by Jirí Weil
Some of the prisoners had just about completed their terms and were looking forward to being released soon. Some of them had only recently been sent there. They were helping to pass the time by exchanging stories of small everyday events in their lives. They were mostly young people who had had no great experiences yet, who were just beginning life’s journey when the Nazis took over.
They were surprised when fifteen troopers burst into their cell and rushed at them as if they were criminals at large. They dragged them out in front of the guardhouse, pushed them together and marched them off somewhere at bayonet point. The nine former prisoners looked about in the fog, wondering where they were being taken. It hadn’t been particularly warm in the prison, but the cold hadn’t bothered them too much since the heat was always on in the guardhouse next door and some of it reached their cells. Now they were cold and they shivered. They couldn’t imagine what the troopers wanted with them. If they were being taken to the transport, then the ghetto guards should have escorted them. Troopers? That could only mean that they were being taken to the Small Fortress. But why? They had been properly sentenced for small offences. What would the neighbouring Gestapo want with them?
The nine prisoners stumbled in the snow. In prison they had got out of the habit of walking. The troopers hurried them along. The execution must begin exactly on time because dignitaries were coming to see it and they liked promptness. If the troopers didn’t get there on time, they would be punished. It was impossible to run in the snow – even the troopers were having trouble because their guns were in their way. Still, they got to the Ustecky barracks before the SS dignitaries appeared. The Jewish Council of Elders and the building managers were clustered together near the gallows, where they were supervised by the Untersturmführer, who had no particular authority to speak of. The commander of the ghetto guards stood next to them with his men. And directly beneath the gallows stood the hangman with long arms, testing the rope. His helper was looking down at the ground. The dignitaries had not arrived yet.
The nine prisoners attended by the fifteen troopers were herded into the moat. They saw the gallows, but they didn’t understand what was happening. They couldn’t be hanging them in broad daylight for offences that were completely insignificant! This was probably only a joke to scare them. Still, they were shivering; still, their hearts contracted with fear, because the gallows reached to the skies, a double monster in the shape of a T. They huddled together, for they were lost in the moat; they were alone among strangers who were looking at them with sympathy and horror as if they were already dead.
Now the SS dignitaries approached the gallows. First came the head of the Central Bureau, after him the magistrate from Kladno, though the Kladno district had no connections whatsoever with the fortress town. But it was known that the magistrate liked excitement. Behind the magistrate, strutting along in uniform with decorations, came the commandant of the ghetto, a disbarred lawyer and one of the faithful from Vienna. His career had begun with the Anschluss, and his present position was his reward for various services. At a respectful distance stood the last observer, the SS chauffeur. The dignitaries were animated, in a good mood. They had obviously just enjoyed a good breakfast with liqueurs at Command Headquarters. The commandant gestured to the Jewish Council of Elders to follow his group. And so the SS dignitaries and the Jewish Council of Elders, together with the building managers, stood at the edge of the moat. The nine victims waited below.
Richard Reisinger stood a little behind them with the commander and the other members of the ghetto guard. He was glad that they hadn’t been ordered to look directly at the condemned men as the Council of Elders had been. The troopers departed; they weren’t required to take part in the execution. And so the members of the Council of Elders, the building managers, ten of the ghetto guards with their commander and the SS dignitaries remained at the execution grounds. The hangman stood at the gallows and his assistant stood next to him. The nine prisoners huddled together in the moat. Only now did they notice that a common grave had been dug beside the gallows. Perhaps it was only there to scare them. Such things were known to have happened.
All at once the commandant of the ghetto stepped forward and read the verdict in a hard and incisive voice, looking at the prisoners as if they were loathsome insects: ‘For defamation of the German Reich, by order of the Commander of the Security Police of Bohemia and Moravia, these Jews have been condemned to death by hanging.’
While murdering and pillaging throughout Europe, the Reich had lost tens of thousands. Now the Reich was dying of cold on the eastern front. And yet that Reich was still powerful, still convinced that it would conquer the world. It accused these unimportant, ordinary people of resisting or defaming it. It didn’t say how – accusing them was enough. The theft of a half-rotten potato or a small piece of wood was called defamation of the Reich. Not saluting an SS officer or smuggling a letter out of the ghetto meant death.
The prisoners heard the verdict. They couldn’t take in the idea that the crimes they had committed were so terrible that they would have to pay for them with their lives. They hadn’t had a trial, they hadn’t been sentenced by any court. The verdict was final, there was no appeal. Even if they had cried out their innocence there in the cold before the spectators and the SS dignitaries, it wouldn’t have done them any good. Still, they kept hoping; still, they did not believe it. Only after the hangman came up to them and ordered them to strip to their shirts and underwear did they realise that it was true, that death was awaiting them, that this gallows was meant for them, and that their bodies would be buried in the prepared grave.
They looked around them, so that at least they could say farewell to the world in their last moments, but the fortress town was lifeless, covered with fog. They could see only the pale, sunken faces of the Elders, the building managers, the ghetto guards, and the aroused, grimacing faces of the SS men. One group looked at them with pain and horror, the other with excitement, in expectation of an interesting show to come. The hangman’s face was expressionless. For him this was a job, difficult and tiring.
They wanted a last look at the sun and the blue sky, but the sky was enveloped in fog. They wanted at least to touch their native soil with their bound hands, but the ground was hard and frozen. They wanted to hear the sound of a human voice once again, but all around was silence. Not the smallest sound was to be heard from the fortress town. The world they were leaving was dead, insensible. And then the crows came flying. Never before had they been seen in the fortress town, for not a single animal or bird was to be found there. The crows lived in the high trees that formed an alley leading to the town gates. They accompanied the transports and prisoners’ processions with their cries. The SS men shot at them and ordered their nests destroyed, but the crows lived on. Their number even seemed to be increasing. Now they appeared above the gallows and no one could chase them away. The SS men had only their revolvers, which were good for killing people but useless for killing crows. The crows flew above the execution grounds as if they, too, had come to be witnesses.
Perhaps it was the cry of the crows that awakened the prisoners’ spirit. They were moved to courage. In the face of the murderers and in the face of the witnesses they must stand on the execution ground like warriors.
Only one of them cried out: ‘I wasn’t defaming the Reich. I was writing to my grandmother!’
He was eighteen years old and he wanted to live. The others quickly made him stop. They didn’t want anyone to plead with murderers who knew no mercy and for whom every plea was merely a source of amusement.
‘Be strong,’ said the oldest. ‘We must die with honour.’
They held themselves bravely, though the cold forced them to shiver. They tried to control their muscles, to keep the SS men from thinking they were shivering with fear and cowardice. And then a song came to their aid. One of the prisoners began it. It was a song from a famous play, a song that had become a consolation during the years of defeat, a
song about the millions who would go against the wind.
They were only nine and they sang about millions. The SS men didn’t know the song, and even if they had known it they wouldn’t have minded their singing of it. They had power over life and death. They had determined that these people would die and it didn’t matter to them if the condemned wished to go with a song. But the members of the Council of Elders knew it, the building managers and the ghetto guards knew it. Who could not know it, a song that had once been sung so often on the streets of Prague? The patrolling troopers on the streets of the fortress town heard it. The song penetrated chinks and crannies, and even the thickness of boarded windows that the residents of the ghetto had been forbidden to come near. It entered the dormitories and from one person to another it flew from barrack to barrack. For the scorned and rejected people already knew what was happening. Even though the penalty for revealing the secret was death, still the news spread from an unknown source, by invisible means.
The commandant of the ghetto waved his whip impatiently. He didn’t want to freeze unnecessarily. The song ceased. They approached the gallows two by two. They were equal in death, and the rope that bound them to each other meant brotherhood. They stood there proudly, courageously. The hangman threw the rope around their necks. And then the first of the condemned cried out:
‘You’ll never win the war!’
The magistrate from Kladno gave a little start. The commandant of the ghetto frowned. The head of the Central Bureau smiled; perhaps he was thinking about the death camps. The second of the prisoners repeated: ‘You’ll never win the war!’ Seven prisoners waited in the moat for their turns to come. They realised that they were an odd number and they didn’t know who would be last. That one would have the worst fate, to be alone among the beasts of prey and mute witnesses. When two go to their deaths together they give each other courage, they die together in enforced brotherhood that has become true brotherhood. But that last one would have to watch the dying and deaths of the others, would have to look at their corpses with convulsively twisted green faces lying on the snow. They had to agree on who would be last, who would have the worst fate, or the hangman who bound the pairs together would make the decision.
The oldest of them said: ‘Line up two by two. I’ll stand behind you.’
They did not try to talk him out of it.
The pairs were bound together and the hangman led them away to the gallows. As he was hanging the last pair, the rope broke and one of the prisoners fell to the ground. When this happened the hangman called out a phrase he had learned from the Prague hangman: ‘I beg to report that the judgement has been carried out according to the law.’
The commandant of the ghetto turned to him angrily: ‘Shut up!’ and he waved his whip: ‘String him up!’
The prisoner was hanged again. But the dignitaries were no longer enjoying themselves. It wasn’t pleasant to stand in the cold for so long, even though they were wearing fur jackets and high boots. The show was not as amusing as they had expected – nobody begged for mercy, and each one repeated the phrase the first one had called out: ‘You’ll never win the war!’ There was such certainty in the voices of the prisoners as they said those words that the confident and arrogant sneers faded from the dignitaries’ faces. They grew nervous and had to make an effort not to betray their feelings in front of the crowd of slaves witnessing the execution. Only the head of the Central Bureau remained calm. In the East he had seen so many killings carried out in so many various ways that this execution of nine people left him quite indifferent.
One of the hanged men gave several jerks. This disturbed the SS chauffeur. He pulled out his revolver and shot five bullets one after another into the dead body. The hangman smiled. What do these SS people know about executions? They hadn’t even taught them that such things happen frequently, that these are the movements of a person from whom life has fled long before.
The shots diverted the SS dignitaries. They calmed the magistrate from Kladno somewhat, as well as the ghetto commandant. They were used to shootings. The execution had already lasted two hours and the SS people would have liked to leave, but they couldn’t allow themselves to do so since there were witnesses here. Meanwhile, the witnesses were in far worse shape. They weren’t dressed warmly and they were shivering with cold. They weren’t able to move about, for they had been ordered to stand still. They were afraid of frostbite, because they were wearing ordinary shoes.
Richard Reisinger watched the execution along with the others. He paled and gasped with horror along with the others. He heard their song and repeated it soundlessly under his breath along with the others. He saw the way they hanged them, the way they died bravely, he heard the way each of them said, ‘You’ll never win the war!’ Of course, they’d never win it, they couldn’t win it. But all of those forced to watch the execution here would probably be dead before it was over. It would be awkward for the SS to allow such witnesses to stay alive. Nevertheless, the world would find out about this execution somehow. It wasn’t possible to get rid of all the witnesses. Surely someone would remain to tell the tale.
The hangman dragged the last of the prisoners to the gallows. He was so frozen that he could no longer walk. He was alone – all the others were dead. As they left for the gallows they had waved to him with their bound hands in farewell and caressed him with their eyes. They knew his lot was the worst. He tried to call out, but his frozen mouth wouldn’t emit a sound. And then in the complete silence a single word was suddenly heard and it resounded throughout the execution grounds: ‘Stalingrad.’ A word of victory and hope. The last prisoner walked to the gallows proudly with such a word. The crows cawed above the gallows and they seemed to be repeating the word, making it carry over the entire ghetto and the Small Fortress, too. The eyes of the Council of Elders, the building managers and the ghetto guards suddenly lit up. The faces of the SS dignitaries tightened into hateful grimaces. It even affected the head of the Central Bureau, because that word meant defeat, cold, hunger, dirt, captivity and death.
That was why the last prisoner could go calmly to his death, that was why the witnesses could reconcile themselves to their humiliation, and that was why, at least for a while, fear overcame the SS dignitaries.
The execution was over. The tired hangman was leaving with his helper. The nine dead bodies remained on the frozen ground. The commander of the ghetto guards told his ten men to throw the bodies without coffins into the common grave. Those twenty-five coffins made overnight by the carpentry workshop had been a cruel trick. When the grave was half filled the dignitaries departed. The Jewish Council of Elders and the building managers staggered back to the Magdeburg barracks to pray for the dead there. Only the ghetto guards remained on the execution grounds, to finish their work. Just then the troopers came back to the execution grounds, all of their own free will. They stood at the graveside beside the ghetto guards. The grave was already covered. At the graveside the sergeant-major of the troopers, their boss, called them to attention.
His second in command broke the dead silence: ‘Let us honour the dead!’
Then the ten men of the ghetto guards left with their captain, and the troopers with their sergeant-major. And when they looked up at the cruel and heartless sky, filled with black clouds, they saw that even the crows had returned to their homes. Perhaps they had left with the SS dignitaries.
They all looked back for the last time at the execution grounds. They were enveloped in fog. Only the gallows in the shape of a T reached to the skies, as if it would stand there for all eternity.
NINETEEN
THE TRANSPORTS ARRIVED at the fortress town and then departed again. But the SS men had a problem with the road to the station. They wanted everything to proceed smoothly and secretly, yet all sorts of things went wrong: people dragged along too slowly, old folks and children fell by the wayside, and the efforts of the troopers and ghetto guards to hurry them along didn’t help. What’s more, the station lay outside the
fortress town, and though the transports arrived and departed at night, they ran into occasional witnesses – because of the conscription, many people had to work night shifts.
It wasn’t possible to walk in the pitch dark; the blackout rules had to be ignored. Like will-o’-the-wisps, the glowing torches and flares wound their way along the roads. Like a procession of ghosts the transports moved along, accompanied by moans and cries. They had to walk past darkened cottages where sleeping people were awakened by the shouts of the guards and the weeping of children.
The SS men didn’t like this. They preferred to do their dark deeds without witnesses.
They decided to build a special line from the station directly to the fortress town, so that the only witnesses besides the ghetto guards would be the troopers. They knew how to deal with them. After wiping out the Jews, they’d wipe out the troopers now guarding them.
The commandant of the ghetto ordered the Jewish Council of Elders to pick out engineers and workers – there were several railway engineers in the ghetto. One of them had actually built a railway in the South American jungle. They promised the workers a bonus of one potato each.
And so the construction began. The engineers drew up the plans and made calculations. The work was divided up into segments and work teams were established. Oddly enough, people worked quite cheerfully, though they surely realised that the special line was meant to make things easier for the SS. When a person holds a good tool in his hand, a pickaxe or a hoe, sometimes he forgets.
Above the town, where the only sounds once heard had been muffled footsteps, buzzing saws in the timberyard and the creaking wheels of funeral wagons dragged along by people, now the clinking of pickaxes and the clanging of railway tracks could be heard. The work groups started out at opposite ends, one from the station and the other from the fortress town. Finally they met in the middle.