by Jirí Weil
To expunge, to liquidate, to tear out the weed with all its roots, yes, that was his task. But why shouldn’t he leave them a little bit of hope for a while? Why shouldn’t he confuse and lull them? The dirty work is done by others, after all – that is not his responsibility. Only he is the master over life and death. Only he knows the secret, and he doesn’t need to bring about death by his own hand.
He looked in his daybook. He kept it carefully, model bureaucrat that he was. He fulfilled his daily obligations precisely, and he demanded the same from his staff. They must understand that they weren’t in the Protectorate to have an easy time of it, to obtain furniture and rare delicacies. They must understand that their service here was the same as at the front, perhaps even more important.
The first entry in the daybook was about the fortress city and the transports. That was his most important task. The Acting Reich Protector himself kept careful track of it and required regular reports. He took a folder listing the areas designated as ‘ghettos’ out of the cabinet. His first command from the Acting Reich Protector had been to find all enclosed Jewish settlements. Death was supposed to stop briefly in some ancient Czech town. That was a necessary part of the plot to deceive foreigners. It was also important to give the victims temporary hope, so that they wouldn’t be inclined to resist.
Next the command travelled from his office in the form of an order to the Jewish Community. It directed them to find the settlements and prepare them for transports. Among his papers were maps with suggestions of various towns and villages in Bohemia and Moravia. The investigation proceeded swiftly but carefully. It examined the various advantages and disadvantages. And finally Terezin was chosen.
He announced the selection to Frank, who later informed him that the Acting Reich Protector himself was satisfied with the choice. Such a town could be easily guarded. It had walls and gateways. It was not an industrial centre but an old fortress town with little shopkeepers’ and tradesmen’s houses stuck on. The inhabitants wouldn’t put up a fight when they were moved out. The Jews could be stuffed into the barracks as well as the little houses. It didn’t matter how many of them there were – it would even be good to have the town overfilled. An excess number was always easy to eliminate. Right next door was the Small Fortress, an annex of the Gestapo prison. That meant more security, even though the Gestapo was a different division.
Other documents gave evidence that the project was in full swing. There were reports of the first transports, made up of workers who had to put the emptied barracks in order and prepare the lodgings. The first family transports gathered at the Radio Mart. The schedule was strictly adhered to. Reception camps were set up in the countryside. Simultaneously, the machinery was set into motion for the confiscation of property. Warehouses began to fill up with carefully sorted objects. Moving vans and handcarts travelled all over the city. Seized apartments were refurnished and scrubbed to provide a clean welcome for their new tenants. Architects provided them with new furniture. Bed linens, paintings, refrigerators, rugs and curtains made their way to them from the warehouses.
Then the graphs began to appear, careful and reliable curves neatly drawn and issued in quarterly reports. The machine gained momentum, reaching ever farther, ever deeper. The first transports were already leaving for the East with a brief stop in the fortress town. The death camps in the East, with their gas chambers and crematoria, were already in full operation. It was a well-run organisation, the very sort of organisation that the Reich could thank for all its triumphs. Nobody could escape it, and everything was planned in advance. The documents and graphs gave a reliable picture, and the head of the Central Bureau could use them to follow everything that was happening. The numbers enter the Radio Mart, the trains leave for the fortress town, and from there still other trains leave for the East. In the camps the crematorium flames blaze from morning to night, and the ashes are carted away in bags to the Reich to serve as fertiliser for future crops. And the gold is caught in collection sieves with jewels and dental fillings among the rest, while other things pile up in warehouses, sorted according to categories. Property is going up and the numbers are going down. The unnecessary is decreasing, and the useful is increasing – the charts show all this to be true. He is satisfied with his work. He will receive the same decoration for it that German men in the field who are conquering the world for the Reich and its Leader receive. And the Acting Reich Protector is satisfied, too, because the task assigned to him by the Leader is being carried out according to plan.
The head of the Central Bureau closed the folder and put it back in the cabinet. He looked at the next entry, yes, an amusing little business. The Elite Guard of the SS seemed to be encroaching on his territory a bit. On his desk lay a telephone message received by an assistant. The message came from the Chief Elder of the community. It seems that a Rottenführer from the Elite Guard had burst into the Jewish Community, beat up the guard and made him lead the way to the Chief Elder’s office, where he demanded that they bring him a learned Jew whom some officials at Municipal apparently needed to identify a statue on the German House of Art. The Chief Elder of the Community put Dr Rabinovich at their disposal. The Rottenführer promised that nothing would happen to him. The Chief Elder didn’t quite understand what the Rottenführer meant by ‘learned Jew’. Apparently that’s what he had been told at the command headquarters of the Elite Guard to get. Another message revealed that Dr Rabinovich had, indeed, returned, but in bad physical condition and that he had not been able to identify the statue.
The nerve of the Elite Guard and the Municipal officials! They have no right to encroach on his jurisdiction. The Jews have been specially assigned to him. If he doesn’t call the Elite Guard on this little affair, soon they’ll be wanting a share of the spoils, or they’ll begin to confiscate things on their own authority. But this isn’t Poland. Here the Elite Guard doesn’t have that sort of power. After all, the Acting Reich Protector himself lives here and he won’t stand for any irregularities. He’ll give them hell, no matter what their rank.
But wait a minute. The Acting Reich Protector, why that’s where the original order comes from. The head of the Central Bureau had also been at the opening of the German House of Art and he had heard Heydrich’s speech. Afterwards someone, maybe it was Geschke from the Gestapo, had told him that the Acting Reich Protector had had a fit when he saw a statue of the Jewish composer Mendelssohn on the balustrade. That’s it – those imbeciles from Municipal didn’t know what to do, so they turned for help to the Elite Guard. And it was easy to understand why they went to the Elite Guard and not to the Gestapo or his own branch. Because they were afraid that Heydrich might hear of it. Therefore this is not an important matter at all, just a stupid little thing. He’ll deal directly with the commander about it and won’t drag in anybody else. But he mustn’t let the Elite Guard get away with anything – he’ll rap their knuckles soundly for this. Still, it was gratifying to hear that the ‘learned Jew’ hadn’t managed to identify the statue. How could he identify it, when he was a Talmud scholar and hadn’t the foggiest idea about worldly subjects like music. It didn’t matter in the least that they beat him up. A few blows wouldn’t harm him.
The last entry in his daybook was a private matter: a present for his mother’s birthday. The head of the Central Bureau daydreamed for a moment. The image of a white-haired lady, the widow of a university professor, floated before his eyes. She lived in the small family home in a university town and took meticulous care of his father’s library, though it never occurred to her to look at a single book herself. Daily she dusted the desk and the armchair as if the old man were to return any moment. She wouldn’t allow any of the maids to touch a single object that he had ever laid a hand upon. Several times a day she looked at his portrait in the large gold frame hanging above the mantel. But she also took the same care of her son’s old toys and school notebooks. She pulled them out of the cabinet occasionally and leafed through them lovingly. The old lady
lived in her memories, and her one and only hope was her son. She was better off than others in the Reich. The criminal pilots hadn’t reached her city yet, and she had enough food, because he sent her weekly packages from the Protectorate.
He thought a great deal about what sort of present to send her. Then he remembered that his mother was very fond of old Meissen. All the cupboards and cabinets and shelves in her house were filled with figurines made of Meissen porcelain. He must find the most beautiful piece of all the confiscated Jewish property. Such a piece was surely to be found in the warehouse. The rich Jews had good taste sometimes. He gave the job of finding it to Fiedler, comparatively the most intelligent member of his staff. Once he had been an official in the Prague German Bank, and he came from a fairly wealthy family. He knew porcelain trademarks and was unlikely to bring him an imitation or a tasteless modern piece of junk. Better to wait until after office hours, but the head of the Central Bureau was too impatient. He looked forward to the gift and hoped Fiedler wouldn’t fail, hoped he’d bring him something really fine. He rang, and a few moments later Fiedler returned with a carefully wrapped package under his arm. He carried it gingerly, as if it were a holy relic.
‘What is it?’ the head of the Central Bureau asked eagerly.
‘It’s guaranteed genuine old Meissen. Very valuable Meissen.’
‘What does it represent?’
‘I’d rather not tell you. It’s a surprise.’
They unwrapped it with excitement, completely disregarding the wood shavings falling on the immaculate rug.
Finally a figurine came into view, actually a group of figures.
‘My God, how beautiful!’
‘It’s one of the most valuable pieces. Please observe that it’s a group representing the Judgement of Paris. Only a very few of these were manufactured. They have one of them in the Meissen museum, but this one is better. The Prague Museum of Industrial Design has a large collection of Meissen china, but they don’t have this one. I looked up the literature. This group was commissioned directly by King Augustus, and the models for the three goddesses were Augustus’s three mistresses. It appears that there is one other in private ownership in England, but that one is probably a fake. This piece, however, is guaranteed to be genuine. I had it examined by an expert.’
‘Thank you. You’ve done an excellent job. This will be the most beautiful present for my mother’s birthday.’
The figures of the goddesses had the delicate beauty of rococo mistresses rather than the austere look of antiquities. The curves of their bodies were rounded, their hips slender, their breasts small. They stood there naked before Paris, first Aphrodite, behind her Pallas Athena, and then, last but not least, the more substantial Hera. And it was clear that Paris could offer the golden apple to one alone – the goddess born from the foam of the sea.
He gazed for a long time at the sculpted group, unable to tear his eyes away from it. Finally he said, ‘Have it carefully wrapped. I want you to guarantee that the gift will arrive in good order. You may request a special plane in my name.’
Fiedler placed the porcelain back in the box and walked to the door. The head of the Central Bureau followed him with his eyes, catching the last glints of the goddesses’ rosy limbs glistening in the shavings.
SIX
HE HEARD THE VOICES, but he couldn’t see their faces. The voices were arguing fiercely about something, but he could catch only a few words: ‘I said it was an important scientific case, that the research has meaning for the Reich.’ ‘An order is an order. They won’t rescind it.’ ‘They turned me down at the German University.’
He knew they were talking about him. The time had come for the move from the hospital. He didn’t know where they would take him, but it didn’t interest him much. His days were numbered. There was no help for him, and all the experiments they were doing on him were only meant to prolong their research. Of course he couldn’t be entirely indifferent. This meant he’d lose touch with the world, even though the world was now limited to Jan alone. He knew he’d never see Adela and Greta again. But if Jan couldn’t visit him, he wouldn’t have any news of them.
He had met Jan Krulis in a cafe years ago. It was a fashionable cafe divided into three rooms. There was dancing in one, card games in another, while people sat around tables drinking black coffee in the third. Some of them were reading Rimbaud or Lautréamont or Breton. Others were puzzling over Freud, still others were inventing machines for living, as they used to call homes in those days. Different interest groups would always sit together at the same table, although some people circulated from table to table. There were also regulars at the cafe who did nothing and knew nothing. They attached themselves to one group or another, always letting someone else pay for their coffee or borrowing twenty crowns they’d never pay back.
One day somebody introduced him to Jan – he no longer remembered who, but it certainly wasn’t an architect, because architects looked down on Jan Krulis. Krulis didn’t like their machines for living, those houses that looked like crates. Jan was usually silent during the passionate arguments that sometimes broke out at the cafe, and for that reason he was thought to be backward, a stodgy traditionalist, a man of the last century. Nobody could understand why he even came to the cafe at all. Perhaps he just came to read the foreign newspapers. Maybe he went there to keep warm, as many people did who couldn’t afford coal. He might never have become close to Jan, for he himself enjoyed those discussions about new art forms – for him they meant a breath of fresh air after a day at the clinic, where he witnessed so much human suffering, illness and decay. He needed to leave that world for a while and get into the world of colours, words and tones. But one day Jan let slip that he, too, was a canoeist.
Words reached him as if from a great distance. ‘They won’t give us an ambulance for transferring him.’ ‘So how can we move him?’ ‘By handcart.’ The voices grew sharp and angry. ‘That’s outrageous, Doctor. He’ll die on the way.’ ‘But what can we do? We have to follow orders. They won’t let us use an ambulance.’ ‘But he’ll catch cold crossing the entire city in a handcart. He’ll be dead before he gets there.’ ‘We don’t make the rules. There’s nothing we can do, Doctor.’ Then the voices grew silent and once again he was alone. Now he knew that they’d carry him by handcart, and that it would be a long journey. But it didn’t matter to him. On the contrary, he looked forward to seeing the city again. He’d been lying in the hospital for two years now, and during that time he hadn’t been outside once. Now he’d see how the city had changed. He’d see its new subjugated face. He might even meet some of those foreigners now holding sway over the city, the ones who had issued the insane laws that caused him to be thrown out of the hospital and taken away in a handcart.
He loved the river and could listen to tales of it for hours. Perhaps it had something to do with his profession. Sometimes during night service in the emergency room he’d pull out a map of Czech waterways and plan trips along barely navigable rivers. He’d imagine himself paddling from one bank to the other, cautiously avoiding the shallows, keeping the boat from scraping and damaging its canvas bottom on rocks. These were trips he could never manage alone – they called for too much strength and endurance. He thought of buying a kayak. Though it was less comfortable, it would be easier to navigate by himself. But then he arranged to go on the trips together with Jan.
Nobody said goodbye to him when the two men came with stretcher and blankets. Obviously everybody was ashamed to see him thrown out of the hospital. Just as they were carrying him out of the door he caught a glimpse of the nurse taking down the identifying board and wiping off the chalked letters of his name.
It looked like a funeral procession. The men carried him carefully and he didn’t feel any jolts, perhaps because his body was immobilised. But when they went out into the courtyard where the cart was waiting for him, the cold, sharp air struck him in the nostrils with such force that his head began to spin. Suddenly everything seemed
phantom-like, even the trees in the park, bare on this autumn day. Everything seemed unreal, even the squeaking of the ungreased wheels of the cart, even the houses they passed, even the sky covered with clouds.
Then when they went out into the streets, it seemed to him that the city had become greyer somehow, that it had fallen into decay, that it was disintegrating, that everything was covered with dust and mould. Paper boxes and useless objects were displayed in the shop windows. People walking along the street were joyless and careworn. They seemed to be oppressed by a heavy weight. The city was under a spell, as if it had been enchanted by an evil magician, as if spectres and lifeless shades were moving about it. The children’s cries were oddly muffled – even they seemed afraid to disturb the deathly quiet.
The men with the cart avoided the main streets. The cart bounced along the broken cobblestones. At first the streets didn’t seem any different. Then he noticed the flags. They were hanging on flagpoles attached to houses with cracking stucco. They fluttered in the breeze, decorated with the enemy’s spider, and beside them waved other ones, red and white without the blue triangle. The men with the cart wore stars on their chest. He noticed that only now as they stopped at a crossing. They positioned themselves on either side of the handcart, probably checking to see if he was still alive. Only the yellow of those stars with their black scraggly letters shone brightly in the grey streets.