He could make out no forms in the darkness, other than a handful of his own men as they ran into his field of vision. They continued the search yet farther from the house that stood now empty and silent behind him.

The moon had risen over the distant horizon, though black clouds higher in the sky waited to obscure it.

He could still feel his prey, yet neither moon nor lantern could give sight to his eyes for what they sought.

64 Tomb of Safety

64

Tomb of Safety

From where they huddled in terrified silence, Jakob and Ulrike Kropf heard the dull thudding of booted feet above them.

These quarters were more cramped than where they had gathered together for the evening—only a few moments had passed, yet now it already seemed a lifetime ago—in the warmth of the house that had been their home for the last three years. Where they now found themselves was cramped, pitch-black, wet, cold, and pungent with the musty fragrance of earth.

Never, thought Jakob Kropf, had ordinary dirt smelled as such a rich perfume!

A cry of belated fear suddenly escaped the lips of his daughter, so rudely coming awake in a strange and fearful place and feeling bodies and arms and legs too closely about.

With an unintentional sharpness, Jakob clamped his hand quickly over her mouth. The Nazi troopers were only an arm’s reach away!

He could feel her trying to cry. As he kept his hand still pressed firmly against the frightened little lips, Ulrike began speaking soothing words into her daughter’s ear, then, in the quietest of possible tones, began singing a familiar whispered Hebrew lullaby in the young one’s ear.

Jakob had dug this hole over the past year, rising after midnight, folding back the thick layer of turf he kept growing over the board that concealed the opening to the little cave, and then digging a few more precious centimeters. For a year he had been working here, for just such a moment as this—a bucketful of earth scooped out every few nights, carefully concealed in his own garden, sifted into the gutters of nearby streets, or carried and sprinkled through the fields at the edge of town.

He told no one, not even wife or son, though Ulrike knew he was about something secretive.

Jakob well knew the lesson of Belshazzar in Daniel 5. He too, like the ancient Babylonian king, had seen the handwriting on the wall. He knew the Jews of Poland were at great risk. He had seen the signs. After the raids in Poznan and Torun, he knew it was only a matter of time. He had then first begun making preparations to contact the fledgling escape network and had begun digging the cave thirty meters from the back door of his home, in case there was no other way to save his family’s life.

He had envisioned this night many times.