Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance

by War

  The Commandant has in fact been pleased by his first glimpse of the fine paper and the good printing job. The schedule started off well-.

  REICHSFOHRER visrr

  KONZENTRATIONSLAGER Auschwitz

  First Day

  0800-0830. Aerodrome. Arrival and reception. Motorcade to Base Camp.

  0830-0845. Parade Ground. Trooping of colors.

  Band serenade. Honor review of troops.

  08454)930 Officers' Mess. Breakfast, with map demonstration of camp layout.

  0930-1000. Architect's Office, Central Planning Board.

  Reichsffahrer SS views models: Vistula dam, new drainage canal system, animal husbandry center, Birkenau Camp.

  1000-1100. Motor Tour. Monowice, Raisko, Budy.

  General view: I. G. Farben construction, dam site, agricultural areas, reclaimed lands, botanical laboratories, tree nurseries, stock breeding sector.

  1100-1330. SPECIAL.

  1330-1500. Lunch.

  It was on seeing these last two items that the Commandant has thrown the schedule in his adjutant's face and ordered him upstairs.

  Screaming so that the whole household hears him through closed doors, and his children quake in their rooms, and his wife and cook in the kitchen exchange scared looks, the Commandant demands an explanation. The trembling adjutant stammers that the railway directorate at Oppeln has scheduled the transport arrival before lunch, with instructions to expedite the return of the emptied train. If the Commandant will telephone Oppeln to see if the cars can be retained in the Auschwitz yards for a few more hours, then perhaps the Jews can just wait in the cars and get off after lunch.

  The explosion that follows is the worst the Commandant's wife has ever heard. The Himmler visit, she thinks, is making nervous wrecks of everybody. How glad she will be when it is over! He has gotten dead drunk every night for a week, taken strong sedatives, and yet he has not slept. This job is too much. As for the children and herself, the sooner they get out, the better. The flood of new toys and picture books day by day for the young ones, the fine clothes for the big boy, the excellent servants, expert gardeners, the stacks -of -lovely expensive underwear and negligees for herself are all very well, but a decent home life would be better than any of that.

  Upstairs the-Commandant is roaring that the whole schedule will be printed again at once. The SPECIAL item will come after lunch as ordered. He, the Commandant, personally orders this. The train will remain in the freight yard as long as necessary! If the Oppeln railway directors have doubts, they can take a few months in the Auschwitz quarantine camp to think it over. This is REICHSFUHRER SS BUSINESS!

  Understood? Nothing, nothing can interfere. What idiotic asshole could think of showing a special operation to the Reichsfuhrer before lunch? What kind of appetite will he have to eat after that?

  This is the - gist of a ten-minute chewing-out that has the adjutant, himself a hardened SS captain with a Sachsenhausen background, whey-faced and shaking as a Jew before a quarantine camp flogging. Never has the Commandant thrown a fit like this. He himself is trembling all over when he dismisses the adjutant, who hurries out and barely makes it to the garden before throwing up everything in his stomach, with blood streaks in the vomited mess.

  The Commandant gulps half a tumbler of brandy. It calms him.

  When he goes down to lunch the gnawing at his gut is gone. He eats well, and is pleasanter to his wife and children than he has been in a month. The rest of the schedule, after all, looks good. But God in heaven, if he had not insisted on seeing that printed schedule! His old rule never fails -"the eye of the master!"

  The train has been waiting out of sight around the bend.

  Now its mournful whistle blows at five minutes to three.

  The Reichsfuhrer SS and his high-brass aides stand with the Commandant on the long wooden platform, waiting. Happily, it is another beautiful day. The leafy trees around the siding give pleasant shade from the hot afternoon sun. They have aB lunched heartily at the senior officers' mess, and so far the whole inspection tour has been going smoothly.

  Himmler has been very gracious about the stalled dam. He has obviously been impressed by the camp's explosive growth. He has shown real delight in the agricultural installations"always his pet Auschwitz undertaking, farmer that he is. The impressive unfinished I.

  G. Farben structure at Monowice has won his approval, too. The Commandant is on pins and needles. If this business goes off without a hitch, positive results from the visit may well impend.

  The smoke of the locomotive shows over the trees. The train pulls into sight. It is a small transport, deliberately planned that way by the Commandant; ten freight cars, about eight hundred people. The Kattowitz police have held them rounded up for several days. The bunker can take just about eight hundred, tightly packed. Himmler's personal letter to the Commandant was specific: "a whole action, from the beginning to the end." Two shifts would have dragged the thing out and depressed the Reichsfuhrer SS. It will be bad enough as it is!

  The Commandant has watched the process many times "the eye of the master" -but he has never gotten quite used to it. He is tough.

  He knows that the Reichsfuhrer is tough.

  He knows about Himmler's visit to a Special Action Unit in Russia during the dispatch of a lot of Jews. Crude stuff, that, from what he has heard: making them dig their own mass grave, then mowing them down and burying them, clothes and all. The Auschwitz process is far more humane, practical, German. Still, in its own way it is sad. The commandant knows how hard it is on his own officers. He is intensely curious to see how Heinrich Himmler will take it. After all, it is a damn sticky proceeding. What if Germany loses the war?

  The Commandant never voices such doubts, naturally. He squelches the faintest hint from his subordinates. Still, these thoughts do trouble him every now and then.

  The train stops. The Jews begin to descend. SS guards along the edge of the siding stand back, avoiding any bullying or menacing appearance. These are Jews from a big town, and they look prosperous.

  They blink in the sunlight as they clumsily tumble out of the cattle cars, helping down the old people, the cripples, and the youngsters.

  They peer around anxiously, the women holding their children close.

  But they show no great alarm, and listen intently to Untersturmfuhrer Hessler's smooth announcement about where they will be housed, what skills are most in demand, and SO on and SO forth. It is convincing stuff at that. Hessler and his sidekick Aumaier keep polishing and improving the spiel.

  Next, the Jews line up for the selection without difficulty.

  Soon the few men picked for the labor camp march off on foot through the thick trees toward Birkenau. The rest climb quietly into the waiting trucks. The abandoned platform is piled high with their baggage; handsome goods, a lot of real leather there. It will be quite a haul when the cleanup squad sorts it out. The Jews really seem to believe everything Hessler has said, down to the detail that the luggage will all be delivered to their living quarters. Living quarters! There is something very human in their credulity. Nobody wants to believe he is about to die, especially on such a pretty June day, with the sun shining and birds chirping in the trees. Some of the Jews cast apprehensive looks at the clump of SS officers watching the process; but it does not seem to the Commandant that any of them recognize the great Reichsfuhrer SS Himmler. Maybe they are too preoccupied.

  The loaded trucks wait while the SS party drives ahead to the bunker site for a quick look around. The Commandant is proud of its innocuous appearance. DISINFECTION, reads the large wooden sign by the roadside.

  One sees only a large thatched peasant cottage like thousands in Polish villages,. set in an apple orchard. On the cottage door, a neat arrow sign says, This Way to Disinfection. The undressing huts, new structures of raw wood a few meters away, are not in the least scary. The inspection party enters the hut labelled Women and Children. Benches line the wans under numbered hooks where the Jews will hang
and fold their clothes. A sign on the wall reads in several languages: Remember your hook number, to recover your belongings after the disinfection!

  Fold clothes neatly!

  Be tidy!

  No unnecessary talking!

  The. hot sun makes for a strong smell of fresh lumber in the hut, which mingles with the sweet scent of the apple blossoms drifting through the open door. Himmler offers no comments. His short, characteristically sharp and jerky nod shows he has seen enough: on to the next thing!

  The SS officers cross the orchard and enter the cottage.

  Here the very heavy wooden doors on the four big empty whitewashed rooms, and the back door with a large sign reading This Way to Bathroom, look somewhat odd. An SS man in a white coat stands in the corridor beside a table piled with towels and bars of soap. The odor here is of some powerful disinfectant. The room doors are hooked open.

  The Commandant unhooks one, and shows Himmler the heavy bars that will screw the doors airtight. Wordlessly, he indicates the wall apertures where the gas crystals will tumble in. The Reichsfuhrer SS nods. He makes an inquiring gesture at the sign about the bathroom.

  "Leads outside," says the Commandant. "Disposal."

  Short jerky nod.

  The trucks rumble up. The inspection party leaves the bunker and gathers under some apple trees, at a discreet distance, to watch the operation.

  In the leading truck, as usual, are about a dozen of the Sonderkommandos, the squad of Jewish prisoners required to take part in the process. This small subsquad consists of Sonderkommandos who know several languages. They jump from their truck And run to assist their fellow,Jews out of the other trucks. They are dressed respectably in civilian clothing: in this warm weather, good shirts, trousers, and leather shoes. No striped suits for these Sonderkommandos, and no wooden clogs, of course,- only the obligatory striped camp cap. They help down the women and kids, talking in Yiddish or Polish about the disinfection procedure, the camp accommodations, the working conditions. By now the transport Jews have only a few minutes to live, so no chances are taken.

  The SS guards line up in a double cordon from the trucks to the undressing hut, with dogs, guns, and clubs. The Jews have no choice but to march straight on to the hut, accompanied by the Sonderkommandos, who are describing the food, the mail service, and the visiting privileges. These fellows will go all the way into the bunker with them, maintaining the humane hoax to the very last second, as the Commandant explains to the silent Himmler. They will dart outside only when the SS guards actually march in to bolt the gas-tight doors.

  In his explanation the Commandant does not give credit to Aumaier and Hessler, the two SS Officers who have worked up this really clever arrangement of the Sonderkomma ndos.

  After all, not they, but he himself will get the blame if something goes wrong! But these officers did create the whole concept.

  They train the Sonderkommandos in groups.

  Periodically they gas them and train more. Sonderkommandos are recruited from the new arrivals in the quarantine camp; the weak, the easily terrified, the ratty ones who tend to collapse under the shock of Auschwitz conditions, are the ones to look for. Hessler and Aumaier select them, isolate them in a special blockhouse, and confront them with this assignment in no uncertain terms. They can do as they are told and live, or they can be shot at once. That is their choice.

  There are always enough Sonderkommandos, though many prefer the Kugel, the bullet in the neck, terrorized though they are. They get their request. But even afterward there are those who break down on the job; try to warn the new arrivals, or even to undress and commit suicide with them.

  The SS keeps a sharp eye out for these, and usually_-catches them.

  They get a punishment designed to discourage the others; they are burned alive. Sound practice.

  As the Commandant watches these wretches urging women and children along to their doom, he wonders at them, as always. How can they be so absolutely dead to all natural feelings, particularly toward their co-religionists? Jews are a riddle, that's all. He steals a look at Heinrich Himmler, and gets a nasty shock. Himmler is looking glassily and fixedly at him. The Commandant realizes with a cold shudder that this may be the decisive moment of the whole inspection, the only real point of it. The ReischsFuhrer has come to see with his own eyes "the eye of the master" -whether the Commandant of Auschwitz has what it takes. If he flinches now, shows the slightest nervousness or, compunction, it is his career, possibly his neck. How long can he be allowed to live, knowing what he knows, if he can't cut the mustard?

  He has seen SS men-high-placed ones, too-get a Kugel..

  The Jews are hurrying now in a drove toward the undressing hut.

  He sees a sight that unexpectedly tries his taut nerves. A dog lunges and barks at a child, no more than four or five years old, a little girl in a short blue dress who looks a lot like his own youngest daughter: fair hair, blue eyes, round, German face, nothing "Jewish" about her. The pretty little thing shrinks against her mother and screams. The mother catch her up in her arms and to distract her, she breaks off a small branch of apple blossoms and holds it to the little girl's nose. So they disappear into the hut among the crowding Jews.

  The Commandant has seen dozens of pathetic incidents here; but something about the look of that little girl, the mother's impulsive seizing of the flowering branch-the mother, too, didn't look Jewish.

  The propaganda caricatures are stuff and nonsense; these mortal enemies of the Reich look like any other Europeans, most of them. He has found that out long ago. The Commandant feels a pain in his gut; the cramps are starting up again. He puts on his stoniest face.

  Now at least it will go fast.

  The SS double cordon lines up again in a tight path from the hut to the cottage. The naked men come out first, as always a sorry crowd-tubby ones, scrawny ones, cripples, gray or bald ones-their sorry circumcised cocks shrunken up with fright, no doubt. He seldom sees a Jew with a really big cock here. Maybe the able-bodied ones are more virile.

  The fully dressed Sonderkommandos among them are still talking, trying to cheer them up. But now these Jews are too close to death not to show it on-their faces. The Sonderkom,O mandos, too, have sick expressions. The Commandant is tough, but he never likes to look at the faces of the Jews walking to the bunker, especially the men.

  Somehow the women have more courage. Or maybe the shock to their modesty distracts them; that, and concern for their kids. They do not look so ghastly as they come out next and troop naked through the two rows of young German uniformed men. These SS men are under strict orders to keep silent and serious, but nevertheless they can't help smirking at some of the lovely ones. There are always pretty ones among them, and after all, there is nothing in the world more charming than a naked woman; and when she is carrying or leading a nude child, in a strange way it adds to her beauty.

  This, for the Commandant, has always been the supreme moment of the process, in its beauty, sadness, and terror-the walk of the naked women with their children to the bunker. He wants to look at Himmler, but he is afraid to. He keeps his face rigid, yet he almost loses his composure when, among the last of the women coming out of the cottage, he sees the mother who broke the branch. She has a sweet figure, poor creature. Like so many of the others, she has uncovered her tits so as to hold the child in one arm and protect her cunt with the other.

  Invariably they will let the tits go, if they carry a baby, to cover their bushes; it is a strange fact of feminine nature. But what shakes the Commandant is the sight of the naked little girl. She is still holding the branch of apple blossoms.

  The last woman's pink backside disappears into the cottage. The SS men dash in, and out come the Sonderkommandos, with the white-coated man who stood by the soap and towels. The inspection party can hear the loud slamming of the doors, and the screeching of the bolts that fasten them tight. The Red Cross ambulance, which has driven up during the undressing time, now disgorges the SS men from the san
itary squad in their gas masks, carrying the cans of cyanide crystals. After the naked women, not a very handsome sight!

  But it's nasty stuff they handle. The precautionary rules are strict. They do their job in a few moments, opening the cans and dumping them into the wall slots. They pile back into the ambulance, and off it goes.

  The Commandant, keeping his voice absolutely steady, asks the Reichsfuhrer SS if he would like to listen at the bunker door and look in. Himmler goes with the Commandant, listens and looks. A transport of Jews sounds different inside; mournful, resigned, almost prayerful wails and groans, not the animal screeches and bellows of Russian prisoners or Polacks. As Himmler puts his eye to the peephole, his face contorts: a grimace of disgust or a smile of amusement, the Commandant cannot be sure.

  Himmler does a surprising thing. He asks an aide for a cigarette.

  Like the Fuhrer, Himmler does not smoke, or is reputed not to.