Hannah’s eyes opened and she looked at me with so little loss of composure that I felt I was already there, fully established in her dream. Her mouth opened along all its width and she made a sound — like the sound of the tide of a distant sea.
‘Was tun wir hier,’ she said steadily and unrhetorically (as if really wanting to know), ‘mit diesen undenkbaren Leichenfresser?’
What are we doing here, she said, with these unimaginable ghouls…
She stood, and we embraced. We didn’t kiss. Even when she started crying and we were probably both thinking how delicious it would be, we didn’t kiss, not on the lips. But I knew I was in it.
‘Dieter Kruger,’ she eventually began.
Whatever it was, I was in it. And whatever it was, it would have to go forward.
Where now? Where to?
2. DOLL: STUCKE
If little things may be compared to large, and if a cat can look at a king, then it seems that I, Paul Doll, as Kommandant (the spearhead of this great national programme of applied hygiene), have certain affinities with the secret smoker!
Take Hannah. Yes, she will do very well, I believe, she will do nicely, I fancy, as an example of the secret smoker. And what do Hannah and myself have in common?
1stly, she has to find somewhere secluded for the gratification of her ‘secret’ need. 2ndly, she must bring about the disappearance of the remains: there is always the fag end, doubtlessly smeared with some loud lipstick, the butt, the stub (and to be perfectly direct about it, corpses are the bane of my life). 3rdly, she is required to deal with the odour, not only of the smoke itself but also of its residue, clinging to the clothes and especially to the hair (and in her case befouling the breath, for whilst the aroma of an expensive cigar lends authority to the internal scents of the Mensch, the reek of a penny Davidoff desecrates the salubrious waft of the Madchen). 4thly and finally, she has the obligation, if honesty is a concept she even acknowledges let alone understands, to account to herself for her compulsion to do what she does — stinking herself up, and wearing her guilt like some dirty little slut rancidly emerging from a strenuous joust on a hot afternoon…
Here the 2 of us happen to part company, and the analogy breaks down. Yes, we part company here.
For she does what she does out of wrongness and weakness. And I do what I do out of rectitude and indomitable might!
‘You’re wearing Mama’s make-up.’
Sybil’s hand flew to her face.
‘You thought you’d washed it all off, didn’t you? But I can still see traces of rouge. Or are you blushing?’
‘… I didn’t!’
‘Don’t tell lies, Sybil. You know why German girls shouldn’t use cosmetics? It affects their morals. They start telling lies. Like your mother.’
‘What do you mean, Vati?’
‘… Are you excited about the pony? Better than a silly old tortoise, nicht?’
Even the most stalwart National Socialist, I think, would have to concede that the task the SS set itself in Kulmhof, in the January of this year, was exceptionally sharp. Yech, that was a somewhat extreme measure, bordering, perhaps, on the excessive — the Aktion leading to the recruitment and induction of the Sonder, Szmul. To this day it is mildly famous; people think it stands as a rare behavioural curiosity, quite possibly a 1-off. We informally call it the time of the silent boys.
(Reminder: Szmul’s wife lingers in Litzmannstadt. Find out where.)
And by the way, if there are still a few fantasists who somehow retain sympathy for our Hebrew brethren, well, they ought to take a thorough look — as I was obliged to do (in Warsaw, last May) — at the Jewish Quarters in the cities of Poland. Seeing this race en masse, and left to itself, will shoo away any humanitarian sentimentality, and pretty sharpish, too, I shouldn’t wonder. Nightmare apparitions, miserable destitutes, sexually indistinguishable men and women throng the corpse-strewn thoroughfares. (As a loving father, I found it particularly hard to stomach their vicious neglect of the semi-naked children who howl, beg, sing, moan, and tremble, yellow-faced, like tiny lepers.) In Warsaw there are a dozen new cases of typhus every week, and of the ½ a million Jews 5–6,000 die every month, such is the apathy, the degeneracy, and, to be quite frank about it, the want of even the rudiments of self-respect.
On a lighter note, let me describe a little incident where myself and my travelling companion (Heinz Uebelhoer, a charming ‘young turk’ in the offices of the Reichsfuhrer-SS) managed to alleviate the gloom. We were at the Jewish cemetery, chatting to the noted film director Gottlob Hamm (he was making a documentary for the Ministry of Enlightenment), when a Kraft durch Freude motor coach pulled up and all the Jugend disembarked. Well, Gottlob, Heinz, and myself interrupted the funeral service then under way to take a few photographs. We set up some ‘genre’ pictures: you know, Old Jew Stands Over Cadaver of Young Girl. The Strength through Joy schoolboys were in stitches (but these ‘snaps’ unfortunately came to light whilst I was visiting Hannah at Abbey Timbers and there was hell to pay. Moraclass="underline" not everyone is blessed with ‘a sense of humour’).
And yet, and yet… Szmul’s wife gallivants round the streets of Litzmannstadt — or ‘Łódź’, as the Poles call it (pronouncing it Whoodge or some such).
Shulamith may be needed.
I think I shall send a communication to the head of the Jewish Council there, whose name — where did I put that report? — is ‘Chaim Rumkowski’.
Of course, muggins here did have to go down to Katowitz for more petrol refuse. I motored there (with 2 guards) in my 8-cylinder diesel Steyr 600, heading a convoy of trucks.
At the conclusion of business I took afternoon tea in the office of our civilian contractor, 1 Helmut Adolzfurt, a middle-aged Volksdeutscher (with his pince-nez and his widow’s peak). Then, as usual, Adolzfurt produced a bottle and we were putting away a few drams. Suddenly he said,
‘Sturmbannfuhrer. Do you know that from about 6 in the evening to about 10 at night, here in town, no one can swallow a mouthful?’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Because the wind turns and gusts up from the south. Because of the smell, Sturmbannfuhrer. The smell comes up from the south.’
‘To here? Oh, nonsense,’ I said with a carefree laugh. ‘That’s 50 kilometres.’
‘These windows are double-glazed. It’s 20 to 7. Let’s go outside. If you would, sir.’
We duly traipsed downstairs and into the yard (where my men had almost finished their work). I wondered out loud,
‘Is it always this strong?’
‘It was much harsher a month ago. It’s slightly better now it’s colder. What causes it, Sturmbannfuhrer?’
‘Ah, well the truth is, Adolzfurt,’ I said (for I’m not unaccustomed to quick thinking), ‘the truth is, we have a very sizable piggery in the agricultural station, and there’s been an epidemic. Of porcine sepsis. Caused by worms. So we’ve had no choice, do you see, but to destroy and incinerate. Nicht?’
‘Everyone talks, Sturmbannfuhrer.’
‘Well tell everyone that then. About the piggery.’
The last of the tanks of benzene were now aboard. I waved the drivers on. Shortly thereafter, I forked out the 1,800 zlotys, subsequently obtaining the requisite receipt.
During the drive back, whilst the guards dozed (I myself was of course at the controls of the prestigious machine), I kept pulling over and sticking my head out of the window and taking a sniff. It was as bad as I’ve ever known it, and it just got worse and worse and worse…