The Crate

A Story of War, a Murder, and Justice

Deborah Vadas Levison

• Publisher: WildBlue Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781947290686
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Holocaust History
• Index: History

The multiple award-winning account of Holocaust survival and present-day murder. "Evocative, and inspiring... So much more than a true crime."—Steve Jackson, New York Times bestselling author After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust—in ghettos, on death marches, and in concentration camps—a young couple seeks refuge in Canada. They settle into a new life, certain that the terrors of their past are behind them. They build themselves a cozy little cottage on a lake in Muskoka, a cottage that becomes emblematic of their victory over the Nazis. The charming retreat is a safe haven, a refuge from haunted memories. That is, until a single act of unspeakable violence defiles their sanctuary. Poking around the dark crawl space beneath their cottage, they discover a wooden crate, nailed tightly shut and almost hidden from view. Nothing could have prepared them for the horror of the crate's contents—or how the peace and tranquility of their lives would be shattered. Now, their daughter, Deborah Vadas Levison, an award-winning journalist, tells the extraordinary account of her parents' ordeals, both in one of the darkest times in world history and their present-day lives. Written in searing, lyrical prose, The Crate: A Story o f War, a Murder, a nd Justice examines man's seemingly limitless capacity for evil... but also, his capacity for good. "An impressive and important piece of work. I'm glad it was written, and I'm glad I read it."—Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author "A gut-punch, hitting you broadside with such harrowing moments that you have to put the book down and take a breath."—James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Part One

*

Chapter One

NATURALIZATION

Even in my darkest nightmares, I’d never imagined the words my brother would whisper in my ear.

My family and I had arrived at the hotel minutes earlier. Already the suite lay in a state of chaos, so that when my cell phone rang it took me a few moments to trace the sound and find the device, buried under boarding passes, sunglasses, and baseball hats on the kitchenette counter. I answered with one hand and loaded bottles of Gatorade into the refrigerator with the other.

The kids were arguing, staking their claims for pullout couches and cots in the spacious living area surrounding the kitchen, jostling for the best view of the TV.

“Hang on, I can’t hear,” I yelled into the phone, slamming the refrigerator door. “For God’s sake, can someone turn the air conditioner down? It’s like the Arctic in here.” I turned around to see the boys poised for a pillow fight, and braced for the inevitable howls. Fourteen-year-old Jake would never allow himself to be bested by his eight-year-old brother, Coby.

Jordyn, our oldest, was seventeen. Coolly, she snatched the cushion out of Jake’s hand before he could strike.

I turned my attention back to the phone. A familiar number shone on the screen. “Hey, Pete.”

My brother Peter’s voice came through muffled by the racket in the room. Still, he sounded strained, and a wisp of apprehension fluttered over me.

“Are Mum and Dad okay?” I shouted over the noise. My parents were eighty and eighty-four, increasingly frail, and with mounting health concerns. They lived in Toronto, hundreds of miles away, and I constantly imagined the worst.

“They’re fine, Deb,” my brother said, somber, with no hint of his usual chipper tone. I drew back a heavy curtain and unlatched the glass door, seeking the quiet of a balcony. In front of me lay a gorgeous screened lanai furnished with a large wooden dining table and chairs. Another world shimmered outside here on the deck in Florida: bright, mild, calm.

“Now I can hear you better,” I said into the phone. “What’s going on?”

“Everyone’s okay,” Peter repeated. He paused. “How about you guys? When do you leave for Florida?”

I glanced around. Beyond the table stood a row of recliners on an open-air balcony that wrapped around the lanai. I pulled a second door closed behind me and walked barefoot to the iron railing, gazing out on a magnificent, unobstructed view of blue Gulf waters.

“We’re here! Just checked into the hotel. I’m looking at the ocean now, actually. Are you at work?” That might explain the tension in his voice, I thought; my brother’s medical practice involved harried hours of examinations followed by long evenings of dictation, often leaving him stressed and exhausted. He still had a block of patients to see, he confirmed.

I continued, “I know you hate the heat, but it would be nice for you to get away from the hospital for a few days and relax. You sound like you’re on edge. When did you last swim in the ocean?” I chattered on, my unease dissolving as I basked in the sunshine and told my brother about our trip.

My husband, Craig, our kids, and I had arrived in Fort Myers that afternoon with Jake’s travel team, Xplosion, for an elite baseball tournament that would pit us against some of the best high school ballplayers in the country. Initially, I had not wanted to stray out from under the luxurious green and leafy canopy surrounding our New England home, where the woods near our house beckoned, shady and cool, just like those in which I’d spent my childhood in Canada. I dreaded the prospect of Florida in July; “hot, thick, and humid” constituted my least favorite climate.

Peter paused again before answering my question. “The last time we were at the ocean? Probably when we came down to visit you last fall.”

“Oh, that’s just the Sound.” I referred to Long Island Sound, the swirling gray bathtub of fresh and saltwater that rings the north shore of Long Island and the southern shores of Westchester and Connecticut. To my surprise and delight we’d found, though, an hour’s drive from our home to the corner of Rhode Island, the open Atlantic rippling outwards in an endless spread of mint jelly, and dotted along the coast, quaint seafaring villages with weathered wooden piers like wrinkled fingers pointing out to sea. The discovery of this maritime scenery helped soften my docking in America.

I’d felt ambivalent about the whole move. Torontonians typically are not a migratory species. For the most part, those who hatch in Toronto nest there, attend college somewhere close, and settle in the suburbs for the long haul. That life, I had imagined for myself, too. When we moved away, I felt guilty, selfish for leaving my parents. They’d been immigrants themselves. Surely when they landed in Canada in 1956 they assumed that their family would huddle there together forever. When Craig and I left with two of their grandchildren, we effectively took away half of their family.

I’d cried when we all sat down at my parents’ kitchen table to break the news. My mother had nodded slowly and said, “Anyvay. You have to do vhatever is best for your family.” My father stood up quietly and walked out, but not before I saw that his eyes were wet.

But still, the company that Craig worked for, Trans-Lux, had offered him a good job and we were flattered that they seemed willing to go to great lengths to move us to the States. The tight economy in Toronto in the mid-nineties meant that another, equally good job might not be so easy to find. I’d left my own job in public relations to stay home full-time with Jordyn, a toddler then, and Jake, a baby. In the end, Craig and I agreed: We’d be a Swiss Family Robinson of sorts. We would embark on a year-long adventure, and after that we would come home. One year, we gave ourselves.

Trans-Lux sent a team of movers, and I watched as they packed our tidy little life into boxes and onto a moving van bound for the border.

Craig had wanted to live in or as close to New York City as possible since he would be working on Wall Street for three weeks out of each month, while the fourth week would be spent in Norwalk, Connecticut, the headquarters of Trans-Lux. To Craig, New York held all the allure of Oz: a furious pace, vast business opportunity, endless entertainment, and a spinning kaleidoscope of humanity that appealed to his adrenaline-junky personality.

I had no interest in living in Manhattan. Even though metropolitan Toronto bustled just as much, I perceived New York to be dirty and dangerous. I wanted more living space, not less. I hated traffic jams and parking hassles. And I wanted a stroller-friendly front porch, fresh air, and lots of green grass for our kids. We expanded the home search progressively north of New York City, moving along the Hutch to the scenic Merritt Parkway in Connecticut. As the numbers on the exit signs increased, the property prices decreased.

Eventually, our real estate agent brought us to Trumbull. Our agent had pegged Craig as a huge sports fan. When she pulled up in front of Unity Field, the town’s main baseball complex, the sun appeared from behind the clouds and shone down, brilliantly illuminating a banner at the entrance. The sign read, “Welcome to Trumbull, home of the 1989 Little League World Champions.” Craig practically drooled. I could almost hear a chorus of angels burst into song. Well, that’s that, I thought. Here’s home.

In 1996, when my husband and I and our young family first arrived in Connecticut, I’d heard some new friends say to their kids, “Let’s have a catch.” The phrase rolled around in my head. You “have” a headache or you “have” an appointment, I thought. My dad never said to me, “Let’s have a slalom” when we went skiing. But having a catch seemed to be what people in Fairfield County, Connecticut, did on their wide, manicured lawns.

We found a sprawling, if dated, house on a flat acre of land with towering oaks and spacious rooms. Bigger than anything we could afford in Toronto, Craig said. Great bones, I said. Surely, with some modern finishes, we could turn a profit in the twelve months we planned to live there before flipping the house and returning home to Canada. It felt, as we say in Yiddish, bashert: fated, meant to be.

And it seemed safe, this little town. A keep-the-front-door-open, leave-your-car-unlocked, let-your-kids-play-outside kind of town. Where all sorts of townsfolk, Jewish or not, drove to the local temple every Monday night to play Bingo. We signed on the dotted line.

Somehow, as we settled into a warm and welcoming community, a wide circle of friends, and a comfortable routine of school, work, and family life, that one year stretched into two, then five, then ten. In 2010, we had been in the States for fourteen years.

In that time I had morphed into an all-around Trumbullite: Suburban mom, carpooling in a minivan and hosting cookie-baking play dates and sleepovers, birthday bashes and after-sports pool parties for the kids and their friends. And publicist, earning media for an eclectic clientele throughout the Northeast. And journalist, interviewing movers and shakers around the state for a local paper. And volunteer, member of this committee and that, fundraiser for this project and that, room mother for this class and that.

I transformed from alien to citizen on April 8, 2005, my husband by my side, both of us eager to obtain dual citizenship, to vote, to give our...

Table of contents

• PART ONE
• Chapter One: NATURALIZATION
• Chapter Two: PREFABRICATION
• Chapter Three: REVELATION
• Chapter Four: PROTECTION
• Chapter Five: IDENTIFICATION
• Chapter Six: INDECISION
• Chapter Seven: INVASION
• Chapter Eight: CONCENTRATION
• Chapter Nine: EXPLANATION
• Chapter Ten: RENOVATION
• Chapter Eleven: CELEBRATION
• PHOTOS
• PART TWO
• Chapter Twelve: CONVOLUTION
• Chapter Thirteen: VIOLATION
• Chapter Fourteen: EXTERMINATION
• Chapter Fifteen: CONGREGATION
• Chapter Sixteen: FIRST NATION
• Chapter Seventeen: ILLUSION
• Chapter Eighteen: INVESTIGATION
• Chapter Nineteen: EMIGRATION
• Chapter Twenty: REALIZATION
• AUTHOR’S NOTE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR