The Zone of Interest (5 page)

A shipment of 1,000? Why, it comprised barely 100. As for the Selektion: all but a few were under 10 or over 60; and even the young adults among them were, so to speak, selected already.

Look. That 30-year-old male has a broad chest, true, but he also has a club foot. That brawny maiden is in the pink of health, assuredly, and yet she is with child. Elsewhere – spinal braces, white sticks.

‘Well, Professor, go about your work,’ I quipped. ‘A stern call on your prognostical skills.’

Zulz of course was looking at me with dancing eyes.

‘Fear not,’ he said. ‘Asclepius and Panacea wing their way to my aid.
I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art
. Paracelsus be my guide.’

‘Tell you what. Go back to the Ka Be,’ I suggested, ‘and do some selecting there. Or have an early supper. It’s poached duck.’

‘Oh, well,’ he said, producing his flask. ‘Now we’re about it. Care for a drop? It’s a lovely evening. I’ll keep you company, if I may.’

He dismissed the junior physicians. I too gave orders to Captain Eltz, and pared my forces, retaining only a 12-strong platoon, 6 Sonders, 3 Kapos, 2 disinfectors (a wise precaution, as it transpired!), the 7 violinists, and Senior Supervisor Grese.

Just then the little bent old lady detached herself from the hesitantly milling arrivals and limped towards us at disconcerting speed, like a scuttling crab. All atremble with ill-mastered anger she said (in quite decent German),

‘Are you in charge here?’

‘Madam, I am.’

‘Do you realise,’ she said, with her jaw juddering, ‘do you
realise
that there was no restaurant wagon on this train?’

I dared not meet Zulz’s eye. ‘No restaurant wagon? Barbaric.’

‘No service at all. Even in 1st class!’

‘Even in 1st class? An outrage.’

‘All we had were the cold cuts we’d brought with us. And we almost ran out of mineral water!’

‘Monstrous.’

‘. . . Why are you laughing? You laugh. Why are you laughing?’

‘Step back, Madam, if you would,’ I spluttered. ‘Senior Supervisor Grese!’

And so, whilst the luggage was stacked near the handcarts, and whilst the travellers were formed into an orderly column (my Sonders moving among them murmuring ‘
Bienvenu, les enfants
’, ‘
Etes-vous fatigué, Monsieur, après votre voyage?
’), I wryly reminisced about old Walther Pabst. He and I campaigned together in the Rossbach Freikorps. What sweating, snorting chastisements we visited on the Red queers in Munich and Mecklenburg, in the Ruhr and Upper Silesia, and in the Baltic lands of Latvia and Lithuania! And how often, during the long years in prison (after we settled accounts with the traitor Kadow in the Schlageter affair in ’23), would we sit up late in our cell and, between endless games of 2-card brag, discuss, by flickering candlelight, the finer points of philosophy!

I reached for the loudhailer and said,

‘
Greetings, 1 and all. Now I’m not going to lead you up the garden path. You’re here to recuperate and then it’s off to the farms with you, where there’ll be honest work for honest board. We won’t be asking too much of that little young ’un, you there in the sailor suit, or of you, sir, in your fine astrakhan coat. Each to his or her talents and abilities. Fair enough? Very well! 1st, we shall escort you to the sauna for a warm shower before you settle in your rooms. It’s just a short drive through the birch wood. Leave your suitcases here, please. You can pick them up at the guest house. Tea and cheese sandwiches will be served immediately, and later there’ll be a piping hot stew. Onwards!’

As an added courtesy I handed the horn to Captain Eltz, who repeated the gist of my words in French. Then, quite naturally, it seemed, we fell into step, the fractious old lady, of course, remaining on the ramp, to be dealt with by Senior Supervisor Grese in the appropriate manner.

And I was thinking, Why isn’t it always like this? And it would be, if I had my way. A comfortable journey followed by a friendly and dignified reception. What needed we, really, of the crashing doors of those boxcars, the blazing arc lights, the terrible yelling (‘
Out! Get out! Quick! Faster! FASTER!
’), the dogs, the truncheons, and the whips? And how civilised the KL looked in the thickening glow of dusk, and how richly the birches glistened. There was, it has to be said, the characteristic odour (and some of our newcomers were sniffing it with little upward jerks of their heads), but after a day of breezy high-pressure weather, even that was nothing out of the . . .

Here it came, that wretched, that accursed
lorry
, the size of a furniture van yet decidedly uncouth – positively thuggish – in aspect, its springs creaking and its exhaust pipe rowdily backfiring, barnacled in rust, the green tarpaulin palpitating, the profiled driver with the stub of a cigarette in his mouth and his tattooed arm dangling from the window of his cab. Violently it braked and skidded, jolting to a halt as it crossed the rails, its wheels whining for purchase. Now it slumped sickeningly to the left, the near sideflap billowed skyward, and there – for 2 or 3 stark seconds – its cargo stood revealed.

It was a sight no less familiar to me than spring rain or autumn leaves: nothing more than the day’s natural wastage from KL1, on its way to KL2. But of course our Parisians let out a great whimpering howl – Zulz reflexively raised his forearms as though to fend it off, and even Captain Eltz jerked his head round at me. The utter breakdown of the transport was but a breath away . . .

Now you don’t go far in the Protective Custody business if you can’t think on your feet and show a bit of presence of mind. Many another Kommandant, I dare say, would have let the situation at once degenerate into something decidedly unpleasant. Paul Doll, however, happens to be of a rather different stamp. With 1 wordless motion I gave the order. Not to my men-at-arms, no: to my musicians!

The brief transitional interlude was very hard indeed, I admit, as the first strains of the violins could do no more than duplicate and reinforce that helpless, quavering cry. But then the melody took hold; the filthy truck with its flapping tarps lurched free of the crossing and bowled off down the crescent road (and was soon lost to sight); and on we strolled.

It was just as I had instinctively sensed: our guests
were utterly incapable of absorbing what they had seen
. I later learned that they were the inmates of 2 luxurious institutions, a retirement home and an orphanage (both of which were underwritten by the most outrageous swindlers of them all, the Rothschilds). Our Parisians – what knew they of ghetto, of pogrom, of razzia? What knew they of the noble fury of the folk?

We all of us walked as if on tiptoe – yes, we tiptoed through the birch wood, past trunks of hoary grey . . .

The peeling birchbark, the Little Brown Bower with its picket fence and potted geraniums and marigolds, the undressing room, the chamber. I turned on my heel with a flourish the instant Prufer gave his signal and I knew the doors were all screwed shut.

Now
that’s
better. The 2nd aspirin (650 mg; 22.43), is going about its work, its labour of solace, of ablution. It really is the proverbial ‘wonder drug’ – and I’m told that no patented preparation has ever been cheaper. God bless IG Farben! (Reminder: order in some rather
good
champagne for Sunday the 6th, to tickle Frauen Burckl and Seedig – and Frauen Uhl and Zulz, not to mention poor little Alisz Seisser. And I suppose we’ll have to ask Angelus Thomsen, considering who he is.) I also find that Martell brandy, when taken in liberal but not injudicious quantities, has a salutary effect. Moreover, the stringent liquor helps soothe my insanely itching gums.

Whilst I can take a joke as well as the next man, it’s clear that I’ll have to have a few very serious words with Walther Pabst. In financial terms, ST 105 was something of a disaster. How do I justify the mobilisation of a full Storm (with flamethrowers)? How do I vindicate my costly use of the Little Brown Bower – when normally, in handling so light a load, you would look to the method employed by Senior Supervisor Grese on the little lady with the ebony cane? Old Walli, doubtlessly, will claim ‘an eye for an eye’: he’s still brooding about that prank at the barracks in Erfurt with the meat pie and the chamber pot.

Of course it’s an almighty pain, having to watch the pennies as closely as we do. Take the trains. If money were no object, all the transportees, so far as I’m concerned, could come here in
couchettes
. It would facilitate our subterfuge, or our
ruse de guerre
, if you prefer (as it
is
a war, and no error). Fascinating that our friends from France saw something that they were quite unable to assimilate: this is a reminder of – and a tribute to – the blinding
radicalism
of the KL. Alas, however, one can’t ‘go mad’ and throw money around as if the stuff ‘grew on trees’.

(NB. No gasoline was used, and this must count as an economy, albeit minor. Usually those selected Right go by foot to KL1, do you see, whilst those selected Left proceed to KL2 by means of the Red Cross trucks and the ambulances. But how could I induce those Pariserinnen to board a vehicle, after seeing that damned lorry? A very slight saving, agreed, but every little helps. No?)

‘Enter!’ I called out.

It was the Bible Bee. On the tasselled tray: a glass of burgundy, and a ham sandwich, if you please.

I said, ‘But I wanted something hot.’

‘Sorry, sir, it’s all there is for now.’

‘I do work quite hard, you know . . .’

Fussily Humilia began to clear a space on the low table in front of the chimney piece. I must confess it’s a mystery to me how a woman so tragically ugly can love her Maker. It goes without saying that what you really want with a ham sandwich is a foaming tankard of beer. We’re all awash in this French muck when what you desire is a decent flagon of Kronenbourg or Grolsch.

‘Did you prepare that or did Frau Doll?’

‘Sir, Frau Doll went to bed an hour ago.’

‘Did she now. Another bottle of Martell. And that’ll be all.’

On top of everything else I foresee no end of complication and expense in the proposed construction of KL3. Where are the materials? Will Dobler release matching funds? No one is interested in difficulties, no one is interested in ‘the objective conditions’. The schedules of the transports I’m being asked to accept next month are outlandish. And, as if I didn’t have ‘enough on my plate’, who should telephone, at midnight, but Horst Blobel in Berlin. The instruction he adumbrated made my flesh go hot and cold. Did I hear him aright? I cannot possibly carry out such an order whilst Hannah remains in the KL. The dear God! This is going to be an absolute nightmare.

*

‘You’re a good girl,’ I said to Sybil. ‘You cleaned your teeth today.’

‘How do you know? Is it my breath?’

I love it when she looks so sweetly affronted and confused!

‘Vati knows everything, Sybil. You’ve also been trying to style your hair. I’m not cross! I’m glad
someone’s
taking a bit of care with their appearance. And not lounging around all day in a grubby housecoat.’

‘Can I go now, Vati?’

‘So you’re wearing pink panties this morning.’

‘No I’m not. They’re blue!’

A shrewd tactic – to get something wrong every now and then.

‘Prove it,’ I said. ‘Ahah! Homer nods.’

Now here’s a common fallacy I want to knock on the head without further ado: the notion that the Schutzstaffel, the Praetorian Guard of the Reich, is predominantly made up of men from the Proletariat and the Kleinburgertum. Granted, that might have been true of the SA, in the early years, but it has never been true of the SS – whose membership rolls read like an extract from the
Almanach de Gotha
. Oh,
jawohl
: the Archduke of Mecklenburg; the Princes Waldeck, von Hassen, and von Hohenzollern-Emden; the Counts Bassewitz-Behr, Stachwitz, and von Rodden. Why, here in the Zone of Interest, for a short time, we even had our own Baron!

The bluebloods and also the
intelligent
, professors, lawyers, entrepreneurs.

I just wanted to knock that 1 on the head without additional fuss.

‘Reveille is at 3,’ said Suitbert Seedig, ‘and Buna’s a 90-minute march. They’re exhausted before they begin. They knock off at 6 and get back at 8. Carrying their casualties. And tell me, Major. How can we get any work out of them?’

‘Yes, yes,’ I said. Also present, in my large and well-appointed office in the Main Administrative Building (the MAB), were Frithuric Burckl and Angelus Thomsen. ‘But who’s going to pay for it may I ask?’

‘Farben,’ said Burckl. ‘The Vorstand has agreed.’

At this I perked up somewhat.

Seedig said, ‘You, my Kommandant, are asked only to provide inmates and guards. And overall security will of course remain in your hands. Farben will defray construction and running costs.’

‘Well now,’ I said. ‘A world-renowned concern with its own Konzentrationslager. Unerhort!’

Burckl said, ‘We’ll also provide the food – independently. There’ll be no back-and-forth with KL1. And therefore no typhus. So we hope.’

‘Ah. Typhus. That’s the crux, nicht? Though the situation was eased, I rather fancy, by the substantial selection of August 29th.’

‘They’re still dying’, said Seedig, ‘at a rate of 1,000 a week.’

‘Mm. Look here. Are you planning to increase the rations?’

Seedig and Burckl glanced sharply at one another. It was clear to me that they were in disagreement on this question. Burckl twisted in his chair and said,

‘Yes I
would
argue for a modest increase. Of, say, 20 per cent.’

‘20 per cent!’

‘Yes, sir, 20 per cent. They’ll have that much more strength and they’ll last a bit longer. Obviously.’

Now Thomsen spoke. ‘With respect, Mr Burckl – your sphere is that of commerce, and Dr Seedig is an industrial chemist. The Kommandant and I can’t afford to be so purely practical. We dare not lose sight of our complementary objective. Our political objective.’