The Kindly Ones Page 21

  It was the end of November; on the vast circular square, rebaptized Adolf-Hitler-Platz, a gray snow, pale as motes of light, was falling softly from the noon sky. A woman was hanging by a long rope from Lenin’s outstretched hand; some children playing beneath raised their heads to look up her skirt. The hanged were increasingly numerous; the Ortskommandant had ordered that they remain strung up, to set an example. Russian passersby walked quickly in front of them, their heads lowered; German soldiers and children examined them curiously, and the soldiers often photographed them. For several days now I had stopped vomiting, I was beginning to hope I was getting better; but it was only a respite; and when it took me again, I vomited up my sausage, cabbage, and beer, an hour after the meal, in the street, half hidden in an alleyway. A little farther on, at the corner of the Trade Unions Park, they had raised a gallows, and that day they were leading two very young men and a woman there, their hands tied behind their backs, surrounded by a crowd made up mainly of German soldiers and officers. The woman had a large sign around her neck explaining that she was being punished in retaliation for a murder attempt on an officer. Then they hanged them. One of the young men looked dumbfounded, astonished at finding himself there; the other was simply sad; the woman grimaced terribly when they snatched the support out from under her feet, but that was all. God alone knows if they had in fact been involved in the attack; we were hanging almost anyone, Jews but also Russian soldiers, people without identity papers, peasants loitering in search of food. The idea was not to punish the guilty but to prevent new attacks by spreading terror. In Kharkov itself, it seemed to work; there had been no more explosions since the hangings. But outside the city the situation was getting worse. Oberst von Hornbogen, the Ic from the Ortskommandantur whom I often visited, had a large map on his wall of the area around Kharkov dotted with red push-pins, each representing a partisan attack or a bombing. “It’s becoming a real problem,” he explained to me. “We can only leave the city in force; isolated men get shot like rabbits. We raze all the villages where we find partisans, but that’s not helping much. Food supplies are getting difficult, even for the troops; as for feeding the population this winter, it doesn’t even bear thinking about.” The city had about six hundred thousand inhabitants; there were no public food supplies, and already the elderly were dying of hunger. “Could you tell me about your discipline problems, if you don’t mind,” I asked the Oberst, with whom I had already developed fairly good relations.—“It’s true, we’re having difficulties. Especially cases of looting. Some soldiers emptied the apartment of the Russian mayor while he was visiting us. A lot of soldiers are taking coats or fur hats from the populace. There are also some cases of rape. A Russian woman was locked up in a basement and raped by six soldiers, one after the other.”—“What do you attribute that to?”—“A question of morale, I guess. The troops are exhausted, dirty, covered with vermin, they’re not even being provided with clean underwear, and also winter is coming, they sense it’s going to get worse.” He leaned forward with a faint smile: “Between you and me, I can tell you that they’ve even painted some inscriptions on the AOK buildings, in Poltava. Things like We want to go back to Germany or We’re dirty and we have lice and we want to go home. The Generalfeldmarschall was mad with rage, he took it as a personal insult. Of course, he realizes there are tensions and privations, but he thinks the officers could do more for the political education of the men. But ultimately, the most worrisome thing is still the problem of the food supplies.”

  Outside, a thin layer of snow was covering the square, dusting the shoulders and the hair of the hanged. Next to me, a young Russian was rushing into the Ortskommandantur, keeping the heavy swinging door from banging back by catching it, with practiced delicacy, with his foot. My nose was running; a drop of water fell from my nose and crossed my lips with a cold streak. Von Hornbogen had made me feel extremely pessimistic. But life went on. Businesses, run by Volksdeutschen, were opening, along with Armenian restaurants, and even two nightclubs. The Wehrmacht had reopened the Shevshchenko Ukrainian Dramatic Theater, after repainting its elegant nineteenth-century façade, with its white columns and moldings mutilated by shrapnel, ochre yellow and a heavy burgundy. They had turned it into a cabaret called the Panzersprenggranate, the “Antitank Grenade,” and a garish sign proclaimed its name above the ornate doors. I took Hanika there one night, to a satirical revue. It was pretty awful, but the men, delighted, laughed and applauded furiously; some numbers were nearly funny. In one parodic scene, a choir of rabbis wearing striped prayer shawls sang, more or less on key, an aria from the St. John Passion:

  Wir haben ein Gesetz

  und nach dem Gesetz

  soll er sterben.

  Bach, I said to myself, a pious man, would not have appreciated such facetiousness. But I had to admit it was comical. Hanika’s face glowed, he applauded every number; he seemed happy. That evening, I felt at ease, I hadn’t vomited, and I appreciated the theater’s warmth and the pleasant ambiance. At intermission, I went to the refreshment stand and offered Hanika a glass of ice-cold vodka; he turned red, he wasn’t used to it. Adjusting my uniform in front of a mirror, I noticed a stain. “Hanika,” I asked, “what is that?”—“What, Hauptsturmführer?”—“The stain, there.” He looked: “I don’t see anything, Hauptsturmführer.”—“Yes, yes,” I insisted, “there’s a stain, there, it’s a little dark. Rub better when you do the wash.”—“Yes, Hauptsturmführer.” This stain troubled me; I tried to forget it by having another drink, then returned to the hall for the second part of the program. Afterward, accompanied by Hanika, I walked up the former Liebknecht Street, now rebaptized Horst-Wesselstrasse or something like that. Farther up, near the park, some old women, supervised by soldiers, were unstringing a hanged man. At least, I thought when I saw this, these Russians we’re hanging have mothers to wipe the sweat and dirt from their faces, close their eyes, cross their stiff arms, and tenderly bury them. I thought of all the Jews with their eyes still open under the earth in the ravine in Kiev: we had deprived them not only of life but also of that tenderness, for we had killed their mothers and wives and sisters with them, and hadn’t left anyone to mourn them. Their fate was the bitterness of a mass grave, their only funeral feast the rich earth of the Ukraine filling their mouths, their only Kaddish the whistling of the wind over the steppe. And the same fate awaited their brethren in Kharkov. Blobel had finally arrived with the Hauptkommando, and discovered with fury that no measures had yet been taken, except the order to wear the yellow star. “But what the hell is the Wehrmacht doing?! Do they want to spend the winter with thirty thousand saboteurs and terrorists in their midst?” He had brought Dr. Kehrig’s replacement, fresh from Germany; thus I found myself relegated to my old subordinate tasks, which, given my state of fatigue, didn’t bother me much. Sturmbannführer Dr. Woytinek was a dry, glum little man, who nourished a keen resentment for having missed the beginning of the campaign and who hoped that the opportunity to make up for it would soon present itself. The opportunity indeed soon would present itself; but not right away. As soon as they arrived, Blobel and Vogt had begun negotiations with the representatives from the AOK about another Grosse Aktion. But in the meantime, von Rundstedt had been dismissed because of the retreat from Rostov, and the Führer had appointed von Reichenau to replace him as head of Army Group South. No replacement had yet been named to take command of the Sixth Army; for now, the AOK was headed by Oberst Heim, the Chief of Staff; and he, in terms of cooperation with the SP and the SD, turned out to be less complacent than his former boss. He never uttered any outright objection, but every day he raised new practical difficulties in his correspondence, and the discussions dragged on. Blobel was fuming, and taking out his anger on the officers in his Kommando. Dr. Woytinek was getting acquainted with the files and harassed me with questions throughout the day. When Dr. Sperath saw me, he remarked: “You don’t look very well.”—“It’s nothing. I’m just a little tired.”—“You should get some rest.” I
laughed: “Yes, after the war.” But I was also distracted by the traces of mud on my pants that Hanika, who seemed to be growing a little negligent, hadn’t cleaned well.

  Blobel had come to Kharkov with the Saurer truck, and he was counting on using it for the action being planned. He had finally been able to try it out in Poltava. Häfner, who had been present—the Teilkommandos had gathered in Poltava before marching together to Kharkov—related the scene to me one night at the Kasino: “Actually it’s not an improvement at all. The Standartenführer loaded some women and children in it, then started the engine. When the Jews understood what was happening, they started beating on the sides, shouting ‘Dear Germans! Dear Germans! Let us get out!’ I stayed in the car with the Standartenführer, who was drinking schnapps. Afterward, during the unloading, I can tell you he was not pleased. The bodies were covered with shit and vomit, the men were disgusted. Findeisen, who was driving the truck, also inhaled some gas and was vomiting everywhere. Horrible. If that’s all they could come up with to simplify our lives, they can try again. Only some damn bureaucrat could have thought that one up.”—“But the Standartenführer still wants to use it?”—“Oh yes! But believe me, it will be without me.”

  Finally the negotiations with the AOK came to a conclusion. Blobel, supported by the Ic Niemeyer, had asserted that the elimination of the Jewish population, as well as of other undesirables and political suspects, and even of non-residents, would contribute to easing the problem of the food supplies, which was growing increasingly urgent. The Wehrmacht, in cooperation with the city’s housing office, agreed to place a site at the Sonderkommando’s disposal for the evacuation: the KhTZ, a tractor factory, with barracks for the workers. It lay outside of the city, twelve kilometers from the center, beyond the river on the old road to Moscow. On December 14, an order was posted giving all Jews in the city two days to relocate there. As in Kiev, the Jews went there on their own, without escort; and at first they actually were housed in the barracks. On the day of the evacuation, it was snowing and very cold; the children were crying. I took a car to go to the KhTZ. The site hadn’t been sealed off and a huge number of people were coming and going. Since in these barracks there was no water or food or heat, the people left to find whatever they needed, and no one did anything to prevent them; informers simply pointed out those spreading negative rumors and upsetting the others; they were discreetly arrested and liquidated in the basements of the Sonderkommando’s offices. In the camp, utter chaos reigned; the barracks were going to ruin, children ran around screaming, old people were already dying, and since their families couldn’t bury them, they laid them out outside, where they remained, frozen by the frost. Finally the camp was closed and German guards were posted. But people kept flowing in, Jews who wanted to join their families, or else Russian or Ukrainian spouses, who were bringing food to their husbands, wives or children; we still let them come and go, since Blobel wanted to avoid panic and reduce the camp little by little, discreetly. The Wehrmacht had objected that a vast single action, as in Kiev, would create too much of a stir, and Blobel had accepted this argument. On Christmas Eve, the Ortskommandantur invited the officers from the Sonderkommando to a reception in the large conference hall of the Ukraine Communist Party, redecorated for the occasion; in front of a richly appointed buffet, we drank glass after glass of schnapps and brandies with the Wehrmacht officers, who raised their glasses to the Führer, to the Endsieg, and to our great common task. Blobel and the City Kommandant, General Reiner, traded gifts; then the officers who had a good voice sang some choruses. Beginning the next day—the Wehrmacht had insisted on delaying the date till after Christmas, to avoid spoiling the festivities—the Jews were invited to volunteer to go work in Poltava, in Lubny, in Romny. It was freezing cold, snow covered everything; the Jews, chilled to the bone, hurried to the selection point in the hope of leaving the camp as soon as possible. They were loaded onto trucks driven by Ukrainian drivers; their belongings were piled separately into other vehicles. Then they were brought in convoys to Rogan, a remote suburb of the city, and shot in balki, ravines chosen by our surveyors. Their belongings were brought to warehouses to be sorted and then distributed to Volksdeutschen by the NSV and the VoMi. In this way, the camp was emptied in small groups, a little each day. Just before the New Year, I went to attend an execution. The shooters were all young volunteers from the 314th Police Battalion; they weren’t used to it yet, their shots missed and there were a lot of wounded. The officers bawled them out and had alcohol served to them, which didn’t improve their performance. Fresh blood splattered the snow, flowed to the bottom of the ravine, spread in pools on the ground hardened by cold; it didn’t freeze, but stagnated, viscous. All around, the gray, dead stems of sunflowers dotted the white fields. All sounds, even the shouts and the gunfire, were muted; underfoot, the snow crunched. I was vomiting often now and felt I was getting a little sick; I had a fever, not enough to keep me in bed, but rather long shivers and a sensation of fragility, as if my skin were turning to crystal. At the balka, between the volleys, bitter upsurges of this fever ran through my body. Everything was white, terrifyingly white, except the blood staining everything, the snow, the men, my coat. In the sky, great formations of wild ducks calmly flew south.