I Am Juden

by Stephen Uzzell

  As a prelude to the main event, the SS of the Ghetto listened to nostalgic songs on the gramophone, serenading the cells below with the the chorus of Lili Marlene.

  Underneath the lantern

  By the barrack gate

  Darling I remember

  The way you used to wait

  'Twas there that you whispered tenderly

  That you loved me

  You'd always be

  My Lili of the lamplight

  My own Lili Marlene.

  Rottenführer Ritschak lifted the stylus off the record and replaced the disc in its sleeve.

  A four man firing squad appeared under the balcony and began to assemble their weapons on the courtyard cobbles. These were not Jozefinska officers, but the surviving members of the acid attack at Adolf Hitler Platz. Working in pairs, one solider fixed the stand of his MG42 while the other crouched at his side, readying a belt of ammo from an open box. The machine gun secured, the first soldier dropped down onto his stomach behind it, propped himself up on his elbows and squinted into the sights.

  We watched in silence as Symche Spira led the Orthodox prisoners from the gaol in leg-irons, flanked either side by members of the Jewish Police. In a column six-deep, they stood before the guns but did not raise their eyes to the balcony.

  Amon Goethe stepped up to the railing and produced a time-piece from his pocket. He studied it patiently, snapping the case shut when satisfied.

  ‘Unchain them,’ he called down.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Symche Spira relayed the command to his officers.

  When all prisoners were unshackled and reorganised into a straight line, Spira dismissed his men.

  The Jewish Police retreated back into the gaol. I kept my eyes focussed on the prisoner in the middle of the line, a short, burly man clutching his thin overcoat to his neck. The garment had no belt or buttons. Before his year in the Ghetto, the prisoner had been a dapper architect.

  ‘In one minute, turn your back to the guns and face the wall,’ Goethe told them. ‘Run quickly, with no jostling. We will give you a fighting chance. Anyone who reaches the wall will be allowed to return to their families.’

  The prisoners turned round, hands twitching at their sides, assuming crouches like athletes on a race track.

  Goethe called, ‘Go!’

  Half the men started running immediately. Of the the three who remained, the two at the sides looked at each other and shrugged, then set off. Only the burly man in the middle stood his ground, refusing to run.

  Goethe pulled his pistol from its holster and shot twice at the man’s feet, to make him dance. But the man did not move. Goethe shot again, bullets sparking the cobbles. Finally, the man brought the tips of his palms together under his chin, put his head down in prayer and launched himself forward.

  He got about halfway to the wall when the machine-gunners opened fire.

  ***

  Two days ago, an Akiva kashariyot had been dispatched from the Ghetto to Warsaw, on a gun-run. With her bleached blonde hair, borrowed outfit and elegant handbag, Anka Fischer looked every inch the glamorous Polish sophisticate, and had mastered the accent and withering manner. After purchasing weapons at the seedy Hotel Crsitof, Anka walked out with four pistols taped underneath her frock. Heading back to the train station, her sixth sense told her she was being followed. She stopped at a cinema, and bought a ticket for the new Kristina Söderbaum film, The Golden City. Reasonably sure that nobody had followed her in off the street, Anka wasn’t one to take any chances. She sat down in the auditorium, leaving halfway through the screening to use the bathroom, where she removed the pistols, placed them in the lavatory cistern and returned to her seat. An hour later, she was arrested on the cinema steps. Her instinct had been right. The Hotel was under surveillance. The Gestapo wanted to know what a woman of such refined tastes was doing in a renowned den of black-marketeers and pornographers like the Cristof. Maintaining her icy demeanor, Anka explained that she was suffering from a delicate condition of female health, and was unable to go more than thirty minutes without needing the bathroom. The Hotel Cristof was the only place she’d been able to find in an emergency. If the Gestapo wanted to know more, they would need to provide an experienced medical practitioner to examine her. Anka was released that afternoon, with an official apology. She returned to Kino Luna, retrieved her pistols from the cistern, dried them with toilet paper, reattached the tape to her arms and thighs and started out again for the train station.

  And now she was back at thirteen Jozenfinska, just in time for the Sabbath.

  With the lights glowing in the candlesticks, Marek Davidson blessed Anka, and the rest of the table in turn. He chanted the hymn of praise and salutation, the Lecha Dodi.

  ‘Come, my beloved, to meet the Bride; let us welcome the Shabbat.’

  Wine was passed from one to the other, and they began to eat.

  After the meal they sung the traditional evening festival prayer, getting as far as the barchu and shma when the machine guns resounded from the courtyard across the street. Marek jumped up, sidling across to the edge of the window.

  ‘That came from the stationhouse,’ he said. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

  Romanek said, ‘It’s the seventh day.’

  ‘Seventh day of what?’

  ‘The hostages.’

  ***

  After their entertainment, Kunde’s guests began to troop back inside to his office. I remained on the balcony alone, watching the Jewish Police load the last of the bodies onto the truck. The hostages had spent their last week in goal, metres from my desk, and I had done nothing to try and help. In truth, I had forgotten about them. And now I had watched them die, standing at Amon Goethe’s side, forced to cheer their pathetic dash for glory like a Roman senator at the Colosseum.

  When I made my way into the office, talk had turned to the subject of the tiny Prokocim Julag encampment, currently populated by a few dozen prisoners laying railtrack. Jews deported from the Ghetto had been marched there, to the train station. The site was due to be expanded into a labour camp with its own textile workshop, into which the last remnants of the Ghetto would be transferred, to produce German army uniforms and boots.

  I thought back to last summer, to the glory days of Camp Moda. The Chaze had been in my thoughts a great deal recently, and here was Wilhelm Kunde talking about a military uniform workshop just up the road from the Ghetto.

  ‘We’re putting together a party to start next week.’ Kunde leant against his desk, holding forth to a semi-circle of the men. ‘A working group of Jews to build the living quarters. We’ll need a guard to escort them there and back until the barracks are ready.’

  I stepped closer, joining the edge of the group.

  ‘I’d like to volunteer, sir.’

  ‘For the Barrackenbau?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Now that Civil Affairs has been closed down, I’ve been thinking about my future. Establishing a new camp on our doorstep sounds like the kind of challenge I’m looking for.’

  ‘Do you have any experience of construction?’

  ‘Not personally, sir. But I have a detailed knowledge of the Jews that do. I understand how they think, and I know how to make them work.’

  ‘Plaszow’s going to need all the good men it can get. We’re meeting at Oberführer Scherner’s office on Monday.’

  ***

  The mood at number 13 did not recover after the shootings. No amount of stirring escape stories from the likes of Anka Fischer could distract the group from what had just happened. While the leaders of the resistance sat around drinking wine, innocent Jews were being slaughtered in their name.

  ‘I think our time here is coming to an end,’ Dolek said.

  Romanek looked at his watch. ‘It’s almost curfew.’

  ‘I’m not talking about tonight,’ Dolek said. ‘I mean this supper, here in the Ghetto. When we lose Dabrowski Street and Janowa Wola next week, they’ll only be a few blocks left.’

>   ‘Then we need to redouble our efforts,’ Gusta said. ‘Whatever the consequences.’

  ‘Agreed.’ Dolek nodded his head slowly, averting his eyes. ‘But if you don’t leave, you may not have another chance.’

  ‘Leave?’ Gusta said. ‘But we’ve only just come back.’

  ‘And you’re more exposed every week. Too many people know you, too many people are talking. I believe you must make immediate preparations.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Marek said. ‘We all knew the time would come. Now it’s here.’

  He reached out to Gusta on one side and Dolek on the other; the group linked hands around around the table.

  ‘We are on the road to death, my friends,’ Dolek said. ‘There can be no turning back. If you want life, don’t look for it in Poland. We are at the end of days. I have the feeling that this is the last Sabbath we will spend together.’

  49

  I had learned a great deal from Gusta Davidson that summer about Oberführer Julian Scherner. This was the man, above all others, responsible for the tide of blood staining the Polish landscape. In between deportations from the Cracow Ghetto, Scherner had personally ordered the culls in Tarnow in June, in Rzeszow, Debica and Przemsyl in July, Jaroslau, Krosno, Jaslo and Nowy Sacz in August, where 15,000 Jews were rounded up and shuttled to Belzec in three twenty-five car cattle trains. Unsated and unsatiable, Scherner’s murderous sweep continued through Novy Targ, Sanok, and Miechow, and then Tarnow again by mid-September.

  Now this genial, avuncular man was welcoming me into his office with a handshake as limp as a noodle. I feared my own blood would congeal at his touch, or a fount of nausea issue from my lips and repaint his skirting board. But I managed to control myself. I was here for one reason only: to get as many Jews as I could out of the Ghetto into the shelter of a new camp, sparing them from the final deportations. I would soak up every last drop of Scherer’s oily charm, and do so with a smile on my face. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know how. Only four months ago I’d dined at his penthouse apartment, seated next to his attack-dog, Amon Goethe. At least Goethe wasn’t invited to today’s meeting. The Ghetto was his domain; I had to try and make camp Plaszow mine.

  My dream of creating a refuge to rival the Chaze’s took an early set-back when I saw that the guest sipping coffee with Wilhlem Kunde in the corner of the room was that scar-faced malcontent Horst Pilarzik, one of the worst Ghetto criminals I was hoping to get away from. Kunde’s opening words to me brought even worse news. In recognition of the man’s thuggery, Scherer had appointed Pilarzik Commandant of the fledgling camp.

  As we chatted over cream cakes, the dark part of my brain ticked over, searching for a crumb of comfort. Scherer may have been impressed by reports of Pilarzik’s brutality, but had no idea of his unsuitability for leadership, in terms of intellect and ingenuity. The new camp Commandant would struggle to run a bath without a numbered diagram.

  The disappointment I felt at Pilarzik’s involvement was offset when I met the suave and silver-haired Julius Madritsch, one of only two civilian guests. Madritsch operated a sewing factory in the Ghetto, which, like Oskar Schindler’s, was known as a refuge of decency. More encouragingly, he was keen on expansion, recently opening Ghetto workshops in Bochnia and Tarnow. With the debonair Austrian industrialist as an employer, the prisoners of Plaszow would enjoy unrivalled working conditions. All I had to do was keep the Commandant at a distance. Pilarzik was as corruptible as the rest of the SS, and Madritsch was making more than enough money to make sure he was paid off.

  But I was getting ahead of myself - the camp hadn’t even been constructed yet.

  The man responsible for that was the second civilian guest, Rudolf Lukas, the senior contractor from Deutsche Wohmund Siedlunggenossenschaft. It was his blueprint we clustered around after coffee and introductions.

  The existing Prokocim-Plazsow railway station Julag occupied the narrow depression between the two enormous hills of the Krzemionki District, a naturally secluded location chosen so as not to affront neighbouring Poles. It was also close to the Ghetto, and had potential for running quarries. The proposed expansion covered the plots of the former Wola Duchacka Commune and the two cemeteries of the Jewish synagogue, land now owned by the Generalgouvernment. Rudolf Lukas’ design envisaged the development of a 15 hectare site, with SS barracks, a kitchen, washing room, latrine, laundry and a group of industrial barracks opposite the residential area. The camp was designed to accommodate 4-5,000 inmates.

  Lukas’ pointed to an empty area of the drawing next to the male prisoners’ camp. ‘We think this would be the best spot for your workshops, Herr Madritsch.We’ll be requesting a designated railroad spur too, for speeding up deliveries.’

  ‘By all means, request away.’ Madritsch struggled to conceal his amusement behind a tight-lipped smile. ‘Hypothetically, it looks very interesting. But you’ll understand I need more than a shaded box on a map before I make a serious commitment.’

  Scherer nodded earnestly. ‘That shaded box will be a state-of-the-art factory before the year is out, Julius. All mod cons, and all the labour you need, living on site.’

  ‘I have all the labour I need now,’ Madritsch said. ‘And I’m rather fond of my factory, since I built it.’

  ‘If I may, sir?’ I straightened up from the map and crossed my hands behind my back. ‘A businessman who’s looking to grow won’t find a better opportunity. I’ve spent a year investigating the various skill-sets within the Residential District. Even in its depleted state, we have a mine of untapped potential for ambitious manufacturers. I know for a fact that we have dozens of experienced leather workers available – everything from tanners to clickers, cutters, gimpers and hole-punchers.’

  ‘Your man’s certainly done his homework, Oberführer.’ Madritsch turned to me. ‘You seems to know as much about the textiles industry as I do. Perhaps you have a family business?’

  Scherer looked nonplussed. As a family friend, he knew the Mohnkes were no factory owners.

  ‘I learned it all in the District,’ I said. ‘It’s been quite an education. We’ve got tailors washing dishes, upholsterers unloading crates, jewellers sweeping the floor. With the right partners, this camp could be a very rewarding concern.’ I held Madritsch’s gaze. ‘For everybody involved.’

  ‘And I am not immune to that line of argument. But this great untapped potential could just as easily be mined where they are, could they not, without the need for supplanting? And for a fraction of the cost.’

  ‘Imagine showing potential investors around the Ghetto,’ I said. ‘It’s filthy and dangerously overcrowded, despite our best efforts to thin the herd.’

  ‘The problem is, my workers seem to like it there.’

  ‘Who gives a damn what they like?’ I said, calibrating a little pop of anger. ‘Forgive me.’

  I stepped forward to grip the edge of the table and lowered my head in mock contrition.

  ‘My profit margin cares,’ Madritsch said. ‘We’re not just churning out identical kits on a production line. Some of these workers are highly skilled artisans. It’s a word I never thought would apply to Jews, but it’s the truth. If they feel at home, productivity rises and so does the quality of their finish. In a forced labour camp, with watchtowers and patrols… it would be impossible to replicate Ghetto conditions. My clients are very demanding people, with very high standards. They won’t tolerate inferior products.’

  ‘And they won’t receive any,’ Scherer said. ‘At least, not on account of us. Commandant Pilarzik will forbid his men from interfering in any way with your internal practices. Their job is to oversee the smooth functioning of the site as a whole - to assist businesses, not meddle in them.’

  ‘No interference,’ Madritsch said. ‘You guarantee?’

  ‘Absolutely. As long as we don’t have another Camp Moda on our hands.’

  I kept my head down, squinting at Rudolf Lukas’ blueprint as my face flushed again with blood. Silence filled the room, leav
ing two words to echo between my ears.

  Camp Moda.

  It had been eighteen month since I’d heard a German speak those words. I’d assumed the Chaze’s forest workshop had become a forgotten footnote in the Lithuanian campaign. Instead it had entered the Nazi lexicon as a byword for subversion.

  Julius Madritsch said, ‘What’s Camp Moda?’

  Scherer savoured a sly smile. ‘Let’s just say it’s what happens when the lunatics take over the asylum. You have to understand, Julius, there is simply no future in the Ghetto. I’ve been telling you that for months now. Now Reichsführer Himmler has made it official. From the end of November, all Jews working for the needs of the army are to be concentrated in labour camps. And that’s Plaszow. The Ghetto will be gone within six months.’

  Madritsch bristled. ‘So this isn’t really a consultation.’

  ‘It’s a consultation about what kind of camp you’d like to see, and the scope of your role.’

  ‘Very well. His throat ticked several times as he digested the news. ‘So where do we start?’

  The project was an extension of the three small Jewish labour camps in the compact Plaszow, Prokocim and Bielzanow districts. Julag I would be the nucleus of the new camp. The project was due to commence with ten barracks on the plot of the synagogue cemeteries at Jerozolimska Street and Abraham Street.

  ‘We know how close Jews feel to their ancestors,’ Scherer said. ‘They’ll be sleeping right on top of them now.’

  Madritsch flashed a grin as mirthless as my own.

  Ghetto workers would soon be marked in accordance with the nature of their employment with one of three identification letters: R for Rüstung, the armaments industry, W for Wehrmacht, the army and Z for Zivil, or civil work. According to Himmler’s new regime, companies and military facilities would only be able to hire workers on the basis of a special permit. Orders had to be forwarded to the SS camp management headquarters in Berlin, which Scherer would expedite.