Before turning to his paperwork the Commandant called in Obergefrieter Paulaner, his radio/telephone clerk. The SS corporal, smart in his fitted field gray uniform, snapped sharply to attention.
“Paulaner,” said Stangl, briefly looking up at the young man “call the trains unit, and tell them that one of their special trains was late again. Very late.”
The SS man saluted and left the room, only to return moments later. “Herr Commandant, the phone lines are out, and the radio, as usual, is not working correctly.”
Stangl waved Paulaner off. Such problems were common in far eastern Poland. He’d add his communication problems to his complaints—later.
At the platform Der Spiess eagerly awaited the new transport. Wagner was a big man, with close-cropped blond hair, a square jaw and blue eyes. He was the very image of an SS man. To heighten the effect, Wagner liked to wear his white SS dress uniform blouse when greeting a transport as the officer-in-charge.
Next to Wagner was an old gramophone, booty from some foolish Dutch Jew who lugged the machine all to way from Amsterdam. Set on the turntable, also plunder, was Felix Mendelssohn’s “Lieder ohne Worte”. The music was not exactly Wagner’s cup of tea, but he liked the irony of playing the Jewish composer as a train was unloaded. It calmed the Jews. The Jews should not know their fate until they smelled the gas. Usually that was exactly the case.
Arrayed with Wagner were nine other SS non commissioned officers, a platoon of twenty Ukrainian guards, and fifty Jewish prisoners, dressed blue coveralls. The Jewish prisoners were charged with unloading the train passengers and baggage. Besides Wagner and his nine men, the only other SS in Sobibor were the Commandant, Paulaner, three men sleeping off night duty in the barracks, and four SS men in Camp 3 who operated the gas chambers. A Ukrainian platoon guarded the perimeter and manned the four watchtowers; another was stationed in Camp 3, while the fourth was also sleeping off a night shift. The German SS were, like Wagner, mostly armed with pistols, but a couple of men carried MP-40 submachine-guns. Two of the Germans held large guard dogs, already straining at their leashes. The Ukrainian rank and file was armed with bolt-action Mauser carbines, while their own NCOs carried MP-40s.
Wagner stood on a small platform abutting one of the sorting sheds, while most of his men and the Jewish prisoners stood in the dirt by the railroad tracks. Sobibor still lacked a proper railroad platform, which made unloading the trains doubly difficult. Small children and older people in particular had difficultly dropping from the railcars to the ground.
But such minor difficulties were small beer to Wagner. In just a few months Sobibor had become the Reich’s most efficient “resettlement site,” an even smoother running murder machine than Belzec, the first death camp. Through dozens of transports and tens of thousands of victims, Wagner had only witnessed serious trouble once. A few weeks prior, a transport of Polish Jews rioted during unloading, forcing the guards to open fire as the Jews were still coming off the train. Wagner lost count of the people he’d shot that day, dozens at least. He’d pulled the trigger on his pistol so many times he’d developed a blister, which had since turned into a treasured callous. Wagner rubbed the callous contentedly as the train finally pulled in. Der Speiss was a confident man, and contemptuous of his victims. He wasn’t concerned that the uniforms of the two outriding guards were out of order, that the train had been delayed at the station some extra minutes, or that it now arrived in an unusually herky-jerky fashion, as if the special train crew had been drinking. Maybe mused Wagner, they had.
The train stopped for the third or fourth time with a hiss of steam and brakes. It was unusually quiet—where was the usual moaning and groaning? Wagner also noted that there was not the usual mass of desperate hands clutching at the few barbed wire windows. He exchanged a nervous glance with Feldwebel Granz, standing beside him and clutching an MP-40. Der Spiess, affecting nonchalance, winked at Granz. There was for Wagner a powerful aesthetic in the order and efficiency of the operation, enhanced by the racist ideal inherent in the process itself, the act of cleansing. Wagner started the gramophone and then, as if he were conducting a symphony, motioned for the Jewish prisoners to open the cars and release the cargo into his hands.
Chapter 15
Yatom forced himself to relax and control his breathing as the train backed into Sobibor camp. The train had started, stopped and jerked forward again at least four times since leaving Sobibor station. The Polish engineers were either incompetent, trying to give them away, or scared shitless. Yatom assumed it was the latter—what with a crazed Israeli scientist poking them with the big Galil, as Feldhandler was likely doing. Yatom stole a glance back at Mueller, well trussed and laying on the floor. Perchensy sat Indian style, and Uzi-in-hand, next to him. Beside Yatom at the windows were teams Alef and Bet, weapons at the ready.
Carefully parting parting the blinds, Yatom and the Israeli commandos took in the extraordinary scene. Dozens of German and Ukrainian soldiers stood several meters away from the tracks, and a unit of Jewish prisoners in their filthy blue coveralls was in position near the train.
“Don’t shoot the men in the blue,” Yatom reminded his men. “Everyone else is fair game.”
“Shoot the gray guys, eh Major,” cracked Ilan. Mofaz, his eyes still wide in astonishment, ignored the sniper’s jibe.
In the center of the enemy throng, was a German officer, in bright white uniform jacket, setting a needle to a record on a large ancient gramophone. Yatom lined him up in the Tavor’s sight.
“The big guy in white is mine,” he whispered. “Select your targets—let’s not have two people shooting at the same man.”
“Wait for me…” said Yatom.
The train jerked to a stop yet again. Three cars down Shapira and his men waited nervously for the action to start. Which stop signaled the end of the road wondered the lieutenant? Why hasn’t Yatom opened fire? Shapira resisted calling Yatom on the radio. The colonel had issued his orders and Shapira would follow them. Wait for Yatom to initiate the action.
Yatom had had enough as well. The train was not exactly where he imagined it should be to unload two thousand innocent souls into the hands of murderers, but it didn’t need to go further. Evidently the big German in white thought so too, and when he waived nonchalantly toward the train Yatom squeezed the trigger.
Wagner didn’t hear anything, he just felt something solid hit him hard in the chest. His initial thought was to brush it off, but even as he tried to do that, he felt his legs giving way under him. Wagner wanted to say something, give an order or shout a warning, but was impeded by a second blow which struck him in the belly. This twisted him around toward the gramophone which he knocked over awkwardly as he fell off the platform into the dirt. On the ground Wagner noticed that the air was alive with popping sounds and shouts of alarm. He realized he’d been shot, that something bad was happening, and he was in agony. But by the time Sergeant Granz fell on top of him, with a bullet through the brain, Der Spiess was dead.
After shooting Wagner Yatom cast about for another target, but the rank of commandos next to him had not left many. The boys were business-like but excited, occasionally shouting or gesturing to each other, as they kept firing. The shooting was at close range, and easy—they were well practiced in distinguishing targets—terrorists from innocent victims—and the bright multiplicity of uniforms served as an easy guide. Once in awhile a German or Ukrainian would get off wild shot or two, which caused some cursing and flinching, but for the most part it was a turkey shoot. Yatom finally found a confused young Ukrainian guard who seemed unsure whether to run or shoot. Yatom put two bullets into him, and then hit an SS man who’d thought the better of valor and was already fleeing into the camp.