter Company and as a platoon leader with the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division, Kanawada returned to his hometown and taught in the Hicksville Public Schools for thirty years. In the Department of History at Hicksville High School, he created and taught a Humanities Honors Program for the Gifted and Talented and was later honored and inducted into the Hicksville Hall of Fame. He was also cited in Who's Who in New York, in Who's Who Among America's Teachers, and in the Directory of American Scholars.
His first book, authored in 1982, was a scholarly work on the presidency and American foreign policy entitled FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT'S DIPLOMACY and American Catholics, Italians, and Jews (UMI Research Press/Pro Quest). And later as an elder and president of his Church, he published SOMETHING WORTHWHILE: The Life and Times of The Parkway Community Church, 1628-1981 (Exposition Press). The five volumes in THE HOLOCAUST DIARIES (AuthorHouse) were a labor of love, realized after more than a decade of research, writing, and devotion.
Lee Kanawada lives with his wife, Carol, in Long Island, New York.