Georg suddenly laughed. “No, that was one time only, and he had a reason to do that. That asshole American told him to go fuck himself, what did he expect in return? A decent treatment? It’s not the United States where you can say whatever you want to the General, it’s the Reich. We do things a little differently here.”
The men laughed while I just stood there listening to them.
“Are we going back to the ghetto now?” Heinrich asked the agent.
“No, to the Poles who were supplying them with weapons. My men are already waiting outside. As soon as Herr Gruppenführer comes back, we’re good to go.”
“The Jew told him everything after all, didn’t he?” Georg smirked.
“He didn’t have much of a choice. You can try to be tough all you want, but when someone starts breaking your fingers one by one with bare hands, you’ll start singing like a bird.” The Gestapo agent chuckled.
“But Herr Gruppenführer still killed him.”
“The Jew shot two of our good men. Herr Gruppenführer doesn’t forgive such things.”
“How did he kill him?” I asked my first question.
“It’s difficult to say, because he kept beating him for a good twenty minutes.” The Gestapo agent took out a cigarette case and lit one up. “My guess would be the massive head trauma after he banged the guy’s head on the concrete wall. That’s what most likely finished him. But again, I’m not a doctor.”
He eyed me for another moment, took another drag from his cigarette and smiled.
“You’re taking it all pretty well for a woman. Most of the ones I know would be throwing up outside by now. And you saw his hands and didn’t even flinch.”
“We’re not supposed to have mercy for the enemies of the Reich.” I answered indifferently, even though everything was twisting inside. “Besides, I’ve seen worse things in my life.”
The agent nodded in satisfaction several times.
“Now I see why he brought you here.”
______________
We were driving in the car in silence, Heinrich sitting between me and Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner. I turned my head all the way to the right, trying to look only at the city outside and not to think of anything.
“Frau Friedman?” Dr. Kaltenbrunner finally broke the silence.
I turned my head to him. “Yes, Herr Gruppenführer?”
“Is there any chance you can get me a new uniform here in Poland?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I turned away again.
The next morning, back in the house where we were staying, I was sewing on the insignia from his old uniform jacket to the new one, perfectly clean and neat, just delivered by an SS man. When my chief appeared in the doorway and stood there indecisively, watching me work, I said without taking my eyes off the jacket, “Almost done. Two more minutes.”
“Take your time and don’t mind me, I’ll wait here.”
He went to the mirror and started struggling with his tie, from time to time quietly cursing at it and the people who invented it. I bit off the last thread and walked up to my boss.
“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” I shook my head at what was supposed to look like a tie, undid it completely and then started to put it back in order.
“Not really.” Dr. Kaltenbrunner gave me an apologetic smile as I was tying a perfectly neat knot on his neck.
“Here, all done. Take your jacket and please, don’t mess this one up, it’s very difficult to find it in your size.”
I handed him the jacket and went to the sofa to put the sewing set back in order.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner paused for a moment and then asked, “Are you mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad at you?”
“For yesterday.”
I shrugged. I wasn’t mad, I was disappointed, terribly disappointed, but didn’t want him to know it.
“You’re not my husband, you’re not a member of my family, you’re not even my friend. You’re my boss. I don’t care what you do. You feel like splitting someone’s head in two, it’s your business, not mine.”
“I’m sorry you had to see that. I didn’t do it on purpose, it just… got out of control.”
“It always does with you.”
“He shot two of our Waffen-SS officers! The Jew! It’s the war after all!”
“No, it’s not the war, Herr Gruppenführer. You’re at war with the French, with the British, with the Russians. With Jews, it’s not a war. It’s an extermination.”
“But… he killed two Aryans… the Jew.” He sounded like he was trying to explain to me the reason behind his actions. I almost laughed.
“And how many Jews have you killed so far? Two million? One finally stood up for himself, and he deserves to die a terrible death. That’s your logic.”
“He’s a Jew…”
“And?”
“We’re Aryans.”
“And how are we different now?”
“Of course we’re different. We even look different.”
“If we look so different what is the reason behind making them wear stars on their chest or sleeves? Have you thought of that? Why make such a law if it’s so easy to differentiate an Aryan from a Jew?”
His brow furrowed. He didn’t know the answer to that question and obviously never asked himself that.
“We’re going back to the ghetto, aren’t we?” I said. “Good. I’m going to show you something that you’ll find very interesting.”
_______________
Waffen-SS soldiers were keeping their hands on their machine guns the whole time, even though the people they rounded up today were mostly women and children, scared to death, some of them keeping their hands up just in case, not to provoke the Germans. Right after we got out of the car, I wandered off further and further from Dr. Kaltenbrunner and my husband, until I turned to a quiet and half destroyed street, with several dead bodies still laying right there on the ground.
I had to cover my nose and mouth with a handkerchief because the smell was absolutely unbearable. Another reason was the typhus epidemic still widely spread amongst the habitants of the ghetto. I walked inside one of the buildings, its walls covered with bullet marks everywhere. A lot of rebels died here fighting for their right to live. No bodies were inside, however; the SS had already taken them out to search if they had any valuables on them or golden teeth they could pull out. Then they probably burned them. I knew the protocol, I was working for the RSHA after all.
I walked inside one of the former apartments and looked around. Broken furniture and peeling walls only emphasized the impression of desperation and death. Someone’s coat was still lying on the bed, probably left in the haste of running away. I picked it up, shook the dust off it and put it on. It still had a Star of David band around the right arm. Good. I took off my SS-Helferin cap and hid it in my pocket. I buttoned the first two buttons of the baggy coat so no one would be able to see my uniform.
On my way out I looked at the piece of the broken mirror on the wall. I smirked in satisfaction: I almost looked like one of them. To make the resemblance perfect, I put a handkerchief over my head and tied its ends under my hair, covering my braid in a neat bun with a white cloth.
I descended the steps and cautiously looked out. I could see the rounded up people at the end of the street. Now all I had to do was to approach them unnoticed. Luckily for me, the SS were too busy staring at the big and scary Chief of the RSHA to later write home about meeting the Gruppenführer personally, and I snuck right into the crowd of Jewish women without anyone paying any attention to me.
Slowly I made my way to the front, and was standing now within twenty steps from Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner and Heinrich, who kept frowning and looking around. They had probably noticed my absence and were wondering where I was. Georg was standing ev
en closer to me, holding the map in front of his chief, while the latter was giving him orders. I smiled; in my disguise I was absolutely invisible to all of them.
“Keep moving in the circle like I outlined for you earlier. It seems to be working perfectly well,” I heard Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner say to the Waffen-SS leader standing next to him.
“Jawohl, Herr Gruppenführer.” The officer clicked his heels and nodded to our, Jews, direction. “What about them? Shall we execute them right here?”
The group of women gasped as they heard the German speak of their fate and pressed their children closer to themselves, exchanging panicked looks. The soldiers shifted their machine guns ready for the command of their superiors.
“No, why would you do that?” Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner frowned. “We promised them that if they surrender, we’ll let them live.”
“Shall I send them to Treblinka then?”
“Treblinka or Majdanek, depending on who needs fresh people at the moment. Coordinate it with the Kommandants directly.”
“Jawohl.” The Waffen-SS leader clicked his heels again. “Shall we sort them out maybe? There are a lot of elderly and sick among them. Some of them are barely standing, there’s no point in wasting time and effort in transporting them, they’ll die anyway.”
“Yes, that you can do.”
“What about the children? Them too? To the left?”
It was a camp code, unknown to the Jews next to me. To the left meant immediate execution; to the right – a chance to live a little longer, but still slowly working yourself to death.
“Let the Kommandant deal with the children.”
The officer nodded, turned to us and started barking out the commands in a loud voice.
“Form a line by the sidewalk, stand close to each other, put your children next to you, do not hold them in your hands. Put your belongings in front of you. Go, schnell, schnell, schnell!”
In about ten seconds we were all standing shoulder to shoulder, while the Waffen-SS leader started walking along the line, making a fast selection with his baton, right, left, right, right, left, right, left, left, left, left, right… Finally he reached me and barked after a short glance, “Right.”
“What if I want to go to the left?” I asked loudly, immediately turning all the heads into my direction.
“What did you say, Jew?” The officer squinted his eyes at me, clearly not expecting any of us to speak at all, especially in such an insolent manner. But I wasn’t looking at him, I was looking at Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner, who was staring at me with his mouth open, just like my husband and Georg next to him.
“I said, what if I want to go to the left?” I repeated again.
“I’ll show you ‘left!’” The officer put away his baton and took his gun out of the holster.
“Don’t!!!” Two voices in unison behind the officer’s back made him turn to his superiors in confusion. Both Heinrich and Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner were already next to him, the latter quickly disarming the man.
“What? What did I do? That Jew talked back to me!”
“She’s not a Jew!” Heinrich yanked the handkerchief from my head.
“What the hell are you doing?!” My chief joined him. “Do you realize that you almost got yourself shot?!”
Under the confused stares of the Waffen-SS leader, his soldiers and the former ghetto habitants standing next to me, I stepped forward.
“And that brings us to the point I was trying to prove to you this morning, Herr Gruppenführer.” Then I turned to the Waffen-SS leader again. “So I’m a Jew, right?”
He shifted his eyes from me to Dr. Kaltenbrunner and back to me, not knowing what was going on.
“How about now?” I unbuttoned the coat and took it off, now standing in front of him in my SS uniform. “Still a Jew? Not so much, right?”
I put the coat back on and closed it. “Oh, look, I’m a Jew again.”
“That’s enough!” Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner yanked the coat off me, threw it on the ground and wiped his gloved hands with a handkerchief in disgust. “Why would you even put that on yourself? It must have typhus all over it!”
“Don’t change the subject, Herr Gruppenführer. All this time you were standing steps away from me and never even saw my face. What if I didn’t say anything? I would have long been on my way to the camp now.” He was frowning at me and not saying anything.
“Herr Officer.” I turned back to his very confused subordinate again. “How do you differentiate Aryans from Jews?”
“Well, according to the official doctrine, the representatives of the Aryan race possess a certain set of features…”
“Like what?”
“Like… they’re tall, lean, mostly with blue eyes and blond hair, they have elongated skulls with high cheekbones, straight thin noses and a strong jaw line.”
I nodded.
“Which of the enumerated qualities do I not have?”
He opened his mouth and closed it again, not able to answer my question. I fit perfectly under the description of a typical Aryan.
“So let me get this straight. I look absolutely Aryan, but you still called me a Jew and almost shot me. Why? That little arm band with a Star of David confused you? What if I put it on you? Will it make you a Jew?”
“What’s your point, Frau Friedmann?” Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner asked me impatiently.
“My point, Herr Gruppenführer, is that half of these women look just like me. What if they were adopted when they were still babies? What if their German parents died during the Great War, or couldn’t take care of them anymore after it because they had no money, and the Polish Jews adopted them? There were a lot of cases of such adoptions back then, and you should know it better than anyone else. Now their real parents are dead, and there’s no way to ask them. But you’ll still kill perfect Aryan women just because they wear these arm bands?”
“There’s a very slim possibility that all of these women were adopted.”
“What does your doctrine say though? That every single Aryan’s life is precious. What if you’re unknowingly sending some of these Aryans to death?”
“There’s no way to tell.”
“So there is no way to tell, is there?” I smiled at the frowning Austrian.
“What do you suggest then? Release them all just because they look Germanic?”
“No, not release, send them for re-education to Germany. I’m sure that they’d rather live as Catholics or Protestants and follow the Nazi doctrine than die as Jews.”
Some of the women clinging to each other indecisively nodded.
“See? They’re more than willing to come back to their Fatherland.”
“I’m not sure that Reichsführer will be too happy about such an idea,” Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner said.
“Reichsführer himself, during one of the executions he was supervising, pulled out an Aryan looking boy out of the line. I think he’ll more than approve of such an initiative of yours. You can send them to work as maids, together with Gentile Poles to the houses of German housewives. The latter will be able to spend more time with their husbands and children, and these women will take care of the houses.”
“It actually makes a lot of sense, Herr Gruppenführer.” Heinrich understood what I was trying to do and stepped up to help me persuade the Chief of the RSHA. “If you think about it, they’ll make great maids. And German families won’t have to pay them, just give them food rations. I think Reichsführer will love the idea. And in case if he doesn’t, you can tell him it was mine.”
Dr. Kaltenbrunner finally turned to the Waffen-SS leader and handed him back his weapon.
“Redo the selection. Pull out the ones who look Aryan and process them as the working force. Then send them for re-education back to Germany. Do it through the Amt IV, it’s their business. Do the same with the rest who surrender themselves.”
“Jawohl, Herr Gruppenführer.”
Later that night, when I got under
the blankets with Heinrich, he pulled me close and kissed me.
“That was a very brave thing to do. But please, don’t do anything like that ever again, will you? I almost had a heart attack when he pointed his gun at you.”
“I would have died among my people.” I smiled. “It would have been a beautiful death.”
He asked me if I was scared. No, I wasn’t, not at all. But I didn’t point out the other motive I had besides saving some more lives; I wanted to show Dr. Kaltenbrunner that despite the official and absolutely made up Nazi genetic laws, we were no different from each other, the Jews and the Aryans, I wanted him to actually start looking into things and ask questions that the Party strictly prohibited anyone from asking.
They taught him that the Nazi ideology was unquestionable, and he was killing people in their name. Yesterday I promised myself that I’d change him, I’d make him good again, because I knew that there was still hope for him. He wasn’t evil like Heydrich; he was just confused and didn’t know any better. He was like one of those kids who jump from a bridge to the middle of a river, taking the risk of breaking their neck or drowning: if you ask him why he’s jumping, he wouldn’t even know what to answer. Everybody jumped, so I had to jump too. For some reason I desperately wanted to take him away from those kids before they dragged him with them all the way to the bottom.
Chapter 13
Berlin, June 1943
“The war is lost for Germany. It’s official now. There is nothing they can do to reverse it.”
Ingrid sounded very pleased announcing the news to Heinrich and I; my heart skipped a beat, and all of a sudden my mouth was too dry to even swallow nervously. Heinrich frowned too. The Americans were standing in front of us, so tall and imposing, and I felt the irresistible urge to hold my husband’s hand. As if guessing my thoughts, he put his hand on top of mine and squeezed it.
On our way home I looked at Heinrich and asked, “What have we done?”
“We did everything right.” He didn’t sound as sure as I hoped he would.
“It’s going to be the same like it was after the Great War. They’ll take half of our lands, our army and make us pay retributions. And then hunger, depression, inflation, like it was after the Versailles Treaty, a vicious cycle, all over again! And we helped to make it happen. We helped to destroy our own country.”
The Girl from Berlin: Gruppenführer's Mistress Page 20