The Last of the Stanfields(62)
Robert Stanfield met Hanna Goldstein in 1944, while the war was still raging, in her native France. Robert returned to the States with Hanna, and having fallen out of grace with his father, the couple first settled in New York.
In 1948, the Hanna Stanfield Gallery opened its doors on the prestigious Madison Avenue. Hanna started building the business with a number of pieces that she had inherited, which helped the burgeoning gallery break into the art market and prosper for years to come. Hanna Stanfield was no stranger to the art world. Her father, Sam Goldstein, was a renowned art dealer, with a clientele that included the Rockefellers and the Wildensteins, before he became a victim of the Nazi regime.
The Hanna Stanfield Gallery quickly rose to prominence. After the tragic loss of Robert’s parents in a car accident, Robert and Hanna settled the family’s debts and made the move to Baltimore in 1950. Hanna set her sights on buying back the family estate, acquiring mortgages that had been seized by local banks.
The sales continued rolling in and the Stanfield empire grew considerably. In 1951, the gallery opened a second location in Washington, DC, followed by a third in Boston in 1952. The Stanfield fortune continued to grow as the family branched out from the art world into real estate. They played a vital role in constructing one of Baltimore’s top golf courses. Hanna made a donation to help renovate the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, a sum so generous that the hospital named a wing after her father, Sam Goldstein. The family is also heavily invested in the large-scale renovation of the waterfront district, working hand in glove with City Hall. The Stanfields have also contributed to the construction of the new convention center, one of the city’s current flagship projects.
However, since the private lives and moral fiber of public figures are of great importance to our readers, we believe that Robert Stanfield’s upcoming run for governor warrants a second look at this prestigious family’s background. Many questions remain regarding Robert Stanfield’s acts of heroism during wartime, none of which have ever been confirmed by the Department of Military Affairs. Equally important are the mysterious circumstances under which Hanna inherited her father’s vaunted art collection.
The true story of how these precious works of art made it to the US has never fully been brought to light. Questions remain regarding the exact location where Sam Goldstein hid his collection during the dark days of the war, as well as how the precious bounty was kept out of enemy hands. Many Jewish families were systematically robbed by Nazi forces during this period. Who hid the paintings away? What middlemen helped the Goldsteins? How did the paintings end up in Hanna Stanfield’s possession? These secrets have been safely guarded for years, and their answers are still shrouded in mystery as the family seeks to exert influence beyond the city limits and gain a foothold in state government.
—S
While I didn’t know who the author was, my professional instincts left little doubt: it was a hit job, written with express intent to harm the subjects. Although the allegations and innuendoes might not have caused a great stir today, I imagined that it might have been different for that kind of family in the early eighties. I did some digging online and found a press release about Robert Stanfield withdrawing his candidacy for governor following a terrible accident—a tragedy that had befallen his family. The rest of the paper provided no more details. I knew I needed to find out more about what this tragedy was.
26
ROBERT STANFIELD
June 1944
Early morning, before dawn, with the dark of night fading bit by bit, two Resistance fighters struggled to stay awake as they kept watch outside the hunting lodge. The surrounding woods were quiet, and there was not a soul in sight.
The safe house, which held the weapons cache, was not especially large, but it was comfortable enough. The living room on the ground floor also served as a rustic kitchen, with a countertop and a stone fireplace, while a trapdoor further down led to the cellar. The bedroom Sam and his daughter shared was down to the right, and Robert’s room was to the left. Upstairs, five Resistance fighters were snoring away in the attic-turned-barracks. At five in the morning, Robert rose from bed and shaved in front of the little mirror in the kitchen. As he packed up his gear, his partner, Titon, the Italian member of the crew, was watching.
“Don’t take your gun,” Titon advised. “If we get stopped, they’ll search us, and we need to pass as local farmers.”
“Good luck with that!” Maurice snickered from the kitchen. “He’s got a mighty strange accent for a local farmer. If you two get stopped, have him hand over his papers, but don’t let him say a word.”
“Hurry up,” another member of the crew urged. “The factory opens its doors at six o’clock. You’ll need to walk in with the workers; that’s the only way to get in unnoticed.”
Titon and Robert’s mission was to infiltrate the cartridge factory.
“Go to the manager at the workshop, and give him this message: ‘There were doves flying overhead this morning.’ He’ll give you a haversack full of what you’ll need.”
“Then what?” asked Titon.
“Then, you blend in with the others and discreetly insert the rigs under the assembly lines.” The rigs were gutter pipes they had swiped from a scrapyard and modified to suit their needs. Bolted end-caps had been added to each side, and each had a hole for a fuse leading to Ablonite charges to pass through. The explosives had been scavenged by sympathetic miners from a nearby quarry.