Gerta

by Tučková, Kateřina

  Attached to the register was an original letter, in which it was noted that these records were acquired from the local gravediggers who had been charged with liquidating the bodies in the Pohořelice camp, now no longer patrolled by either the Revolutionary Guard or by soldiers, but left under the supervision of two doctors who had been dispatched from Brno. The last interments took place on July 18, 1945, after the camp had already been dissolved. The Register of Unusual Deaths also contained death certificates for the deceased. As Karel leafed through them, he noticed that they all listed the same cause of death. Dysentery. Dysentery and marasmus senilis, or progressive atrophy of the aged. Dysentery and marasmus senilis. Ten times over, twenty times over, four hundred times over. The death certificates were all the same. Even for women born in the 1920s. Even for children. Dysentery and marasmus senilis. What kind of nonsense was this? He requested the death registers from the nearby villages. They all looked the same; the only variation was in the number of identified and unidentified deceased. Dysentery and marasmus senilis.

  “But you know, seeing as you’re so interested, we’ve also got a few foreign documents on file, but you’ll need permission, permission from up top,” Skalka mentioned one day as Karel was returning some National Committee records from 1945 that he had borrowed.

  “They’re mostly in German; some are in English. They were sent over here in forty-seven. Seem to be reports from the other side,” he added, peering at Karel over the rims of his thick glasses.

  It took him almost two months to get his hands on those materials. Skalka brought him a folder with two pages of a typed translation, the original text of which remained in the archive.

  “Here’s all they gave me. As I was saying, it’s highly confidential, but these are some excerpts, and from what I could see, taking a peek, it’s a bunch of drivel. The guy is nuts. Same as when he was the deputy here.”

  Skalka handed Karel the excerpts from a Petition to the General Secretary of the United Nations, put forward by a delegation of Sudeten German Social Democrats in Great Britain, and written and signed by Wenzel Jaksch.

  It was ludicrous. What kind of intelligence had he had, allowing him to write that fifty thousand people had been placed in concentration camps on the outskirts of the city? Where on earth had he gotten the information that along the way from Brno to “Pohořelce”—even the name of the town was misspelled—four thousand people died? Where had he found out that in the district of Muschelberg, which hadn’t even been mentioned in any of the Brno reports, eight hundred had been buried? How could he maintain that another five thousand had been lying along the way or just on the other side of the border? Karel was stunned as he read the account.

  In the vicinity of Brno alone, there were many mutilated corpses of people who had been for the most part either dragged, beaten, or tortured to death; or shot in the back of the head. Furthermore, thousands died in Pohořelice. According to very conservative estimates, approximately ten thousand people died during the march.

  Karel found it absurd. During the last few days of the war, there hadn’t even been fifty thousand left in Brno; a good half of them had disappeared across the border. After all, what reason did they have to stay? Indignant, he snapped the folder shut and gave it back to Skalka.

  “Typical West. Pure garbage and misinterpretation,” he said.

  “What did I tell you? Not even worth having the whole thing translated, right? A little is enough to turn your stomach. But then again, what would you expect from a German, right?”

  Karel thought the same. It had to be something like that. He didn’t trust the West either. But Gerta? Could he trust her? When she woke up in the middle of the night, soaked in sweat, terrified that they had taken Barbora away from her, that they had taken him away from her, that they were again doing to her the same things they had done to her before? He wasn’t sure. Maybe better not to. He himself knew the tricks memory could play on such experiences. He had his own share of nightmares from his days in the resistance with the partisans. Over time, memories like that, like it or not, had a tendency to become more exaggerated and fantastical.

  It was only those death certificates—they didn’t seem right. It occurred to him that he could request to have the death registers sent to him from the other side, from Austria.

  VI

  It was following a meeting one late afternoon that Pešek, the deputy chairman of the Regional National Committee, came over to him and put his arm around his shoulders.

  “I’ve been hearing, comrade, that you’re interested in the German expulsions.”

  Karel nodded.

  “That wouldn’t be because of your, er, shall we call her ‘friend’?”

  That he hadn’t expected. He was under the impression that no one knew about him and Gerta. Taken aback, he shook his head.

  “Well, comrade, should you have any questions, let’s discuss them together. What exactly is it about that episode that you find so fascinating? By now, it’s a closed chapter that’s already been processed by history, isn’t it? So what makes you want to revisit it?”

  Karel wasn’t prepared or in the mood to explain himself. But Pešek wasn’t someone he could just dismiss.

  “I’m interested in how the expulsion was carried out and what the death toll was. If it was ever clarified,” he said.

  “Are you looking for someone in particular, comrade?”

  “No. No one in particular. I just find it interesting. As you recall, comrade, I wasn’t yet back at the end of May. I was still in Hostýn. So . . . just to have a general idea.”

  Pešek, his hand still on Karel’s shoulder, applied a gentle pressure and steered him in the direction of his office. They passed by the cubicle of the secretary who had gone for the day, and then Pešek opened the door for Karel and showed him in first. He motioned with his hand to a low settee, set his leather briefcase down at the foot of the coatrack, and sat down facing him.

  “Cigarette?”

  Karel gave a nod.

  “It’s like this, comrade. It landed on my desk the minute you asked for that Jaksch file. Interesting reading, right? The guy’s crazy, right? A megalomaniac. And a miserable bastard too. Point is, he lies.”

  Karel struck a match, lit up, and sucked the smoke deep down into his lungs.

  “I noticed the statistical figures weren’t correct. Already just the number of German residents here during liberation.”

  “Exactly,” Pešek said, nodding affirmatively, “and that holds true for almost everything in that report. Look here, comrade, as far as this business goes, you’ve already gotten yourself in pretty deep, wouldn’t you say? What have you found out?”

  For a moment, Karel was silent. Then he said, “It’s a thorny subject, comrade. The reports paint a pretty clear picture: the situation in Brno was no longer tenable; the Czech civilian population was up in arms against the German one; there was looting, and there was murder. It was a turbulent time, as we all remember. I didn’t get back here until close to the end, but no one had to explain to me what it was like—after all, I wasn’t that far away.”

  Pešek listened, holding his cigarette straight up, the smoke rising higher and swirling around his head. “There’s been quite a lot said, comrade, about your accomplishments.”

  “The expulsion of the Germans, at least for a time, was unavoidable. Already just because of the food shortage. And many other factors too. According to all the reports, it was carried out quickly and cleanly. The accounts don’t hint at any complications. Up until the outbreaks of dysentery and typhoid fever in Pohořelice. That’s what’s so strange. I remember the first editorials to appear in the papers, in Rovnost, that condemned the march for being disorganized, chaotic, inhumane, and, above all, violent. Yet in all the reports I read, there wasn’t even the slightest mention of that.”

  Pešek stared at him fixedly.

  “And then the situation in Pohořelice. There’s not much information in our archive about the num
ber of deaths. It only goes through the first few days of June. It seems as if no one around here looked into it any further. But the death records in Pohořelice go all the way through the end of July. In the material we have here, there’s not a word about how many of them there actually were. Just more marginal notes indicating that it was impossible to obtain exact figures. According to the Pohořelice register, which was never made public, the number was close to five hundred people, there alone.”

  “What did they send you from Mikulov?” asked Pešek deliberately.

  Karel was surprised that he was aware of the request. Had they been monitoring him? Had someone reported him?

  “They sent me the registers from Austria. I took the liberty of submitting an official request.”

  Karel placed his cigarette on the ashtray, opened the bag that sat by his feet, pulled out a notebook, and thumbed through it until he got to the page he was looking for.

  “Listen to this, comrade. This whole business didn’t end in Pohořelice. As people straggled on, they dragged that dysentery and typhoid fever with them. They were exhausted and dropped like flies into ditches along the roads, where in the end they were just covered up with a bit of dirt. In the local chronicles, from which they sent me excerpts, they occasionally list the numbers of deceased. Most of them without names, unless they had identification papers. In the field behind the Mikulov customs house, that last stretch before Drasenhofen, there were one hundred eighty-six. Back then, nobody even knew whose responsibility it was to bury them. Let’s see, what else did they send me from Austria: Poysdorf, one hundred twenty-two buried; Steinebrunn, fifty-five; Wetzelsdorf, fifteen; Erdberg, eighty-two; Wilfersdorf, thirty-two buried; Mistelbach, one hundred sixty-five buried; Bad Pirawarth, fifteen; Stammersdorf, one hundred ten; Purkersdorf, one hundred eighty-five buried; Hollabrunn, sixty-nine buried. Obviously, one could go on counting from village to village. That’s what they sent me from Austria. And let me tell you, the bureaucracy was a nightmare—it took forever.”

  With an amused smile, Pešek blew out a cloud of smoke and, turning to look out of the window, said, “Well, well, comrade, and you didn’t find any of this in our reports, huh?”

  Karel shook his head. “There are no sum totals listed anywhere. At least, not in the reports I was able to see. For that matter, when I finally did manage to get hold of something, and that was just for Pohořelice, the death certificates all looked exactly the same. It almost looked . . . manipulated.”

  Pešek gave a terse laugh. Karel had the feeling that it was the smug laughter of someone who knew more than he did.

  “You know, comrade, not everybody’s got a brain like yours. Out in the country, you get a lot of simple people.”

  “What do you mean, comrade?” asked Karel quietly.

  “Comrade. You’re one of us; it goes without saying that we trust you. But there are many others out there who need to be called into question. The reason you were able to get all that information is precisely because you have our trust. Your party profile is pristine. And furthermore, we need specialists, and if this subject is of interest to you, even though it’s outside your purview, why not. As I said, comrade: you, we trust.”

  “Of course,” replied Karel. After all, why wouldn’t they?

  Pešek settled himself deeper into his chair and crossed one leg over the other.

  “Now, I’m going to tell you something. This German question is extremely, and I mean extremely, sensitive. I know that, and surely you know it, too, even though you weren’t right here when it all happened. Still, you experienced Brno just after the war—why, you remember it well. That period demanded solutions. Another cigarette?”

  Karel reached over. Although at first he hadn’t felt like talking to Pešek, he now had the gratifying feeling that he was being brought into the inner circle of a conspiracy, which was what Pešek, his eyes still narrowed, seemed to be implying. He’s actually an agreeable person, Karel thought, at the same time dismissing all those who went around spreading nasty rumors behind Pešek’s back.

  “There was no quick and elegant solution to be had,” Pešek went on. “Not with a crowd of some twenty thousand people who owned property here and were scrambling to hold on to it. Some were entitled to it, and that was later acknowledged. But try to sort that out when you’ve got three thousand Zbrojovka men breathing down your neck, ready to jump into action. And I’ll tell you, the only order they got was to carry out what was in the decree. All they were supposed to do was to march them out. As for how, that was up to Kapoun. But try to keep two packs like that under control. There were still plenty of weapons lying around. And plenty of schnapps, too, as became obvious. Comrade, seeing as you’re to be trusted and already know a thing or two about what happened, I’ll tell you this. Official reports are one thing. A necessity. Reality, it appears, is something a little bit different. You have to acknowledge that yourself; after all, you were in the resistance. Plans and their execution—sometimes they just don’t add up. And that was also the case here. What exactly went on during that expulsion, only the head of each section knows. But one thing’s for sure. Even if something did happen out there, nobody—I repeat, nobody—is ever to find out about it. Do you know why, comrade?”

  Karel shook his head.

  “Because at that time, it wasn’t about individuals. It wasn’t about some wounded German or even about an epidemic. Pohořelice was no tragedy compared to the havoc that they, the Nazis, wrought here over the course of those previous six years. It was about something else, comrade, something that you will surely appreciate. It was about our fledgling Republic. Do you understand?”

  Pešek slowly leaned forward. He raised his eyebrows slightly and fixed Karel with an inquiring look.

  “We couldn’t permit ourselves any scandal. Absolutely none.”

  Karel was silent for a moment until he asked, “And those death certificates from Pohořelice?”

  Pešek rocked back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and held them right up to his chin.

  “Comrade, you’re young and engaged. We need people like you now. And such people need to have a proper understanding of what they’re dealing with. A lot of people died out there, and I can sincerely say to you, I am sorry. About the whole march and the epidemics that drove those miserable wretches into the ground. But there’s nothing to be done about it; that was their destiny, and we all have one. Old dead people or sick dead people, that’s what you had there. The examinations were carried out by competent doctors. Believe me.”

  Karel was rubbing his chin. This was about the Republic, first and foremost, he repeated to himself.

  “As for this conversation, comrade, consider it confidential,” came the sound of Pešek’s voice again. “The only thing that’s going to come out of it is a memo you’re going to write me, letting me know that you’re turning over those papers, the ones you got from Austria. And you’re going to enclose the original documents with that memo, do you understand, and not make any copies. You’re clever enough to know what to write, aren’t you, comrade? Surely this isn’t the first time that you’ve had to look at a problem from both sides, right? Recognize that this is about our reputation, which ranks even above that friend of yours. That is, if she was your motive for getting into all this.”

  Karel got nervous.

  “For that matter, we’re very pleased to know what close ties you have to the German minority. If anything were to happen, you know it would be up to you to intervene. The point is that since they’ve ended up staying, they have to blend in at any cost with the mainstream. Do you understand, comrade? That’s what we’re interested in seeing. To go back now and start poking around Pohořelice all over again, well, that’s not going to help anyone anymore. I repeat, not anyone. We knew it back then, and we know it even today.”

  Karel ran his hand over his forehead, wiping off tiny beads of sweat.

  “What are the official numbers?” he then asked quietly.

  Pe
šek smiled, struck a match, and held it burning for a long time in front of his fresh cigarette.

  “As I said, it’s not going to help anyone anymore. So, we know that there are . . . How many did you say were buried there?”

  “In Pohořelice, it seems there were about five hundred. I mean, that’s how many death certificates there were with a diagnosis of disease, but . . .”

  “So about five hundred, who died of dysentery, typhoid fever, and old age. That’s it. And the ones on the other side of the border, those we don’t care about anymore. And that’s how it’s going to stay. Understood, comrade?”

  Karel nodded.

  VII

  Everything, everything goes. Slowly but surely. Bit by bit, we all move it along, collectively. Last year there had still been strikes leading up to Christmas. Deprive the workers of their livelihood and they’ll make mincemeat out of you. Who wouldn’t know that? Everyone had expected it, he thought. It surprised no one. What did surprise them was that it had come from the outside, that it had been reported in a radio broadcast from Paris. This they hadn’t expected. But now that they were aware, they’d be that much more vigilant, knowing there were informers among them. Traitors. The Republic needed to protect itself. It was still in its infancy. Its people weren’t yet prepared to accept collective thinking, to take responsibility for the common good. This was what Pešek had been trying to tell him, that there existed reasons why certain things needed to be kept secret. People weren’t ready to hear them yet; they wouldn’t understand. They were still afflicted by the war, unsettled, afraid to trust, and feathering their nests as best as they could. Their own nests. And who could blame them? When even the leaders had failed? Slánský and Clementis, or even Šling. He had evaporated like steam. They finally caught him in Prague, just as he was about to leave the country. A few years earlier, he had been the most powerful man in Moravia, Otto Schlesinger, postwar alias Otto Šling, the Communist Party’s regional secretary in Brno. And what a clique was then uncovered in their wake. They were all part of it, mired in a swamp of greed—the speaker of the Regional National Committee, Svitavský; the head of the Culture and Propaganda Department, Kudílková-Blochová; and all their entourage. Pigs in the highest positions. Even he, Karel, had trusted them, so slyly had they masterminded everything. Before they were ratted out. Take Slánský, for example. Slánský’s writings appeared on the shelves in bookshops just one week before the news broke. So who could blame the common men from the Zbrojovka Arms Factory, or from Zetor Tractors, or Královopolská Engineering, when they saw how unscrupulously the very individuals, to whose hands they had entrusted themselves, were ready to sell out to anti-nationalist elements? When they saw that there were arrests being made even within the ranks of State Security; that even those who were supposed to be the moral pillars of the nation were accepting bribes of twenty thousand crowns for taking reactionaries across the border? At a time like this, when food was still being rationed? Last Christmas, people had been putting gifts of food under each other’s trees. A tin of sardines cost two hundred crowns; a ham, five hundred. And yet, the ones in whom they had placed their trust were cashing in tens of thousands from reactionaries and capitalist pigs.