Cimmerian: A Novel of the Holocaust

by Ronald Watkins

  “Peter, my boy. Look at you.” Hans was no longer the bon vivant. He had lost weight. His uniform was dusty and that of the Waffen SS. He led Peter out and went to the officers' mess. They took a table in the empty room and drank ersatz coffee. Except for the inmate cooks no one else was there. “There isn't much time, Peter. I’m on my way to the Front.”

  “The Front?”

  “Yes. I diverted to see you, but I have only a little time. Have you heard from your family recently?”

  Peter shook his head. “There has been no mail in two weeks.”

  “Your Haupsturmfuhrer Heidel tells me there have been a number of recent desertions. I am pleased to see you at your post. Those who deserted before now have been fools.”

  “They told us all of them were caught and hung.”

  “I would say that is true. But the situation is deteriorating by the hour. Look for your chance.”

  “Uncle?”

  “I said for you to use your head. It is a different game now.”

  Peter thought about that for several long moments. He was exhausted, and in the warmth of the mess struggled to remain awake.

  “What have they done to you?” Hans asked softly. “Look at you. Nineteen years old and looking fifty. I cannot tell you the times I have wished I could have done better for you. As the war has dragged on longer than I ever imagined, as that madman in Berlin has brought all Germany down around him, I have imagined what this place was doing to you. And now I see I have been right. No man who is worth anything can do this duty. You especially have no place here. Your father was right. I should have seen it. You are too gentle for this dungeon.”

  “It no longer matters.”

  “But it does!” Hans said fiercely. “It must! You and your mother are all that mean anything to me now. You are all the family I have and you must survive this. No matter how often they spout it, the Nazis are not pulling night down on Germany. We have lost other wars. They’re being destroyed, that is true, but despite all the death and bombings there will still be a Germany. In only a few weeks, perhaps in days, this will all come to an end. It will be spring. Children will laugh. The young will fall in love. The old will die quietly in bed. This nightmare will end and bright days will follow. You will have a life after this. That is the reason why you have endured this place. Remember this: You only did your duty. Others decided. You just followed orders.”

  He refilled their cups.

  “Why are you going to the Front?”

  Hans laughed bitterly. “It is better this way. I am joining a Waffen SS unit not far from here. They will make a stand. I will stand with them -- and die.”

  “No, uncle!”

  “There will be trials when this is done. I was in on it from the beginning. I helped plan these camps. The shower. That fiction was my contribution to this abortion. One of the Lagerfuhrers mentioned it to me in jest during an inspection. I wrote it up and promoted the idea. There are orders that bear my signature, plans that originated in my office. If I am captured by the Russians I will be shot on the spot. The others will put me on trial and stretch my neck. This way I die a German soldier in defense of the Fatherland, one of millions to do so. Perhaps it is a discredit to those who served honorably, but at this late date it is the best I can manage.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “There's no time to explain it all. What we believed in was betrayed, but there is no way back for me now. Once the war was lost I was doomed. That is just one reason why you must live. Your mother is the other. She needs you, now more than ever.” Peter shook his head slowly as if to say it was no use. “Listen to me. Get a grip on yourself. I know what you have been through. It is hell. I see all the signs on you. You are wasting away, and if this continued would go mad or kill yourself soon enough. But this will not go on. It is, at long last, over. The Russians will be here in a day or two. This,” Hans gestured with his hand, “is all finished. It has been a long night but the dawn is coming.”

  “It is too late.”

  “It is never too late when you are nineteen! A few weeks rest and you will be good as new. You must survive, you must! Or what was all this for? What purpose has it served? You and your mother are the only two people left who will think well of me, who knew me as I really was. It is all I have. Your mother needs you, Peter, as never before. You are all she has left.”

  The message in Hans's voice had been there all along but Peter had been too exhausted and distracted to hear it. “My father?”

  “He is dead, Peter. I am sorry to tell you. I saw your mother a few days ago before Hanover fell to the British. She is safe.”

  “How?”

  “Like all the Volksstrum he stood at his post waiting for a chance to surrender. In his case his rifle was empty. He was killed in a barrage by the bridge he guarded. I’m so terribly sorry.”

  Peter was stunned. He reached inside but found his grief buried too deeply to feel.

  “So you see, you must live. Your mother has no one now. If you will not live for yourself or for me, then do it for her. Don't leave her to face the aftermath alone. You are her only child. I am her only brother. You are all she will have left. You must see that?”

  Peter nodded. They sat quietly for a few minutes.

  “You must desert, Peter. You see that too, don’t you? If the Russians find you here they will kill you. The SS patrols have broken down in this Sector. Even they are deserting now. It was too early before.”

  “That is what Max said.”

  “Who is this Max?”

  Peter told him.

  Hans nodded his head with approval. “He sounds like a survivor. I would listen to him. If he has a good-sounding scheme go with him. If not, dress in civilian clothing and join the refugees fleeing west. Don’t stop until you reach the Americans or English. In your condition you will look the part. I almost forgot. Cut off your tattoo or burn it. Do that as soon as you can so the healing will start. Are you listening to me?” Peter nodded. Hans glanced at his watch. “I am out of time.”

  Peter went with him to his car parked on the Lagerstrasse near the arch. The smoke was thick as they tried to burn all the dead from the KZ inmate killing. “This is a terrible place. Smell that. My God! Ugly and awful. I should have done better for you.” He took him in his arms. “Do as I say, Peter,” he whispered. “For my sake. For your mother's sake if not your own.”

  After Peter watched the car disappear down the dirt road he was told to report to the line. Blocks D and F had been taken to the shower but refused to enter.

  There had now been no trains for two days. The Kommandant had given orders to continue exterminating the KZ until another trainload arrived. Delousing the KZ he called it. It was part of the ongoing effort to kill the witnesses. But it was too little, far too late. They had killed many of the old-timers in this last month, and Peter had changed the SonderKommando once since he had begun supervising it, but the officers had resisted wholesale clearing of the inmate Blocks.

  Their intent would have been too obvious. Jews were cowards and these scum in the KZ were the most cowardly of all, but they clung to this miserable life because if they had no hope of living, they had the hope of living through this day. And that was how so many lasted so long.

  If they started in systematically on the Blocks, they made it clear that no one would live even through this day. And when they take that pathetic, futile hope away even cowards will rise. There had been rumors of inmate revolts in other KZs. The more the guards feared it, the more ruthless they had become.

  When Peter arrived to help force the two hundred-odd scarecrows from Blocks D and F into the shower he saw a gruesome sight. Bodies were stretched in regular intervals from those Blocks to the shower. A thin line of guards pressed the mass towards the doorway. There were Alsatians everywhere. He had never seen so many. As he took his place most of them were busy tearing into someone. Pistol shots rang out regularity.

  They could have just opened fire but some wo
uld have bolted and spread terror. Also, if word spread they were just gunning Blocks down en masse, panic would lead to revolt. The idea was to get the prisoners into order, into the habit of obedience, until, sixty at a time, they obediently died. They had slaughtered entire ghettos, whole races this way, and could not believe it would fail them now.

  Two loads entered the shower and were emptied. Peter’s shift there would start soon. The prisoners were more easily handled now. Order had been restored.

  But it did not matter that they had proven they could exterminate the KZ Block by Block. At this rate it would take a week or more to do the job. A week too much time. Herr Kommandant Hoffmann had waited too long.

  And what difference would it make? The KZ, devoid of all life, was mute testament to their sacrilege. The fires, no matter how brightly they burned, never consumed all the bones. Behind the KZ, as an expedient, lay a vast mountain of scarcely concealed bones and skulls. It would have taken a year to grind them into dust.

  And what of the records the Kommandant maintained and sent to Berlin with such relish? What of the records that had won him favor, the promise of promotion? He could destroy those they kept at the KZ but not those in Berlin. There in the SS vaults, immune to bombs, were his precise figures of dead, of gold taken from fillings, kilos of hair, vast numbers of slaughtered, each report bearing his precise and conspicuous signature.

  This murder of prisoners was senseless, as pointless as all the killing they had done and so, to the guards, equally justified.

  Wolff sent guards to gather another Block as a few of them guarded this final group. They were a tragic lot. Only days from freedom, they knew now, being herded to their death. Several of the guards taunted them with it. “Hear the guns, swine? Too late, too late for the likes of you!” Derisive laughter.

  Wolff sent Peter to the shower door. He was his best man, he had told him more than once. There was a bottleneck to clear. The idiots had allowed the prisoners to cram too tightly outside against the door. This was a technique the material stumbled on to keep the door from being opened. Once they huddled against it like frightened sheep they had to be pulled away one at a time. No amount of beating, no threats, not even the dogs could get them away from each other. They felt they had safety in numbers.

  The manner for clearing the door was to have one man pull one naked inmate while two guards beside him beat the arms of his companions back. Once he was pried free others forced him back to the queue and the guards turned on the next. When this had happened to him, Peter had always ordered those responsible for the door into the shower with the next batch. Their replacements were more cautious.

  Peter took charge of the trustees and soon had things in order. One of the naked women pulled free was Eva. He had thought she must be dead by now but was mistaken. How she had survived the eighteen hours since he had given her up to Zelda as a traitor of the Reich, he could not imagine. But she had.

  Wolff was shouting orders. The queue had not moved. The kapos and trustees pulled the door open and began dragging people in. There was a lot of screaming now.

  “All of you!” Peter shouted. “Get to it!” He grabbed an old man, the KZ barber who had cut his hair once. Well, his bad luck to be in his Block when the order came down. He tossed him through the doorway to the kapo who was supervising a tight pack.

  Next he seized a woman with flaccid breasts and deep, hollow cheeks. She no longer cared and went numbly. He pulled Eva from the line. She recognized him but said nothing. Her nostrils flared as if she was angry or very frightened. He wanted to ask her what it felt like to at last face death after escaping it so miraculously before. It did not matter. Nothing mattered any longer.

  Peter shoved her in. She fought to stay out. He pushed and she grabbed his forearm. He struck her with his fist on her chest. She lunged back but by instinct clung to his arm. A trustee took her around the waist and pulled. Still she hung on him. He struck her in the face, smashing her nose. He hit her again as hard as he could and felt teeth give way. A third time in the face and the trustee had her. They finished loading in a few minutes.

  The door was clear this time and there were a few minutes respite. He thought about Eva, but quickly pushed it from him. His eyes were burning. From the smoke he told himself. The shrieking started inside as the gas hit and soon rose to a crescendo. Eva. There was pounding on the door. Nearby a dog took an old man for no reason except his handler had carelessly allowed him too close.

  The kapos and guards laughed as the dog tore him apart. Hell would have dogs, Peter thought. Wasn’t hell guarded by dogs? He had read that somewhere.

  The sound was dying inside the shower now. It dropped suddenly to a murmur then to nothing.

  Eva.

  “Good job,” Wolff barked before sending Peter to begin his shift with the SonderKommando behind the shower. Those working there had used the earlier delay to catch up. Max said he was glad to see him. “I'm dead on my feet.” He saw the joke after he said it and laughed a little. They were all going a bit crazy by then. “I think I have the ticket for us,”' he said. “Be ready to move out tomorrow. If his deal comes through we will dress in civies and make a break for it. I think even the damned officers will see the light by tomorrow. Wait for my word, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Good lad. Stick with Max. I will see you through this. Now for a beer and a last crack at the brothel. There is a bitch I picked out last week and if those Ukrainians haven’t spoiled her I'd like to get a piece before we take off.” He staggered away to the brothel.

  Routine was what kept them going. Routine ran the world. The routine continued even as the Russian guns thundered nearby.

  The bell sounded, the door popped open and the men began dragging the bodies out then along the path to the HimmelKommando and the crematorium.

  One of the trustees pulled Eva out by her heels ten minutes later. Her mouth was locked wide open in a scream like all of them. Her eyes were wide open in terror. There was a film already over them. As her body bounced with the ground she looked exactly like a thousand other bodies he had seen. No different. In the end they all end up like this and someone drags them by their heels to their grave.

  That night, towards midnight, Peter climbed into his bunk in his clothes. Though it had not been cold he was shivering. Kraas cried out in his sleep. Peter felt tears roll down his face until his pillow was wet as he shivered in the dark and waited for morning.

  ###

  The stillness of the KZ and the silence of the Russian guns woke him with the dawn. Everything was as silent as any place he had ever known. In this gloomy valley with its perpetual mist and smoke, with the wall of ancient trees in the surrounding hills, the wind rarely stirred. But the KZ was a noisy place of gunshots and shouting, of slammed doors and Kommandos, barked orders and savage beatings, endless PA announcements and always the snarling, barking, vicious dogs with their lust for blood. In the background was always the throbbing of the generator that kept the fence alive.

  This morning Peter could hear one of the guards turn softly in his bunk across the room. There were no sounds from the mess, no smell of breakfast either.

  He found the gate to the KZ slightly ajar and could see guards scattered randomly near the electric fence standing quietly. There were no dogs. They were strangely quiet in their kennel. The generator was not running. There was no electricity, there was no water. A pall of smoke rose from behind the gas chamber but it was a thin column of after-burn lifting nearly straight into the mist.

  Most shocking was the condition of the prisoners. There were no Kommandos. There were no orders being given. The kapos had vanished. The prisoners in their shabby pajamas stood in perfect stillness beside their Blocks, watching.

  As a man starves his eyes appear to grow in size until, as he nears his final days of life, they appear as big as saucers. The prisoners formed a mass of people and it was the eyes staring lifelessly, without emotion that startled him most.

  The
re was no anger or hate in these eyes, no curiosity or interest. There was just the unblinking staring, the occasional subtle shift in position, the patient waiting.

  That was when Peter realized what was occurring. The prisoners were waiting for the Russians to come, waiting for the guards to flee. Waiting. Waiting for something to happen. The killing, the dying had stopped of its own at last. In its place was stillness -- and waiting.

  One face in the standing mass stood out. Sol, the goldsmith. Somehow, against all the odds he was still alive.

  There were no orders, no duty. There was no train whistle, no music, no screaming or snarling dogs. It was as if all the life had been drained at long last from this place. There was no energy for anything but the waiting.

  Koch came up to Peter and asked if he had heard about the Kommandant yet. Koch was more than a little drunk. The day before, it seemed, Herr Kommandant Hoffmann had packed Frau Hoffmann in a car with the children and sent them away.

  Peter had seen him briefly as he had walked the KZ, for what he now learned was the last time, with a pale countenance and awkward steps, his riding crop slapping half-heartedly against his boot. He gave no orders, expressed no opinions. In the corner of the KZ was a hut where he housed his mistress. Peter had only seen her a few times, in printed dresses or fur coat. She was a well-fed Polish Jew. She had been his mistress for two years. Koch said he escorted her like a couple on an evening stroll, with her arm in his, through the KZ to his cottage. An hour earlier Glauss had discovered the pair naked in bed, dead from poison.

  The Wehrmacht had collapsed in this Sector. Rumor was that the Russians were now in the valley, their cannon silent as they advanced. There was no one to oppose them. Most of the officers had deserted during the night. Those of the guards left were too dumb to know enough to leave, too frightened to move, too confused to plan; men like the Ukrainians and kapos with nowhere to go, and those like Peter, incapable of real thought, beyond caring, too exhausted, too defeated, too empty and used to care or act.