by Jirí Weil
The commander of the ghetto guard was already up. His position in the ghetto administration was equal to that of a member of the Council of Elders. But although he had been an officer in the German branch of the Reich army up until the time he had been sent as a Jew on a transport to the East, his position was just as tenuous as that of the members of the Council of Elders. The ghetto guard could be dissolved at any moment, and then none of his decorations would save him from the transport, not even the Iron Cross, first degree. Of all the ghetto residents, only the commander knew what was happening in the East. He had been in the death camp himself until the Security Police pulled him out, sent him to the fortress town and assigned him his present position. But he would never tell a soul of his experiences in the death camp. Any careless word would cost him his life.
People were afraid of him, the whole ghetto was afraid of him, because he had been brought in from somewhere by the authorities, because he did not belong among the inhabitants of the fortress town, and because he had even more to do with Command Headquarters than the head of the Council of Elders did. He was thought to be a spy, although he wasn’t. He had been forced to take on that role, and he took it on with all its consequences, because he had come from that place whence no one – except him – had ever returned.
At seven in the morning a messenger from the Magdeburg barracks burst into his room, generally called the Mansard, and handed him a sealed letter. The messenger asked him to sign for it in his delivery book and then ran off. The commander opened the letter. It contained a summons from the Council of Elders to come immediately to the Magdeburg barracks. From the early hours of the morning he had been waiting with his men to take part in the execution, waiting all dressed, shaved and washed – he could afford such luxuries because he received a special allotment of good soap.
He came upon the head of the Council of Elders and his deputy in a small room. Both were agitated and it took a few moments before they were capable of speaking. The head of the Council of Elders was a melancholy man, glum and always tired. His office lay upon him like a heavy weight. He was responsible for everything and obediently carried out the wishes of the SS. He was a Very Important Person in the ghetto, and many people licked his boots, hoping that he might save them from the transports. But at Command Headquarters he was a humble servant. On occasion they even beat him up when they felt their orders hadn’t been carried out quickly enough. And yet he endured all the kicks and shoves, yet he fulfilled all their wishes: he expedited the transports to the East and established an eighty-hour work week that applied even to children over fourteen. He was an accomplice in all the deceptions blinding the eyes of neutral countries abroad. He didn’t do it to save his own life. He had no doubt that he, too, was condemned to death. He had an idea of what was hiding behind the ghetto commandant’s chance innuendoes. And still he believed it was possible to misdirect, to delude, to hoodwink. He believed it was necessary to give the appearance of following without question every order he received, even if it meant the death of tens of thousands, in order to have a chance to save the lives of children – children, the only hope of the future.
Now he had to arrange all the preliminaries to the murder that the SS chose to call an execution. He knew who was to be executed. Nine people had been chosen, men who had been arrested for small transgressions in the ghetto for which they had been found guilty by the ghetto court. It was a ridiculous court, another trick intended to demonstrate to the world the independence of the ghetto. In fact, if any of its inhabitants were caught committing a somewhat graver offence, they were taken off to the Small Fortress and never seen again. He thought he could make a pact with the devil, he thought he could give the devil a great deal in order to save at least something. He couldn’t have known of the folder with the strictly designated deadlines. He couldn’t have known that that very folder contained a resolution made at a secret conference which established that children, biologically the most valuable, must be exterminated above all others. It was the very folder the dying Reich Protector had been clutching in his hand, the folder that contained the plans on which the highest Reich police officer in Berlin was basing his latest orders.
The head of the Council of Elders could hardly speak. The news he had to give to the commander of the ghetto guard was terrible, unbelievable. Untersturmführer Bergel, completely drunk, had appeared at the Magdeburg barracks at six-thirty and summoned the head of the Council of Elders. His order, which the head now passed in turn to the commander of the ghetto guard, was as follows: ‘You must find two criminal types by nine-thirty. They need hangmen.’
The commander looked uncomprehendingly at the Chief Elder. ‘Criminal types? That’s ridiculous. Where would I find them? There aren’t any here.’
‘I’m sorry, but that’s the Untersturmführer’s order. And he received it from the commandant.’
‘He can’t ask me to do such a thing.’
The Chief Elder explained in a tired voice that it wasn’t his fault, but a whim of the lunatics, and what was he to do? They began to consider how they might find a hangman among the ghetto residents. The residents were weak with hunger. There were neither rowdies nor criminals there. People submitted to the meaningless orders of their enemies. Time was passing – it was already eight-thirty and still they couldn’t find a solution to their problem.
The Chief Elder said sharply, ‘If you don’t find a hangman and bring him in by the required time, the Untersturmführer will order you to be hangman yourself. Or he’ll have you shot.’
The commander wanted to answer that he wasn’t responsible for the ghetto and that the Untersturmführer was more likely to assign the role of hangman to the Chief Elder, but at that moment the building managers, who had been told to assemble here at eight-thirty, began to file into the room. The building managers were old and careworn, beaten down by constant quarrelling with people stuffed into the dormitories. They had no privileges other than the little rooms where they lived and worked. The residents of the buildings hated them because the managers had to enforce the rules, which they in turn received from the Council of Elders in the Magdeburg barracks. No one besides the managers even dared go there without a special pass, and that’s why people vented their fury on the managers. At the Magdeburg barracks the managers were treated no better than anyone else. They were threatened with the transport if they didn’t carry out their orders. They were caught in the middle.
The managers never expected that the Chief Elder would order them to be observers at an execution. Their job was to guard the residents of the buildings and keep them in line. Now they received orders to watch people being hanged. But the managers could not refuse or talk their way out of it. They were part of the ghetto administration and they always submitted to their superiors.
The Chief Elder added that it was also their responsibility to make sure that none of the inhabitants of the ghetto went outside into the streets or courtyards during the hours of the execution. The windows were to stay closed and no one was to go near them. This was not a difficult order, and the managers guaranteed it would be followed even in their absence. Every dormitory room had its own manager, who reported to the building manager. It would suffice to call together the room managers and tell them about the order. Heads bowed, the managers stumbled out of the Chief Elder’s room. First they had been astonished. Now the burden that had been placed on them began to sink in. That was why their gait was so unsteady. Some of them actually stumbled on the threshold as if blinded.
The last one out of the door was the manager of the Sudeten barracks. He was almost outside when the commander of the ghetto guard grabbed him by the sleeve. ‘You stay here!’
The manager was confused. He couldn’t imagine what the commander wanted with him when all the other managers had been released. Neither the Chief Elder nor his deputy knew what was going on either.
The commander turned to the Chief Elder: ‘I have an idea. The Sudeten barracks have the most people of a
ll the buildings, and they also have the most butchers.’
‘Butchers? Why butchers?’ Then the light suddenly dawned. ‘Yes, I see.’
The commander of the ghetto guards told the manager of the Sudeten barracks to take him to his building. They walked through the empty streets in the bitter cold. Here and there a trooper’s bayonet appeared out of the fog. The troopers were patrolling the streets to make sure nobody went out. The troopers stopped them but immediately recognised them and didn’t even ask to see their passes.
When the commander of the ghetto guards arrived in the Sudeten barracks with the building manager, he spoke to him again in a sharp, military tone. He understood that his order was unusual and hard to carry out. But he couldn’t talk to the manager in a friendly manner to ask for advice. The manager was capable only of carrying out orders because horror had numbed his brain.
The commander barked out: ‘Call together all the butchers in the Sudeten barracks.’
The manager asked: ‘Where am I to call them together? They won’t all fit in my room. The news would spread through the barracks and cause trouble.’ Now that the manager had been given a direct order, he was capable of independent thought once again.
The commander answered, ‘Isn’t the guardhouse of the troopers and ghetto guards right behind this entrance here, just in front of the prison? The troopers know what’s going on, we don’t have to worry about them. We’ll clear out the guardhouse and we can call together the butchers there.’
The commander went to the guardhouse and sent the manager to summon the butchers. Everything went like clockwork. In a while eight butchers appeared. They didn’t know what was going on and stood there in confusion. They knew something was afoot. It was an ordinary working day, yet nobody had been allowed to leave the building, even though it was long past the time work usually began. The troopers were patrolling the streets. That, too, was unusual, because they usually guarded the gates, while the ghetto duty was done by the ghetto guards. Nevertheless, the butchers didn’t and couldn’t have the smallest suspicion of what the manager and the commander of the guards wanted from them.
The commander looked them over very carefully. He gestured to one of them and asked, ‘How old are you?’
The butcher answered, ‘Sixteen.’
He picked another: ‘And you?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘And what about that one in the corner?’
‘Sixty.’
The commander dismissed them: ‘You three can go.’
Five people were left waiting impatiently and anxiously, wondering what was going to happen. The commander drew himself up, struck a military attitude and addressed the butchers.
‘Friends and kinsmen, I must tell you some sad news and at the same time turn to you with an urgent request. Several of our fellow residents have been sentenced to death by hanging. The judgement will be carried out at ten o’clock and two of you must do it. I am asking two of you to volunteer for the job and thus ease the distress of the others. According to the Untersturmführer’s order, I was to find two criminal types, but where am I to find them? You butchers are the only ones who are suitable for this job.’
At first the butchers grew pale, and then they grew angry.
Kraus, a butcher from Horelic, yelled: ‘Not on your life. Get some of your own rats to do it!’
And they all started in:
‘I have two children.’
‘I have children, too.’
Then, in the midst of all the noise, a man as big as a mountain out-shouted all of them: ‘I’m a former trooper sergeant, but I wouldn’t stoop as low as that.’
The butchers began to heap abuse on the commander: ‘Get lost, you dirty spy. Find one of your friends to be a hangman!’
They turned and wanted to leave the guardhouse.
‘If you don’t do it, the whole Council of Elders will be shot, and I as well.’
One of the butchers began to chuckle. ‘Dear, dear. But we wouldn’t really mind.’
The commander roared at them: ‘But you’ll be shot, too!’
The butchers stood stock-still, as if struck by lightning. ‘How come? It’s not our business!’
The commander said quite calmly now, ‘I’ll denounce you.’
Trapped. They didn’t doubt for a moment that the commander would denounce them. He’d want to pass the blame to someone else, even though it might not help him. They stood there in a state of shock, even the one who had shouted that he was a former trooper sergeant but wouldn’t stoop so low.
‘How should we do it?’ asked one of the butchers. It was clear that nobody was going to volunteer.
‘We’ll draw lots,’ the former sergeant suggested.
They wrote their names on pieces of paper and threw them into a hat belonging to one of them. The commander held the hat. The first butcher came up slowly to draw his lot. He hesitated a long time before he stretched out his hand.
Just then the door opened suddenly and a small, hunchbacked fellow with a wrinkled face and mean, malicious little eyes stepped into the room.
The commander did not manage to maintain his military attitude, because he was holding the hat. He could only scream: ‘What are you doing here? Nobody’s allowed in here! Didn’t a trooper stop you?’
The hunchback smiled. He said in a soft, strangely refined voice: ‘Pardon me, but I heard that you’re looking for a hangman.’
He was silent for another minute.
‘I am your hangman.’
EIGHTEEN
WHEN THE CALL CAME for Richard Reisinger and the other nine, it was to go directly to the Sudeten rather than the Ustecky barracks. The fortress town seemed to be sleeping. There wasn’t a soul on the streets, just mist and frost and the occasional patrol who stopped them but as soon as they saw their uniforms asked no further questions. The ten members of the ghetto guard walked slowly, perhaps because the fog and snow kept them from a faster pace, but perhaps because they were afraid to arrive too early. They were supposed to arrive at nine-thirty exactly.
The commander was waiting for them together with a queer little hunchbacked person with long arms like a monkey’s. Nearby stood a strong, muscular young man. It was one of the butchers chosen by the hangman as a helper. He stood aside from the two as if he didn’t belong with them. The ten members of the ghetto guard joined the commander and the two unknown people.
They left the Sudeten barracks, led by the hunchback. A patrol stopped them on the street. They weren’t interested in the guards or their commander, whom they knew, but in the two civilians.
The hunchback said sharply and loudly: ‘Executioners.’
The troopers said not another word and quickly signalled to the patrol up ahead to ask no questions and let them pass. The shouts of the patrols from one to another resounded in the dead ghetto like a festive accompaniment.
One of the guards leaned over to Reisinger and whispered, ‘I know that hunchback fellow. He’s a hangman. I don’t know where he lives, but he often comes to the ghetto. When he arrives he always gives out sweets to the children. The children are afraid of him and won’t let him touch them, but they take his sweets. How can they resist when they haven’t seen sweets for ages? The fellow used to be a morgue attendant and earned extra money by being the Prague hangman’s helper.’
The commander of the ghetto guards found it unpleasant to have the hangman marching at the head of the procession. But he couldn’t do anything about it, since the hunchback had appropriated the right for himself. The hunchback was in a talkative mood. He boasted that he was the permanent hangman at the Small Fortress, that at the completion of each execution he always got a bottle of rum, a salami and chewing tobacco. The commander was embarrassed by the hangman’s boasting. How was it that he, a former officer in the German Army, had to listen to the babbling of a drunken hairy monkey like this? But he didn’t dare shut him up.
They walked in this fashion all the way to the gallows, where the commander ann
ounced: ‘Herr Untersturmführer, here are the volunteers!’
The SS man cried out loudly, ‘Bravo!’
The group of ghetto guards, with the commander, the hangman and his helper, positioned themselves next to the gallows. The condemned men were not there yet.
As the members of the ghetto guard were arriving at the Sudeten barracks, fifteen troopers entered the very guardhouse where the butchers had drawn lots. Their job was to bring the nine condemned men out of the nearby prison and lead them to the gallows.
The prisoners had been sentenced for minor offences. Just about anyone in the ghetto might have been there in their place, with the exception of the officials at the Magdeburg barracks, who didn’t need to break any of the countless rules. Any one of the ghetto residents would have taken a piece of wood from the timberyard for firewood if he had a chance.
Nobody considered stealing a few potatoes from the basement a real theft. Because people were hungry and cold, practically everyone was guilty of these infractions. One of the prisoners was guilty of not giving the required salute to an SS man. But if a hungry and exhausted person is heading home after a day of endless labour, he drags through the streets looking down at the ground to avoid stumbling. The punishment was mild: a week or fourteen days in prison. The ghetto court didn’t even have the right to give longer sentences.