The Mechanic

by Alan Gold

  ‘Of course I’m not frightened. Oh, sure, I might be killed in some battle. Civilians are always killed in battle. But we’ve all been living with death for the past six years. I’d be upset not seeing my wife and daughter after all this time being separated, but I’ve become very fatalistic since the war started, and I suppose I’m ready to accept my fate.’

  ‘But your work here? Aren’t you worried?’ I said.

  He seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Worried about what?’

  ‘You were part of a concentration camp. The Russians and the Americans are going to be looking for those Germans who were guilty of horrible crimes. Aren’t you worried that you’ll be swept up by what happens when the war finally ends? The Allies won’t just pack up and go home, you know. There’ll be hell to pay. Germany’s going to be in real trouble when Hitler surrenders.’

  ‘Why should I be worried, Joachim? I’m a mechanic. All I did was fix machinery. I did nothing like what the SS did. I’m not even a soldier. I never even held a gun. No! The British and the Americans and the Russians aren’t interested in mechanics or plumbers or factory workers. They’re interested in Hitler and Göbbels and Göring and Himmler. It’s them who should be shitting themselves right now, wondering how the hell to escape or what to tell the enemy.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll live to be prosecuted?’ I asked. ‘In the barracks, there are wild rumours about how Germany is now in a stranglehold, how the Americans and the Russians are fighting to reach Berlin first.’

  He was amazed. Horrified! ‘How do you hear all these rumours? You’re prisoners, for God’s sake. Where do you get this information?’

  I remember smiling. I could trust this man now. We were friends. He continued to bring me food and drink. So I told him. ‘We have a radio. One of the men stole it from the factory a year ago. For some reason, nobody missed it, and then they must have forgotten about it. One of the inmates was a radio mechanic before the war, and he’s been able somehow to tune it so that we can pick up the radio frequencies that the Allies use. At night, we lie under the blankets and listen to American Armed Forces Radio and this new programme called Voice of America, and sometimes we listen to the British Forces Overseas programmes from the BBC and we hear about how the German army is in total disarray, and how the Allies are making giant strides across Europe. Those who speak English and Russian translate it for us.’

  Wilhelm nodded. He hadn’t heard such news. He didn’t know that the Allies had breached the borders of Germany. He told me that he harboured the vague hope that the Wehrmacht would pull back behind the 1939 borders, and the Allies would then be satisfied and pack up and go home. That somehow we could hand back Poland and Czechoslovakia and France and all the other countries we’d conquered, and retreat to where it all began. He had no idea that his homeland was being occupied and destroyed.

  His manner suddenly became still, as though a part of him had been silenced. Softly he said, ‘Last month, I sent my wife and daughter Christmas cards. It’s now the beginning of January. I’ve tried to get through by phone, but the commandant won’t allow us to make personal phone calls. He says that the telephone lines are urgently needed for communications with the Front. Every day, I’ve been waiting and waiting for some word of my family. Now you tell me that …’

  I stood and walked over to him. He’d helped me so much. Now I was perhaps able to help him. ‘You mustn’t worry,’ I said. ‘The Allies aren’t like the SS. They’ll never harm civilians.’ He looked at me and attempted a smile. ‘And that goes for you too,’ I told him. ‘You won’t be in trouble when the war ends. You’re only a mechanic. I will tell the Allies what a good man you are. I will be your witness.’

  I knew the war was coming to an end when the air started to smell differently. The chimneys of Birkenau had not been pouring out grey and black smoke for some time. Not for a month or more. It took me some time to realise it, but it meant that they weren’t burning Jews anymore. That must be a good … or a bad … sign. For while they were burning Jews, I might still live; now there’s a sublime irony; when they stopped burning Jews, they might blow up and level the camp and bury all the Jews inside. Then use bulldozers to cover all of the human evidence with soil, and pretend to the Russians that it was only a hill and there were nothing underneath. How many future generations of Poles would run and play and scamper over the hill of Auschwitz without realising the misery buried beneath their feet? And would they care if they did know?

  But the other way in which the air smelled different was with the acrid odour of cordite. I could almost smell the vapour of a bullet or a shell in the air. And when the wind was in the right direction, I could swear that far in the distance, I could hear a distant rumble, like a train on railway tracks, still kilometres away from the station, but getting nearer and nearer.

  It wasn’t only the smells, of course, which told me that my war would be finished within a week or so. I also noticed that there were fewer and fewer guards. During the night, increasing numbers of our brave and valiant SS slave masters took off their vaunted uniforms which had once sent cold ice through my veins, and stole the trousers and jackets and shirts and shoes from the mountains collected from dead Jews which were contained in the storerooms. Then these fearless SS men, these heroes who once terrified us with their truncheons and rifles and killed anyone they didn’t like, found a time when the guard was changing and security was lax, and walked unnoticed out of the gates, leaving their identities and crimes far behind.

  Of course, as soon as the commandant realised what was going on, he caught two of the SS defectors, put them on public trial, and had them shot in the open, in public, as deserters. You would have thought that would have resulted in a howl of pleasure and revenge from the Jewish inmates on the other side of the barbed wire. But no. All they did was look and then wander away.

  I, myself, was shocked to the core. Oh, I’d seen death often enough. More death than any human being should have been allowed to see in a thousand lifetimes. But what stayed in my mind was the sight of the expressions on the Germans’ faces. They were SS men. They were brutal and evil. No question about that. But there was a look of complete surprise as their colleagues raised their rifles and, on command of the officer, shot and killed them. It was a look which said, ‘How can you, Germans and colleagues, possibly kill us? What have we done wrong?’

  Was that the expression which the Jews wore when we Sonderkommandos were forcing them to undress before gassing them? I can’t remember. My eyes now are blind to all the memories of those gas chambers. One day it will return, but not now. I can still recall events, things which happened. Yes, these I can see in my mind’s eye. But I can’t for the life of me remember faces. There were whole seas of faces of old and young people, children, babies … dark-skinned people, and fair skinned; people with scars and beards and blue eyes and brown eyes. Attractive people, elegant people, terrified people. But I can’t remember their faces, God help me.

  But I do clearly remember the events which ended my stay at Auschwitz. And I remember feeling such a sense of self-righteousness at the fear in the faces of the staff of that damned place. They were terrified of the Russian advance, of the loss of the war, of being found out, and also of their commandant. But despite the vigour with which the Commandant of Auschwitz tried to keep his men’s minds on their jobs, and insist upon their continuing loyalty to the crumbling Reich, the decision to evacuate the camp was put into effect. Every able-bodied Jewish man and woman … able-bodied? Now there’s a thought which would put a smile on your face, if only you could have seen what they looked like … was to be force-marched back to Germany. Think about that, for a minute. From Auschwitz to Berlin. From the South of Poland they had to cross the Sudeten Mountains into Czechoslovakia, then north to Germany. What? Five hundred kilometres? In the cold dead of winter. When they were starving and diseased and desperately exhausted. Reports I’ve read since the war ended say that from all the camps and the ghettos, seven hundred thousand
Jews were force-marched out of the east and away from the oncoming Russian Army. And before those poor bastards had finished, a third had died on the way, from starvation, exhaustion, and, most of all, a desire to die.

  Me? Oh, I was safe in my attic, with my two good German friends. One was there to save his skin, using me as an accomplice. The other … well, he was a genuine friend.

  Hauptsturmführer Frauenfeld was spending more and more time with me. And I played right into his hands, his willing accomplice. Because I knew with complete confidence that if he suspected for one moment that I might double-cross him, he’d have put a bullet into my head. He continued to bring me up coffee and sandwiches for my lunch. He told me what was going on outside.

  He said to me, ‘So, Gutman, not much longer before you’re a free man. Today, they’re emptying the camp of all prisoners who can walk and are well enough to go back to Germany. Those who are too ill will be kept here. As for me, I’ll stay and wait for the Russians. No point in my leaving. I’m too well known. An hour down the road, and I’ll be turned in. So I’ve decided to do the honourable thing, and stay and explain to the Russians precisely what my part was in this camp, and what the others did. And frankly, Gutman, it’ll be good to have this war over and done with, eh? Oh, I expect they’ll put me into some Allied prison for a couple of months and then I’ll return to Germany and resume my life. You know, with my experience running this place, I could get a career in administration. Somewhere with a large staff. Maybe allocating work for a large German company. Maybe they’d even be a place for you, you know, Gutman. I’ve seen the way you’ve been working these last weeks. Don’t think I’m not impressed. I could do you a good turn when this madness is over …’

  I smiled and rapidly changed the subject. Why should I participate in his insanity? Anyway, I wanted to know more about him so that when the Russians arrived, I would be in a good position to tell them what this madman had been up to.

  ‘Tell me about your war, Herr Hauptsturmführer,’ I asked. ‘Why did you sign up for the SS?’

  He looked at me strangely, but there was an innocence in my eyes, an innocent look which I’d learned to cultivate since I’d been in his service. This look had saved my life, prevented him from suspecting my real motives, and stopped his inclination to distrust and disbelieve me and put a bullet in my head. It now encouraged him to open up. There was nothing else for him to do. He wasn’t busy. The work he’d been so skilled in doing, the allocation of tasks to the inmates, selecting who would do which slave labour, who would die immediately in the gas ovens, who would work till they died, that was over now. There was no more work to be done. There was nobody left for him to allocate to slave labour jobs. No factories, no tasks left in the camp … nothing.

  It was bizarre. While his commandant was going crazy blowing up the gas chambers and the killing rooms and destroying the evidence of the morgues and the dissection rooms and laboratories used by Mengele and the other German doctors for their fiendish experiments on living human beings; whilst his commandant was busily blowing up the fuel storerooms and the elevators which took the Jewish carcasses up to the ovens and the triple muffle furnaces built by Topf and Sons, and the retorts … while all this was going on, I was taking genteel coffee and chatting about the old days with one of his senior officers who was actively planning his surrender to the Russians and his subsequent post-war career. A man who knew he would be turned in by some, torn to pieces by others; whose salvation lay in convincing the Russian victors that he’d been some sort of camp hero. Amazing things happen in wartime!

  He ignored the sounds of hysteria wafting in through the attic window, and answered my question. ‘I was unemployed in 1930. Destitute. Thrown out of work with the Wall Street crash and the inflation. I worked in a factory making chocolates. I was talked of as being an up and coming young process worker, and the floor manager mentioned that if I keep up my work patterns, I might become a foreman. But then the Jews tried to take over the finances of the world by causing Wall Street to crash, and suddenly the factory closed down and my life became very difficult.

  ‘I remember wandering the streets and noticing the other young men who were unemployed. We met together, but we were always cold and hungry. Then Ernst Röhm started to put together an army of civilians. He fed us, clothed us, sheltered us, and gave us purpose. He trained us, inspired us, led us, told us who our enemies were, and he made us feel good about being Germans. That was the SA. We grew to the biggest civilian army in the history of the world. Six million men. We were invincible. But when Röhm insisted that the SA take over many of the duties of the Army, that was the end. Hitler was terrified that Röhm would equal him in stature. The last thing the Führer wanted was an equal and opposite power source.

  ‘So in 1934, Hitler had Röhm murdered, and the SA was amalgamated into the SS. We couldn’t believe it. We in the SA were six million tough young men. The SS numbered about a hundred thousand. You’d think that with our beloved leader Röhm shot like a dog, we would have risen up and taken over the government in our anger. But no. Somehow, the genius of Hitler made us realise that he was our leader, not Röhm. And that’s how I became an SS officer.’

  I looked at him, wondering whether to ask the next question. I had my life to lose, but for once, an SS man had more to lose than me. ‘Tell me, Hauptsturmführer, why do you hate Jews?’

  He looked at me strangely. And then it was as though he suddenly remembered something. He stood, said menacingly, ‘Never forget, Gutman, that even though we might lose this war, we will have lost because the nation has been stabbed in the back, once again, by the Jews; and at least for the next couple of weeks, I’m holding a gun,’ and stormed out of the room.

  I knew I had made a serious error of judgment. I’d overstepped the mark. I’d risked my life for an arrogant question. I was suddenly terrified. It wasn’t until my real friend, Wilhelm Deutch, entered the room through the door … yes, there was hardly anyone around in the administration centre any more, so nothing prevented Wilhelm from walking around the building and using the door … that my mind was put at ease.

  I told him what I’d said to Hauptsturmführer Frauenfeld. I waited for the mechanic’s anger at my indiscretion, my impulsiveness. But he shrugged, smiled, and said, ‘Good for you. About time those Nazi bastards were told a thing or two. Anyway, I’ve just been into his office, and he congratulated me on introducing you to him. He says you’ve done marvellously. You’ve almost completed two whole books, and they’re full of evidence to prove he saved Jews’ lives. He’s really pleased.’

  I remember feeling an intense moment of relief. I appreciated the irony of being so close to freedom, and yet to being shot and killed just as victory was mine. I remembered the stories about the young men killed on the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War, just minutes before the final ceasefire. How their families must have grieved for their special misfortune.

  ‘I’ve come here to say good-bye,’ Wilhelm said to me. I shook my head in incomprehension.

  ‘I have to return to Germany immediately, or I might be captured by the Russians and sent to Siberia,’ he said. ‘Your Hauptsturmführer is living in cuckoo land if he thinks that these damn books are going to save him from the executioner’s noose. He’ll hang, along with all the other Nazi concentration camp commanders. And many of the SS guards. But I don’t for one minute think that I or anyone can talk sense to the Russians. I know them. They’re madmen. And Stalin’s the worst of them all. So I’m afraid that this is the last time I’ll be seeing you. I can’t be captured, or they’ll definitely send me to Siberia.’

  ‘Siberia? Why would they send you there?’ I asked him.

  ‘That’s what they’re doing, it seems. Whenever they capture a brigade of our boys, they send them behind the enemy lines, and they’re not heard of again.’

  I panicked. I couldn’t lose him. He was my saviour. I had to try to save him. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘put on a dead prisoner’s uniform. Take his i
dentity. I’ll swear you’re a Jew, that you were a prisoner. That we were bunkmates in the barracks. I’ll tell them you were taken prisoner with me. You’ll be fine in my protection. I promise you.’

  At first, he looked at me like a father looks at his favourite child. But then the corners of his eyes wrinkled in that familiar smile of his. ‘Dear boy. How could I possibly pass for a Jew?’ He thumped his stomach. ‘Do I look starved like those poor bastards on the other side of the fence? And I haven’t been circumcised. I still have all my equipment, though God knows I haven’t used it in months.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I have to escape. I must go to Berlin right now and try to find my wife and daughter. The Reich can’t protect them anymore, and so I have to. Today is January 17. The talk is that the Russians will be here within two weeks. Maybe even ten days. Our defense is crumbling.’

  ‘Take me with you,’ I pleaded. ‘I don’t want you to leave me here. You’ve saved my life on so many occasions. You fed me, gave me rest. You saved me from the gas chambers. You can’t just go!’

  I thought I could see tears in his eyes. ‘If I take you, you’ll be shot by the SS, or by the Wehrmacht; or maybe by the Allies for associating with me. I’m filth now, in the eyes of the world. But you’re not. You’re going to be a hero of the world. You’re a Jew, and you’ve survived what the Third Reich tried to do to you. I’m a German. From now on, I have to avoid being shot. We have to separate. Go our own ways. We’ll meet up again, my dear friend. Of that you can be sure. The mechanic will never be far from your thoughts.’