The Girl from Berlin, #1

by Ellie Midwood

  “Well, the principle is the same as in the van method: we put all these people inside, lock the gas proof door, but instead of an exhaust pipe we drop the gas capsules through the vents on the roof. The more people inside, the faster it dissolves in the air. As I’ve been told it works best at high temperatures. So in our case body heat does its thing just perfectly.”

  “How long does it take for them to die?”

  “During our first experiment it was around fifteen to thirty minutes.”

  “Why not the exact time?”

  “Because the time of the death we were calculating based on the noise inside. At the very beginning they were all screaming very loudly, in about fifteen minutes half of the screams stopped and after thirty minutes we didn’t hear anything at all. Again, if you compare it to the van method, you can see how much faster it takes. Vans would sometimes have to run for the whole hour for the last one to die.”

  “Excellent. Reichsführer will be very glad to hear that. But you said it was the good news, what’s the bad news?”

  “The bad news is that this particular basement is not really suitable. It’s hard to ventilate it and besides it’s too far from the crematorium. We can’t drag all these nine hundred bodies back and forth all the time. I’ve already started building a new complex solely as a gassing facility.”

  “The same kind of a construction?”

  “Not really. I’ve come up with a better idea. Instead of building a bunker that looks more than suspicious, you have to agree with me,” both of them chuckled, “I’m building them a sauna.”

  “A sauna? I’m not sure I quite follow you.”

  “Herr Gruppenführer, allow me to explain everything. Reichsführer had selected Auschwitz as the first, in the Reich history, extermination camp. Not just concentration, extermination. Very soon I’ll start receiving thousands of people sent from all over the annexed territories, and out of those thousands at least a third will need to be got rid of upon arrival. Children, women with small children, elderly, otherwise unfit for the work, you know what I mean. So how can I possibly take them all to some suspicious bunker without causing a major panic?”

  An evil smile crossed Gruppenführer’s face.

  “That’s right. I tell them that they have to undergo a disinfection process. They go very willingly, take off all their clothes, even get some soap and towels, and walk inside the shower room. We’re even installing shower heads in order for them to think that they’re really going to shower. And then we lock the door and drop the gas inside.”

  Heydrich burst into laughter.

  “You’re an evil genius, Rudolf, I swear! How did you even come up with such a plan? A shower room! This is hilarious! Reichsführer will love that!”

  “I’m very pleased to hear that, Herr Gruppenführer. Would you like to take a little coffee break before we take a ride to the new construction sites?”

  “That would be great, my friend. A shower room! I can’t wait to tell him!”

  Still laughing, he passed right by me, brushing my shoulder, back to the entrance of the room. I felt blood filling my mouth from the inside of my lip I bit too hard in order not to start crying. I followed the laughing chief of SD and the camp Kommandant outside, back to the light. I was thinking about the nine hundred people who never saw it again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I was slowly stirring my coffee without taking my eyes off Heydrich. We were all sitting in the Kommandant’s living room in his big villa just outside the camp. The Kommandant’s wife was playing hostess and making sure that Gruppenführer was happy with everything. He was more than happy. He was joking all the time, telling stories, and paying complements to both the Kommandant and his wife. Sometimes she would excuse herself for five minutes to go check on the children. They had their children living with them in that hell-hole of a place.

  A maid, obviously an inmate, offered me a platter of biscuits with a faint smile. I smiled back at her and shook my head. I couldn’t even drink my coffee, let alone eat anything. I still had a chemical taste in my mouth, and it was making me sick. Everything was making me sick: the chemical smell, the Kommandant, his smiling wife, the barking dogs outside, the guards, and most of all Heydrich. I couldn’t stop staring at him and thinking what kind of a monster could possibly be so indifferent to other people’s suffering. Not even indifferent, he was enjoying talking about it. He was discussing it like someone would discuss a play they just saw or a restaurant they’ve just been to.

  “Annalise, do you need something?” I guess he got annoyed by my staring and couldn’t ignore it anymore.

  “No, Herr Gruppenführer.”

  “Oh, that’s right, I completely forgot about your brother.” He gave a different interpretation to my insistent look. “Why don’t you go see him now? We still have about a couple of hours before we leave. Rudolf, it’s not too much trouble, is it?”

  “Oh no, not at all. Most of the guards are resting now anyway.” He turned to his adjutant. “Franz, escort her to the guards’ barrack.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Kommandant.”

  I followed Höss’s adjutant outside, to the welcoming darkness of the cool September night. Two guards with dogs on short leashes opened the gates to the camp for us. In the dark everything looked even more terrifying, and I involuntarily shuddered. The spotlights kept searching the ground sometimes blinding me, dogs were going off as soon as we would approach them; not a single soul was outside, the wooden barracks now standing in dead silence with their victims sleeping on top of each other inside, like in tombs in the cemetery.

  As we were approaching the administrative buildings, where the SS guard barracks were situated, I started to hear distinctive laughter and even singing. Whoever it was, they sounded drunk. I looked at Franz, and he smiled at me.

  “Don’t worry, they won’t bother you,” he said, as if reading my mind. “I’ll call your brother outside, all right? What was his name again?”

  “Norbert Meissner.”

  “Meissner. Got it.”

  Franz left me not too far from the entrance to one of the barracks, pointing out to a little bench, to which the light of the bright lamp didn’t reach. I was glad he left me in a shadow as he walked inside. I started to feel cold in my thin woolen uniform and rubbed my shoulders with both hands, trying to somehow warm myself.

  Suddenly a shriek pierced the silence, accompanied by loud barking. It was definitely a woman who was screaming, and it was right behind the barracks. I jumped to my feet and ran toward the sound, all the way along the wall, to the back of the building. Now along with the barking and screaming I heard men laughing and saying something that I couldn’t quite make out.

  As soon as I turned round the corner, I stopped at once, gasping in shock from what I saw. Three SS guards were holding a young girl, struggling against their hands, while the fourth one was slowly releasing the leash on his viciously barking German Shepherd, letting him closer and closer to the girl. She was completely naked, with her clothes laying beneath her feet on the ground. One of the guards holding the girl drank from the bottle he was holding in his free hand and then forced the bottle into the girl’s mouth.

  “Here, have a drink, Süße!” The rest of the guards laughed even harder, while the one with the bottle poured the alcohol inside the girl’s mouth, making her cough and gasp for air. “Don’t you spit it, you little bitch, drink to the victory of the Reich!”

  The girl yanked her head backward, desperately trying to get away from the bottle, but the guard only got angrier with that.

  “You put this fuckin’ bottle in your mouth right now, you Jew whore, or I swear I’ll put it between your legs!”

  “Yes, do it!” His drunken SS buddies were more than enthusiastic about his latest idea.

  “What the hell are you doing to her?!” I finally regained control over my voice again. “Let her go!”

  The four pair of eyes turned to me, and I nervously gulped. I suddenly wished that I had a
gun on me, but office SS-Helferinnen staff weren’t allowed to carry any.

  “And who the hell are you?” the one with the bottle finally asked.

  “I’m Gruppenführer Heydrich’s personal assistant.” I tried to say as confidently as I could, considering the situation.

  “Oh yeah?” A sarcastic smile crossed his face. “And what are you assisting him with?”

  “Maybe you can assist us with something too?” Another one gave me a dirty wink and all of them laughed.

  “I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk in this manner to a member of an official SD inspection staff, officers. And I also don’t think that this kind of a behavior is approved by your superiors.”

  “Well, they aren’t here right now, are they?”

  “Why don’t you have a drink with us then?”

  “You’re very pretty, you know.”

  “Yeah, much prettier than this one.”

  Why don’t I have the goddamn gun?

  The one with the bottle walked toward me, but I didn’t step away. They’re like dogs, if you start running it’ll only trigger them. I had to meet them face to face, even though the cold sweat dampened my shirt under my uniform jacket. He stopped inches away from me, and I could clearly smell alcohol on his breath. For some reason adrenalin gave me such a desperate confidence that I wasn’t even feeling scared anymore. Instead I smiled, squinted my eyes at him and said very quietly, through gritted teeth.

  “Don’t even think about touching me, or you’ll be hanging right on those gates by the next morning.”

  “You’re a tough girl, aren’t you?”

  “I have tough people behind me.”

  “Are you his girl? You’re his girl, right? That’s why he brought you here. You’re very pretty. Don’t worry, we wouldn’t touch the general’s girl.”

  “Leave that one alone too. She’s Jewish after all. Of course, if you don’t want to join the rest of the inmates here for Rassenschande.”

  “Oh, here you are, Annalise!”

  The Kommandant’s adjutant’s voice behind my back. Just in time. I could hardly contain a sigh of relief and turned around to see his angry face as his gaze turned from me to the naked girl and the rest of the SS guards.

  “What the hell are you doing?! How many times have you been told?! You, Jew-girl, put your clothes on, now! And all of you will report to the Kommandant in the morning, got it?! Now get lost!!!”

  “Jawohl.”

  The guards, visibly upset that their “party” came to such an abrupt end, staggered to one of the barracks without saying a word. The girl picked up her clothes from the ground and was putting them on with shaking hands, still quietly sobbing.

  “Schnell, schnell, I don’t have all night!” The girl started to move faster. Franz turned to me and pointed in the direction from where he’d come from. “Your brother was looking for you behind that warehouse, just call out his name and you’ll find him, all right? I have to take this one back to her barrack.”

  I just nodded and went where he told me to. My heart was still racing, and I wiped sweaty palms on my skirt. As I turned the corner, I almost bumped into another SS guard. I tried to jump back, but he grabbed my shoulders before I could get away.

  “Hey! It’s me, silly!”

  “Norbert!” I couldn’t see his face in the dark, but his voice was now like music to my ears. I grabbed his neck and pulled him as close as I could. “Thank God! Oh, I’m so happy to see you!”

  He kissed me on both cheeks and hugged me again.

  “My little baby sister! It’s really you! I almost didn’t believe it when Franz told me that you’re here!”

  We were sitting on the steps of a warehouse next to his barrack and holding hands. He would never hold my hand when we were young kids because I was a girl, and he would look like a sissy in front of his friends. Now we couldn’t let go of each other, our leather gloves off and laying beside us. He did most of the talking and I was just listening, feeling worse and worse after every word he said.

  “I can’t take it anymore. I really can’t. I’m drinking myself to sleep every night just to forget what I saw during the day. What I did, what everybody else did. It’s a death factory, Annalise, that’s what it is. They want all these people dead. They enjoy humiliating them, they enjoy their pain. Here they feel like gods, the master race, rulers of the world, with an absolute power to decide who gets to live and who dies today. They don’t care if it’s a man, a woman, a child, an elderly… It’s cattle for them, not humans, but animals. That’s why they brand them, with ink on their left forearm, to dehumanize them, to make them feel like they’re nothing. I feel so disgusted to be a part of it all, you can’t even imagine! I’m disgusted with myself. I hate myself, Annalise, I really do. I don’t deserve to be alive.”

  “Don’t say that, Norbert!” His words terrified me, and I squeezed his hands harder. “I’ll talk to Gruppenführer Heydrich, I’ll ask him to transfer you somewhere else, I promise!”

  “He wouldn’t listen to you. I spoke to the Kommandant a million times already, and he kept refusing me every single time. He says that I’m among the ones who doesn’t give him any trouble and he needs people like me. He’s right in a sense, after the shift is over I get in my bed with a bottle of vodka and stay there till the next morning, unlike the others.”

  I knew exactly what the others were doing after their shift was over. I just saw it with my own eyes. Norbert didn’t even get surprised after I told him about the incident.

  “That’s quite a common way they entertain themselves. Nothing new. The Kommandant knows, he told them many times to stop it, but he can’t really go out every night and control every single guard. They know it and keep doing their thing.”

  “What would they do to the girl if Franz didn’t stop them?”

  Norbert shrugged.

  “What do you think they would do? Torture her, rape her, let the dog get to her, probably cut her with their daggers, rape her again, beat her, burn her with cigarettes, whatever else comes to their mind. And then take her back to her barrack. If she’s still alive by the next day, she’ll go back to work.”

  I tried to say something but couldn’t find the words. For a minute I was just holding his hand in mine, brushing his already long hair off his face, touching his cheek, pressing my head to his chest. I wanted to take him back home with me so desperately.

  “I’ll get you out of here, I promise, darling,” I finally said, kissing his forehead. “I’ll do anything, but I’ll get you out of here.”

  He walked me back to the Kommandant’s villa and stopped in front of the entrance.

  “You know that I love you very much, Annalise, right?”

  “Of course I do. I love you too, Norbert.”

  “And Mama, and Papa.”

  “I know, darling.”

  “I just wanted to tell you that before we say goodbye.”

  He looked at me, and there was something strange in his eyes.

  “Norbert?”

  “Too bad we didn’t have more time.”

  He kissed me on both cheeks and gave me one long, last hug.

  “Please forgive me if I was a bad brother to you.”

  “You were never a bad brother, Norbert. You were… you are the best brother I could possibly wish for.”

  He smiled at me sadly and stepped back.

  “Tell Mama and Papa that I love them, will you?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “And tell Heinrich to take care of you.”

  “You’ll tell him yourself when you come home for my birthday. Don’t forget that, you promised.”

  He nodded, waved at me and walked toward the camp, his black uniform slowly dissolving in the dark with every step he took, until the night swallowed him completely.

  I was pressing my forehead to the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, but it didn’t help a bit. Another spasm contracted my stomach, and I threw up in the toilet again. Cold, sticky sweat was cov
ering my whole body, and I couldn’t stop my hands and legs from shaking any more. I was holding myself together for too long. I managed to be charming and nice to my companions all the way back home. I even decoded my notes and wrote them down neatly for Gruppenführer Heydrich even before we got off the train in Berlin, word by word reliving everything I heard and saw in Auschwitz. He even condescendingly shook my hand before I got inside the car, where Heinrich was waiting for me.

  “I must admit, you did very well, Annalise. I would never have expected it from a woman. Good job. And don’t forget that you signed the confidentiality agreement, and the information about our inspection must not be delivered to anyone under any circumstances. Your immediate family members included.”

  In other words, tell anyone that we’re planning to exterminate all the Jewish population of Europe and you’ll join them. I just nodded.

  “I understand, Herr Gruppenführer. Thank you again for this wonderful opportunity.”

  “My pleasure. I’ll see you in the office Monday.”

  “Yes, Herr Gruppenführer.”

  I gave Heinrich a kiss and a smile and was talking about how nice the Kommandant’s villa was on the way back home. He didn’t ask me anything. I think he knew that I couldn’t stop talking and laughing because of the nerves. But as soon as I walked inside our house and Rolf rushed toward me and jumped on me, scratching me with his huge paws, his teeth so white and sharp as he was licking my hands, looking just like all those other German Shepherds who were trained to tear people apart just by one single command. I couldn’t hold it anymore. I pushed the dog away and ran to the closest bathroom on the first floor.

  I was vomiting and crying for more than several minutes already, screaming at Heinrich to leave me alone through the closed door. He wanted to help, but there was nothing he could do. I just wanted to be left in peace. I curled up on the floor with my knees pulled up to my chest and stayed that way till both the spasms and the tears stopped. Cold tiles felt good. The faint lavender smell from the sachets that Magda put in every room was comforting and familiar. Little by little I started breathing deeper and slower, my tight muscles relaxing and the pounding in my head getting weaker and weaker.