When Hans entered the semi-restored ground floor office of this once proud gothic building, he was already a familiar figure to the British staff of clerks, soldiers and officers within. Hans had received the coveted Persilschein Certificate. This was a confirmation by the Allies that the person was innocent of any Nazi sympathies or support. A comforting accreditation conferred by the victors.
“Guten tag Major Herrin’’. The tall outline of Hans in the doorway framed by morning sunshine brought a smile to the face of Jim Herrin. “Guten Morgen Hans’’ was the reply from the trim, athletic, seated figure in the British army uniform. He was always glad to see Hans, and continued, in broken German, to enquire as to his health and that of the young girl whom he had not yet met but promised to visit shortly when his demanding work schedule was reduced.
Jim Herrin was a career army officer, in his late forties, from a rural village named Tisbury situated west of Salisbury in Wiltshire southern England. His father had been a fire officer and this fact had kindled his admiration and respect for Hans. Also, Hans was providing a most valuable and helpful source of information regarding the location of water mains, sewage systems and ancillary data, all of which was necessary to help restore basic services and prevent further outbreaks of disease. The overriding concern was to prevent an outbreak of Typhus epidemic which was threatened by the plague of rats and flies that were gorging on the mountains of garbage. Even though the main sewage system had somehow miraculously survived, the shortage of water to flush the system burdened the canals and streets as latrines for the disposal of effluent. Hans had helped dig mass graves in Ohlsdorf cemetery and cursed the national socialists whose policies had destroyed the once proud city which had been the flagship of German trade.
Jim Herrin was a humanitarian at heart and had no real venom or hatred for the starving and dispossessed German civilian population. He was not a supporter of the populist belief at the time expressed in contemporary literature: “The plain fact is that there are two worlds in Germany today, the world of the conquered and the world of the conquerors. They meet at the peripheries, but their hearts beat in an inhuman isolation.” Major Herrin’s small unit was an integral part of ensuring that the ruined city would re-enter a normal rhythm of life. His unit brought together diverse skills of various engineering and surveying attributes, their brief from allied command headquarters was to get the important district of Altona functioning again, by restoring basic services and not to divert scarce resources in the pursuit of SS personnel or Nazi criminals. These would be hunted down by other military divisions.
Hans spent most days with Jim Herrin and his staff poring over old maps of the underground water systems and various aqueducts throughout the district. The fire-bombing had caused tremendous damage to all of these conduits and Hans’ local knowledge was eagerly sought and respected by all in the unit. As his influence grew with this small coterie of the British forces, Hans, in his humble way, was able to obtain ample provisions of food both for him and Anna, even luxury items of chocolate and clothing were occasionally requisitioned for him. He often felt a measure of guilt as he went to and fro each day observing people in starving conditions, but there was nothing he could do, other than to console himself that he must somehow survive, not just himself, but now also for Anna.
From overheard conversations, he had become aware that American policy towards the German civilian population was not as benign as the British. “Let them stew in their own juice” was a popular American sentiment. They wanted to extract the highest form of economic disarmament and provide the minimum health standards to prevent disease. When President Roosevelt was asked the question “Did he want the German people to starve?”. He replied “Why not!”
One evening after another exhausting day identifying water and drain sources, Hans was about to leave and was exchanging pleasantries with Major Herrin, when someone switched on a radio in the background. The music being played was the Glenn Miller Orchestra and Hans remarked that he had never heard such a terrific sound. Unconsciously, he had struck a note with the Major, who was an avid jazz fan and an accomplished musician. He loved the singing of the German lady, Lale Anderson, who made famous the song, ‘Lili Marleen’ during the war, loved both by the Germans and Allies.
Encouraging the conversation on the appeal of swing music and modern jazz, the Major had forgotten that in Nazi Germany this type of music had been banned as decadent. He was delighted to expand upon his knowledge and passion to Hans on the great recordings of the time. He was further enthused when Hans told him that Anna, the German girl for whom he was acting guardian, had shown a keen interest in the piano and violin. He said that her ability belied her years.
"Hans, you must bring her to the officers' quarters to play for us!" the Major immediately offered. "I will give her my precious violin! I will request some of my men who have an interest in music to come and listen". Hans immediately warmed to the idea. It would be good for Anna. "Tomorrow evening!" Major Herrin enthused. "It will be an opportunity for all of us to lighten the burden we have to carry and encourage the future generation of German youth. Music transcends all cultures for the better.’’ In thanking the Major, Hans replied, “You will not be disappointed”. Neither man knew at that moment what an important event that would be in the shaping of the future of teenager Anna Krantz.
FIFTEEN
DRANCY: 1943
SS Haupstrumführer Alois Brunner was appointed Commandant of Drancy Camp in July 1943. He was thirty one years of age, a man devoid of soul, he had a proven pedigree in the Nazi hierarchy of evil. At this young age, he was already responsible for the deportation of Jews from all over Europe to the extermination camps that were beginning to generate on full capacity. He had a pathological hatred of Jews and Jewish culture inculcated in him from a young age.
A tall, dark-haired, impressive figure, he had joined the SS in Austria at nineteen years of age and his enthusiasm for the enforcement of their ideology ensured his rapid promotion. The Anschluss with Austria in March 1938 had been greeted with an outpouring of joy, church bells pealed to greet Hitler and his troops. But it also provided the focus for dealing with the Jews. In Vienna, the ‘Office of Jewish Emigration’ was founded with the express purpose of extracting money from Jews to purchase exit visas. Large amounts of money were paid to buy freedom from tyranny and bondage; those who could not afford to pay were placed under Schutzhaft, a form of imprisonment, protective custody, and ultimately transported to a concentration camp as part of the Nazification of Austria.
Brunner became director of the central office dealing with Jewish affairs and ensured the deportation of thousands to their deaths and slave labour. He oversaw the confiscation of synagogues and school sites and encouraged the intimidation of Jewish businesses through plundering and looting with impunity. He was also regarded as the head of Jewish affairs in some of the occupied countries and second in command to the notorious Adolf Eichmann. This was the uniformed figure who strode through the gates of Drancy one year after the Darius family had been sent to Auschwitz and one year after Emil's deliverance. The brutality of the French guards had been legendary but this was to be exceeded by the Germans when they took complete control of the camp under Brunner. Train transportations increased as ever more quotas of Jewish prisoners were demanded from Berlin.
Alois Brunner strove to increase deportations to satisfy these targets and it was he who crammed people into freight cars designed to accommodate cattle with no regard for their condition. The journey to Auschwitz in these ‘cattle cars’ tested the fittest, no latrines, no fresh air, no water, no way out, only a small window opening covered in barbed wire, abject despair and greyness turning to darkness within. Such was the frenetic pace of round-ups and general exodus of Jews that the camp had further layers of humanity arriving at all hours of day and night from all over France, on top of the already overflowing population. Conditions within Drancy had deteriorated to animal level and above the wailing of human
misery and despair could be heard the guttural sounds in German shouting ‘raus’ and ‘schnell’ with agitated urgency for the never ending roll calls.
The commandant’s quarters were on the ground floor in a corner of the U shaped building offering an uninterrupted view of the complete courtyard area. Brunner leaned back in the seat behind the oak desk underneath a portrait of the Führer and looked out at the kaleidoscope of anguish and hunger. It was a late July afternoon, with clear blue skies and a sun that should have shone on beautiful nature, instead of the vision of Dante’s Inferno that was Drancy, just a few miles north of the beautiful city of Paris.
Brunner strove to comply with Eichmann’s demands from Berlin, who was insisting on more trains to make occupied France Jew-free and whose instructions were that Auschwitz must always operate on full capacity. He casually looked at the catalogue of names to be posted up for transportation to the east. These lists were enlarged every day and looking at his Unterscharfuhrer (sergeant) who was compiling more data from the punch card machine, he said ‘’a further three trains must leave by the end of this week, each must have a loading of one thousand, prepare the lists’’. International Business Machines (IBM), the U.S. multinational company, had provided Hollerith tabulating machines and punch card systems to ensure accurate records and keep track of the mass movements of people, and this was proving an indispensable asset to the policies of the Third Reich. The great proportion of this activity was carried out by DEHOMAG (Deutsche Hollerith-Maschinen Gesellschaft mbh) a German subsidiary of IBM. Brunner was very familiar with these machines, which were regularly programmed and serviced by IBM trained technicians. All camp Commandants were expected to know timetables for trains and loadings, so that responsible submissions could be relayed to Berlin, who insisted upon full capacity transports. There was always competitive demand for trains from the Wermacht who had priority for troop movement and also from Fritz Sauckel’s slave labour transportations. The IBM technology was crucial in satisfying these demands and the system was carefully customised and serviced by their experienced personnel to ensure ‘streamline’ efficiency.
The chief executive of IBM, Thomas J. Watson, was the proud recipient of the coveted ‘Order of the German Eagle with star’ in 1937, presented to him by the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, at a special dinner to mark the occasion in Berlin. IBM had recently built new factories in France. They were able to produce 64,000 punch cards per hour, this enabled the German system to identify everything and programme the phases of the Holocaust. Addresses, religion, genders, employment status, and languages spoken– all of this information was provided by the system devised and serviced by IBM, enabling the Nazis to seize Jewish bank accounts and assets. Movements of people could be traced accurately, leading to deportations to concentration camps; everything was calculated with the cross tabulation of information. The Hollerith (IBM) machines were in every concentration camp, providing data, even on special treatment (a euphemism for extermination) which was recorded as ‘Code 6' Sonderbehandlung, on their punch card system. All of this technical efficiency was oiling the mass murder machine that was the Third Reich and it was confirming the rhetorical claims that ‘eventually, every Nazi combat order, bullet and troop movement was tracked on an IBM punch card system.’ IBM had effectively invented the racial census; they were a ‘solutions company’ and in supporting the various phases of the Holocaust provided the means for National Socialism to advance its malicious agenda.
Brunner was abstractedly oblivious to the conditions of the squalor that was the Drancy quadrangle yard only metres away from his office. He kept on thinking back to a conversation he had with an SS colleague over dinner one evening. There was a whispered rumour that Heydrich had put in place a plan to greatly enrich himself through the dispossession of a Jewish family in Paris. Because the subject was taboo, no one dared question or air views in public. The SS ethos under Reichfuhrer Himmler imposed very strict rules relating to personal wealth acquisition. Even though human deportation and liquidation were policies of the state, it was absolutely forbidden for an SS member to even ‘steal a cigarette’. There were numerous examples of SS members of various ranks who were court-martialled for relatively minor infractions of their coded behaviour. Within the ranks of the SS, a lawyer and specially appointed Judge, Georg Konrad Morgen, held the position of SS-Sturmbannfuhrer whose function was to investigate crimes of self aggrandisement. Some records show SS executions were carried out for embezzlement of property and valuables. In their twisted logic, ‘honour’ and ‘loyalty’ were attributes valued above all others.
Brunner pondered the possibility. He knew that Heydrich would have the nerve to put a plan in place but he wondered how he could implement it. It was common knowledge in the SS elite that Heydrich had set up the ‘Nordhav’ foundation, but this was an approved institution to greatly benefit the collective SS fraternity. It would be a hugely dangerous action to take personal plunder and risk the wrath of Himmler, but in the daily life of intrigue and treachery which was normal for Heydrich, it was feasible.
He had seen the ‘Nordhav' file on one his visits to Berlin but had not given too much thought to its contents other than remarking that Chase Bank featured quite a lot in the documentation. All hushed talk in the SS main office in Prinz Albrecht Strasse was of the war reversals in the East. It was here that he picked up on forbidden defeatist conversations and some officers were contemplating their options and voicing concerns about material deprivations if the war was lost. Also, no mercy could be expected from ‘Ivan’ as the Russians were called. He had first overheard the comment, ‘Heydrich was right', leaked by an orderly, which he decided to follow through to substantiate. As he reflected upon this issue, Brunner, with his evil capricious personality, was privately turning against the Third Reich. The calamitous collapse and surrender of the sixth army at Stalingrad under Friedrich Paulus, with the loss of hundreds of thousands of Germany’s military finest had sent shock waves throughout the entire Wehrmacht. Those taken into captivity in a Russian Gulag could expect a tortuous end. Some of the army and SS elite were muttering that a peace treaty should now be negotiated with the western Allies. The gigantic tank battle at Kursk, operation citedal, in the east had also resulted in a Soviet triumph. The Allies had successfully landed in Sicily which would lead on to the invasion of the Kingdom of Italy. But despite all these military reversals, the liquidation of the Jews was accelerated, with transports from all over Europe, feeding the death camps to frenzied capacity.
Brunner could contain himself no longer. He decided to investigate the possibility that the whispered rumour was fact or not. Lifting the black telephone on his desk, he instructed the switchboard operator to connect him with Chase Bank Paris. Carlos Niedermann was about to go to a meeting in central Paris when the phone call came through. He listened attentively as the guttural tones of Brunner's voice with distinctive Austrian overtones, requested a meeting to discuss, as he put it, “Business relevant to the SS”. Niedermann agreed to meet him the next day. He had never heard of Brunner and wondered what would be the advantage of such a meeting to Chase Bank.
“We are obliged to meet with Alois Brunner tomorrow”. He called to Madelaine in the adjoining office. “He is the new Commandant of Drancy Camp and he wishes to introduce himself to the Bank”. Neidermann added, “I really do not know what he wishes to discuss but he is not a very important personage in the SS, being a mere camp boss, but we’d better extend time to him anyway”.
Madelaine also wondered what the purpose of his visit would be, as she had never heard of Brunner and knew nothing of his reputation. Not since Heydrich's visit had they met formally with any of the SS elite. Most connections had taken place when Niedermann attended social gatherings in The Ritz Hotel or The Majestic, both popular rendezvous choices. Reaching into her desk drawer with a sigh she retrieved the Nazi party badge with its black swastika on a white base ringed by the colours of red and gold, and thought she had better wear it again tomorro
w.
SIXTEEN
PARIS: 1943
Madelaine looked at her watch. She was already late for her Resistance rendezvous. She lived over a café just off the popular Rue de l’Odeon on the left bank, not far from the Bank headquarters. Close by was the famous bookshop Shakespeare and Company, which had been opened in 1919 by the American lady, Sylvia Beach, but was closed in 1941 when the Germans occupied the city. The bookstore had been a cultural centre and attracted famous literary figures such as James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. She seethed inwardly at the loss of this iconic Parisian landmark whose ethos had been ‘Give what you can, take what you need’; now it was German policy to take all, leave nothing.
Passing over the Pont de L’Alma into the university area, Madelaine thought to herself as she crossed over this ancient bridge on the Seine how everything was now Germanised. The bridge dated back to 1856, the time of Napoleon III, originally built to commemorate a victory by French forces over Russia at the time of the Crimean War. It occurred to her, how ironic it was that the Russians were now allies, but presently the bridge was bedecked with signs proclaiming German greatness. She hated to see the Swastika draped on municipal buildings as she hurried to her appointment. She wanted to tear down the red and black banners that fluttered provocatively everywhere. Uniformed German soldiers seemed always to be in evidence, some obviously on duty, appearing to be officious, and others just casually enjoying the warm evening sunshine. They all appeared quite young and as she passed them, Madelaine thought how lucky they are not to be serving on the Eastern front with the reports of extreme hardships and death coming on a daily basis. There was one ‘civilian’, wearing a dark coat talking to a soldier, and she noticed that he was holding a newspaper ‘Das Schwarze Korps’, instantly, she knew that he was a Gestapo agent. She was familiar with this weekly paper, published by the SS, glorifying their anti-semitic ideals and perverted ideology. She very rarely carried a service revolver hand gun, which had been given to her by a resistance colleague, because of the great personal risk of being searched, and now was unarmed. Passing within feet of the conversing men, she had a strong impulse to shoot them both and wished she had the weapon with her.
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