Cimmerian: A Novel of the Holocaust (2 page)

His father said nothing for a long moment. Then, “If this is what it takes to keep Peter safe from the guns, I thank you.”

Hans's relief was apparent and Helga looked surprised. Peter guessed this had been easier than his mother had anticipated.

As the war turned against Germany, Hans had taken to holding his father, and many of his views, in high esteem. What had appeared to be weakness before the war and during the short years of victory now seemed like wisdom.

There was more talk of the camps, KZs as they were called. By then it was late for Peter, nearly nine. He still had no energy. When his eyes grew heavy his mother sent him to bed. His childhood room was off the living room and from his bed he could hear the muffled voices. The light slid through the crack in the door and he felt very much like a little boy. His parents and Hans did not consider that he could hear them.

“What sort of camp really, Hans? I have heard of vernichtungslager, death camps, that do nothing but kill people. I think I would rather the boy died in Russia than be exposed to that existence,” he heard his father ask.

“Jaochim! Don't say that! How can you? These people are staatsfeindlilchs, enemies of the state, or they would not be in these camps. It is the Jews who started this war! Don't forget that! Why should we be the only ones to pay?”

Though their village was untouched, nearby Hamburg had been virtually destroyed one awful night when over a thousand British bombers rained death on it. Most of the other large German cities were largely rubble by now. Helga's opinion had hardened as the war came home to her. She had not always been like this.

His father spoke. “You talk as if you believe everything you read in the
Volkischer Beobachter
. I remember some of these traitors I worked with, caught listening to a foreign broadcast. They and their traitor families were taken away. How about our ‘traitor’ priest? Surely you remember him? He denounced war from the pulpit in 1939 and disappeared in the dead of night. How many others? Are these the ‘traitors’ you mean?”

“We agreed not to speak of these things, Jaochim.”

“Hans,” Jaochim said, “see if you can understand what I am fearing for Peter. The Great War was terrible. Men died by the millions. But the ones I pitied most were those survivors who collapsed mentally. After an assault the bodies were piled like cord wood in front of us. It made no difference if it was their dead or the French. The bodies weren't cleared. They just rotted where they fell. The stench was unbearable. This happened repeatedly. Then there were the artillery barrages. Sometimes they lasted days. Men snapped under the tension. We had to tie many comrades up. Others just wandered in a daze until a shell got them. The horror of it destroyed their minds. I have seen it a hundred times over. And the killing. Killing raises feelings you never experience in peace. I have seen men crazed from the slaughter. Good men. I do not want Peter to live only to have him return destroyed. Surely you have seen the kind I mean. War breeds them like maggots. I do not want this.”

“It can't be that bad,” Helga said defensively. “Hans is in the SS, look at him.”

“Hans is in sicherheitsdienst. He pushes papers.”

Helga spoke. “The prisoners and convict guards do the dirty work that must be done, isn't that right? Peter will be outside the camp like a prison guard. And what is this about death camps? Who have you been talking to? If people die it is because the war is hard on all of us. Do not talk to me of death camps! If you want to see a vernichtungslager, go to Hamburg!”

“Or Berlin,” Hans said quietly.

“We should lower our voices,” Peter’s father said. “He can hear us.”

“He is asleep,” Helga said. “He was exhausted. You can see he is not fit for the army.” There was more conversation of his condition. His family was expert on his wounds. Cups rattled a bit later when his mother cleared the coffee and plates.

“Consider this, Jaochim,” Hans said.. “He has already been through much. He saw almost daily action before. Surely he has told you some of it?”

“A little.”

“You know the signs and so do I. He has already seen too much for a nineteen year old, too much for someone as sensitive as he has always been. He nearly died. People rarely survive those kinds of wounds. Even if the Russians do not kill him, the winter will. He will never survive. He is a tough boy physically, but he has been through too much already. He will come out of this, Jaochim. I know what you think of the Party, and of the SS in particular. But this is a chance to save him. You should not question the means. We must do this. I love him as if he were my own son. Do you believe I would arrange this if it was not the only way?”

“I know you are right. We have no choice. Not any longer. It is the war, that is all. I don’t mean to sound unappreciative.”

Hans lowered his voice. “I am putting my life in your hands by telling you this. Now Helga, don't be a good Party member and turn your brother in.”

“What is this? Good Party member? What is this, Helga?”

“I have been a member since 1932,” she said defensively. “My brother was in the SS, a National Socialist, why shouldn't I?”

“Helga, you should...” Jaochim was speechless.

“What is done, is done,” Hans continued. “Now listen closely. The war is lost. You both must realize that. We have no Luftwaffe. Our factories, cities and armies are open to the Americans by day, the British at night. The Eastern Front is nearing collapse. In a few weeks, with the first snows, it will turn into a quagmire and both sides will be forced to stop. But once the ground hardens the Russians will be on us again and this time they will not stop short of Berlin.

“The West is no better. The Americans and British have broken out of Normandy and have raced across France. We cannot stop them. At the rate they are going they will be over the Rhine while Peter is in training. What I am saying is: Peter will likely never get to a camp. So stop fretting.” Hans paused, perhaps recalling what Goebbels had promised in August, 1939. “This time, the war really will be over by Christmas.”

Helga protested for a moment, not wanting to accept it. If there was to be no victory how then how could the sacrifices be justified? Peter had known his mother was a Party member for years. A mother and son often share secrets from the husband and father. Facing the truth -- that Germany was going to lose -- and lose soon, was hard for her.

But Peter welcomed the news and his sense of relief only heightened. There was more talk from the living room, but the voices became murmurs as all the late-night conversations of his youth had been. He fell asleep as he had as small boy, safe in his own bed at home, a bed that in the bitter white cold of Russia he had given up all hope of ever seeing again.

He was going to live.

CHAPTER TWO

This
was a remote corner of southern Poland, distant from any city, through which Peter rode. It was forlorn and forgotten, an abandoned expanse of low-lying mountains, with many streams and small, still lakes. Perhaps in bright summer he would have been struck with its beauty. But the sun had not penetrated the heavy clouds for two days and the world around him was gray and black.

There were eleven of them. Karl, who had also been in the Wehrmacht, was in much the same situation as Peter. His brother, an SS-Hauptsturmführer, had managed to pull strings. He and Peter met eyes once again in shared apprehension. Both of them had nearly been washed out of the training for lack of aggressiveness in beating prisoners, and they had been warned to demonstrate the proper attitude at their posting, or they would be dealt with. They had all been told that several hundred SS, for many offenses, were held as prisoners in KZs.

The other nine were basically thugs of one sort or another. There had been men like these in Russia in Peter’s company, but not so many and not all in one place. Two of them were Ukrainians who spoke atrocious German. Two others were simpletons. The rest were farm boys.

Not a few of the group were also sadists. He had heard them talk and seen them in training. Their eyes were dull now, but they would light up when it came time to club.

Peter’s uncle, Hans, had come to see him a few days before he left for training. He had taken him into his village for a man-to-man talk, their first.

“Things will be very bad for you, Peter,” he told his nephew. “You are a sensitive boy. There will be no room for poetry where you are going. You must be hard. I know what you went through in Russia and I am counting on that to help you survive. I am working on your posting, but many of the labor camps are converting... to other needs.” He paused and scanned the picturesque sight of the village. He had often spoke in admiration of it. “Did you shoot partisans in Russia?” he asked finally.

Peter would not meet his eyes as he nodded his head. Partisans were a serious problem in the Occupied Territories of the Eastern Front. Tens of thousands of troops were wasted trying to keep the army’s supply lines open. The partisans did not take prisoners. They had nowhere for them. Neither did the army. Sometimes the partisans, men and women, surrendered or were captured before they could put up a fight. Every soldier had to shoot them. Occasionally it was as part of a firing squad, more often they just shot the partisans on the spot. It was not something the soldiers enjoyed, not most of them. It was just the way it was.

“I thought so. And razing villages? You have done that as well?”

Peter’s uncle knew what he was talking about. These were things he had never told his parents. “Usually the roving SS-SondereinsatzKommando, Special Action Teams, handled that along with their other duties,” he said. By "other duties" he meant the execution sites the SS ran at the Front. As part of the Wehrmacht he had stayed away from their operations, but they all knew of them. The SS had the authority to press the army into service and did. Whenever the partisans attacked them the nearest village was destroyed in reprisal. The logic was that the village supported the partisans since they could not exist unaided in the forest. Sometimes it was true. It did not matter if
this
village had aided
these
partisans. They all did, the logic went, so it did not really matter which village was destroyed.

Usually SS-Einsatzgruppen Units handled such reprisals, but they could not be everywhere and there were a great many partisan attacks. Peter’s company had destroyed half a dozen villages during the time he had been with it. The houses were burned and women and children shot on sight, as were most of the men. The fittest of the men were shipped to Germany for slave labor if transport was available.

Peter was not proud of what they had done. Like all Obergrandiers in the Wehrmacht he did as he was told and never shot anyone face to face if he could avoid it. He supposed all wars are like that for the common soldier.

“How did you handle it?” Hans asked.

“I didn't think about it.”

Hans grunted. “It is the same in the SS. Others have made these decisions. Whether they are good or bad is not our concern, and it cannot be yours. We all do as we are told, do as we must. Reichsfuhrer Himmler has said repeatedly that the responsibility is his. “The Front toughened you. I can see that. Handle this the same way you handled Russia. Obey orders. Harden yourself. Don't think about it. You are not responsible. Most of these people are getting what they deserve.”

“Most?"

“Even the Third Reich makes mistakes.” Hans smiled. “Don't repeat that or you will be bashing my head in soon enough.”

He cautioned his nephew that he must be a Nazi fanatic in training. Instant obedience -- zealousness -- these were the traits they wanted. “Toughen yourself,” Hans repeated. “It will not be for long, then you can go home, get fat and live a pleasant life with nothing more to trouble you but ugly memories. It will be as if this never happened in time. Remember always: befehlsnotstand, orders from above. That is your watchword. You are only doing your duty.”

Later, as Hans bade Peter goodbye and good luck, he finished with this: “The things you must do to survive bring out the worst in men. Unfortunately, not all the men you will serve with are good to begin with so they do not have far to fall. It may, for a time, bring out the worst in you. In Russia, surely you enjoyed things that repulse and shame you now. This will be the same. But these influences are only temporary. It’s the war. Like a soldier in the front line, you do your duty and when the war is over you put it behind you. Others are responsible.” He repeated this fervently, gripping Peter's arms, and he took it that Hans wished him to remember his own message. Perhaps he had been voicing his own hope. A harsh voice pulled Peter back to the present.

SS-Sturmann Steiner shouted: “On your feet! Coming into station! Look sharp!”

The men got up and brushed the straw off with the usual military grumbling. Most of them wore field hats. They replaced them with helmets then gathered their gear.

Ahead Peter could see the ramp. The KZ itself was gloomy, on a sunken piece of ground. Over the ramshackle buildings hung a thick fog, or perhaps it was smoke. Karl told him to come from the door and quit playing the tourist.

The eight weeks of training had been terrible. His left arm had little strength and he possessed no stamina. They kept them at it eighteen hours a day and interrupted their sleep several times a night. They were required to memorize slogans and the SS Catechism.

“Why do we believe in Germany and the Fuhrer?!”

“Because we believe in God, we believe in Germany, which He created in His world, and in the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, whom He has sent us!”

“Whom must we primarily serve?”

“Our people, and our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler!”

“Why do we obey?!”

“From inner conviction, from belief in Germany, in the Fuhrer, in the Movement, and in the Shutzstaffel, and from loyalty!”

“Why are you in the SS?!”

“To obey our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler!”

“What is the oath of the SS?!”

“Loyalty and obedience!”

“Recite the Sippeneid!”

With hats off: “I swear to Thee, Adolf Hitler, as Fuhrer and Chancellor of the Third Reich, Loyalty and Bravery! I vow to Thee and to the Superiors whom Thou shalt appoint, Obedience unto Death! So help me God!”

And on and on. If they could not answer or were slow to answer they were knocked to their knees.

Physically it was no more punishing than his Wehrmacht training, which had been terrible, but he was in much poorer condition. Perhaps a third of the men washed out. They went to the Eastern Front as cannon fodder in a Punishment Battalion.

The SS recruits were taught camp routine and the unbending inmate rules. Any inmate who had anything except the clothes he wore or the tools for his task was a thief. The punishment for theft was death. Any inmate who questioned, refused to obey or hesitated when given an order was insubordinate. The punishment for insubordination was death. Any inmate who hoarded food was planning escape. The punishment for planning escape was death.

There were hundreds of rules, and the punishment was always the same. There would be additional rules, depending on where he was posted, but all the rules were to the same end: They were absolute masters and the prisoners were their slaves and less than nothing. They were sent to the KZ to die, the timing of death was the unanswered question.

They were trained to obey instantly, to feel no pity, no emotion at all, to never speak to an inmate except to shout. Failure had one penalty for them. They joined the mass of prisoners in their march to death

The Gestapo furnished them with prisoners, and they were carefully watched for squeamishness or hesitation. Peter steeled himself and mimicked the sadists among them, recalling his uncle's words. He thought of the Front, his frozen clothes, the howling, ceaseless winter wind in Russia. He beat the prisoners senseless and on graduation day watched the lightning SS tattooed on the inner side of his left arm.

He felt as if the tattoo was being branded on his soul.

The train slowed. His helmet was firmly in place, his gear on his back. He fingered the Death's Head emblem on his lapel and spotted Karl shaking his head slowly as he watched him. He cautiously dropped his hand and steeled himself for what he was about to experience.

“Out! Stand in rank! Move it, move it!” Steiner shouted. They leaped onto the Judenrampe, formed rank and came to a smart attention. Steiner dressed them down, had them correct this, straighten that. Then he, too, stood at attention as they waited for an officer or NCO.

From several of the wretched, bulging cattle cars the arrivals tumbled out with gasps of relief. The yellow Star of David was on every left breast except for the very small children. Peter heard screaming women and the shouting of guards and kapos, prisoner guards. He heard three distinct pistol shots in the space of one minute. No women were screaming after that. Children were crying still. He supposed you could not shoot all of the children.

In his field of vision guards clubbed the arrivals into order, tossing belongings aside, separating the men from their families. “God damn you! Move shcweinhund!” The arrivals were formed into rough lines. All men in one, all women and children in the other. As soon as some order had come to a group they were marched off to the Administration Block. There they identified themselves and inmate clerks of the Political Division prepared the required paperwork. Most, Peter soon learned, were dispatched at once for the shower. Their arrival was their end.

Every family was limited to fifty kilograms of luggage. All large parcels with names prominently etched as instructed before departure from their ghetto were left on the Judenrampe. Trustees from the Canada, as the storage warehouse was known, immediately loaded this onto carts that were pushed away at once. The arrivals were assured they would receive their luggage after their shower and assignment to a Block. He heard one woman holding the hand of a frightened three year old ask a trustee when they could see her husband again. She and the other undesirables had been assigned to the nonexistent Family Camp. “Visiting day is Sunday,” came the quick answer.

Peter heard a Schmisser machine pistol empty a clip. There was wailing. Several more pistol shots. This group of arrivals was mostly Hungarian Jews and he could not understand their words though the meaning was clear enough.

Chamber music was coming from somewhere. It was one of the Brandenburg Concertos, he was certain. In this place, with these acts occurring, it was completely out of place. “Hurry up! Move, you lazy swine!” He could hear the truncheons. The laughter from the guards beating the arrivals into submission and obedience was constant. Some of it was hysterical, most was arrogant.

SS-Unterscharführer Koch took command of the new guards. “Watch your comrades on the Rampe Gespann at work!” The men moved their heads so they could clearly observe the clubbings and shootings. “You see how uncooperative these pigs are? Do not give them a moment to think once the train stops. They have had plenty of time to plan mischief. Move them along at once. Teach them instant obedience! It will make your job easier in the long run. These are all traitors to the Reich! Staatsfeindlich, every one of them! The women too. They’re the worst. They shit traitors into the world! And the children, don't be fooled. They grow up as traitors too. The Fuhrer has declared the Jew a subhuman race! You are the elite of Germany! Do your duty!”

The trainload of frightened people, disoriented from their ordeal, were formed in lines now and moved fairly rapidly into the block for classification. The LeichenamKommando pulled the dead to open carts and piled them up. Women prisoners, gaunt and haggard, grim faced, wiped the blood with rags and mops from the Judenrampe.

SS guards supplemented by kapos moved up and down the lines shouting, striking people at random. A dozen dogs on leashes worked the lines with them, snarling and snapping. The dogs were kept half starved and were incredibly vicious. The newer guards had been warned to stay well clear of them. Leave them to the handlers, they were told.

The dogs were Alsatians. They were rangy, powerful animals with an overpowering lust for blood. At any given moment he could hear their snarls and barks. Hounds of hell. Peter had never feared dogs before the KZ.

There were twenty bodies or so scattered along the Judenrampe even with the constant clearing. Most of them were women. They resisted if their children were abused or if they had simply become hysterical. SS guards and kapos searched the cattle cars for prisoners who concealed themselves. A few mothers, suspecting what was in store, had hidden their children in the cars, wherever they could, in the desperate hope someone along the queue would discover them and take pity.

But there was no pity here.

Two infants were discovered that first day. The kapos tossed them both to the dogs, which tore them to pieces and devoured some of their flesh before being pulled away.