Life and Fate

by Vasily Grossman

  ‘We’re waiting for the master of ceremonies to propose a toast,’ said Liss.

  Eichmann raised his glass.

  ‘To the continued success of our work! Yes, that certainly deserves a toast!’

  Eichmann was the only man to eat well and drink very little.

  The following morning, wearing only a pair of underpants, Eichmann did his exercises in front of an open window. Through the mist he could make out the orderly rows of barrack-huts and hear the whistles of steam-engines.

  Liss wasn’t usually envious of Eichmann. He himself enjoyed an important position without excessive responsibilities. He was considered one of the most intelligent men in the Gestapo. Himmler himself liked to chat with him.

  Important dignitaries usually avoided pulling their rank with him. He was used to being treated with respect – and not only within the Gestapo. The presence of the Gestapo could be felt everywhere – in universities, in the signature of the director of a children’s nursing-home, in auditions for young opera-singers, in the jury’s choice of pictures for the spring exhibition, in the list of candidates for elections to the Reichstag. It was the axis around which life turned. It was thanks to the Gestapo that the Party was always right, that its philosophy triumphed over any other philosophy, its logic – or lack of logic – over any other logic. Yes, this was the magic wand. If it were dropped, a great orator would be transformed into a mere windbag, a renowned scientist would be exposed as a common plagiarist. The magic wand must never be dropped.

  As he looked at Eichmann, Liss, for the first time in his life, felt a twinge of envy.

  A few minutes before his departure, Eichmann said thoughtfully: ‘We’re from the same town, Liss.’

  They started to reel off the names of familiar streets, restaurants and cinemas.

  ‘There are, of course, places I never visited,’ said Eichmann, naming a club that wouldn’t have admitted the son of an artisan.

  Liss changed the subject. ‘Can you give me some idea – just a rough estimate – of the number of Jews we’re talking about?’

  He knew this was the million-dollar question, a question that perhaps only three men in the world, other than Himmler and the Führer, could answer. But it was the right moment – after Eichmann’s reminiscences about his difficult youth during the period of democracy and cosmopolitanism – for Liss to admit his ignorance, to ask about what he didn’t know.

  Eichmann answered his question.

  ‘What?’ Liss gasped in astonishment. ‘Millions?’

  Eichmann shrugged his shoulders.

  They remained silent for some time.

  ‘I very much regret that we didn’t meet during our years as students,’ said Liss, ‘during our years of apprenticeship – as Goethe put it.’

  ‘You needn’t. I studied out in the provinces,’ said Eichmann, ‘not in Berlin.’

  After a pause he went on: ‘It’s the first time, my friend, that I’ve pronounced that figure out loud. If we include Berchtesgaden, the Reichskanzler and the office of our Führer, it may have been pronounced seven or eight times.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Liss. ‘It won’t be printed in tomorrow’s newspapers.’

  ‘That’s precisely what I mean,’ said Eichmann.

  He looked at Liss mockingly. Liss suddenly had a disturbing feeling he was talking to someone more intelligent than himself.

  ‘Apart from the fact that the quiet little town where we were born is so full of greenery,’ Eichmann continued, ‘I had another reason for naming that figure. I would like it to unite us in our future collaboration.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Liss. ‘It’s a very serious matter. I need to think about it.’

  ‘Of course. This proposal doesn’t come only from me,’ said Eichmann, pointing towards the ceiling. ‘If you join me in this task and Hitler loses, then we’ll hang for it together.’

  ‘A charming prospect!’ said Liss. ‘I need to give it some thought.’

  ‘Just imagine! In two years’ time, we’ll be sitting at a comfortable table in this same office and saying: “In twenty months we’ve solved a problem that humanity failed to solve in the course of twenty centuries.”’

  They said their farewells. Liss watched the limousine disappear.

  He had some ideas of his own about personal relations within the State. Life in a National Socialist State couldn’t just be allowed to develop freely; every step had to be directed. And to control and organize factories and armies, reading circles, people’s summer holidays, their maternal feelings, how they breathe and sing – to control all this you need leaders. Life no longer has the right to grow freely like grass, to rise and fall like the sea. In Liss’s view, there were four main categories of leaders.

  The first were the simple, undivided natures, usually people without particular intelligence or finesse. These people were full of slogans and formulae from newspapers and magazines, of quotations from Hitler’s speeches, Goebbels’s articles and the books of Franck and Rosenberg. Without solid ground under their feet, they were lost. They seldom reflected on the connections between different phenomena and they were easily moved to intolerance and cruelty. They took everything seriously: philosophy, National Socialist science and its obscure revelations, the new music, the achievements of the new theatre, the campaign for the elections to the Reichstag. Like schoolchildren, they got together in little groups to mug up Mein Kampf and to make précis of pamphlets and articles. They usually lived in relatively modest circumstances, sometimes experiencing actual need; they were more ready than the other categories to volunteer for posts that would take them away from their families. To begin with, Liss had thought that Eichmann belonged to this category.

  The second category wete the intelligent cynics, the people who knew of the existence of the magic wand. In the company of friends they trusted, they were ready to laugh at most things – the ignorance of newly appointed lecturers and professors, the stupidity and the lax morals of Leiters and Gauleiters. The only things they never laughed at were grand ideals and the Führer himself. These men usually drank a lot and lived more expansively. They were to be met with most frequently on the higher rungs of the Party hierarchy; the lower rungs were usually occupied by men of the first category.

  The men of the third category held sway at the very top of the hierarchy. There was only room for nine or ten of them, and they admitted perhaps another fifteen or twenty to their gatherings. Here were no dogmas. Here everything could be discussed freely. Here were no ideals, nothing but serenity, mathematics and the pitilessness of these great masters.

  It sometimes seemed that all the activities of the country were centred around them, around their well-being.

  Liss had also noticed that the appearance of more limited minds in the higher echelons always heralded some sinister turn of events. The controllers of the social mechanism elevated the dogmatists only in order to entrust them with especially bloody tasks. These simpletons became temporarily intoxicated with power, but on the completion of their tasks they usually disappeared; sometimes they shared the fate of their victims. The serene masters then remained in control undisturbed.

  The simpletons, the men of the first category, were endowed with one exceptionally valuable quality: they came from the people. Not only were they able to cite the classics of National Socialism, but they did so in the language of the people. At workers’ meetings, they were able to make people laugh; their coarseness made them seem like workers or peasants themselves.

  The fourth category were the executives, people who were indifferent to dogma, ideas and philosophy and equally lacking in analytic ability. National Socialism paid them and they served it. Their only real passion was for dinner-services, suits, country houses, jewels, furniture, cars and refrigerators. They were less fond of money as they never fully believed in its solidity.

  Liss was drawn to the true leaders, the men of the third category. He dreamed of their company and their intimacy. It was in that king
dom of elegant logic, of irony and intelligence, that he felt most fully himself.

  But at some terrifying height, above even these leaders, above the stratosphere, was yet another world, the obscure, incomprehensible and terrifyingly alogical world of Adolf Hitler himself.

  What Liss found most terrifying about Adolf Hitler was that he seemed to be made up of an inconceivable fusion of opposites. He was the master of masters, he was the great mechanic, his mathematical cruelty was more refined than that of all his closest lieutenants taken together. And at the same time, he was possessed by a dogmatic frenzy, a blindly fanatical faith, a bullish illogicality that Liss had only met with at the very lowest, almost subterranean levels of the Party. The high priest, the creator of the magic wand, was also one of the faithful, a mindless, frenzied follower.

  Watching Eichmann’s car disappear, Liss felt at once afraid of him and attracted to him. Until now, such a confusion of feelings had only been evoked in him by the Führer himself.

  31

  Anti-Semitism can take many forms – from a mocking, contemptuous ill-will to murderous pogroms.

  Anti-Semitism can be met with in the market and in the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences, in the soul of an old man and in the games children play in the yard. Anti-Semitism has been as strong in the age of atomic reactors and computers as in the age of oil-lamps, sailing-boats and spinning-wheels.

  Anti-Semitism is always a means rather than an end; it is a measure of the contradictions yet to be resolved. It is a mirror for the failings of individuals, social structures and State systems. Tell me what you accuse the Jews of – I’ll tell you what you’re guilty of.

  Even Oleinichuk, the peasant fighter for freedom who was imprisoned in Schlüsselburg, somehow expressed his hatred for serfdom as a hatred for Poles and Yids. Even a genius like Dostoyevsky saw a Jewish usurer where he should have seen the pitiless eyes of a Russian serf-owner, industrialist or contractor. And in accusing the Jews of racism, a desire for world domination and a cosmopolitan indifference towards the German fatherland, National Socialism was merely describing its own features.

  Anti-Semitism is also an expression of a lack of talent, an inability to win a contest on equal terms – in science or in commerce, in craftsmanship or in painting. States look to the imaginary intrigues of World Jewry for explanations of their own failure.

  At the same time anti-Semitism is an expression of the lack of consciousness of the masses, of their inability to understand the true reasons for their sufferings. Ignorant people blame the Jews for their troubles when they should blame the social structure or the State itself. Anti-Semitism is also, of course, a measure of the religious prejudices smouldering in the lower levels of a society.

  An aversion for the physical appearance of a Jew, for his way of speaking and eating, is certainly not a genuine cause of anti-Semitism. The same man who speaks with disgust of a Jew’s curly hair or of the way he waves his arms about, will gaze admiringly at the black curly hair of children in paintings by Murillo, will be quite undisturbed by the gesticulating and the guttural speech of Armenians, and will look without aversion at the thick lips of a Negro.

  Anti-Semitism has a place to itself in the history of the persecution of national minorities. Anti-Semitism is a unique phenomenon – just as the history of the Jews is unique.

  Just as a man’s shadow can give an idea of his stature, so anti-Semitism can give an idea of the history and destiny of the Jews. One trait that distinguishes the Jews from other national minorities is that their history has been bound up with a large number of religious and political issues of world importance. Another distinguishing trait is the extraordinary degree to which they are dispersed throughout both Eastern and Western hemispheres; there are Jews in nearly every country of the world.

  It was during the dawn of capitalism that Jewish tradesmen and usurers made their first appearance. During the industrial revolution many Jews made names for themselves in the realms of industry and mechanics. During the atomic age many talented Jews have been nuclear physicists. And during the epoch of revolutionary struggle, many of the most important revolutionary leaders were Jews. Rather than relegating themselves to the periphery, Jews have always chosen to play a role at the centre of a society’s industrial and ideological development. This constitutes a third distinguishing trait of Jewish minorities.

  Part of the Jewish minority becomes assimilated into the indigenous population, but the general mass retain their peculiar religion, language and way of life. Anti-Semitism always accuses the assimilated Jews of secret nationalist and religious aspirations; at the same time, it holds the general mass of non-assimilated Jews – the manual labourers and artisans – responsible for the actions of their fellows who become revolutionary leaders, captains of industry, atomic physicists and important administrators. This is a fourth distinguishing trait.

  Each of these traits taken singly may be characteristic of some other minority, but it is only the Jews who are characterized by all of them.

  Anti-Semitism, as one might expect, reflects these traits. It too has always been bound up with the most important questions of world politics, economics, ideology and religion. This is its most sinister characteristic: the flame of its bonfires has lit the most terrible periods of history.

  When the Renaissance broke in upon the Catholic Middle Ages, the forces of darkness lit the bonfires of the Inquisition. These flames, however, not only expressed the power of evil, they also lit up the spectacle of its destruction.

  In the twentieth century, an ill-fated nationalist regime lit the bonfires of Auschwitz, the gas ovens of Lyublinsk and Treblinka. These flames not only lit up Fascism’s brief triumph, but also foretold its doom. Historical epochs, unsuccessful and reactionary governments, and individuals hoping to better their lot all turn to anti-Semitism as a last resort, in an attempt to escape an inevitable doom.

  In the course of two millennia, have there ever been occasions when the forces of freedom and humanitarianism made use of anti-Semitism as a tool in their struggles? Possibly, but I do not know of them.

  There are also different levels of anti-Semitism. Firstly, there is a relatively harmless everyday anti-Semitism. This merely bears witness to the existence of failures and envious fools.

  Secondly, there is social anti-Semitism. This can only arise in democratic countries. Its manifestations are in those sections of the press that represent different reactionary groups, in the activities of these groups – for example, boycotts of Jewish labour and Jewish goods – and in their ideology and religion.

  Thirdly, in totalitarian countries, where society as such no longer exists, there can arise State anti-Semitism. This is a sign that the State is looking for the support of fools, reactionaries and failures, that it is seeking to capitalize on the ignorance of the superstitious and the anger of the hungry.

  The first stage of State anti-Semitism is discrimination: the State limits the areas in which Jews can live, the choice of professions open to them, their right to occupy important positions, their access to higher education, and so on.

  The second stage is wholesale destruction. At a time when the forces of reaction enter into a fatal struggle against the forces of freedom, then anti-Semitism becomes an ideology of Party and State – as happened with Fascism.

  32

  The newly-formed units moved up to the front line under cover of darkness.

  One concentration of forces was along the River Don, to the north-west of Stalingrad. The trains unloaded in the steppe itself, along a newly constructed railway-line.

  Just before dawn, these iron rivers suddenly congealed; all you could see then was a light cloud of dust over the steppe. Gun-barrels were camouflaged with dry grass and handfuls of straw so that they blended into the autumn steppe; nothing in the world could have seemed quieter or more peaceful. Aircraft lay on the ground like dried insects, their wings spread, draped in camouflage-netting.

  Every day the network of figures
grew more complex; every day the diamonds, circles and triangles spread more thickly over the secret map. The armies of the newly-formed South-Western Front – to the north-west of Stalingrad itself – were taking up their positions in readiness to advance.

  Meanwhile, on the left bank of the Volga, avoiding the smoke and thunder of Stalingrad, tank corps and artillery divisions were making their way through the empty steppe towards quiet creeks and back-waters. They then crossed the Volga and took up position in the Kalmyk steppe, in the salt-flats between the lakes. These forces were being concentrated on the Germans’ right flank. The Soviet High Command was planning the encirclement of Paulus’s army.

  During dark nights, under the autumn clouds and stars, Novikov’s tank corps was transferred to the right bank, south of Stalingrad, by barge, steamer and ferry . . .

  Thousands of people saw the names of famous Russian generals – Kutuzov, Suvorov, Alexander Nevsky – painted in white on the armour-plating of the tanks. And millions of people had seen the heavy guns, the mortars and the columns of lend-lease Fords and Dodges. Nevertheless, this vast build-up of forces in readiness for the offensive remained secret.

  How was this possible? The Germans knew about these troop movements. It would have been no more possible to hide them than to hide the wind from a man walking through the steppe.

  Any German lieutenant, looking at a map with approximate positions for the main concentrations of Russian forces, could have guessed the most important of all Soviet military secrets, a secret known only to Stalin, Zhukov and Vasilevsky. How was it then that the Germans were taken by surprise, lieutenants and field marshals alike?

  Stalingrad itself had continued to hold out. For all the vast forces involved, the German attacks had still not led to a decisive victory. Some of the Russian regiments now only numbered a few dozen soldiers; it was these few men, bearing all the weight of the terrible fighting, who confused the calculations of the Germans.