The next morning, I went to Minvody with the other officers to supervise the Aktion. I watched the arrival and unloading of the train: the Jews seemed surprised at getting out so soon, since they thought they were being transferred to the Ukraine, but they stayed calm. To avoid any agitation, the known Communists were kept under separate guard. In the cluttered, dusty main hall of the glass factory, the Jews had to hand over their clothes, luggage, personal effects, and the keys to their apartments. That provoked a commotion, especially since the factory floor was strewn with broken glass, and the people, in their bare socks, were cutting their feet. I pointed this out to Dr. Bolte, but he shrugged his shoulders. The Orpos were hitting people left and right; the Jews, terrified, would run and sit down in their underwear, the women trying to calm the children. Outside blew a cool breeze; but the sun was beating down on the glass roof, and the heat inside was stifling, as in a greenhouse. A man of a certain age, in distinguished clothes with glasses and a little moustache, approached me. He was holding a very young boy in his arms. He took off his hat and addressed me in perfect German: “Herr Offizier, can I have a few words with you?”—“You speak German very well,” I replied.—“I studied in Germany,” he said with a slightly stiff dignity. “It was once a great country.” He must have been one of the professors from Leningrad. “What do you wish to say to me?” I asked curtly. The little boy, who was holding the man by the neck, was gazing at me with large blue eyes. He was about two. “I know what you are doing here,” the man said coolly. “It is an abomination. I simply want to wish that you’ll survive this war and wake up for twenty years, every night, screaming. I hope you’ll be incapable of looking at your children without seeing ours, the ones you murdered.” He turned his back on me and went away before I could reply. The boy kept staring at me over his shoulder. Bolte came up to me: “What insolence! How dare he? You should have reacted.” I shrugged my shoulders. What did it matter? Bolte knew perfectly well what we were going to do to that man and his child. It was natural that he should want to insult us. I walked away and headed for the exit. Some Orpos were organizing a group of people in their underwear and herding them toward the antitank trench, half a mile away. I watched them move off. The ditch was too far away for the gunfire to be heard; but these people must have suspected what fate was awaiting them. Bolte hailed me: “Are you coming?” Our car passed the group that I had seen leaving; they were shivering from the cold, the women were clutching their children by the hand. Then in front of us was the ditch. Some soldiers and Orpos were standing at ease, jeering; I heard a commotion and shouts. I passed through the group of soldiers and saw Turek, holding a shovel, striking an almost naked man lying on the ground. Other bloody bodies were lying in front of him; farther on, some terrorized Jews were standing under guard. “Vermin!” Turek bellowed, his eyes bulging. “Grovel, Jew!” He hit the man’s head with the sharp edge of the shovel; the man’s skull cracked, spraying Turek’s boots with blood and brains; I clearly saw an eye, knocked out by the blow, fly a few meters away. The men were laughing. I reached Turek in two strides and seized him roughly by the arm: “You’re insane! Stop that at once!” I was trembling. Turek turned on me in a rage and made as if to raise his shovel; then he lowered it and shrugged his arm free. He was trembling too. “Mind your own business,” he spat. His face was purple; he was sweating and rolling his eyes. He threw down the shovel and strode away. Bolte had joined me; with a few curt words, he ordered Pfeiffer, who was standing there breathing heavily, to have the bodies picked up and to continue the execution. “It wasn’t your place to intervene,” he reproached me.—“But that sort of thing is unacceptable!”—“Maybe, but Sturmbannführer Müller is in charge of this Kommando. You’re here only as an observer.”—“Well, where is Sturmbannführer Müller, then?” I was still trembling. I returned to the car and ordered the driver to take me back to Pyatigorsk. I wanted to light a cigarette; but my hands were still shaking, I couldn’t control them and had trouble with my lighter. Finally I managed it and took a few drags before throwing the cigarette out the window. We were passing, from the other direction, the column that was advancing at a walk; from the corner of my eye I saw a teenager break rank and run to pick up my cigarette butt before going back to his place.