Under The Pope's Window

Genres: Historical Thrillers; Terrorism & Assassination Thrillers

Synopsis

They stole it. He’s going to take it back—by force.

In October 1943, Hitler’s SS troops surrounded Rome’s Jewish Ghetto and plundered the Jews’ most precious heritage: two ancient libraries containing unique books and manuscripts dating from before the birth of Christ, from the time of the Caesars, the emperors, and the early popes.

The Nazi ambassador to the Vatican reported to his masters in Berlin that the looting and deportations took place ‘under the Pope's windows’.

Now, Rex Dalton and his wife, Catia, and Digger, their military dog, set out on a quest to find the stolen libraries and return them to the Jewish community of Rome.

But before long, they cross paths with modern-day Nazi diehards, anti-Semites, and a secret organization of super-rich elite who will kill to keep the past a secret.

Release date: May 5, 2020

Publisher: Amazon

Print pages: 519

Content advisory: None

Sample

Prologue

Jewish ghetto, Rome, Italy

October 14, 1943

THE NAZIS HAD an insatiable lust for books, especially esoteric books such as the books of the Biblioteca della Comunità Israelitica, the library of the Jewish community of Rome, and the Biblioteca del Collegio Rabbinico Italiano, the Italian Rabbinical College Library; books and papers including incunabula and scrolls covering more than two thousand years of the history of the Jews of Rome.

On 30 September 1943, two uniformed Nazi officers turned up at the Jewish Ghetto and demanded to see the libraries. They visited again on 1 October to inspect the libraries again, and on the second they visited the chief rabbi’s home, where they examined and confiscated all the books and papers they found there.

On 11 October, the two officers were back, this time in the company of a man purporting to be a German scholar with expertise in book publishing. An eyewitness of the events wrote of this man: …He too is escorted by SS troops and appears to be just another German officer, but with an extra dose of arrogance that comes from having a privileged and, regrettably, well-known ‘specialty.’

This elusive, dread-inducing character makes his way into the synagogue building. While his men commence ransacking the libraries of the Rabbinical college and the Jewish community, the officer, with hands as cautious and sensitive as those of the finest needlewoman, skims, touches, caresses papyri and incunabula, leafs through manuscripts and rare editions, peruses parchments and palimpsests. The varying degrees of caution in his touch, the heedfulness of his gestures, are quickly adapted to the importance of each work. In those aristocratic hands, the books, as though subjected to the cruel and bloodless torture of an exquisite sadism, revealed everything. Later, it became known that the SS officer was a distinguished scholar of paleography and Semitic philology.

On 14 October the Nazis were back, it was the day when the Community Library and a portion of the Rabbinical Library were removed as the president, secretary, and sexton of the Jewish community looked on, helpless.

The rabbi ripped his shirt, threw himself to the ground, and poured dust on his head. When the sexton urged him to rise, he moaned, “How can a people live when the knowledge of their past is taken from them?”

“Some will perish, but our people will survive. It is written; ‘I will bring back all the people unto thee.’”

The rabbi scooped up another handful of dust and poured it on his head. “It is also written; ‘My people are destroyed for want of knowledge! Today the knowledge has been taken from them.’” He scooped up another handful of dust and poured it on his head.

“It was not you who stole the books, rabbi.”

The rabbi remained inconsolable. “It is written; ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’ My people will perish because we lost the books… ‘Ye shall perish among the heathen’.”

Helplessly, the sexton repeated, “All is not lost. The Torah remains.”

***

Oświęcim, Poland - Auschwitz extermination camp

October 21, 1943

The rabbi got the first bitter almond whiff of the Zyklon-B gas, hydrogen cyanide. In the airtight room many of the condemned vomited and retched and convulsed and banged their heads against the walls. He merely leaned against the wall, murmuring, “My people. The books! The books! The boo . . k . . .s . . . .s . . . . .s.”