Holocaust

by Gerald Green

  “Rudi, test me on dates,” Anna asked.

  I sat down opposite her, with her workbook, where, in her small neat handwriting, she had written her homework.

  As I read the dates off, I thought to myself: Here are Jews for you, worrying about history, learning, words, lessons, books—when their world is going up in smoke. Again maybe I was being too harsh with my own people. What else did we know but to learn, to mind our business, to make deals, to pray and hope that bad times would end?

  As I began to read, the radio announcer was listing new rules governing Jews. The yellow star was to be worn. We could not use public transport. No Jew could receive social security or any other government benefit. Synagogues were to be closed.

  I shouted at the radio, “Go to hell, you lousy bastard.”

  With infuriating calm, my mother said: “That won’t help, Rudi.”

  “It’ll help me.”

  “You going to test me or not?” asked Anna. How I pitied my sister, my mother. They thought life could go on—school, growing up, family.

  “Okay, okay. Fifteen twenty-one.”

  “Diet of Worms.”

  And the radio voice intervening: “All Jewish documents and passports must be stamped with a J …”

  “Sixteen eighteen,” I said.

  “Start of the Thirty Years’ War,” Anna shouted.

  Yes, we knew about history all right. But we didn’t understand the history being made at that moment.

  The radio droned on. “Possession of any weapon by Jews will be deemed a capital crime and can be …”

  “Seventeen seventy-six.”

  “American Revolution!”

  “Regarding the yellow star,” the voice said, “it will be worn at all times, and failure to wear it will mean an offense against the state …”

  “Eighteen fourteen,” I said. And I wanted to kill the voice coming from the radio.

  “Defeat of Napoleon!”

  “Stores owned by Jews must be registered and owners must …”

  I jumped from the table and turned the radio off.

  My mother seemed oblivious. Or was this her way of trying to give us courage, to maintain this act, this little drama of hers—that all would work out if we remained calm, and let the storm blow over?

  She looked up from her letter. Her face, once fresh and unlined, was gaunt. She ate little. There were hollows beneath her eyes. I knew that she saved the best food for Anna and me, bribed local merchants, watched our small savings, worried about our health.

  “Anna,” she said, “it’s important you keep up with your lessons. We’ll work on algebra tomorrow. In spite of everything, you must prepare yourself for your life ahead. And I assure you, you will have a good life. Rudi, it wouldn’t hurt for you to read a book now and then.”

  I saw tears rimming Anna’s eyes. I patted her hand, but said nothing.

  That night, when they were asleep, I filled a knapsack with toilet articles, some underwear, a few other things. As a kid, I’d done a lot of camping, outdoor living. Karl had never enjoyed it; he was always the one who got bit by mosquitoes, or got poison ivy. I had an old woodsman’s knife my grandfather had given me, and I packed that also.

  Of course I hadn’t told my mother or Anna a word of this, but a week earlier, I’d been to see a man who had worked with Lowy, the printer. He was an engraver, a fellow named Steinmann, and he had concocted a fake identity card for me. The photograph was me, but everything else was false, and I was identified as a student exempt from military service because of ulcers.

  It was two in the morning when I kissed my mother and Anna as they slept, slung the knapsack over one shoulder, and as softly as I could in my hiking boots, walked into the hallway.

  Inga knew I was leaving. She came out of the apartment in her bathrobe. “So. You’ve made your mind up.”

  “I can’t stay. I can’t help them. Maybe I can save my own neck, come back for them … I don’t know.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Anywhere they can’t find me.”

  “How will you live, Rudi?”

  “Steal. Lie. Fight.”

  She gave me a roll of marks. “Take this. At least—for a few days.”

  I thanked her. We hesitated a moment, studying each other’s faces. We were a great deal alike, I now realize. Stubborn, resentful of being shoved around, ready to resist, to refuse to accept meekly what others forced on us. My parents never quite understood me. “A mutant,” my father used to say, “an intruder of some kind in this family of readers and artists.” (He said it jokingly, and his affection for me was never any less than it was for Karl and Anna.) In the same manner, Inga, having seen brutality and bloodshed as a child—her quarter was one of the worst for the terrible street fights of the twenties and thirties—had developed a dread, a hatred of violence, and of those who commit it.

  And none of this had lessened her capacity for compassion, for kindness. I wondered, with a dread, wasting feeling, how Karl would manage in prison without her strength to sustain him.

  “Rudi, you must write to us,” she said. “It will be a shock to your mother, but I will try to explain why you have left. And to Anna.”

  “I won’t write for a while. Tell Mama not to worry about me, ever. Take care of her. Be good to Anna. She’s a fresh kid sometimes, but she loves you. As much as we all do.”

  We kissed as brother and sister.

  “If you see Karl, tell him I’m okay. Tell him the Weiss brothers will be together again … soon. Maybe Mama’s right. Maybe it’ll end. They’ll decide they’ve beaten us up enough, stolen all we have, and they’ll quit. Goodbye.”

  She kissed me again, and I could hear her voice: “Goodbye, little brother.”

  I walked down the tenement steps, through the courtyard and into the dark street. I had a whole set of lies ready if I were stopped. My plan was to ride the rails of a freight train, sneak on and off trains, and make my way south. Anywhere but Germany.

  II

  THE

  GATHERING

  DARKNESS

  Erik Dorf’s Diary

  Berlin

  September 1939

  In twenty days, Poland has fallen.

  But military success is not all we seek. The security of the conquered lands, the racial purity of that part of Poland which will be incorporated into Germany, the policies against Jews, Slavs and others in the “Government-General”—all these remain in a rather muddled state.

  Our office keeps getting annoying reports about the actions against Jews in Poland.

  It is not that the actions are against policy—Heydrich says we are fighting a double war, one against foreign armies, another against the Jewish conspiracy—but that they are haphazard, disorganized, piecemeal.

  The beards and earlocks of these strange Orthodox eastern Jews seem to arouse our men. They cut them off, tear them off, burn them.

  Jews are herded into synagogues and the buildings are set afire.

  In Bielsko, Jews were strung up in the yard of a Jewish school, rubber hoses were shoved into their mouths, and the water turned on until their stomachs burst.

  Rape is frequent, although the soldier who indulges his passion in this manner runs the risk of a charge of race defilement.

  Jewish women are stripped and made to dance naked in the streets—to the amusement of the Poles as well as our SS men.

  In one town, Jews were driven naked from a communal bath to a slaughterhouse, and burned alive.

  One report says—I am asking someone to verify it, but I see no reason to disbelieve it—that in a Polish village, three rabbis were beheaded, and their heads displayed in the window of the local department store, owned, of course, by a Jew.

  And so on. All disorganized, planless, at the whim of some local SS commandant.

  “The army is somewhat annoyed,” I said to Heydrich, after reading the morning reports from Poland.

  “Why should they be? Keitel himself, that whore, issued an
order to his glorious army telling them that Jews are poisonous parasites, that they’re a plague to the world. I remember the field marshal’s precise words: ‘The fight against Jewry is a moral fight for the purity and health of God-created humanity.’ “

  “Don’t misunderstand me, sir,” I said quickly. “It’s not the acts against Jews that bothers the army. It’s the undermining of army authority in occupied areas. Our men take precedence, commandeer equipment, give orders.”

  “Well, the army will have to live with it. Let them conquer and occupy. We’ll handle the Jews and the other vermin.”

  But he was disturbed, I could see.

  In the next few hours, Heydrich, with that blazing, inventive mind of his, drew up a new formula for handling the Jews of Poland. They will be shoved out of the territories we take over, into places like Lublin and Warsaw, there to fester, as he put it, in their own communities. And the Jews themselves will handle the movement, the organization of these vast ghettoes. Jewish councils, consisting of the oldest and most influential members of the Jewish community, will do the work for us.

  “If they refuse?”

  “Jews don’t refuse. They cooperate. They are terrified, unarmed, without allies.”

  Poland, it develops in Heydrich’s plan, will be a vast dumping ground for the Jews of Europe—not just Polish Jews, but those remaining in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia.

  He asked me to summon all his aides to an important meeting tomorrow—September 21—to formulate precise plans for handling the Jewish question. Random shootings and hangings are no way of solving a mass campaign against a subtle enemy.

  I have gotten to know the chief’s mind reasonably well, and every now and then I try to pierce it. “General, perhaps our problem is that very few of us have a clear idea of the ultimate goal regarding the Jews.”

  “You tell me, Dorf.”

  “Oh … elimination of their influence from Europe. From the world, for that matter.”

  “And what does elimination mean? Sterilization? Banishment? Impoverishment?” He paused. “Extermination?”

  “I don’t know. The last notion, that is. It’s only been hinted at.”

  “Go back to the Führer’s works, Dorf. Read between the lines.”

  “Yes, but the annihilation of what—eight million people or more—seems a rather large task, a bit impractical.”

  My insides were shivering.

  “One might argue that,” Heydrich said. “But for the purposes of tomorrow’s meeting, keep it in the back of your mind. I will talk about something called ‘planned overall measures’ leading to a final goal, as opposed to stages that will lead to this goal.”

  Heydrich, for all his mastery of organization, of propaganda, of a complex police operation, can sometimes make me dizzy with his circuitous verbiage (although I have the feeling he’s learned some of it from me).

  “How clear … how precise will you make all of this at tomorrow’s meeting?” I asked. “You may be misunderstood.”

  Heydrich laughed loudly. “Oh, Dorf. Sometimes you act as though you’re still a law student. Make sure Eichmann is present tomorrow. He won’t misunderstand me.”

  I nodded, trying to digest all of this. “Maybe some form of quarantine, of containment, would be a good way to start.”

  Heydrich sat down, threw his long legs up on the desk, crossed his booted legs and leveled one of his elegant fingers at me. “Tell me, Dorf, do the Jews serve a purpose?”

  “Purpose?”

  “How much of what we do to them is out of conviction, and how much is opportunism?”

  “I’m not certain. Conviction, yes. The Führer, Himmler, yourself—you’ve made no secret of your views.”

  “But to go to all this trouble to … eliminate them?”

  He paused on the word “eliminate.” All of us are learning quickly to use code words, to dance around some ultimate truth. I wonder why? If what we plan are moral acts (as Keitel has put it), if Christianity has condoned the hatred of Jews for centuries, why are we so reluctant to brag about our true plans? After all, we are fighting a plague, a world enemy, a conspiracy. Or so Hitler contends.

  Heydrich went on. An excellent speaker, extremely articulate, he now expanded on his thesis. Anti-Semitism not only binds the German people together, it will serve as a cement to hold all of Europe in one piece under our rule, he says. Most European countries abound with anti-Jewish movements, who will cheer us on. The Croix-de-Feu in France, the Arrow Cross in Romania, various native Fascist parties in Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia. Places like the Ukraine and the Baltic states, under the Bolshevik heel, will be swarming with pro-German sentiments, and these sentiments will be all the stronger if we show them our feelings about the Jews who have been oppressing them.

  He winked. “A great deal of what we peddle to them will be lies, Dorf, but useful ones. Once we rouse their anti-Semitic passions to help us resolve the Jewish problem, they’ll be next in line.”

  Heydrich went on. The groundwork is already laid for us—two thousand years of Christian doctrine, supported by eminent Church fathers and doctors, proving the Chosen People to be Christ-killers, deicides, well-poisoners, the devil’s spawn, the spillers of the blood of Christian children for their Passover feasts. An endless list of old ideologies, much of it nonsense, but extremely useful.

  We then discussed more immediate problems. The random killings and burnings will have to cease. The SS will be in charge of a vast eastward movement of Jews. Only Bolsheviks, criminals, resisters and potential leaders—rabbis, professionals and so on—will be executed. The mass of Jews will be quarantined in Polish cities like Lublin and Warsaw. In effect, he said, “the germ carriers will be isolated.”

  I suggested we call these areas “Autonomous Jewish Territories,” and Heydrich approved the term, complimenting me.

  “It will sound as if they’re permanent communities,” I said, “But of course, as you say, they’ll merely be a stage toward …”

  He laughed again. “Regulation of the Jewish problem! By God, Dorf, I’m getting like you.”

  “Sir?”

  “Using language to say what I don’t mean. Remind me at tomorrow’s meeting. Emphasize the point. No one is ever to talk about annihilation or extermination.”

  Berlin

  November 1939

  There was a lavish ball tonight at the chief’s headquarters.

  We have a great deal to celebrate. Poland is finished. Russia occupies eastern Poland, and Stalin, in sheer terror, has negotiated a peace pact with us. The French and English sit on their guns in the west, too frightened to move.

  You could not tell that we are engaged in a war. I have never seen so many elegant uniforms, women more dazzling, bejeweled, healthily beautiful, in that best of all German ways.

  Marta is radiant, ravishing. A few years ago, she was a dutiful housewife, content with cooking, children, wifely work. But the social demands made upon us have endowed her with a new elegance, a style that I find hard to believe. She wears high-fashion clothing with great flair, waltzes or foxtrots to perfection, can even flirt a bit.

  I watched her dancing with Heydrich, and thought of the modest Marta Schaum I’d married. But I should have known she was a woman of enormous potential. The way she practically marched me off into my new career! She has, to be truthful, made me. From a jobless lawyer, full of self-pity, and excuses, I have become confident, influential, and engaged in extremely important work regarding Germany’s future. There’s no doubt that the war will soon end. England and France will come to their senses, Russia will be content to take over part of Poland, and we can live in peace once more, reshaping Europe.

  And so, while admiring Marta in her pale-green dress—how wonderfully it set off her golden hair, piled high on her small delicate head—dancing with Reinhard Heydrich, I heard a voice behind me.

  “Leave it to Heydrich to find the most beautiful woman,” the voice said.

  I frowned, but did not turn.
Obviously, the speaker did not know he was talking about my wife.

  “Quite a beauty,” the voice persisted. “Her husband should know Heydrich was cashiered from the navy for compromising a superior’s wife.”

  Angrily, I spun around. “That woman dancing with him happens to be my wife, and I’ll thank you—”

  “Calm down, Erik,” the speaker said.

  I was staring at a tall, weathered-looking man in a civilian tuxedo, and when he smiled at me, I could not help laughing at the trick he’d played on me. It was Kurt Dorf, my Uncle Kurt, whom I haven’t seen in four or five years.

  “What a wonderful surprise,” I cried. “I had no idea you were back in Berlin.”

  He explained in his quiet voice that he was now working for the army in Poland—as a road builder and general civil engineer. He seemed impressed with me.

  “My goodness,” Kurt said. “My brother Klaus’ little boy. An SS officer. A captain. And at Heydrich’s elbow, I’m told.”

  “Oh, that’s an exaggeration. But why are you here?”

  “The generals regard these affairs as a bonus for my meeting their timetables.”

  We studied each other. He resembles my father, but is taller and tougher-looking. My father settled for a life as an impecunious baker, and failed. Kurt has always been driven, worked hard, held jobs that helped him get his degree in civil engineering. He is a bachelor, something of a loner, a man with few friends.

  “I wish Papa were alive to see us meeting like this,” I said.

  “I’m sure he’d be proud.” He nodded at Marta. “And Marta. She’s beautiful, Erik.”

  “I love her more every day. More than love, Uncle Kurt—respect, admiration.”

  “She seems to have earned the respect and admiration of your boss. He hardly looks like the Blond Beast people talk about.”

  This drew me up short. Kurt should have watched his language, but he was always an outspoken, rather unsophisticated man. “Blond … ?” I asked.