The Kindly Ones Read online

  Outside, night was falling, and it was very cold. I had gone by foot; in my haste I had forgotten my shapka; soon I began shivering. I walked quickly and almost slipped on a sheet of black ice; I managed to catch hold of a streetlight, but I hurt my arm. The cold gripped my bare head; my fingers, buried in my pockets, went numb. I felt long shudders pass through my body. I had underestimated the distance to the Ortskommandantur: when I got there it was pitch-dark and I was trembling like a leaf. I asked for an operations officer. “Are you the one I spoke to?” he asked when he arrived at the entryway where I was vainly trying to warm myself. “Yes. What’s happened?”—“We’re not really sure yet. Some mountain men brought him back in an ox cart. He was in a Kabard aul, in the south. According to the witnesses, he was going into houses and questioning people about their language. One of the neighbors thinks he must have been alone with a young woman and the father surprised them. They heard some gunshots: when they came in, they found the Leutnant wounded and the girl dead. The father had disappeared. So they brought him here. Of course, that’s what they tell us. We’ll have to open an investigation.”—“How is he?”—“Not well, I’m afraid. He got shot in the stomach.”—“Can I see him?” The officer hesitated, examined my face with undisguised curiosity. “This affair doesn’t concern the SS,” he said finally.—“He’s a friend.” He wavered another instant, then said abruptly: “In that case, come along. But I warn you, he’s in bad shape.”

  He brought me through some hallways freshly painted gray and pale green to a large room where some sick and lightly wounded were lying in a row of beds. I didn’t see Voss. A doctor, a slightly stained white smock over his uniform, came toward us: “Yes?”—“He wants to see Leutnant Voss,” explained the operations officer, pointing to me. “I’ll leave you here,” he said. “I have work to do.”—“Thank you,” I said.—“Come along,” said the doctor. “We’ve isolated him.” He took me to a door in the back of the room. “Can I talk to him?” I asked.—“He won’t hear you,” the doctor replied. He opened the door and had me go in before him. Voss was lying under a sheet, his face damp, a little green. His eyes were closed and he was groaning softly. I went up to him. “Voss,” I said. There was no reaction. Yet the sounds kept coming from his mouth, not really groans, but rather articulate though incomprehensible sounds, like a child babbling—the translation, in a private and mysterious language, of what was going on inside him. I turned to the doctor: “Will he make it?” The doctor shook his head: “I don’t even understand how he made it this far. We couldn’t operate, it wouldn’t do any good.” I turned back to Voss. The sounds continued uninterruptedly, a description beyond language of his agony. It chilled me, I had trouble breathing, as in a dream where someone is talking and you don’t understand. But here there was nothing to understand. I pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen onto his eyelid. He opened his eyes and stared at me, but these eyes were empty of all recognition. He had reached that private, closed space from which you never return to the surface, but from which he hadn’t sunk deeper yet. Like an animal, his body was struggling with what was happening to him, and these sounds—that’s what they were, too, animal sounds. From time to time the sounds broke off so he could pant, sucking air through his teeth with an almost liquid noise. Then it began again. I looked at the doctor: “He’s suffering. Can’t you give him some morphine?” The doctor looked annoyed: “We’ve already given him some.”—“Yes, but he needs more.” I stared at him straight in the eyes; he hesitated, tapped his teeth with a fingernail. “I’m almost out of it,” he said finally. “We had to send all our stock to Millerovo for the Sixth Army. I have to keep what I have for cases that are still operable. Anyway, he’s going to die soon.” I kept staring at him. “You have no authority to give me orders,” he added.—“I’m not giving you an order, I’m asking you,” I said coldly. He blanched. “All right, Hauptsturmführer. You’re right…. I’ll give him some.” I didn’t move, didn’t smile. “Do it now. I’ll watch.” A brief tic twisted the doctor’s lips. He went out. I watched Voss: the strange, terrifying sounds, forming almost by themselves, kept coming out of his mouth, which was working convulsively. An ancient voice, come from the beginning of time; but if it was a language, it wasn’t saying anything, and expressed only its own disappearance. The doctor returned with a syringe, uncovered Voss’s arm, tapped to make the vein appear, and gave him the injection. Little by little the sounds spaced out, his breathing calmed down. His eyes had closed. Now and then another block of sounds came, like a final buoy thrown overboard. The doctor had gone out. I gently touched Voss’s cheek with the back of my fingers, and went out too. The doctor was bustling about with a manner that expressed both annoyance and resentment. I thanked him briefly, then clicked my heels and raised my arm. The doctor didn’t return my salute and I went out without a word.

  A car from the Wehrmacht took me back to the Sonderkommando. I found Weseloh and Reinholz there still in midconversation, Reinholz arguing in favor of a Turkish origin of the Bergjuden. He paused when he saw me: “Ah, Hauptsturmführer. We were wondering what you were doing. I’ve had some quarters prepared for you. It’s too late for you to go back.”—“In any case,” Weseloh said, “I’ll have to stay here a few days, to continue my investigations.”—“I’m going back to Pyatigorsk tonight,” I said in a flat voice. “I have work to do. There aren’t any partisans around here and I can drive at night.” Reinholz shrugged his shoulders: “That’s against the Group’s instructions, Hauptsturmführer, but do as you please.”—“I’ll entrust Dr. Weseloh to you. Call me if you need anything.” Weseloh, her legs crossed on her wooden chair, looked perfectly at ease and happy with her adventure; my departure left her indifferent. “Thank you for your help, Hauptsturmführer,” she said. “By the way, could I see this Dr. Voss?” I was already on the threshold, shapka in hand. “No.” I didn’t wait for her reaction and went out. My driver seemed rather unhappy at the idea of driving at night, but he didn’t insist when I repeated my order in a sharper tone. The trip took a long time: Lemper, the driver, drove very slowly because of the black ice. Outside the narrow halo from the headlights, half covered because of enemy aircraft, we couldn’t see anything; from time to time, a military checkpoint rose up out of the darkness in front of us. I fiddled distractedly with the kinzhal that Shabaev had given me; I smoked cigarette after cigarette, and looked out at the vast empty night without thinking.

  The investigation confirmed what the villagers had said about the death of Leutnant Dr. Voss. In the house where the tragedy occurred they found his notebook, bloodstained and filled with Kabard consonants and grammatical notations. The girl’s mother, hysterical, swore she had not seen her husband again since the incident; according to her neighbors, he had probably fled into the mountains with the murder weapon, an old hunting rifle, to turn abrek, as they say in the Caucasus, or to join a band of partisans. A few days later, a delegation of elders from the village came to see General von Mackensen: they solemnly presented their apologies in the name of the aul, reaffirmed their profound friendship for the German army, and set down a pile of carpets, sheepskins, and jewelry, which they offered to the dead man’s family. They swore they would find the murderer themselves and kill him or hand him over; the few able-bodied men remaining in the aul, they asserted, had left to search the mountains. They feared reprisals: von Mackensen reassured them, promising there would be no collective punishment. I knew that Shadov had talked about this with Köstring. The army burned down the guilty man’s house, and promulgated a new general order reiterating the prohibitions of fraternizing with mountain women, then promptly closed the case.

  The Wehrmacht commission had finished its study of the Bergjuden, and Köstring wanted to hold a conference in Nalchik about it. This was becoming all the more urgent since the Kabardo-Balkar National Council was being set up and the OKHG wanted to settle the affair before the formation of the autonomous district, planned for December 18, the day of Kurban Bairam. Weseloh had
finished her work and was writing her report; Bierkamp summoned us to Voroshilovsk to examine our position. After a few relatively mild days, during which it had once again snowed, the temperature had plummeted to some twenty degrees below; I had finally received my shuba and my boots; they were cumbersome, but they kept me warm. I made the trip with Weseloh; from Voroshilovsk, she would leave directly for Berlin. At the Gruppenstab, I found Persterer and Reinholz, whom Bierkamp had also summoned; Leetsch, Prill, and Sturmbannführer Holste, the Leiter IV/V of the Group, also attended the meeting. “According to my information,” Bierkamp began, “the Wehrmacht and this Dr. Bräutigam want to exempt the Bergjuden from anti-Jewish measures so as not to harm good relations with the Kabards and the Balkars. So they’re going to try to claim that they’re not really Jews, to protect themselves from criticism from Berlin. For us, that would be a serious mistake. As Jews and Fremdkörper among the surrounding peoples, this population will remain a permanent source of danger for our forces: a nest of spies and saboteurs and a breeding ground for partisans. There is no room for doubt about the necessity for radical measures. But we must have solid proof to face the Wehrmacht’s hairsplitting.”—“Oberführer, I think it won’t be difficult to demonstrate the soundness of our position,” Weseloh asserted in her reedy little voice. “I will be sorry not to be able to do it myself, but I’ll leave a complete report before I go, with all the important points. That will allow you to respond to all the Wehrmacht’s or the Ostministerium’s objections.”—“Perfect. For the scientific arguments, you’ll go over all that with Hauptsturmführer Aue, who will present that part. I myself will present the concrete position of the Sicherheitspolizei from the security standpoint.” As he was speaking, I was quickly going over the list of citations drawn up by Weseloh aiming at establishing a purely Jewish and very ancient origin of the Bergjuden. “If you don’t mind, Oberführer, I would like to make a remark about the report drawn up by Dr. Weseloh. It’s excellent work, but she has simply left out all the citations that contradict our point of view. The Wehrmacht and Ostministerium experts will not fail to use these as objections against us. So I think the scientific basis of our position is rather weak.”—“Hauptsturmführer Aue,” Prill interrupted, “you must have spent too much time talking with your friend Leutnant Voss. It seems he has influenced your judgment.” I shot him an exasperated look: so that’s what he was plotting with Turek. “You are mistaken, Hauptsturmführer. I was simply trying to point out that the scientific documentation presented here is inconclusive, and that basing our position on it would be a mistake.”—“This Voss was killed, is that right?” Leetsch asked.—“Yes,” Bierkamp replied. “By some partisans, maybe even by these very Jews. It is of course a shame. But I have reason to believe that he was actively working against us. Hauptsturmführer Aue, I understand your doubts; but you should stick to the main point and not the petty details. Here the interests of the SP and the SS are clear, and that’s what counts.”—“In any case,” said Weseloh, “their Jewish character is as plain as day. Their manners are insinuating, and they even tried to corrupt us.”—“Absolutely,” Persterer confirmed. “They’ve come many times to the Kommando to bring us fur coats, blankets, cooking utensils. They say it’s to help our troops, but they have also given us carpets, fine knives, and jewelry.”—“We shouldn’t be taken in,” threw in Holste, who looked bored.—“Yes,” said Prill, “but remember they did the same thing with the Wehrmacht.” The discussion lasted for some time. Bierkamp concluded: “Brigadeführer Korsemann will come in person to the conference in Nalchik. I don’t think, if we present the thing well, that the Army Group will dare to contradict us openly. After all, it’s their security too that’s at stake. Sturmbannführer Persterer, I’m counting on you to manage all the preparations for a rapid and effective Aktion. Once we have the green light, we have to act quickly. I want everything to be finished by Christmas, so I can include the numbers in my year-end report.”

  After the meeting, I went to say goodbye to Weseloh. She shook my hand warmly. “Hauptsturmführer Aue, I can’t begin to tell you how happy I was to be able to carry out this mission. For you, here in the East, the war is an everyday affair; but in Berlin, in the offices, you soon forget the mortal danger the Heimat is in, and the difficulties and sufferings of the front. Coming here has allowed me to understand all that in a profound way. I will carry back the memory of all of you as a precious thing. Good luck, good luck. Heil Hitler!” Her face was shining, she was in the grip of a surprising exaltation. I returned her salute and left her.

  Jünger was still in Voroshilovsk, and I had heard that he was receiving admirers who sought him out; he had to leave soon to inspect Ruoff’s divisions in front of Tuapse. But I had lost all desire to meet Jünger. I went back to Pyatigorsk thinking about Prill. Obviously he was trying to harm me; I didn’t really understand why: I had never tried to pick a quarrel with him; but he had chosen to take Turek’s side. He was in continual contact with Bierkamp and Leetsch, and it would not be hard, by dint of little insinuations, to set them against me. This matter of the Bergjuden risked putting me in a bad position: I had no bias, I just wanted to respect a certain intellectual honesty, and I had trouble understanding Bierkamp’s insistence on wanting to liquidate them at all costs; was he sincerely convinced of their Jewish racial origins? For me, that didn’t emerge clearly from the documentation; as to their appearance and behavior, they didn’t at all resemble the Jews we knew; seeing them at home, they seemed in every point like the Kabards, the Balkars, or the Karachai. They too offered us sumptuous gifts, it was a tradition, you didn’t have to see that as corruption. But I had to watch out: indecisiveness could be interpreted as weakness, and Prill and Turek would take advantage of the slightest misstep.

  In Pyatigorsk, I again found the map room sealed: Hoth’s army, formed from the reinforced remnants of the Fourth Panzer Army, was launching its breakthrough from Kotelnikovo toward the Kessel. But the officers were acting optimistic, and their comments served to fill out the official communiqués and rumors for me; everything led us to believe that once again, as before Moscow the previous year, the Führer had been right to hold out. In any case I had to prepare for the conference on the Bergjuden and didn’t have much time for anything else. As I reread the reports and my notes, I thought about Voss’s words, during our last conversation; and examining the different accumulated proofs, I wondered: What would he have thought of this, what would he have accepted or rejected? The case, all things considered, was very thin. It honestly seemed to me that the Khazar hypothesis was untenable, that only the Persian origin made sense; as to what that meant, I was less sure than ever. I regretted Voss’s death enormously; he was truly the only person here with whom I could have talked about this seriously; the others, the ones in the Wehrmacht or the SS, couldn’t care less, really, about truth or scientific rigor: it was just a political question for them.

  The conference took place around the middle of the month, a few days before the Great Bairam. There were a lot of people; the Wehrmacht had hastily replastered a large meeting hall in the former Communist Party headquarters, which had an immense oval table still scarred by the shrapnel that had come through the roof. There was a brief but animated discussion about a question of precedence: Köstring wanted each of the different delegations to be grouped together—the military administration, the Abwehr, the AOK, the Ostiministerium, and the SS—and that seemed logical, but Korsemann insisted that everyone be seated according to his rank; Köstring ended up giving in, which had Korsemann sitting on his right, Bierkamp a little lower, and me almost at the end of the table, across from Bräutigam, who was only a Hauptmann of the reserve, and next to the civilian expert from Minister Rosenberg’s institute. Köstring opened the meeting and then introduced Selim Shadov, the head of the Kabardo-Balkar National Council, who gave a long speech on the very ancient relations of hospitality, mutual aid, friendship, and sometimes even marriage between the Kabard, Balkar, and Tat peoples. He was
a rather fat man, wearing a twill suit made of shiny cloth, his somewhat flabby face strengthened by a thick moustache, and he spoke a slow, emphatic Russian; Köstring translated his words himself. When Shadov had finished, Köstring got up and assured him, in Russian (this time a Dolmetscher translated for us), that the opinion of the National Council would be taken into account, and that he hoped that the question would be settled to everyone’s satisfaction. I looked at Bierkamp, sitting on the other side of the table, four seats away from Korsemann: he had placed his cap on the table next to his papers, and was listening to Köstring while tapping his fingers; Korsemann was scraping at a shrapnel gouge with his pen. After Köstring’s reply, they had Shadov leave, and the general sat down without commenting on the exchange. “I suggest we begin with the experts’ reports,” he said. “Doktor Bräutigam?” Bräutigam pointed to the man seated to my left, a civilian with yellowish skin, a drooping little moustache, and carefully combed greasy hair, sprinkled, as were his shoulders, with a cloud of dandruff, which he kept nervously brushing off. “Allow me to introduce Dr. Rehrl, a specialist in Eastern Judaism at the Institute for Jewish Questions in Frankfurt.” Rehrl slightly raised his buttocks from his chair in a little bow and began in a monotonous, nasal voice: “I believe we are dealing here with a remnant of a Turkic tribe, which adopted the Mosaic religion during the conversion of the Khazar nobility, and which later on sought refuge in the eastern Caucasus, around the tenth or eleventh centuries, during the destruction of the Khazar Empire. There, they mixed by marriage with an Iranian-speaking mountain tribe, the Tats, and a part of the group converted or reconverted to Islam while the others maintained a Judaism that became slowly corrupted.” He began to tick off the proofs: first of all, the words in Tat for food, people, and animals, that is, the fundamental substratum of language, were mainly of Turkish origin. Then he went over the little that was known of the history of the conversion of the Khazars. There were some interesting points there, but his summary tended to present things in a jumble, and was a little hard to follow. I was nonetheless impressed by his argument about proper names: one found, among the Bergjuden, names of Jewish holidays such as Hanukkah or Pessach used as proper names, for example in the Russianized name Khanukayev, a usage that exists neither among the Ashkenazy Jews nor among the Sepharad, but which is attested among the Khazars: the proper name Hanukkah, for instance, appears twice in the Kiev Letter, a letter of recommendation written in Hebrew by the Khazar community of this city at the beginning of the tenth century; once on a gravestone in the Crimea; and once in the list of Khazar kings. For Rehrl, therefore, the Bergjuden, despite their language, were comparable from a racial perspective to the Nogai, the Kumyk, and the Balkar rather than to the Jews. After that, the head of the investigatory commission from the Wehrmacht, a rubicund officer named Weintrop, spoke: “My opinion can’t be as unequivocal as that of my respected colleague. In my opinion, the traces of a Caucasian Jewish influence on these famous Khazars—about which we know in fact quite little—are as numerous as are the proofs of an opposite influence. For example, in the document known as the Anonymous Cambridge Letter, which must also date from the tenth century, it is written that some Jews from Armenia intermarried with the inhabitants of this land—this refers to the Khazars—mingled with the Gentiles, learned their practices, and continually fought alongside them; and they became a single people. The author is speaking here of Middle Eastern Jews and of the Khazars: when he mentions Armenia, it’s not the modern Armenia that we know, but the ancient Greater Armenia, that is, almost all of Transcaucasia and a large part of Anatolia….” Weintrop went on in this vein; each element of proof that he put forward seemed to contradict the one before it. “If we come now to ethnological observation, we note few differences from their neighbors who converted to Islam, or who became Christian, like the Ossetes. Pagan influences remain very strong: the Bergjuden practice demonology, wear talismans to protect themselves from evil spirits, and so on. That resembles the so-called Sufi practices of the Muslim mountain people, such as the worship of graves or the ritual dances, which are also survivals of pagan rituals. The standard of living of the Bergjuden is identical to that of the other mountain peoples, whether in the city or in the auls that we visited: it’s impossible to maintain that the Bergjuden profited from Judeo-Bolshevism in order to advance their position. On the contrary, they seem in general almost poorer than the Kabards. At the Shabbat meal, the women and children sit apart from the men: this is contrary to Jewish tradition, but it’s the mountain tradition. On the other hand, during marriages like the one we were able to attend, with hundreds of Kabard and Balkar guests, the men and women of the Bergjuden dance together, which is strictly forbidden by Orthodox Judaism.”—“Your conclusions, then?” asked von Bittenfeld, Köstring’s adjutant. Weintrop scratched his white hair, cropped almost to the skull: “As for the origin, it’s hard to say: the information is contradictory. But it seems obvious to us that they are completely assimilated and integrated and, if you like, vermischlingt, ‘mischlingized.’ The traces of Jewish blood that remain must be negligible.”—“However,” Bierkamp interrupted, “they cling obstinately to their Jewish religion, which they’ve preserved intact for centuries.”—“Oh, not intact, Herr Oberführer, not intact,” Weintrop said genially. “Quite corrupted, on the contrary. They have completely lost all Talmudic knowledge, if they ever had any. With their demonology, this makes them almost heretics, like the Karaïtes. What’s more, the Ashkenazy Jews scorn them and call them Byky, ‘Bulls,’ a pejorative term.”—“On this subject,” Köstring said suavely, turning to Korsemann, “what is the opinion of the SS?”—“It’s certainly an important question,” Korsemann opined. “I’m going to hand it over to Oberführer Bierkamp.” Bierkamp was already gathering his pages together: “Unfortunately, our own specialist, Dr. Weseloh, had to return to Germany. But she has prepared a complete report, which I forwarded to you, Herr General, and which strongly supports our opinion: these Bergjuden are extremely dangerous Fremdkörper who represent a threat to the security of our troops, a threat to which we must react with vigor and energy. This point of view, which, unlike that of the researchers, takes into account the vital question of security, is also based on a study of the scientific documentation carried out by Dr. Weseloh, whose conclusions differ from those of the other specialists present here. I will let Hauptsturmführer Dr. Aue present them to you.” I bowed my head: “Thank you, Oberführer. I think that, to be clear, it is preferable to differentiate the levels of proofs. First of all there are the historical documents, then the living document that is language; then there are the results of physical and cultural anthropology; and finally the ethnological research in the field like that carried out by Dr. Weintrop or Dr. Weseloh. If one considers the historical documents, it seems established that Jews lived in the Caucasus long before the conversion of the Khazars.” I quoted Benjamin of Tudela and a few other ancient sources, such as the Derbent-Nameh. “In the ninth century, Eldad ha-Dani visited the Caucasus and noted that the Mountain Jews had an excellent knowledge of the Talmud…”—“Well, they certainly lost it!” Weintrop interrupted.—“Absolutely, but the fact remains that at one time the Talmudists of Derbent and Chemakha, in Azerbaijan, were quite renowned. Which may moreover be a rather late phenomenon: in fact, a Jewish traveler from the eighties of the last century, a certain Judas Chorny, thought that Jews had arrived in the Caucasus not after but before the destruction of the First Temple, and lived cut off from everything, under Persian protection, until the fourth century. Only later on, when the Tatars invaded Persia, did the Bergjuden meet some Jews from Babylon who taught them the Talmud. It was only at that time that they adopted rabbinic tradition and teachings. But that is not proven. For proof of their antiquity, you would have to refer to archeological traces, like the deserted ruins in Azerbaijan known as Chifut Tebe, the ‘Hill of the Jews,’ or Chifut Kabur, the ‘Tomb of the Jews.’ They are very ancient. As to the language, Dr. Weseloh’s observa
tions corroborate those of the late Dr. Voss: it is a modern Western Iranian dialect—I mean no older than the eighth or ninth century, maybe even the tenth—which seems to contradict a direct Chaldean descent, as Pantyukov suggests, following Quatrefages. What’s more, Quatrefages thought that the Lesghins, some Svans, and the Khevsurs also had Jewish origins; in Georgian, Khevis Uria means ‘the Jew from the Valley.’ Baron Peter Uslar, more reasonably, suggests a frequent, regular Jewish immigration to the Caucasus over two thousand years, each wave more or less mingling with the local tribes. One explanation of the problem of the language would be that the Jews traded women with an Iranian tribe, the Tat, who arrived later on; they themselves would have arrived in the time of the Achaemenids, as military colonists to defend the Derbent Pass against the nomads from the plains in the North.”—“The Jews, military colonists?” an Oberst from the AOK laughed sarcastically. “That seems ridiculous to me.”—“Not really,” Bräutigam retorted. “The Jews before the Diaspora have a long tradition of waging war. Just look at the Bible. And remember how they stood up to the Romans.”—“Oh yes, that’s in Flavius Josephus,” Korsemann added.—“True, Herr Brigadeführer,” Bräutigam agreed.—“In short,” I went on, “this collection of facts seems to contradict a Khazar origin. On the contrary, the hypothesis of Vsevolod Miller, which is that the Bergjuden brought Judaism to the Khazars, seems more plausible.”—“That’s just what I was saying,” Weintrop broke in. “But you yourself, with your linguistic argument, don’t deny the possibility of ‘racial mixing.’”—“It’s a shame that Dr. Voss is no longer with us,” Köstring said. “He would certainly have clarified this point for us.”—“Yes,” said von Gilsa sadly. “We miss him very much. He’s a great loss.”—“Judeo-Bolshevism,” Rehrl added sententiously, “is also making German science pay a heavy price.”—“Yes, but really, in the case of poor Voss, it’s more a question of a, so to speak, cultural misunderstanding,” suggested Bräutigam.—“Meine Herren, meine Herren,” Köstring cut in. “We are straying from the subject. Hauptsturmführer?”—“Thank you, Herr General. Unfortunately, physical anthropology makes it hard for us to decide between the various hypotheses. Allow me to cite for you the data gathered by the great scholar Erckert in Der Kaukasus und seine Völker, published in 1887. For the cephalic index, he gives 79.4 (mesocephalic) for the Tatars of Azerbaijan, 83.5 (brachycephalic) for the Georgians, 85.6 (hyperbrachycephalic) for the Armenians, and 86.7 (hyperbrachycephalic) for the Bergjuden.”—“Ha!” Weintrop exclaimed. “Just like the Mecklenburgers!”—“Shh…” Köstring said. “Let the Hauptsturmführer speak.” I continued: “Height of head: Kalmuks, 62; Georgians, 67.9; Bergjuden, 67.9; Armenians, 71.1. Facial index: Georgians, 86.5; Kalmuks, 87; Armenians, 87.7; and Bergjuden, 89. Finally, nasal index: the Bergjuden are at the bottom of the scale, with 62.4, and the Kalmuks at the top, with 75.3, a significant interval. The Georgians and Armenians fall between the two.”—“What does all that mean?” asked the Oberst from the AOK. “I don’t understand.”—“That means,” explained Bräutigam, who had jotted down the numbers and was hastily carrying out some mental calculations, “that if you regard the shape of the head as an indicator of a more or less elevated race, the Bergjuden form the most handsome type of Caucasian population.”—“That’s exactly what Erckert says,” I went on. “But of course, this approach, although it has not been completely refuted, is little used these days. Science has made some progress.” I briefly raised my eyes to Bierkamp: he was regarding me severely, tapping on the table with his pencil. With his fingertips he signaled to me to go on. I plunged back into my documents: “As for cultural anthropology, it provides a wealth of data. It would take me too long to go over all of it. In general, it tends to present the Bergjuden as having completely adopted the customs of the mountain people, including those concerning kanly, or ichkil, the blood feud. We know that several great Tat warriors fought alongside Imam Shamil against the Russians. Also, before Russian colonization, the Bergjuden occupied themselves mostly with agriculture, and cultivated grapes, rice, tobacco, and various grains.”—“That is not Jewish behavior,” Bräutigam noted. “The Jews hate difficult labor like agriculture.”—“Indeed, Herr Doktor. Later on, under the Russian Empire, economic circumstances turned them into artisans, specializing in leather tanning and jewelry, weapon-and carpet-making; they also became merchants. But that is a recent evolution, and some Bergjuden remain farmers.”—“Like the ones that were killed near Mozdok, right?” Köstring recalled. “We never cleared up that business.” Bierkamp’s face darkened. I went on: “On the other hand, a rather convincing fact is that aside from the few rebels who joined Shamil, most of the Bergjuden in Daghestan, perhaps because of Muslim persecutions, chose the Russian side during the Caucasian wars. After the victory, the czarist authorities rewarded them with equal rights with the other Caucasian tribes, and access to administrative positions. That, of course, is more like the parasitic Jewish methods that we are familiar with. But it should be noted that most of these rights were rescinded under the Bolshevik regime. In Nalchik, since this was a Kabardo-Balkar autonomous republic, all the positions that weren’t given to Russians or to Soviet Jews were distributed to the two titular peoples; the Bergjuden, here, mostly did not participate in the administration, aside from a few archivists and minor functionaries. It would be interesting to observe the situation in Daghestan.” I ended by citing Weseloh’s ethnological observations. “They don’t seem to contradict our own,” Weintrop grumbled. “No, Herr Major. They are complementary.”—“On the other hand,” Rehrl murmured pensively, “the bulk of your information is not very compatible with the thesis of a Khazar or Turkish origin. Nonetheless, I believe it’s solid. Even your Miller…” Köstring interrupted him, coughing: “We are all very impressed by the erudition shown by the specialists from the SS,” he said unctuously, addressing Bierkamp, “but your conclusions don’t seem very different to me from those of the Wehrmacht, wouldn’t you say?” Bierkamp seemed furious and worried now; he was chewing his lip: “As we have pointed out, Herr General, purely scientific observations remain very abstract. You have to add them to the observations provided by the work of the Sicherheitspolizei. That’s what makes us conclude that we are dealing here with a racially dangerous enemy.”—“Excuse me, Herr Oberführer,” Bräutigam intervened. “I am not convinced of that.”—“That’s because you’re a civilian and have a civilian point of view, Herr Doktor,” Bierkamp dryly retorted. “It is not by chance that the Führer thought fit to entrust matters of the Reich’s security to the SS. There is also a question of Weltanschauung here.”—“No one here is calling into question the competence of the Sicherheitspolizei or the SS, Oberführer,” Köstring continued with his slow, paternal voice. “Your forces are precious auxiliaries for the Wehrmacht. Nevertheless, the military administration, which is also the result of a decision made by the Führer, must consider all aspects of the question. Politically, an action that is not completely justified against the Bergjuden would harm us. There would have to be urgent considerations to counterbalance that. Oberst von Gilsa, what is the opinion of the Abwehr as to the level of risk posed by this population?”—“The question was already brought up during our first conference on the subject, Herr General, in Voroshilovsk. Since then, the Abwehr has been attentively observing the Bergjuden. As of today, we haven’t noticed the slightest trace of subversive activity. No contact with partisans, no sabotage, no espionage, nothing. If only all the other populations would stay so quiet, our task here would be made much easier.”—“The SP believes you shouldn’t wait for the crime, but prevent it,” Bierkamp furiously objected.—“Indeed,” said von Bittenfeld, “but in a preventive intervention, you have to weigh the benefits and the risks.”—“In short,” Köstring went on, “if there is a risk from the Bergjuden, it is not immediate?”—“No, Herr General,” von Gilsa confirmed. “Not in the Abwehr’s opinion.”—“So there’s still the racial question,” said Köstring. “We have heard a lot
of arguments. But I think you will all agree that none of them was fully conclusive either way.” He paused and rubbed his cheek. “It seems to me that we lack data. It is true that Nalchik is not the natural habitat of these Bergjuden, which certainly deforms the perspective. So I suggest that we put off the question until our occupation of Daghestan. On-site, in their original habitat, our researchers should be able to find more convincing elements. We will organize another commission, then.” He turned to Korsemann. “What do you think, Brigadeführer?” Korsemann hesitated, glanced sideways at Bierkamp, hesitated again and said, “I don’t see any objection to that, Herr General. That seems to me to satisfy the interests of all parties involved, including the SS. Isn’t that right, Oberführer?” Bierkamp took a moment to reply: “If you think so, Brigadeführer.”—“Of course,” Köstring added in his friendly manner, “in the meantime, we will watch them closely. Oberführer, I am also counting on the vigilance of your Sonderkommando. If they become insolent or make contact with the partisans, that’s it. Doktor Bräutigam?” Bräutigam’s voice was more nasal than ever: “The Ostministerium has no objection to your entirely reasonable proposition, Herr General. I think we should also thank the specialists, some of whom have come here all the way from the Reich, for their remarkable work.”—“Absolutely, absolutely,” Köstring agreed. “Doktor Rehrl, Major Weintrop, Hauptsturmführer Aue, our congratulations, as well as to your colleagues.” Everyone applauded. People were standing up in a noise of chairs scraping and papers shuffling. Bräutigam skirted round the table and came to shake my hand: “Very good work, Hauptsturmführer.” He turned to Rehrl: “Of course, the Khazar thesis can still be defended.”—“Oh,” said Rehrl, “we’ll see in Daghestan. I’m sure that we’ll find more proofs there, archeological remains.” I looked at Bierkamp, who had gone off to join Korsemann and who was speaking to him quickly in a low voice, gesturing with his hand. Köstring was standing and talking with von Gilsa and the Oberst from the AOK. I exchanged a few more words with Bräutigam and then gathered my files together and headed to the antechamber, where Bierkamp and Korsemann were already waiting. Bierkamp eyed me angrily: “I thought you cared more about the interests of the SS, Hauptsturmführer.” I didn’t let myself get flustered: “Oberführer, I did not omit one single proof of their Jewishness.”—“You could have presented your arguments more clearly. With less ambiguity.” Korsemann intervened with his jerky voice: “I don’t see what you are reproaching him for, Oberführer. He did very well. What’s more, the General congratulated him, twice.” Bierkamp shrugged his shoulders: “I wonder if Prill was right, after all.” I didn’t reply. Behind us, the other attendees were coming out. “Do you have any other instructions for me, Oberführer?” I finally asked. He gestured vaguely with his hand: “No. Not now.” I saluted him and went out behind von Gilsa.