by Alan Gold
And with that, he turned and walked out of the room. I opened the book and began the work of transcription instantaneously.
‘Walter Grossman. 44. Healthy. Work in factory.’
‘Ita Grossman. 79. Frail. Gardening duties.’
‘Hanelle Grossman. 40. Healthy. Work in factory.’
‘Samuel Heinfarben. 22. Healthy. Construction duties.’
‘Rosl Bender. 71. Frail, possibly sick. Sanitarium.’
‘Nachum Goldfarben. 56. Crippled. Hospital.’
And so it went on for the next four hours. I managed to put down over eight hundred names in these first few hours of work. I was becoming skilled at using different hands, different pens, different inks. Even I would have found it hard to tell that this was just a farrago … if you’ll excuse me again using my father’s expression.
By now I was becoming light-headed and lighthearted. I was starving, having had almost nothing since the previous night except for a cup of coffee. And then, when I was thinking of how I could communicate to the Herr Hauptsturmführer and get something to eat, I nearly jumped out of my skin, because outside the window, four stories up, was the beaming face of the mechanic.
He tapped on the window and mouthed the words, ‘Open up.’
I did, and he climbed in, remarkably nimble for a man of his age.
‘Well, I told you I’d save you, didn’t I?’ he said, as though he were a proud father boasting of an achievement to his favourite son. ‘So, what do you think of these conditions, eh? Bit better than that hellhole over there.’ He nodded towards Birkenau three kilometres away. I looked and saw dark smoke pouring out of the central chimney. I thought to myself, ‘Oh good, they’ve managed to get the ovens to work …’ and then I realised with a horrible shock, and with great anger, just what it was that I was saying.
‘What a job. Eh, isn’t this better than down there?’ he said, nodding through the window at the scenes of horror in Auschwitz, scenes which were so familiar to us all. I remained silent. ‘Well, aren’t you going to say anything, Joachim?’
He was waiting for praise. But somehow, I felt no gratitude. Oh, I knew he’d saved my life. I knew if I’d stayed in Birkenau, that by today, or tomorrow, I’d have been stripped of my uniform by the guards, and pushed naked and uncomplaining into the gas chambers with another contingent. That’s what they did when they saw that look of deadness in your eyes and you became useless to them as a Sonderkommando. Then your former colleagues and workmates, men you’d been working with only hours before, had to pull your dead body from the chambers and burn you. But even though I knew for certain what my fate would have been, somehow I couldn’t feel gratitude towards him.
‘What is it you want from me?’ I asked.
The look on his face was one of surprise. ‘What are you talking about? I want nothing. I’m trying to save your life.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Because I’m your friend.’ He began to get angry. ‘Look, if you don’t like what I’ve done for you, I can send you back to the ovens. Is that what you want? Or would you rather say, ‘Thank you, Wilhelm’, and realise how lucky you are.’
But I wouldn’t give in. When you stare at death and then suddenly are given the freedom of your life, death no longer seems as frightening. ‘Why are you doing all this for me? You’re a German, I’m a Jew.’
‘Because I like you. Because we worked together and enjoyed ourself. Because we tricked the Nazis and beat them at their own game. Don’t you understand, I’m helping you because you’re my friend. Why can’t you understand that? I’ve helped many people during this war. People like you, Joachim. It just so happens that I’m helping you save your life when the war is coming to an end. Just luck, I guess.’
But he looked offended, as though I’d insulted him. In embarrassment, he continued, ‘You’re nothing special, you know. Over the years I’ve been working in these camps, I’ve helped many Jewish prisoners just like you to survive. I’ve shared food with them, helped them rest, helped them avoid punishment. I didn’t have to, you know. I just did it because I knew that what we Germans were doing was wrong. I did my bit. The least you could do is to say ‘thank you.’’
And then I knew that deep down, he was a really good man. That he’d risked his life to help me. That, in true friendship, he wanted nothing from me, other than recognition of the fact that he’d risked his life to help me. Nothing. And suddenly, I felt so deeply ashamed. Ashamed of my treatment of him, of my lack of gratitude, of my selfishness in seeking ulterior motives. I walked across the small room and threw my arms around him, kissing him on both cheeks. He hugged me back. He was not a Nazi. He never would be, or could be. Well, maybe in his body because he was forced into it by what happened to his Germany. But Wilhelm Deutch could never in his mind be a Nazi. And under other circumstances, had life continued and Hitler hadn’t arisen, he and I could have been good friends. He had saved my life. I wondered how many others he had saved by his kindnesses.
We separated and smiled at each other. ‘There’s only a couple of weeks to go before this damn thing ends. Then we’ll be prisoners of the Russians or the Americans. I’ll be in a stripped uniform, and you’ll be free. Now there’s a turn of events,’ he said.
‘Why will you be arrested? ‘ I asked.
‘Because I’m part of Germany. And Germany will be on trial for what Hitler did. Hitler and the rest will be hanged for their crimes; but it’s Germany which will suffer for ever more for creating places like Auschwitz.’
That was a year and a half ago. I never realised how perceptive the mechanic was until now.
Palace of Justice
Nuremberg, Allied Occupied Germany
June, 1946
‘Yes, Professor Broderick.’
Theodore Broderick stood slowly. It was the mark of a man who was part of, but who would not be hurried by, the judicial process. It was his method of telling judge and onlookers that he, and he alone at this pivotal moment in the currency of the trial, was totally in charge. When he was on his feet, all eyes in the courtroom staring at his every movement, he straightened the volumes of notes resting on the advocates’ table, and cleared his throat.
‘Your Honour, I am about to begin the defense of my client, Wilhelm Deutch. I am about to call him to the witness stand. In many ways, this is an unusual act in itself, because the defense normally calls the accused person last, after it’s called its own witnesses to prove the innocence of its client, and also to rebut the prosecution witnesses’ evidence, and build a case for itself in the minds of the judge and jury. The arrival of the defendant is the denouement, the moment when the defense opens its arms to the courtroom and says, ‘Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the answer you’ve all been waiting for.’
‘Unfortunately, Your Honour, I can only call Wilhelm Deutch, because I have no other witnesses.
‘Your Honour will be aware that I moved for the truncation of Deutch’s previous trial when he sat in this very dock, surrounded by men of the killing squads, the infamous Einsatzgruppen, accused of crimes against humanity. I was the defender of some of those men, Deutch included, and it was so very obvious to me that we were doing Deutch an injustice. For those other men, his co-accused, who had worked in the gas chambers and the death ovens of the concentration camps like Sobibor and Maidanek and Treblinka … and Auschwitz, where Deutch was posted, were active participants in the industrialised process of mass murder. They were the guards who worked the Sonderkommandos, who supervised the genocide of a race, the burning of the bodies, the tortures and the inhumanities. And these men, whom your brother judges found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, were part of the SS; they were killers without conscience; they were men who were profoundly and irredeemably evil.
‘For Wilhelm Deutch to be in the same room as them, let alone the same dock, accused of the same crimes, was to me a travesty of the justice which is the very foundation of our civilisation. He was in the dock because witnesses testified that he was a mecha
nic who worked in the Birkenau death ovens, tweaking their dials and adjusting their performances. And so he was deemed guilty by association. But when the defense came to examine the true nature of the prosecution’s case, it became obvious that he was being accused of complicity, of being in the same place as the crimes, but that there was no evidence that he had ever committed crimes against humanity.
‘I demanded that he be allowed a separate trial. However, in the month and a half since that previous trial ended and those dastardly and irredeemable men have had justice brought down upon their heads, I have done everything in my power to find a witness who will speak on his behalf. Of course, Your Honour knows the extraordinary problems of finding anybody in particular in Germany, let alone a witness to my client’s actions, even to this day, over a year after the end of hostilities. The Red Cross and dozens of other agencies are trying to deal with the greatest humanitarian and refugee crisis in the history of the world. Millions and millions of people are still adrift, trying to find sanctuary, trying to find family and relatives and friends.
‘So finding anybody who will speak for Deutch was always a long shot. However, Deutch’s trial has been broadcast widely, and yet nobody has come forward to speak on his behalf.’
The judge shifted uncomfortably. ‘What are you trying to tell me, Dr. Broderick? That you can’t carry on?’
‘Not at all, Your Honour. What I’m trying to say is that I have only one witness … and that witness seems determined to hang himself.’
Shocked, the judge said, ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Judge, I would have made application to treat my own client as a hostile witness, had there been leeway granted by the constitution of this Military Tribunal. He has failed to cooperate with the defense, he’s failed to provide any evidence which I might be able to use on his behalf. He’s merely railed against the unfairness of the prosecution’s case as it applies to him, saying he didn’t commit the crimes of which the witnesses have accused him, and yet when I ask for chapter and verse, all he’ll say is that he’s going to hang anyway, that there’s no justice in this court, and so why bother.’
Judge Jonathan Parker looked at Deutch and waited for the interpreter to finish the translation so that the defendant could clearly understand what he was about to say. ‘Mr. Deutch, do you really believe that you are here for rough justice? That I’ve already decided to hang you?’
Several moments later, Deutch finished listening to the voice in his earphones, stood, and said, ‘Yes.’
‘Are you aware of the numbers of men that I and my fellow judges have acquitted at these trials, because on evidence, we couldn’t find the case of crimes against the peace or crimes against humanity proven to our satisfaction?’
Deutch nodded.
‘Yet you still believe that my task is not to judge you fairly, but instead that I’m going to sentence you to hang?’
Deutch simply shrugged his shoulders, annoying the judge
‘This might be a ploy by you, Mr. Deutch, to convince me that you want another attorney; or that I should mitigate in your favour. You might think that you can waste this court’s precious time and patience. But it’s not going to work. You have the privilege of one of America’s very finest advocates defending you. If you chose not to cooperate with him, that’s your decision. Dr. Broderick, I will take into account that you have difficulties in defending your client, and I will not hold it against him that nobody has come forward to speak on his behalf. But now, I would like you, please, to continue with your defense.’
‘Your Honour, might I deal with my client as a hostile witness?’
‘Professor Broderick, you may deal with your client in any manner you see fit. Continue.’
He had been examining his witness for only a few moments before the change became noticeable. But the difference in the way Deutch slowly opened out, like a flower welcoming the morning sun, was visible only to Broderick. Indeed, it was clever, subtle, and perhaps designed to make the American lawyer look a fool in front of his peers. For the time being, Broderick decided to go along with whatever it was that Deutch was doing.
‘And for what reason did you join the Nazi Party in 1936?’
‘Because everybody did. It was patriotic, nationalistic. I was a good German. Married, three children. I was urged to join by my colleagues in I. G. Farben. Had I not joined, I would have been thought less of. Today it seems sinister, but ten years ago, with the economy booming and Hitler as our Messiah come to Earth, it was the right thing to do. The only thing to do.’
‘Weren’t you concerned about the statements which Adolf Hitler and Joseph Göbbels were making in regard to the Jews? The obscene libels, the threats to their safety? Did you have no regard for the activities of the SA and the SS towards the Jewish people, the beatings, the humiliations, the depiction of Jews and Slavs and Gipsies as subhumans in those vile propaganda sheets, Der Angriff and Der Stürmer?’
Deutch thought for a moment. ‘Honestly, I didn’t let it affect me back then. I thought it was just the politicians talking to get votes.’
He looked across to where the judge was sitting. ‘You see, we’d been through hell and back with hyperinflation, with people eating from soup kitchens in the streets, with Wall Street crashing and American banks calling in massive loans which we couldn’t repay, and our German industrial companies laying off millions of workers. In 1914, my parents could buy a bottle of milk for a mark. In 1923, that same bottle of milk cost them 726 billion marks. So what about their meagre savings in the bank? What about their future, their security? They’d just been through the Great Patriotic War. Now, after they’d lost two sons and brothers and uncles in the trenches, instead of facing a life of serenity, they were facing a lifetime of hardship. After the war, they were totally ruined, with not enough money to buy bread. Is it any wonder that they looked around for someone to blame?
‘So when Adolf Hitler said, ‘Why should we suffer because of what’s going on in other parts of the world? Why should we be victims? It’s not our fault, it’s the Jews’ to me, and to the rest of Germany, it all made perfectly good sense. Sure, I didn’t like the fact that he was blaming Jews. I worked with Jews in I. G. Farben. We had Jewish neighbours. My kids played with Jewish kids. But Adolf was our leader, and he convinced us that our problems were caused by Jews.’ Deutch shrugged. ‘I was only a mechanic. He was the Reichführer. Who was I to argue? I assumed that he knew. Anyway, I trusted him.’
Broderick adjusted the sheaf of notes, playing for time. He’d begun his examination as though Deutch was a prosecution witness, but the German had been cooperative and positively effusive with the openness of his answers to the lawyer’s questions. He was playing a game, but Broderick wasn’t sure which one.
It was time to deal with how he came to be in Auschwitz. And what it was that he did there.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Berlin, Germany, 1998
FOR TWO DAYS, CHASCA Broderick and Gottfried Deutch had worked the phones. She’d asked for, and managed to have installed, a separate phone in her hotel suite, so that Gottfried could make his phone calls from one room, while she hit the phones in another. They phoned the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Vienna and Los Angeles, the Centre for the Justice for Victims of the Holocaust in Munich, the Red Cross in Switzerland and dozens and dozens of other centres which had rescued European Jewry or assisted in the retribution of justice against Nazi criminals at the end of the war.
Each conversation they began invariably started with them saying, ‘Yes, I know it’s an awfully long time ago … yes, I’m sure your records are all archived … yes, of course I’m willing to come in to your offices …’ but they became skillful in extracting maximum value out of each phone call so that they easily eliminated those which they knew would be useless.
They took regular breaks from their work, leaving the suite and enjoying each other’s company in the coffee shop attached to the hotel, or in one of the numerous restaurants which abounded in t
he Unter den Linden, Berlin’s most famous street and the one so hated by the out-of-towner Adolf Hitler, that he deliberately ordered the cutting down all of the Linden trees to widen the road for parades, earning him the eternal enmity of pre-war Berliners.
In the beginning of their intense working relationship, Chasca had been curious about Gottfried and had asked him many personal questions. No matter how closely they worked together, she couldn’t find anything about him which was attractive. He was … she hated herself for thinking it … so ordinary.
He’d answered her questions courteously, without magnifying his standing to appear as something which he simply wasn’t. Gottfried was a high-school drop-out and worked for the Berlin Postal service in the job of keeping records of new developments and upgrading the city’s delivery network. When he told her about his life, living at home, working for the post office, Chasca tried to sound enthusiastic, telling him that it must be interesting; he smiled and said, ‘Yes, fascinating …’
He’d taken a week’s holiday without pay in order to trace his grandfather’s records, and from the number of dead ends they’d encountered, it looked as though that unpaid week was money down the drain. Chasca had offered to make up the money he’d lost from her own bank account, for it was money she could easily afford, but Gottfried refused outright, saying it was his duty to his mother to try to exonerate his grandfather.
Over lunch they discussed what to do with the paucity of information they’d been able to scrape together, none of which illuminated any real facts about the elusive Joachim Gutman or further details about Wilhelm Deutch’s role, except for his having been hanged as a war criminal.
‘It’s not unusual that there’s no trace of Gutman,’ said Gottfried. ‘Most of the Jews who survived the war left Europe and went as far away as possible. Thousands and thousands to South America, North America, Canada, Australia, even New Zealand. They just wanted to be as far from the concentration camps as a ship or a plane would take them. And when they got there, they changed their names to blend in and began a new life. Perhaps we’re wrong to be searching in Europe … maybe we should approach the Australian Embassy or America or somewhere.’