Attorney Perl’s cards contained quotes, speeches, orders, decisions made by the Nazi party. I dedicated a white sheet of paper to each sentence that caught my eye.
From an order issued by Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein, dated November 20, 1941:
“Jewry constitutes the middleman between the enemy in the rear and the remainder of the Red Army Forces which is still fighting, and the Red leadership…. The Jewish-Bolshevik system must be exterminated once and for all…. The soldier must appreciate the necessity for the harsh punishment of Jewry.” Von Manstein oversaw the operations of the Einsatzgruppe D task force, commanded by Otto Ohlendorf. After the war, he claimed to have had no knowledge of the exterminations.
In his speech at the Wannsee Conference, Reinhard Heydrich stated that “the evacuation of the Jews to the east has now emerged, after the appropriate prior approval of the Führer, as a further possible solution.” The Jews would be utilized for labor in the east, Heydrich explained, and continued: “…a large part will doubtless fall away through natural diminution. The remnant that finally survives all this, because here it is undoubtedly a question of the part with the greatest resistance, will have to be treated accordingly, because this remnant, representing a natural selection, can be regarded as the germ cell of a new Jewish reconstruction if released.”
“It was only thanks to the awareness of the personal responsibility of each one of the officers and the men that it was possible to get this plague under control in the shortest possible time,” read the concluding remarks of the “Katzmann Report,” authored by SS Gruppenführer Fritz Katzmann, a unit commander in the Galicia region. The report concerned the extermination of half a million Galician Jews. After the war, Katzmann lived under an assumed name. Only in 1960, three years after his death, was his true identity revealed.
At the bottom of the card devoted to Fritz Katzmann, Attorney Perl had noted, “Died in great agony from stomach cancer.”
On the other side of the wall, in the front of the store, he calls out from the top of the ladder, “I’ve only got three-quarter inch nails with the plastic head, is that okay?”
An incredible man. Ninety-two years old in ninety-two. Ninety-three years old in ninety-three. An easily calculable miracle. He’ll be ninety-four in ninety-four. Ninety-five in ninety-five. As his life progresses, another man also grows old: Edmund Veesenmeyer, born in 1904. Attorney Perl writes on his index cards every year:
“1981. Still alive.”
“1982. Still alive.”
“1983. Still alive.”
He sounds almost apologetic when he tells me, “He’s still alive, but I’m sick of checking, tired of the disappointment. I’ve checked every year since 1951. Here, it’s all written down, his family and everything. Instead of shrinking, it’s growing. What can you do? It’s a shame.”
The miracle of Attorney Perl’s continuing life contends with the unending life of Edmund Veesenmeyer, a diplomat, Adolf Eichmann’s partner in the implementation of the Final Solution in Hungary. In 1949 he was sentenced to twenty years in prison, but he was pardoned and released two years later. After that, he led a small, good life. Family, work.
On his little index cards, Attorney Perl tracks the war criminals. “My debtors,” he calls them. He keeps track of what happens instead of hangings. Their punishments — the big ones, the little ones. The pardons. The commutations. The appeals, the retrials. The waiting. The years that pass without any notes on the cards. Waiting, waiting. Sometimes the debtor moves to a different city, buys an apartment, starts up a business. And there are families, little European families that emerge as if from mazes, sending out offshoots that get further and further away from the center. The debtor integrates into society, gets appointed to positions where his talents are appreciated.
Siegfried Ruff, a superior of Dr. Rascher, who conducted gruesome medical experiments. Acquitted. Appointed head of the Institute for Aeronautical Medicine at the German Air Navigational Experiment Center, and later a professor at the University of Bonn.
Hermann Schmitz, senior member of I.G. Farben, the manufacturer of Zyklon B gas. Sentenced to four years, appointed honorary chairman of Rhein steel plants.
Friedrich Jaehne, senior member of I.G. Farben, manufacturer of Zyklon B gas. Sentenced to eighteen months detention. Awarded the Distinguished Service Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Attorney Perl is not satisfied with general outlines. He carefully sketches the lack of revenge, assiduously notating every detaiclass="underline" First grandson; second marriage; promotion; date of death. Everything. He explains, “I thought, well, if I’m going to go mad, then I may as well do it like this, in this chair. Writing everything down.” Then he goes back to the storefront to sell plaster and nails.
In the evening I go home. Anat is out, busy donating her time for the greater good. The neighbor from upstairs is watching Yariv. I think she just likes sleeping on our couch. Yariv comes out of his room and recites a well-rehearsed line: “Mom said there’s rice in the pot and soup in the fridge.” He stands watchfully opposite me and examines my face, wondering if he has conveyed the message successfully. It’s important for him to do well.
I ask, “Have you eaten?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s Mom?”
“She went to help children who don’t have a mommy and daddy.”
Small, almost orphaned, he locates my wife in a place she will come home from late and tired. On the way to bed she’ll pass by Yariv’s room, the shower, the pots and pans, the things she needs to get ready for tomorrow, me. She’ll look at the pages, at the memories I am acquiring. I show her the criminals, the families, the offspring carrying on their names. They love their grandpas. Nice children, well-bred. They support democracy, reject discrimination against foreigners. Sometimes they come to Israel and plant trees. They send postcards to Granddad and to Grandma Wilma, who waited five years for Granddad to get back from his missions in the East. She didn’t give up on him, even though officers fell in love with her and offered her heaven and earth.
Anat goes to sleep, saying, “Yes, it’s important, if you want to delve into it. But tomorrow don’t forget to pick up Yariv from kindergarten early. He’s not used to being the last one picked up. It makes him anxious.”
We hardly see each other. She has her business, I have my index cards and the family testimonies. Yariv stands between us like a well to which we come at the end of the day.
From kindergarten I take him to Attorney Perl’s. Instead of going home for lunch, we have “our” falafel. This makes Yariv happy; he thinks we’re big-time criminals, although he is very worried about the pots of rice, schnitzel and fries that we’re supposed to be heating up for lunch. He is buoyed by the thought of not having to eat the peas, but every so often, on the floor in the shop, among his soldier-screws, he is troubled by the uneaten rice. “What will we tell Mom?” he asks, his teeth glistening as he smiles. He knows we’re committing a sin. Anat went to all that trouble to make us lunch, and besides, falafel-is-no-sort-of-food-for-a-growing-boy. Together, we come up with a solution — a different excuse each time, always successful. (In any case, I’m the one who spinelessly wolfs down two portions at home so Anat won’t notice.)
He’s already grown accustomed to Attorney Perl’s store, and finds the front part more enchanting. He stands on a stool behind the counter like an extra salesman, in between Yakov the assistant and Attorney Perl, and watches the commerce in action. At the back, I sit among the cards. Everything is scattered around me, unprocessed, infinite. From day to day I gain insight — how quickly they forgave. If they weren’t hanged immediately, their sentences simply melted away. Even the ones sentenced to long prison terms for crimes against humanity were released sooner than petty larcenists. We have already agreed, Attorney Perl and I, that the Nazis and their aids were not punished enough. Our disagreement concerns the appropriate punishment, if it had been up to us.