The Kindly Ones Read online

  An hour later, the officers met in the main hall. Von Radetzky and Häfner had left with Blobel; he had started kicking when they put him into the Opel, Sperath had been forced to give him another shot while Häfner held him round the waist. Callsen began to speak: “Well, I think you’re all more or less up to date about the situation.” Vogt interrupted: “Could you perhaps go over it quickly?”—“If you like. This morning, the Generalfeldmarschall gave the order to undertake a retaliatory action for the ten German soldiers found mutilated in the fortress. He ordered us to execute one Jew for each person assassinated by the Bolsheviks; that is more than a thousand Jews. The Standartenführer received the order and that seems to have brought about a fit…”—“It’s also somewhat the army’s fault,” Kurt Hans said. “They should have sent someone with more tact than that Hauptmann. And transmitting an order of this importance through a Hauptmann is almost an insult.”—“We have to admit that this whole business reflects badly on the honor of the SS,” Vogt commented.—“Listen,” Sperath said acerbically, “that’s not the question. I can tell you that the Standartenführer was already ill, this morning, he had a strong fever. The beginning of typhoid, I think. It definitely precipitated his breakdown.”—“Yes, but he also drank a lot,” Kehrig remarked.—“That’s true,” I ventured, “there was an empty bottle in his room.”—“He had intestinal problems,” Sperath retorted. “He thought that might help.”—“In any case,” Vogt concluded, “we’re without a commander. And also without a deputy commander. That won’t do. I suggest that while we wait for the return of Sturmbannführer von Radetzky, Hauptsturmführer Callsen take command of the Sonderkommando.”—“But I’m not the highest-ranking officer,” Callsen objected. “You are, or Sturmbannführer Kehrig.”—“Yes, but we aren’t operations officers. Among the leaders of the Teilkommandos, you’re the most senior.”—“I agree,” Kehrig said. Callsen, his face tense, darted his eyes from one man to the other, then looked at Janssen, who turned aside before nodding his head. “Me too,” Kurt Hans added. “Hauptsturmführer, it’s your command.” Callsen remained silent and then shrugged: “Fine. As you like.”—“I have a question,” Strehlke, our Leiter II, said coolly. He turned to Sperath: “Doctor, according to you, what is the Standartenführer’s condition? Should we count on his returning soon or not?” Sperath made a face: “I don’t know. It’s hard to say. Part of his affliction is certainly of nervous origin, but there must also be organic causes. They’ll have to see how he is when the fever goes down.”—“If I understood you correctly,” Vogt spluttered, “he won’t be coming back right away.”—“That’s hardly likely. Not in the next few days, in any case.”—“Maybe he won’t come back at all,” Kehrig snapped. A silence spread through the room. Obviously the same thought united us, even if no one wanted to give voice to it: it might not be such a bad thing if Blobel did not come back. None of us had known him a month ago, and we had been under his orders for scarcely a week; nonetheless, we had learned that working with him could turn out to be difficult, disagreeable even. Callsen broke the silence: “Listen, that’s not all: we have to start planning our operation.”—“Yes, but really,” Kehrig went on vehemently, “it’s absolutely grotesque, this business, it doesn’t make any sense.”—“What is grotesque?” Vogt asked.—“These retaliations! You’d think it was the Thirty Years’ War! And also first of all, how are you going to go about identifying a thousand Jews? In one night?” He tapped his nose. “From sight? By examining their noses? By measuring them?”—“That’s true,” admitted Janssen, who hadn’t said anything till then. “It’s not going to be easy.”—“Häfner had an idea,” Kurt Hans laconically suggested. “We just have to ask them to drop their pants.” Kehrig exploded suddenly: “But that’s absolutely ridiculous! You’re all out of your minds!…Callsen, tell them.” Callsen remained somber but unmoved: “Listen, Sturmbannführer. Calm down. There must be a solution, I’ll discuss it later on with the Obergruppenführer. As to the principle of the thing, I don’t like it any more than you do. But those are the orders.” Kehrig stared at him, biting his tongue; he was obviously trying to contain himself. “And Brigadeführer Rasch,” he finally blurted, “what does he have to say about it? He is our direct superior, after all.”—“Exactly, that’s another problem. I’ve already tried contacting him, but it seems the Gruppenstab is still on the march. I’d like to send an officer to Lemberg to report to him and request his instructions.”—“Who were you thinking of sending?”—“I was thinking of Obersturmführer Aue. Can you do without him for a day or two?” Kehrig turned to me: “How far are you with those files, Obersturmführer?”—“I’ve already sorted through a large part. I need a few more hours, I think.” Callsen looked at his watch: “It’s already cutting it short if he’s going to arrive before nightfall.”—“All right,” Kehrig decided. “In that case, finish up tonight and leave at dawn.”—“Very well…Hauptsturmführer,” I asked Callsen, “what do you want me to do?”—“Report to the Brigadeführer on the situation and the problem with the Kommandant. Explain what our decisions were and tell him we’re awaiting his instructions.”—“While you’re at it,” Kehrig added, “get some information about the local situation. It seems things are pretty confused down there; I’d like to know what’s happening.”—“Zu Befehl.”

  That evening, it took four men to carry the selected archives up to the offices of the SD. Kehrig was in a foul mood. “Come on, Obersturmführer,” he growled when he saw my boxes, “I thought I’d asked you to sort through all that!”—“You should see what I left behind, Sturmbannführer.”—“Maybe. We’re going to have to borrow some more translators. All right. Your car is ready, ask for Höfler. Leave early. Now go see Callsen.” In the hallway, I met Untersturmführer Zorn, another junior officer, who usually assisted Häfner. “Ah, Dr. Aue. You’re lucky.”—“Why do you say that?”—“Well, to be leaving. Filthy business, tomorrow.” I nodded: “No doubt. Is everything ready, then?”—“I don’t know. I just have to take care of the cordon.”—“Zorn does nothing but complain,” protested Janssen, who had joined us.—“Have you solved the problem?” I asked.—“Which one?”—“The problem of the Jews. How to find them.” He laughed dryly: “Oh, that! It’s very simple really. The AOK is going to print some posters: all Jews are requested to report tomorrow morning to the main square for forced labor. We’ll take the ones who come.”—“And you think there will be enough of them?”—“The Obergruppenführer says that yes, it never fails, it works every time. If not, we’ll arrest the Jewish leaders and threaten to shoot them if they’re not all there.”—“I see.”—“Ah, what a mess” Zorn sighed. “Fortunately I just have to look after the cordon.”—“At least you’re there,” Janssen grumbled. “Not like that pig Häfner.”—“It’s not his fault,” I objected. “He wanted to stay. It’s the Sturmbannführer who insisted he accompany them.”—“Right, exactly. And why isn’t he here, then?” He looked at me darkly. “I’d also like to take a trip to Lublin or Lemberg.” I shrugged and went to find Callsen. He was poring over a map of the city along with Vogt and Kurt Hans. “Yes, Obersturmführer?”—“You wanted to see me.” Callsen seemed much more in command of himself than in the afternoon, almost relaxed. “You will tell Brigadeführer Dr. Rasch that Obergruppenführer Jeckeln confirms the army’s orders and is personally taking control of the Aktion.” He stared at me with calm eyes; obviously, Jeckeln’s decision had taken a weight off his shoulders. “He also confirms my position as acting commander until Sturmbannführer von Radetzky returns,” he went on, “unless the Brigadeführer has another preference. Finally, for the Aktion, he is lending us Ukrainian auxiliaries and a company from the Ninth Police Reserve Battalion. That’s it.” I saluted and went out without saying a word. That night, I stayed awake for a long time: I was thinking of the Jews who would be coming the next day. I thought the method adopted very unfair; the Jews of goodwill would be punished, the ones who might have come to trust the word of the German Reich; as for the others, t
he cowards, the traitors, the Bolsheviks, they’d stay hidden and we wouldn’t find them. As Zorn said, it was a fine mess. I was happy to leave for Lemberg, it would be an interesting trip; but I wasn’t satisfied with avoiding the Aktion that way; I thought something like that was a serious problem, but that you should confront it and resolve it, for yourself at least, and not run away from it. The others—Callsen, Zorn—wanted to wash their hands of it, or at least not assume responsibility for it: that wasn’t right, to my thinking. If we were committing an injustice, we ought to think about it, and decide if it was necessary and inevitable, or if it was only the result of taking the easy way out, of laziness, of a lack of thought. It was a question of rigor. I knew that these decisions were made at a much higher level than our own; still, we weren’t automatons, it was important not just to obey orders, but to adhere to them; yet I was having doubts, and that troubled me. Finally I read a little and slept for a few hours.

  At four o’clock I got dressed. Höfler, the driver, was already waiting for me in the mess with some bad coffee. “If you like I also have some bread and cheese, Obersturmführer.”—“No, that’s okay, I’m not hungry.” I drank my coffee in silence. Höfler dozed. Outside, there wasn’t a sound. Popp, the soldier who was to serve as my escort, joined us and started eating noisily. I got up and went out to smoke in the courtyard. The sky was clear, the stars were shining above the tall façades of the former monastery, closed and impassive in the gentle white light. I couldn’t see the moon. Höfler came out and saluted me: “Everything’s ready, Obersturmführer.”—“Did you take some cans of gas?”—“Yes. Three.” Popp was standing next to the front door of the Admiral, looking awkward and content with his rifle on his shoulder. I motioned to him to get in back. “Usually, Obersturmführer, the escort sits in front.”—“Yes, but I’d rather you got in back.”

  After crossing the Styr, Höfler turned off onto the road leading south. Signs marked the way; judging from the map, we had a few hours ahead of us. It was a fine Monday morning, calm, peaceful. The sleeping villages seemed scarcely affected by the war; the checkpoints let us pass without difficulty. To our left, already, the sky was growing paler. A little later the sun, still reddish, appeared through the trees. Thin clumps of mist stuck to the ground; between the villages, large flat fields stretched out interminably, interspersed with copses and hills covered with dense, low foliage. The sky slowly turned blue. “The land must be good here,” Popp commented. I didn’t answer and he was silent. In Radziechow we stopped to eat. Once again, the roadsides and ditches were strewn with wrecked tanks, and burned isbas disfigured the villages. The traffic got thicker; we crossed long columns of trucks loaded with soldiers and supplies. A little before Lemberg, a roadblock forced us to pull aside to let some Panzers pass. The road trembled; whirlwinds of dust obscured our windows and slipped in through the cracks. Höfler offered Popp and me a cigarette. He made a face as he lit his own: “These Sportnixes really stink.”—“They’re all right,” I said, “don’t be so fussy.” After the tanks had passed, a Feldgendarm approached and motioned us not to start up: “There’s another column coming,” he shouted. I finished my cigarette and threw the butt out the door. “Popp is right,” Höfler suddenly said. “It’s a beautiful countryside. A man could settle down here, after the war.”—“You’d come settle here?” I asked him with a smile. He shrugged: “It depends.”—“On what?”—“On the bureaucrats. If they’re like the ones back home, it’s not worth it.”—“And what would you do?”—“If I could do anything, Obersturmführer? I’d open a business, like at home. A nice little cigarette shop, with a bar too, and maybe a fruit and vegetable stand, possibly.”—“And you’d rather do that here than at home?” He banged the steering wheel sharply: “Well, I had to close the store at home. In ’thirty-eight already.”—“Why?”—“Because of those bastards from the cartels, from Reemtsma. They decided we had to make at least five thousand a year, to carry their products. In my village, there are maybe sixty families, so, before you could sell five thousand reichsmarks’ worth of cigarettes…. There was nothing for it, they were the only suppliers. I had the only cigarette store in the village, so our Parteiführer supported me, he wrote letters to the Gauleiter for me, we tried everything, but there was nothing to be done. It ended up in the commercial court and I lost, so I had to close up shop. Vegetables weren’t enough. And then I got drafted.”—“So there’s no cigarette shop in your village now?” Popp said in his muffled voice.—“Well, no, that’s what I said.”—“In my town there never was one.” The second column of Panzers arrived and everything started trembling again. One of the Admiral’s windows had come loose and rattled wildly in its frame. I pointed it out to Höfler and he nodded. The column filed by, endless: the front must still be advancing at full speed. Finally the Feldgendarm signaled to us that the road was clear.

  In Lemberg, chaos reigned. None of the soldiers questioned at the checkpoints could tell us where the HQ of the Sicherheitspolizei and the SD was; although the city had been captured two days before, no one seemed to have gone to the trouble of putting up tactical signs. We followed a large street almost at random; it ended up in a long boulevard divided in two by a mall and bordered with pastel-tinted façades prettily decorated with white moldings. The streets were swarming with people. Between the German military vehicles, cars and open trucks circulated, decorated with streamers and blue-and-yellow flags, teeming with men in civilian outfits or sometimes in scraps of uniforms, and armed with rifles and pistols; they shouted, sang, fired their guns in the air; on the sidewalks and in the park, other men, armed or not, cheered them, mixed in with impassive German soldiers. A Leutnant from the Luftwaffe was finally able to point me toward a divisional HQ; from there, we were sent to AOK 17. Officers ran up and down the stairways, came in, went out of offices, slamming doors; scattered, trampled Soviet files cluttered the hallways; in the lobby a group of men were standing with blue-and-yellow armbands on their civilian outfits, carrying rifles; they were talking animatedly in Ukrainian or Polish, I didn’t know which, with some German soldiers wearing badges embossed with a nightingale. I grabbed hold of a young Major from the Abwehr: “Einsatzgruppe B?”—“They got here yesterday. They moved into the NKVD offices.”—“And where are they?” He stared at me with an exhausted look: “I have no idea.” He finally found a subaltern who had been there and told him to help me.