A Kind of Woman

by Helen Burko

  “It would take too long to describe in detail the hard work and bad food, but at least Mathilda hadn’t lied to me. Thanks to my knowledge of German, I think I survived.”

  After a few more questions about the behavior of Mathilda and Krackel, Betty was turned over to the defense. Jacob rose from his chair and approached her. “What do you think, Mrs. Grasolska? Do you think the accused could have done more for you and for the thousands of prisoners in the camps?”

  “Of course she could have!” said Betty forcefully. “Her husband was an important man in the Gestapo. Mathilda was his wife or his mistress. She could have intervened for us with the head of the camp to make life a little easier for us.”

  “Why do you think she didn’t do that?” Jacob didn’t let up.

  “Because… Because the only things that interested her were her lessons. We were of no value in her eyes, only to be used for certain purposes, while at the same time, she lived a normal life full of happiness. Maybe because she thought it was right to kill us…”

  “Did the accused torture the women in the camp or shoot them by herself?” Jacob continued.

  “I don’t know if she shot anyone. That contemptible work was done by others. I didn’t see her shoot anyone. But to bring out the women in the middle of the night for an inspection, after they had worked hard all day, that’s also a torture. It’s torture to stand there in line, worn out and dejected, tired and hungry, and to know that your life depended on the whims of Mathilda or her lover, the Gestapo officer.”

  “How did they behave toward you in their home?”

  “Politely, of course! To tell the truth, when I saw Krackel in his home, I found it hard to believe this man could kill another or do him harm. He had the face of a student—handsome—and the manners of an aristocrat. But when he came to the camp in his uniform with his dog, everybody trembled. A wink of his eye could send you to the gas chamber.”

  “And her?”

  “I already described her. In her house, she was like anybody else, but in the camp she was tense, arrogant, every look sharp as an arrow. My God, I couldn’t believe they were the same people! What affection they showed the dog and the cat and to each other. Once I saw him drunk, and that loosened his tongue. He called the prisoners ‘garbage’ and said his greatest pleasure was to hold inspections, for then he could shoot some of the ‘garbage.’”

  “Do you think Mathilda knew what was going on in the camp? I mean the gas chambers, the beatings, the experiments, and so forth?”

  “Without a doubt!”

  “Do you think she could have stopped them from using the gas chambers, stopped them from beating the prisoners or torturing them?”

  “That’s a complicated question,” Betty said quietly. “It’s not for me to judge in such a matter, but I think that many Mathildas and many Krackels, if they had been different than what they really were, could have, without a doubt, had an influence, could have upheld the dignity of innocent people, and could have done away with the gas chambers.”

  “Where do you think that sadistic conduct came from?” asked Jacob.

  But here the prosecutor shouted, “Objection! This is psychology!”

  Jacob deferred and announced he had no more questions. The prosecution also had no additional questions.

  After Betty, more witnesses were called, mostly former inmates of concentration camps, disabled veterans, widows, and women who didn’t know the fate of their husbands. These witnesses came forward voluntarily.

  One young widow, Diana Doron, said tearfully, “I’m lucky I was never in a German concentration camp. I’m a native New Yorker, and I can imagine what our fate would have been, God forbid, if Hitlerism had conquered the world. Even so, my husband, Richard, died fighting the Germans. I loved my husband and he loved me. We had a wonderful life together. We brought two children into the world, and our happiness was complete. We could have lived a long, respectable life if it hadn’t been for the terrible war Hitler forced on the world!”

  *****

  A man of twenty-five who had the face of a boy and blue eyes and blond hair came in on crutches. After he was sworn in and gave all the personal information, he said, “I’m a cripple who lost both his legs in the war with the Nazis, and to this day, I’m sorry I couldn’t have returned to the front and shot a few more of those Germans. The eight Germans I already killed are not enough to pay for my two legs. I loved to walk and dance, but all that has been taken away from me, and who’s to blame? I don’t have to tell you.”

  *****

  “Half-naked, I escaped from the pits we dug in the ground after the SS fired at us,” stated a fellow who looked like a typical American. “While I was running away, a bullet hit me in my hand, and in the hospital, they had to cut off that hand. But even with an artificial hand, I could shoot a few hundred more of those barbarians.”

  *****

  “I worked in the group that burned the bodies of the dead in the crematoriums in Auschwitz,” said an immigrant man of about thirty. “I am the only survivor of that group because I succeeded in escaping in spite of the heavy SS guard. I’ll never forget the horror of those days.”

  *****

  “I spent the years of the war hiding in a bunker,” related a slim, dark-eyed young girl of sixteen. “I sat there together with my parents, my two brothers, and my younger sister. One day, the Ukrainians informed on us, and the SS came, took all of us out, and shot us. I only saw my father and mother shot because then I fainted. When I recovered consciousness, I had only been wounded. I saw my mother and father, my two brothers, and my sister all dead on the ground. I burst into tears and ran to the woods not far from the place all my family had been shot. After losing my way in the forest and wandering around like an animal, hungry and frightened, a group of partisans found me, and so I survived.”

  *****

  “From my town, which numbered fourteen thousand, only a few are left,” told a middle-aged Jewish man. “The SS came and took all the people out of the town and shot them. Hundreds were buried alive. I succeeded, by some miracle, in escaping.”

  *****

  An erect but dejected-looking old man told his story. “I had an only son, a major in the reserves. When America began to send the best of our sons abroad, my son was sent against his will. He left and didn’t return. I am now alone because my grandson, the only son of my son, also fell in the war. Who will give me back what I lost? What have I to look forward to?”

  *****

  “For three years, I lived with Aryan documents,” said another witness. “As a result of the war, I have tuberculosis.”

  A dark-haired, dark-eyed woman related, “I worked in a factory where we made mattresses from the hair of the women. It’s difficult for me to express what I felt while I was doing that contemptible work. There was also much blond hair like the pure Aryan girls. Now mattresses make me vomit!”

  A young man of twenty whose eyes expressed much sorrow and grief sat in the witness box and didn’t know what to do with his hands as he talked. “I worked in a factory where they made soap out of human fat. That soap was called ‘reef.’ I can never wipe out the memory of the horror and consternation I felt as I worked there in that factory. That became an important industry in Germany.”

  *****

  An oppressive feeling was left after the testimony of a gypsy woman named Bazilia. She was a tall woman of about forty-five with large, dark eyes, a straight nose, and a dark complexion, and she wore a colorful dress, boots, and large earrings.

  “I am a gypsy!” she said after she was sworn in. “I came from the forests of Poland to America; I came here after Europe sickened me. I have wandered all my life with my husband, Bazil, my children, some horses, and a wagon that we owned all over the land of Poland, and sometimes we would cross the border to other countries. We had no land or a permanent home. We didn’t rob any man or his home or harm anyone. We would travel to fairs to trade our horses, for that was the business that my husband liked
—horses. When we came to a town, I would go to the farmers’ houses with my smallest baby in my arms and tell their fortune according to the cards. My work would often comfort a discouraged soul. In exchange, I would receive some food.

  “In addition to trading horses, my husband could play the violin. His gypsy tunes would gladden the hearts of men. He wouldn’t ask for money when he played; he liked to make people joyful. We loved to dance and play at the fairs, and our children learned to live as we did.

  “One day—in 1942, it was—the SS gathered a large group of gypsies. They took us, together with thousands of Jews, to a field and imprisoned us there with fences of barbed wire. Three days they held us there without food or water, and they surrounded us with guards so we wouldn’t escape. My husband and another Jew did escape, and they came back with cutting pliers. They cut the fence, and we all tried to flee. In our panic, people stepped on people. The Germans opened fire on us with machine guns. People fell like dead flies. Children screamed, but they didn’t even have pity on them and fired on them, too. I succeeded in escaping and hiding in the forest, but my husband and children were killed.”

  Tears rolled down Bazilia’s cheeks, and she couldn’t go on.

  *****

  These were a few witnesses called by the prosecution to emphasize the extent of the tragedy that the SS had caused and the fact that Mathilda was one of their helpers. The spectators listened to them all silently and intently. It seemed that only now, after all the testimony of all the witnesses, was the magnitude of the tragedy the war had brought to millions of people clearly seen and felt.

  What suffering and sorrow, mused Jacob as he heard the testimony. You walk down the street, sit in the theater, travel in a train, go to a bar or restaurant, and you don’t feel the tragedy, as if it hadn’t happened, as if there never had been a war in the world, but here…

  When it was his turn to interrogate the witnesses, Jacob couldn’t ask them anything. He announced quietly, “I have no questions.”

  But there were other witnesses whom he encouraged to tell more of their tragedies, and it gave the impression that he was on the side of the prosecution and not the defense attorney of the accused. Sometimes the questions he asked were absurd in the eyes of the spectators and drew laughter from them.

  “Don’t you suppose that the war,” he said with a bitter smile on his thin lips, “was of some use to humanity? Because thanks to the war, there was work for everyone? Many people profited from the war, isn’t that so? The people who made artificial arms and legs did well, the hospitals added to their staff, the factories added people to their workforce, and many people became healthy thanks to the war, and even the atomic bomb was an accomplishment the war brought, right?”

  Questions like that exploded like booms in the courtroom. From time to time, murmurs and laughter were heard, and the judge rapped his gavel many times. Some of the witnesses almost went out of their minds when Jacob put these questions to them, but others answered with dejection or humor.

  “A pity that our honorable defense lawyer came back from the war without a penny, otherwise he could have experienced himself how useful and blessed the war was.”

  Answers like this brought gales of laughter, but no one knew these questions were bringing Jacob closer to the goal he had set for himself.

  *****

  The testimony continued for two weeks, with witnesses telling of the atrocities of the Nazis, but the big surprise came when Jacob announced he had no more questions to ask the witnesses and that he had no witnesses for the defense other than the accused.

  “It is all clear to me. I have no witnesses, and I don’t need any witnesses. All the witnesses who appeared before us were, in fact, my witnesses, and therefore I thank the prosecutor from the bottom of my heart for saving me a great deal of unnecessary and tiring work.”

  In spite of Jacob’s statement, his meaning was defined and construed in many different ways by the newspapers, which also printed caricatures of Jacob smiling the smile that looked more like a grimace of pain. The former inmates of concentration camps did not stop their protest parades against Jacob. The protesters didn’t bring any signs or slogans. They simply bared the arms that carried the tattooed numbers and held them up high as they walked in front of the justice building. Those arms made more of an impression than a thousand signs and slogans.

  It was a fearsome sight to see them marching like that with their arms raised. They didn’t lower their arms until the court convened, and then they went inside to hear the trial.

  The next morning, when Jacob saw the picture of the raised arms in the newspaper, he lit a cigarette nervously and couldn’t take his eyes off their dejected faces and their eyes that held so much sorrow and anger. After a while, he threw the paper down and began to pace the floor in his large, cold apartment.

  On the weekends, when court was recessed, he closed himself in his home and didn’t even answer the telephone or receive his friends or parents. He did it to avoid unnecessary questions; he had no more patience to answer them, to explain, to apologize. So many thoughts and ideas disturbed and pained him.

  *****

  After all the testimony of these witnesses, Claude announced he could bring hundreds and even thousands more to testify against the Nazis. “Every Nazi, even though he, himself, didn’t shoot anyone, and every SS member indirectly helped their accursed leaders to commit their heinous crimes; therefore, each Nazi should be judged a murderer.”

  In the third week of the trial, the accused herself was put on the stand. It was the most suspenseful day of the trial. Now in the audience were many lawyers as well as judges who had postponed their own hearings to come and listen to the words of the accused, the closing speech of the prosecution, and most important, the closing speech of the defense that Jacob would give.

  Before the judge entered, the photographers were allowed to take pictures. They caught Mathilda with her arms raised. It was to brush a curl off her forehead, but it looked as if she were raising her hand in the Nazi salute. That’s how they published it in the papers with the caption: “Heil Hitler.”

  The judge entered, and court was convened.

  Mathilda was called to the witness stand. Encouraged by Jacob’s defense, she approached the witness stand and sat looking proudly at the spectators. She straightened the coat of her suit several times. The suit fitted her well and showed off her remarkable figure.

  Jacob stated that he would question the accused after the prosecutor.

  Claude Alrist took over the interrogation of Mathilda. He was a former prisoner of war in a German concentration camp and also present at the Nuremberg trials against the Nazi war criminals.

  “Tell us, Mrs. Mathilda Krause, do you or do you not admit that the testimony we heard in this court is true?” he opened, attacking immediately, his eyes flashing.

  “I don’t know if all the testimony is true. I was not there with all the witnesses.”

  “Do you admit that Nazism brought untold suffering to the world?” he asked after a thorough interrogation about her connection with the SS, her actions as a member of the SS and as a spy for the Nazis, and what she thought of the prisoners of Majdanek.

  “Nazism is an ideology, and all ideologies that try to gain acceptance bring with them suffering and victims.”

  “If so, perhaps you can explain what the meaning of that ideology was and if it was a good ideology.”

  “I don’t see any use in that.”

  “Do you admit that as a Nazi spy, you helped your comrades to continue their atrocities against innocent people?”

  “I was serving my country just as American or Russian spies serve their country.”

  “Can you compare the regime of a democratic country to the totalitarian government of the Nazis? Can you compare a battle for justice with the battle of the monster who killed so many innocent people?”

  “If Nazism had conquered, we wouldn’t be sitting here and arguing whether it is good or bad.”


  “Did you know what was going on in Majdanek? And that the SS was destroying whole cities, robbing the population, and shooting young children, old people, and even sick people?”

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

  “Do you believe that the German nation is the supreme race and therefore all the other nations should be enslaved by it?”

  “When I was a child in the Hitler Youth and then in the SS, I thought so, but when I went to Russia, I saw that it wasn’t so.”

  “Have you read Mein Kampf?”

  “Of course, many times.”

  “Do you agree with its contents?”

  “I don’t remember exactly what is written there.”

  There was laughter in the courtroom.

  “How can one understand your plea of not guilty?”

  “Because I’m not guilty.”

  “Were there reasons for your actions?”

  “What reasons?” she asked him, staring at him.

  “I’m referring to sadism, a desire to see people taken to the gas chamber, to see them burning.”

  “In America, too, they have gas chambers and electric chairs.”

  “But these gas chambers and electric chairs are for people who are dangerous to society, and in the gas chambers of the Nazis, they killed innocent people. Did you enjoy that?”

  “I knew there were gas chambers in Majdanek, but it was explained to me that they were for ending the suffering of people, of the prisoners.”

  “Who did you think those prisoners were?”

  “Enemies of the Third Reich!”

  “How can you prove the prisoners were enemies of the Third Reich?”

  “I didn’t say that. That’s what I was told, but in time, I realized that even among the enemies, there were good people.” She glanced at Jacob.