..................With all his might, HEINZ floored the accelerator – the car, sweeping people out the way and crushing others, tore through to the West like a tornado.
Automatic machinegun rounds rang out. HEINZ stooped his head. He held on tight to the steering wheel, but he was already not in control of the way the car was going.
He had to go straight, without turning. There wasn’t far to go. A grenade exploded next to the car.
It flung HEINZ, bloodied, from the cabriolet.
* * *
As he faded, struggling, “THE AXE” took the antique Swiss watch that BENNY ROSNER had given him on April 14, 1933 at BERLIN Train Station out of his jacket pocket.
“THE AXE” used his last ounce of strength to open the lid of the gold-plated watch.
To the sound of the Hava Nagila, HEINZ REINEKE’s eyes closed peacefully.
* * * * * * * * * *
AFTERWORD
The HIRSCHES died in Auschwitz in 1943.
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YOSSI HIRSCH emigrated to Palestine in 1938, before the WWII started.
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MARIKA ERDELY went to Paris in 1935. She danced at the Moulin Rouge. She returned to her homeland after the war. She died on November 5, 1956, during the Hungarian Uprising.
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Artist HENRICH SHTETKE fled to Latin America in 1945. He painted portraits of dictators in Paraguay, Bolivia, Haiti, Nicaragua… His tracks disappear somewhere in the Amazonian jungle.
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Henrich Shtetke’s portrait of “Brunhilda at the Magical Source” was kept in the private collection of a former Gruppenführer and war criminal by the name of Rolf Buchholtz. He was freed from prison in 1960.