I was open to some of Voss’s arguments: if the Bergjuden did in fact think of themselves as authentic Caucasian mountain people, and were regarded as such by their neighbors, their attitude toward us, in general, might indeed remain loyal, whatever the origin of their blood. Cultural and social factors could also count; one had to consider, for example, the relations this people had with the Bolshevik authorities. The words of the old Tat, in Pyatigorsk, had suggested to me that the Bergjuden were not particularly fond of the Jews of Russia, and perhaps the same was true for the whole Stalinist system. The attitude of the other tribes toward them was also important, you couldn’t depend on the word of Shadov alone: here too, perhaps, the Jews were living as parasites. Going back to Pyatigorsk, I thought about Voss’s other arguments. To deny racial anthropology as a whole in that way seemed to me to be overdoing it; of course the methods could be refined, and I didn’t doubt that people of little talent were able to profit from their Party connections to construct an undeserved career for themselves: Germany was swarming with parasites like that (and fighting that was also one of the tasks of the SD, in the minds of some people at least). But Voss, despite all his talent, had the definitive opinions of youth. Things were certainly more complex than he thought. I didn’t have the knowledge to criticize him, but it seemed to me that if you believed in a certain idea of Germany and the German Volk, the rest had to follow naturally. Some things could be demonstrated, but others simply had to be understood; it was also no doubt a question of faith.
In Pyatigorsk, the first reply from Berlin was waiting for me, sent by telex. Amt VII had sought the opinion of a certain Professor Kittel, who wrote: Difficult question, to be studied locally. That was not very encouraging. Department VII B 1, on the other hand, had prepared documentation that would arrive soon by air mail. The specialist from the Wehrmacht, von Gilsa told me, was on his way, and Rosenberg’s expert would follow him soon after. Waiting for ours to arrive, I settled the problem of my winter clothing. Reuter kindly placed one of the Jewish artisans from the Wehrmacht at my service, an old man with a long beard, quite thin; he came to take my measurements, and I ordered a long gray coat from him with an Astrakhan collar, lined with shearling, which the Russians call a shuba, and a pair of fleece-lined boots; as for the shapka (the one from the year before had disappeared a long time ago), I went myself and found one at the market, the Verkhnyi rynok, in silver fox. A number of officers from the Waffen-SS had adopted the custom of having a death’s head insignia sewn onto their non-regulation shapkas; I thought that a bit affected; but on the other hand, I removed the epaulettes and an SD insignia from one of my jackets and had them sewn onto the coat.