In the spring of 1995 Agnes Embleton, born Aubret, is diagnosed with a terminal neurological condition. She has been a cipher to her children and granddaughter. She refuses to talk about what happened to her in France during the Nazi occupation and her subsequent experiences in Auschwitz and Ravensbruck. She has abrupt impenetrable withdrawals from “ordinary life”. Only her husband, Arthur Embleton, can ease her back. Now Arthur is gone from a stroke and Agnes is facing her end.
At the same time Agnes contemplates dying there is a crisis at Larkwood Priory. A man, Eduard Walter Schwermann now known as Nightingale, has claimed sanctuary. He was a “low ranking SS officer based in Paris during the war. He’s incriminated in the deportation of thousands of Jews to the death camps”. He had come to England in 1945 with a French collaborator, Victor Brionne, known after the war as Berkeley.
The monks gather in Chapter, community meeting, to decide if Schwermann will be allowed to stay. There are conflicting positions within and without the community. The British government and the Vatican want him to stay while the allegations are investigated.
The Prior, Father Andrew, makes the decision. Schwermann can stay.
In his dozen years at the Priory Anselm has become a priest. He has found all the emotions of life are present in monastic life. It is a life of “evolving contentment”.
Agnes writes her memories and gives the journal to her granddaughter, Lucy, to read.
The journal of Agnes is set out in the book. Agnes was involved in a student group, the Round Table, smuggling Jewish children to safety. She was arrested and sent to the concentration camps. Her story is devastating and wrenching. It is no surprise the trauma has affected her deeply.
Anselm is called to Rome to meet Beniamino Cardinal Vincenzi, the Vatican’s Secretary of State. Anselem is tasked with finding Victor Brione and finding out what happened near the end of the war when Schwermann and Brione came to a Gilbertine priory in France.
The time of Occupation still creates turmoil 50 years later in France.
What will be done by the political establishment in London and the religious establishment in Rome to avoid further embarrassment concerning Schwermann and where does Larkwood fit in this most awkward situation? Anselm is in deep waters of intrigue.
Anselm is a rarity in fictional sleuths. He is a patient man. He does not feel a need to aggressively pursue information. He is willing to let others pursue threads he has identified.
Anselm is a subtle man, trained as a barrister to appear in court and as a priest to hear confessions. He is exceptional at listening. He lets men and women talk to him. He does not demand their stories.
The disparate parties start coming together. Brodrick is brilliant in connecting the streams of knowledge.
After a year at the Priory, Schwermann goes on trial for murder for his role in deporting Jews from Paris to Auschwitz. The Crown prosecutor, Oliver Penshaw, recites the roundup of 12,884 Jews, including 4,051 children, in July of 1942 and their transportation to Auschwitz. Few survived.
Penshaw says that, though his rank was SS-Untescharführer, Schwermann was a leader in organizing the roundup of Jews and overseeing their shipment to Auschwitz.
The trial has the quiet intensity I have experienced in Canadian courts. Cross-examination is precise and devastating. There are none of the histronics of some American fictional trials.
Defence counsel, Mr. Bartlett, delves into the distinctions in France between refugee Jews and French born Jews, the latter often assimilated.
He examines the knowledge of French officials in 1942 on what was to happen to the refugee Jews when they were transported East to be “re-settled”.
The Holocaust is not doubted but there are challenging questions on when it was known. What can be proven as known by Schwermann in 1942?
Contemplating the trial, one of the monks, thinking of the real life Paul Touvier, reflected that it was only the collaborators who could bargain with the Nazis to save some lives.
I thought of Kastner's train. In 1944 Rudolph Kastner, a Jewish man, negotiated with Adolf Eichmann to allow 1,670 Hungarian Jews to travel from Hungary to Switzerland. Kastner, a lawyer and journalist, knew that the Hungarian Jews in the hundreds of thousands being deported to Auschwitz would be killed. His actions remain controversial today. Did he sell his soul to the devil?
Outside the trial, what happened in France during WW II is gradually revealed. Who betrayed the Round Table? Was it treachery in the Priory or in Paris?
Among the many issues Anselm is pondering is what the Vatican knew in 1944.
The answers to Anselm’s questions and the resolution of the trial are confounding and thought provoking. The 6th Lamentation is an amazing book. To say all I want about the book will take another two posts.
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