by Larry Kramer
* * *
During my years in Mungel I knew I was being watched, and not just by Grodzo. There was a small windowed room in the back of my classroom where faces could be seen watching through it. In fact, there are observation rooms in much of the camp. I always tried to see if and when anyone had come to look at me. Perhaps my father. Perhaps Mr. Standing. Or their friend Brinestalker. Once, I saw Mr. Hoover. He nodded a tiny bit as if to say, Not now. Tonight, as I’m seeing the dawn of the city with my new friend, a man appears from some basement’s rubble. I recognize his face, from watching me through that window. He pulls us apart, me and my new friend. Then he takes me aside and talks to me very sternly.
“I’ve come to lead you out of this collapsing city. Don’t you remember me? I’m your father’s friend, Amos Standing. No, I am your father’s lover. You probably don’t know what that means. It means we love each other and can’t bear to be separated as we are now. He’s gone back home, to his wife and to your brothers. I want you to know this because our trip will be dangerous and if something happens to us, it’s information that both your father and I want you to have.”
As if to underline this, more airplanes fly overhead and drop more bombs. Immediately there are more giant fires. He grabs me to him.
Amos Standing is an ordinary-looking man. I remember that about him now, from having seen him with my father and Mr. Brinestalker just after we arrived. You couldn’t pick him out in a crowd. But I can see he has become much older-looking than when we were all together at Wannsee.
“The Brits have been bombing Berlin regularly. Hitler has decided it’s time to evacuate nonessential people, which means you and me. He sees what is happening. Hamburg is almost destroyed. Half of Berlin has been destroyed. He is not a person to trust even when things go well. Tomorrow he could change his mind and we could both wind up in a camp. You must not stay with this young man. He has run away from Hitler.”
I go and take Klaus’s hand and won’t let go. Mr. Standing shrugs and we walk to a gigantic film studio that’s withstood the bombing. Mr. Standing calls it UFA. “It’s the biggest film studio outside Hollywood.” The place is scattered with scenery for movies waiting to be filmed. “Everyone who was anyone worked here,” Mr. Standing says. “Ulrike Ferme, Lotte Weimar, Lauritz Lorengau, even Greta Garbo.” Then he explains that the studio is still set up for the filming of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which he outlines to me in a way that I don’t understand. He tells me he’s worked here on many movies. “It was a part of my job.” He takes us on a tour. The hanging dead bodies aren’t real, he tells us. Most of these “dead” people are dressed in leather and chains, and wear masks and carry whips. Penises and breasts are naked. There are naked people piled on top of each other everywhere. Mr. Standing says it’s all meant to convey “debauchery and eroticism,” two words he defines for me. After all I’ve seen these past years, it seems almost funny. When I say so, he laughs loudly.
“Oh, my dear young David, you will do just fine.”
Klaus doesn’t understand why we’re laughing. Mr. Standing doesn’t understand why Klaus is still here. “Leave us alone,” he snaps, and Klaus goes off into the studio’s darkness. There are many places to hide inside this place.
“Don’t be cruel to Klaus,” I say, but Mr. Standing has been called away by an assistant who appears out of nowhere.
I walk on. I trip over a body. It’s an old man with a full white beard and watery eyes, and he’s alive.
“Sit down and talk to me. I am waiting to die and God is not taking me. I pray He will. You do not recognize me, I am certain. My name is Gotz, Stiller Gotz. I know who you are. I have heard about you. You are the American boy who remained unharmed at Mungel. Someone special protects you. Do you know who it is?”
I admit I do not. The thought hasn’t occurred to me.
“How can you know so little? Have you no opinion of what you have seen and endured?”
I admit again that I do not.
“Then I have no hope for you, young man, as a human being.”
My eyes fill with tears. After all this time of questioning nothing in case something worse happened to me, this old man makes me cry. He, too, takes me into his arms.
“There, there, my child, sudden safety, or something that is perceived as safety, can do this to you. Now that you are free you must promise henceforth you will look at everything directly and ask yourself, ‘What is going on here?’ Will you promise me this?”
I nod uncomprehendingly. I ask him why he’s here.
“I was directing the greatest film this studio ever made. It is destroyed now in all this rubble. Each visit by the Royal Air Force destroys more of our culture and heritage. I will stay here to die with it. Five years we were shooting this film. Until this month of November 1943, fifteen years of work is destroyed in a few nights and days. I directed a cast of twenty-seven hundred actors.” He grabs my hand, pulls himself up with great effort, and leads me to the canteen, which is filled with boys my own age, all eating canned goods right out of the tins.
“These children have been brought here from Golsterhauf, my ancestral family home just inside the French border. The French are as repellent as the Germans. These sweet harmless youngsters were imprisoned there because they were students in my theatrical school and because they were … not masculine enough. I left two hundred sweet young men in Golsterhauf dead. Imagine murdering youngsters because they bend their wrists the wrong way. These you see here are all I could lead away. We shall all be dead soon enough.”
I notice Mr. Standing and Klaus sitting at a table, apparently deep in conversation. Gotz follows my gaze.
“Everyone knows who the pretty youngster is. He is one of Hitler’s boyfriends. I cannot imagine how he escaped. The situation must be very dire in the Führer’s bunker. I wonder if the Americans are near. They certainly have been taking their time. They are probably fucking all the women along the way. Women are so desperate for men they even jump on the enemy’s soldiers. People are so desperate for any kind of affection they fuck strangers anywhere. In the hallways of the packed hotels. In the subway cars. In the air raid shelters. No one cares if they are witnessed. The Americans must hurry or everyone will have syphilis by the time they free us. The Russian soldiers will be worse and it is said there are more of them. Most of these boys that you will see here have syphilis, so be careful.
“Your people own this country already, so you should come and get us and take us to America and truly get your money’s worth. I would be most happy to direct a film in Hollywood. You do not know that America owns Germany? It is true. Many of your richest people have been investing in us for years. They thought we were going to win the war. They want us to win the war. Can you imagine that? Our studio here is run by Americans. From Hollywood. Your friend over there. We are part of an industry controlled by I.G. Farben, the most frightening business in the entire world. How do I know this? Because I am the son who knows too much and must run away. I do not expect to live to tell what little pieces of truth I know. I tell everyone with the hope that they will float in a magic bottle to tell the world the whole hideous truth of the hatred that is Deutschland. But there are too many little pieces of truth, blowing too fast in the wind and too far and wide in the land to be gathered up. There is no direct journey to truth. I do not know why I even raise the possibility. Germany will never be capable of truth. Promise you will try to remember what I say and that you will tell what you remember to whomever you can if you ever get out of this prison that was once a great country. My name is not Gotz. That is my masquerade name, my runaway name. My name is Schmitz. My father is Hermann Schmitz. He is the head of I.G. Farben, the largest chemical company in the world. It manufactures everything that is bad. The gas in the ovens is I.G. Farben gas. One day no one will remember the name Schmitz. The bad history is always erased. Without Schmitz there would have been no Hitler. Without Ford and Rockefeller and National City Bank and Chase Bank and Standard Oil and D
uPont and Alcoa and Dow and IBM and … there would have been no Hitler. Do you have a court of law to condemn your industrialists for treason against their own country? Without them there would be no Schmitz. Particularly Henry Ford. Because of Ford they all climbed on board. Ford convinced them that Germany would win and to place bets on both sides just in case. Henry Ford would destroy any place on earth as long as there was a Jew still living in it. The world will never know or believe this, that Henry Ford hates Jews even more than Hitler does. That there should be a God who gives the miracle of the automobile so everyone can drive around to say hello to everyone else, that this miracle comes from such a monster! When the war is over everything I am telling you will be buried just as I will have been buried, under all this rubble, with my masterpiece that will never be made or seen. Why does no one know that without my own father, without these American companies, this war could not have been waged, the nightmare dreams of this monster could not have been made real? That is not too much to remember. All your Jewish people have been murdered by my father, Herr Hermann Schmitz, and my father’s company, I.G. Farben, and my father’s mad puppet, Herr Adolf Hitler, and their friend your Mr. Henry Ford. I repeat it and repeat it. Every bit of evidence will have long since been destroyed. Can you remember? I do not want to hear your answer.” He has seen Mr. Standing coming toward us. He moves off quickly into the jumbled scenery of his unmade film.
“I see you have met our crazy man,” Mr. Standing says. “There are a lot of crazy people wandering around everywhere spouting insane messages.”
“He said he was a famous film director.”
“Well, he was that.”
“Did you work with him here?”
“That is a long story I will tell you at a more propitious time and in a more suitable place. But yes. I ran this studio for Mr. Adolf Hitler.”
“And my father helped you?”
“No, your father’s hands are clean. That is enough for you to know for now.”
* * *
That nighttime there is a wild party. Dozens of costumed young men appear out of the cracks, their faces and bodies painted crazily. They make me laugh. Gotz rushes among them, trying to embrace them all. “It is too late for me to make you a star,” he cries as he kisses one after another. They lift him up and parade him around. They sing rousing songs from their film. I didn’t know such fun existed. When the music becomes soft and romantic I find myself in Klaus’s arms as we move in time to the music. The other boys are all kissing one another. Klaus kisses me. Mr. Standing comes to separate us. “I do not think it wise, David, for you to continue this friendship.” He pulls me brutally away from my new friend. I don’t like this, and when I make it known Mr. Standing slaps me hard across my face. “You don’t know what you are talking about!” He pushes me out of this room of dancing and fun and yanks me along until we’re back in the small room where we’ve been waiting for someone who doesn’t come. “You must trust me. If it weren’t for me you’d be dead. There is no one else to lead you to freedom except me.” He doesn’t let me out of his sight from now on.
He tells me the next morning that in the night two SS men had come to take Klaus back to Hitler.
“Don’t ever think that you’ll be safe anywhere, perhaps for the rest of your life.”
“What do you mean?” I find myself grabbing him. “I thought I was free now. And that you’d come to save me.”
He grabs me in return. “I’m sorry. We must hold on to each other. We will get back to our country and find our new lives.”
There is much confusion from the party. A bomb, several bombs have ignited in the studio and Gotz has been set on fire and is now dead.
“I don’t think it was an accident,” Mr. Standing says softly, still holding me. I feel him shiver. It occurs to me that he must know as much as Gotz and perhaps there will be an accident to set us on fire as well. I am amazed to realize this doesn’t terrify me as it does him. I am used to being frightened, so much so that it makes me not frightened. I have been told this now several times. I wonder what use this will have for me.
* * *
The planes come throughout the night to bomb again and again. We are forced out into the darkness. The studio isn’t safe. I try to watch as it goes up in flames but Mr. Standing picks me up and carries me. He’s bigger and stronger than I thought. As he dodges great pieces of destroyed buildings and roadway he breathlessly mumbles things about my father. He tells me that he and Father have been lovers for many years, since they were young men at college. He tells me Father is afraid to leave Mother and come live with him, even though he’s miserable at home with her and my brothers, who ignore him. He tells me how tender my father is in bed when they make love. He has tears in his eyes. He tells me that safety is still a long way away but he will get me back to America.
“Isn’t this the end of the war?”
“Good heavens, no. Not by a long shot. The Brits fly over and do this to us every week.”
“Then why are we free to go?”
“Because I asked Hitler to let us go now.”
Then he suddenly starts to cry.
“I tell you this because if we don’t live I beg your forgiveness in Heaven. You have been here because of me. When your father threatened to go back to America, I was so afraid he was leaving me for good that I went crazy. I had you kidnapped from your grandmother and abducted to Mungel, where I could keep an eye on you. I knew Dr. Grodzo, and he promised to watch over you in exchange for an American visa. And Philip left me anyway. He said he had to check up on things at home and would be right back. Now, of course, he can’t come here and let us hope we can still get there. Your own father left you because my love frightened him. But when I went to get you, I couldn’t get you out. Mungel had been transformed, almost overnight. All avenues of escape from Germany were closed, even for me. I was stranded here too. Hitler had me at UFA making his propaganda films. I’m talking like a crazy man, trying to tell you everything in ten minutes. I work for Hitler. I’ve been in charge of what we in America call his public relations. I really work for an American company run by a man named Ivy Lee who took care of Hitler personally. I was his protégé, Ivy Lee’s, but now he’s died and I’ve had no instructions from America. His work with Hitler was his secret. Now it’s mine, and it’s never good to be alone with such a secret.”
And then he mumbles over and over again into my neck.
“If I don’t get you home will you forgive me? Will you? Will your father forgive me? If I don’t get you home. Safely. To Philip. You do love Philip, don’t you? As I do? Why did he leave us here? I want to go home. Like you.”
Now he is bawling. Bombs and explosions and huge bonfires punctuate every word and thought and moment. How are we ever going to get out of here? He is acting like a big sissy.
DAME LADY HERMIA BLEDD-WRENCH LAUNCHES MY HISTORY OF EVIL
With some trepidation, I fear it is time for me to take further hold of our history. Young David’s history should alert us all to the necessity of this, of focus, of direction. I know that British Greeting wants its history of UC, that Hadriana Totem wants hers as well, and that Fred also expects something erudite and convincing from us all. But I now see that this one must be for me. I don’t believe I’ve ever written anything for me. Everything has always been to please or convince or educate someone else. Am I saying I am uneducated in evil? I confess I am. Everyone is. It is time to rectify this failing, if only for myself. Did not Virginia Woolf say that the best writing was usually done for oneself?
It is getting much too complicated for the layperson (excuse me, Fred) or for an American (excuse me, Fred and Grace and now Daniel) to carry on from here alone, and in such a nonunified fashion. You all should know—and embrace this fact—that America is unaware of the rest of the world. This has been both one of your gifts to yourself and your failure to others. But then, you guys never do know that, and you’re certainly not looking at this truth foursquare in the face.
I have been dilly-dallying and I should not have been, but for not wanting to spoil my thus far impeccable manners by rudely barging in. I am a guest in your country and a guest in this history. But as we have got caught up in fleshing out The Underlying Condition to its necessary ignominy and as this Second World War was the true jumping-off point for UC, someone from another part of the forest must obviously be summoned to show you which of the trees that you planted must be pulled up and out by their roots.
Forgive my brutal honesty. David is giving me courage. The great German social philosopher Hannah Arendt, whom I’ve just discovered, is giving me courage.
Increasingly, all of humanity’s leading poisons were slowly being run up flagpoles in locations distant to your own present spheres of concern. Hate, extermination, “scientific” researches into unheard-of means of killing each other—they simply must forthwith make a more furious entry into this history. I can see now that they interest you insufficiently or you lack a belief system that can make room for the evil I am talking about.