The Mechanic

by Alan Gold

  Wilhelm turned to the SS officer and said cautiously, ‘The Hauptsturmführer is aware that Gutman has been working as a Sonderkommando in Birkenau. That’s where I found him again. I think he’s in shock. The sudden change, his removal from that place …’

  The Hauptsturmführer stood and went over to the credenza in his office, where he poured me a cup of coffee. It came in a porcelain cup with a saucer. I’d not held such a thing in nearly four years. It felt so light, so delicate. And then the aroma of the coffee struck my senses, and my eyes opened wide. It was like being kissed by a young and pretty girl. With trembling hands, I sipped a bit of the coffee. It was bitter, far bitterer than I ever remembered. But it had taste. For years, I’d eaten starvation rations without any taste at all; vegetables in soup which had been so boiled that there was nothing but mush; bread which was so stale that you had to dip it in hot liquid for it to bend. Nothing I had tasted in years tasted good. But then I drank the coffee, and it felt as though my mouth and senses would explode. The coffee tasted like all the good things of a past and forgotten life, like a blessed memory of childhood. It seemed to fill my mouth with comfort, with hope, with a future.

  I felt tears welling inside me; tears of joy and relief. Even if I died at this minute, even if the Hauptsturmführer took out his gun and killed me, this moment was worth living for. I had taste in my mouth again, the taste of real coffee. I quickly swallowed my sudden eruption of joy, and sipped at the coffee again. My mind seemed to explode open, clear and precise for the first time in years. In a controlled voice, though I’m sure my voice was trembling, I said, ‘I understand precisely what the Herr Hauptsturmführer requires of me. He wishes me to do some book-work for him. It would be my pleasure. And I apologise for my diffidence, Herr Hauptsturmführer, but the shock of leaving Birkenau and suddenly finding myself … but then the Herr Mechanical Engineer Deutch has already explained that.’

  I giggled like a girl. The two other men looked at each other and nodded. Deutch was the next to speak. ‘Joachim, as you will appreciate, and as the Herr Hauptsturmführer has said, the Russians will be here shortly. Now, it’s no secret that the commandant will destroy the buildings and level the site. He is planning to march the inmates back to Germany. But ultimately, the winners of this war will look at the events in Auschwitz over the past four years and try to blame certain people for what happened. It is no surprise to you, I’m sure, that some loyal Germans will be called to account. What the Herr Hauptsturmführer is concerned about is that many people will be blamed for certain events which happened in this war. His desire is that he is not one of those who will be called to account. After all, his job was only to allocate work rosters. He was nothing more than a functionary, a man obeying orders which came to him from high above, no matter how exalted his rank. All the Herr Hauptsturmführer was doing was following the instructions which originated in Berlin.’

  I remember having to hide my look of incredulity. After all, I was in the middle of the spider’s web, and only his desk separated his gun from my head. I was good at masking my emotions; and it was important he should think me a willing ally.

  Deutch continued, ‘I have no problems about my own behaviour. I was merely the mechanic, the fixer. But because the Herr Hauptsturmführer was in charge of labour details, of allocating men and women to the factories, and also, along with the medical staff, was a part of the selection process as to who could work and who should be sent straight to Birkenau, it’s important to him that he has a set of figures which reflects that he wasn’t to blame for the excesses of the command structure of this place. Is what I’m saying to you making sense?’

  By now, I was beginning to recover. The coffee which had started to open my mind was now activating my brain properly for the first time since I’d been incarcerated. My spirits were slowly lifting. Life was coming back into my being. The past was suddenly put into perspective. It was still a nightmare, but one with which I would deal at the appropriate time! I felt a fury rising in my very being, a hatred of the Herr Hauptsturmführer and everyone like him. But that hatred would lead to my immediate extinction, and so it was vital for me to remain calm and act the part of the willing clerk in the madness of his life, as the man who would account for his salvation.

  So for the time being, I quickly made a bargain with myself that what had happened to me in Sachsenhausen and Auschwitz and Birkenau was suddenly behind me and I would think about it in my own time … that I was now more in charge of myself than at any time since I’d been in Berlin.

  Now, I had to think only of my future; now I was a part of the escape plans of the Third Reich. I felt like bursting out laughing. One minute, I’d been a voyager in hell, having spent the previous three weeks killing and burning tens of thousands of my fellow human beings; the next minute I was consulting to the architect of humankind’s misery about how best he could escape his punishment and my retribution. And in my mouth was the sweetest taste I’d ever known, the taste of coffee.

  ‘I understand precisely what the Hauptsturmführer requires to be done. Now specifically, what do you want me to do?’

  But it wasn’t quite that simple. Because something in my manner told the Hauptsturmführer to be wary. ‘Why are you so willing to do this, Gutman? I’m a Nazi, you’re a Jew. In a few weeks, if you’re not killed, you stand a chance of being rescued by the Russians or the Americans.’

  I could see a look of concern in Deutch’s eyes. But I suddenly had the answer. Slowly, like a fox, I said to him, ‘Sir. When the commandant blows up the gas chambers and the ovens and destroys Birkenau and Auschwitz, he’s going to bury a thousand Jews. If I’m working hard to save your backside, I won’t be one of those buried.’

  I will never forget the look of incredulity on Deutch’s face. He thought I’d gone too far. That I’d just signed my own death warrant, and possibly his. But it was a risk I had to take. He looked at Frauenfeld, eyes wide in fear. But the Hauptsturmführer burst out laughing, roaring his approval to the ceiling.

  ‘Why can’t all Jews be like this one? Then we wouldn’t have had to kill them all.’

  And we all laughed!

  A wave of relief seemed to sweep over Frauenfeld’s body. It seemed to relax. The Hauptsturmführer said, ‘You’ll be given a new set of books to construct. Naturally we’ll destroy the real books. All the records will go up in smoke when the Russians are a couple of days away.

  ‘By then, the camp will be largely empty, so there won’t be much for the Russians to find. The crematoria and the burning pits will be covered over. We’ll mask the truth. But an explanation needs to be constructed, and that’s what you’ll do for me.’

  As an afterthought, he continued, ‘Maybe there’ll be some sick inmates who stay behind and who can’t be disposed of before the Russians get here. Those who can’t go on the commandant’s march will probably be left behind. It’s a shame we can’t dispose of them and burn their bodies, but there simply isn’t time to hide the evidence. They’ll be the witnesses who will speak against us. But without records, the stories these witnesses tell will never be believed. So I need my own records. I need to show that I was generous in my selections; that I was only following orders when I gave out work details to inmates. That I was never one of the selection party who sent people off to the gas chambers. I need records showing that I was just a clerk in an office, that I was a functionary. I expect to be tried as a war criminal. Certainly Churchill and Roosevelt have recently spoken about vengeance for our so-called atrocities. We’ve heard reports from our people in Switzerland that there’s even talk of a tribunal being set up. But I expect to be given no more than a token sentence, compared to the real criminals, Hitler and Himmler and Göbbels. They will surely hang when the Americans and the Russians seek vengeance. Me? I’ll probably serve a year or two in prison and then return to the bosom of my family.’ He sipped another mouthful of coffee cup; so did I. It was like old work colleagues sharing reminiscences about how things are in business.
Absurd!

  I was rapidly gaining in confidence now. He was treating me like a human being. I had something which he desperately needed. I wasn’t going to sell it easily.

  ‘Why don’t you just escape?’ I asked, as though I were his best friend, discussing where to go on a Saturday night.

  ‘Many of the lower ranks are taking the identity of dead inmates, and pretending to be Jews or Poles or Hungarians. These lower ranks consist of the guards and those who have assisted us like the Ukrainians and the Poles. I know that some officers have been scratching around the mountain of clothing and taking yellow stars off dead inmates’ shirts. They intend to slip out when nobody’s looking and blend into the crowds of refugees escaping the Russian advance. But these officers are stupid. They’re not being realistic. They’re too well fed. They’ll stick out like sore thumbs. And frankly, any interrogator asking about something Jewish, and they’ll hang themselves.

  ‘I could try to do that, but those of us who were in the command structure are too well recognised. No. I have only two options. One is to escape to South Africa or South America where there are friends waiting to help us; I’ve decided against that, because the risks involved of crossing Europe to get to Trieste and then contacting the Brotherhood in order to catch a boat are massive; and I stand too great a chance of detection.

  ‘So I have decided to clear my name, and surrender when the camp is taken. I intend to present myself to the Americans and the British as a decent German soldier who performed his allocated tasks in a humane and compassionate way, in line with the demands of the Geneva Convention. Even the Russians will accept that, if I tell them that I’m willing to take my punishment like an officer. So, in this way, the Russian High Command or the British and the Americans will have to respect me as a serving officer, and accord me my rights under the Articles of War as drawn up in the very Geneva Convention which I served so faithfully. As I said, I expect to serve a small amount of time in a military prison, as befits a man of my rank. There’ll be no shame involved of my having been in prison when I return to normal life; it’s not as if I will be a criminal. And then I’ll get on with the life I led before I joined the SS; or maybe I’ll try something different … use the skills I’ve gained in administration.’ He looked up towards the ceiling, contemplating the excitement which life offered him once the war was over.

  It occurred to me that Hitler had refused to sign the Geneva Convention, but I managed to hold my peace. He wasn’t in a mood to listen to logic. And I wasn’t interested in dealing with the truth, only my survival. Thanks to Wilhelm Deutch, my saviour yet again, I had been rescued from the jaws of the abyss and landed in the Elysian Fields.

  ‘So, Herr Hauptsturmführer, you wish me to create a complete set of books which will record your having given out working duties, but also tended the sick, given old men and women time to recover, and … and what else?’

  Hauptsturmführer Frauenfeld nodded. He bent down and opened the bottom drawer of his large desk. He extracted a big leather-covered book, about the size of a large bible, and handed it over to me. ‘This is an unused record book. I will set you up in an office at the top of this building. I will give you four or five different pens, with different kinds of ink. You will begin in October 1942 when I was first posted here, and start to make out the records. I will also supply you with another book, not dissimilar to this, but which represents the true events of what happened here. You may copy this book into the new one, altering the record to distance me from the realities of what I was ordered to do. I’ve already worked out how you will do it, and I have written the following page as a pro-forma. You will use this,’ he said, handing a page of paper over to me which he had just taken from underneath a large sheet of blotting paper on his desk, ‘and you will make an accurate record of my innocence during the past three years.’

  I took hold of the paper he’d given to me. It was a series of columns. In the first was a name; in the second an age; the third was the sex of the inmate; and in the fourth, words like ‘fit for work, allocated to factory.’ Another said, ‘unfit and recommended rest in sanitarium,’ or ‘unfit for heavy working detail, so ordered to do light duties in kitchens’ or again, ‘too old and frail for work, so ordered to assist gardeners.’

  I remembered that my father once had to sit in judgment on a certain matter, and came home complaining to my mother that the defendant had told a farrago of lies. I never understood the meaning of the word until reading the Hauptsturmführer’s list.

  ‘I will do whatever the Herr Hauptsturmführer demands. But,’ I said with increasing confidence, because I was now a party to the conspiracy, ‘what guarantees do I have that when I’ve finished the book, you won’t dispose of me? I will be one of the few who knows the truth about you.’

  The Hauptsturmführer smiled. ‘You have no guarantees. But one thing I do guarantee. If you refuse, or don’t do it immediately, or don’t do it properly, I’ll put a gun to your head and kill you.’

  I looked at Wilhelm Deutch. He had turned quite pale.

  And then the Hauptsturmführer relented, for he knew that he needed my assistance as much as I needed his protection. ‘Put it this way, Gutman, when the Russians come and I hand over the books, I need you to verify that they’re true. If you tell them that you falsified them, then you’ll die as a conspirator, just as quickly as will I. So it’s in both of our interests to remain in each other’s good books, so to speak.’

  He raised his head to the ceiling and burst out laughing. So did I. So did my saviour.

  I began work immediately that morning. I was given the large, blank leather-bound book which the Hauptsturmführer had shown me earlier in his office to carry upstairs to the attic, as well four different kinds of ink and five different pens. I was also told to make my writing differ on each page, so that the book looked as though it had been written by different amanuenses.

  When I was ensconced in my attic, looking out of the window and over the compound of Auschwitz camp where I had first been placed on being transferred from Sachsenhausen, I saw thousands of people. I could also again see the layout of the camp, something which I’d only ever properly understood when I was on the roof laying new pitch. I refreshed my memory of the layout, soon to be destroyed as the Russians came within view, if Hauptsturmführer Frauenfeld was to be believed. And with the loss of how many additional lives of how many faceless Jews?

  There were dozens of long wooden barracks in a row, but what continued to amazed me was the barbed and electrified outer perimeter. Of course, I’d seen it many times before … Indeed, it was impossible to miss when you were on parade. And from the sentry posts, brilliant floodlights illuminated the compound at night as they swung from one barbed and electrified side of the compound to the centre and then back again.

  But until that day on the roof, I’d only ever seen the barbed and electrified wire fences from the inside, as an inmate. Now, again, I was above it all, safe in an attic, far from the danger of the parade ground, from the nightmare of being an inmate.

  What struck me was the orderliness of it all. The long, straight, deliberate row of barbed wire fencing, then electrified fencing, then barbed wire fencing again. It had been planned meticulously. As had the barracks. They were like gigantic rows of vegetables, planted in a garden by some Lord of the Universe.

  I was standing, staring out of the high attic window at those below me in the camp compound, men and women who were walking and talking softly and slowly, when the door burst open.

  Hauptsturmführer Frauenfeld stood there, looking frightening but somehow magnificent. I had this vision of a South American spider from deep in the Amazon jungle, dangerous but arresting. He snapped at me, ‘This door will be locked from now on. I am the only one with a key. I’ve told those who might come up here that you’re doing special work for me, and that you’re not to be disturbed. You will speak to nobody. You will answer the door to nobody. I will come up here with food and water during the day. I wil
l release you at night and send you back to the barracks. But remember that you are forbidden to say a word of what you’re doing. If I find out you’ve told anybody, then not only will you die immediately, but I’ll kill everybody else who knows. Now, during the day, you will copy out these …’

  He said it so matter-of-factly that its full impact didn’t hit me until long after he’d gone. He knew no evil, that man. For he was evil itself.

  Hauptsturmführer Frauenfeld passed over two large leather-bound folders, the same as the one now on my desk; however, these had the look of books that had been written in. I opened one of them and studied the pages. The book had been completed during June of the year 1942. It recorded hundreds, possibly thousands of names of men, women, and children. I guessed that all of them were now dead, or on their way to death. And it was then that I realised the full impact of the disaster which had befallen the Jewish race.

  ‘You will copy the names from these books, into this book,’ he said pointing to my blank ledger which would soon be filled with his farrago of lies—I was getting used to my father’s phrase—which would be his passport to a short prison sentence, and then a normal rehabilitated life. Perhaps he was even contemplating being thanked by the Allies for saving so many of the elderly and the infirm. Perhaps he was anticipating a humanitarian medal.

  ‘Are there any questions?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘Good. Now remember one thing, Gutman. You are here to save my life. Yours might be saved if you cooperate. I’ve selected you on the recommendation of the mechanic. But I owe neither him, nor you, anything. You are nothing to me. Dirt under my fingernails. I’ll kill you without giving it a moment’s thought if you even for a solitary second give me the slightest concern. Out there,’ he said, pointing in the direction of the Auschwitz inmates’ camp, ‘are ten thousand Jews and others who I can use for this task. Work hard, produce a month of facts and figures a day, and you’ll live. Slacken off, even for one moment, and I’ll kill you immediately.’