Authors: Robert Harris
Deduction: the numbers would be even greater in the spring and summer.
He stood at the bathroom door. Charlie, in a black slip, had her back to him and was bending over the washbasin.
With her hair wet she looked smaller, almost fragile. The muscles in her pale shoulders flexed as she massaged her scalp. She rinsed her hair a final time and stretched a hand out blindly behind her. He gave her a towel.
Along the edge of the bath she had set out various objects—a pair of green rubber gloves, a brush, a dish, a spoon, two bottles. March picked up the bottles and studied their labels. One contained a mixture of magnesium carbonate and sodium acetate, the other a twenty-volume solution of hydrogen peroxide. Next to the mirror above the basin she had propped open the girl's passport. Magda Voss regarded March with wide* untroubled eyes. "Are you sure this is going to work?" Charlie wound the towel around her head into a turban. "First I go red. Then orange. Then white blonde." She took the bottles from him. "I was a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl with a crush on Jean Harlow. My mother went crazy. Trust me."
She squeezed her hands into the rubber gloves and measured the chemicals into the dish. With the spoon she began to mix them into a thick blue paste.
SECRET REICH MATTER. CONFERENCE MINUTES. 30 COPIES. COPY NUMBER . . .
(the figure had been scratched out)
"The following participated in the conference of January 20, 1942, in Berlin, Am grossen Wannsee 56-58, on the final solution of the Jewish question.
March had read the minutes twice that afternoon. Nevertheless, he forced himself to wade through the pages again. "Around 11 million Jews are involved in this final solution of the European Jewish question. . . ." Not just German Jews. The minutes listed more than thirty European nationalities, including French Jews (865,000), Dutch Jews (160,000), Polish Jews (2,284,000), Ukrainian Jews (2,994,684); there were English, Spanish, Irish, Swedish and Finnish Jews; the conference even found room for the Albanian Jews (all 200 of them).
In the course of the final solution, the Jews should be brought under appropriate direction in a suitable manner to the East for labor utilization. Separated by sex, the Jews capable of work will be led into these areas in large labor columns to build roads, whereby doubtless a large part will fall away through natural reduction.
The inevitable final remainder, which doubtless constitutes the toughest element, will have to be dealt with appropriately, since it represents a natural selection which upon liberation is to be regarded as a germ cell of a new Jewish development. (See the lesson of history.)
In the course of the practical implementation of the final solution, Europe will be combed from west to east.
". . . brought under appropriate direction in a suitable manner.. .the toughest element will have to be dealt with appropriately..."
Appropriate, appropriately. The favorite words in the bureaucrat's lexicon—the grease for sliding around unpleasantness, the funkhole for avoiding specifics.
March unfolded a set of rough photostats. These appeared to be copies of the original draft minutes of the Wannsee conference, compiled by SS-Standartenführer Eichmann of the Reich Main Security Office. It was a typewritten document full of amendments and angry crossings-out in a neat hand that March had come to recognize as belonging to Reinhard Heydrich. For example, Eichmann had written:
Finally, Obergruppenführer Heydrich was asked about the practical difficulties involved in the processing of such large numbers. The Obergruppenführer stated that various methods had been employed. Shooting was to be regarded as an inadequate solution for various reasons. The work was slow. Security was poor, with the consequent risk of panic among those awaiting special treatment. Also, this method had been observed to have a deleterious effect upon our men. He invited Sturmbannführer Dr. Rudolf Lange (KdS Latvia) to give an eyewitness report.
Sturmbannführer Lange stated that three methods had been undertaken recently, providing an opportunity for comparison. On November 30, one thousand Berlin Jews had been shot in the forest near Riga. On December 8, his men had organized a special treatment at Kulmhof with gas trucks. In the meantime, commencing in October, experiments had been conducted at the Auschwitz camp on Russian prisoners and Polish Jews using Zyklon B. Results here were especially promising from the point of view of both capacity and security.
Against this, in the margin, Heydrich had written "No!" March checked the final version of the minutes. This entire section of the conference had been reduced to a single phrase:
Finally, there was a discussion of the various types of solution possibilities.
Thus sanitized, the minutes were fit for the archives.
March scribbled more notes: October, November, December 1941. Slowly the blank sheets were being filled. In the dim light of the attic room, a picture was developing: connections, strategies, causes and effects ... He looked up the contributions of Luther, Stuckart and Buhler to the Wannsee conference. Luther foresaw problems in "the Nordic states" but "no major difficulties in southeastern and western Europe." Stuckart, when asked about persons with one Jewish grandparent, "proposed to proceed with compulsory sterilization." Buhler, characteristically, toadied to Heydrich: "He had only one favor to ask—that the Jewish question in the General Government be solved as rapidly as possible."
* * * *
He broke off for five minutes to smoke a cigarette, pacing the corridor, shuffling his papers, an actor learning his lines. From the bathroom: the sound of running water. From the rest of the hotel: nothing except creaks in the darkness, like a galleon at anchor.
Notes on a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau by Martin Luther; Under State Secretary, Reich Ministry for Foreign Affairs
[Handwritten; 11 pages]
July 14, 1943
At last, after almost a year of repeated requests, I am given permission to undertake a full tour of inspection of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp on behalf of the Foreign Ministry.
I land at Krakau airfield from Berlin shortly before sunset and spend the night with Governor-General Hans Frank, State Secretary Josef Buhler and their staff at Wawel Castle. Tomorrow morning at dawn I am to be picked up from the castle and driven to the camp (journey time: approximately one hour), where I am to be received by the commandant, Rudolf Hoess.
July 15, 1943
The camp. My first impression is of the sheer scale of the installation, which measures, according to Hoess, almost 2 km. X 4 km. The earth is of yellowish clay similar to that of eastern
Silesia—a desertlike landscape broken occasionally by green thickets of trees. Inside the camp, stretching far beyond the limits of my vision, are hundreds of wooden barracks, their roofs covered with green tar paper. In the distance, moving between them, I see small groups of prisoners in blue-and-white-striped clothing—some carrying planks, others shovels and picks; a few are loading large crates onto the backs of trucks. A smell hangs over the place.
I thank Hoess for receiving me. He explains the administrative setup. This camp is under the jurisdiction of the SS Economic Administration Main Office. The others, in the Lublin district, fall under the control of SS-Obergruppenführer Odilo Globocnik. Unfortunately, the pressure of his work prevents Hoess from conducting me around the camp personally, and he therefore entrusts me into the care of a young Untersturmführer, Weidemann. He orders Weidemann to ensure I am shown everything, and that all my questions are answered fully. We begin with breakfast in the SS barracks.
After breakfast: we drive into the southern sector of the camp. Here: a railway siding, approx 1.5 km. in length. On either side: wire fencing supported by concrete pylons, and also wooden observation towers with machine-gun nests. It is already hot. The smell is bad here, a million flies buzz. To the west, rising above trees: a square red-brick factory chimney, belching smoke.
7:40 a.m.: the area around the railway track begins to fill with SS troops, some with dogs, and also with special prisoners delegated to assist them. In the distance we hear the whistle of a train. A few minutes later: the locomotive pulls slowly through the entrance, its exhalations of steam throw up clouds of yellow dust. It draws to a halt in front of us. The gates close behind it. Weidemann: "This is a transport of Jews from France."
I reckon the length of the train to be some 60 freight cars, with high wooden sides. The troops and special prisoners crowd around. The doors are unbolted and slid open. All along the train the same words are shouted: "Everyone get out! Bring your hand baggage with you! Leave all heavy baggage in the cars!" The men come out first, dazed by the light, and jump to the ground— 1.5 meters—then turn to help their women and children and the elderly, and to receive their luggage.
The deportees' state: pitiful—filthy, dusty, holding out bowls and cups, gesturing to their mouths, crying with thirst. Behind them in the trucks lie the dead and those too sick to move— Weidemann says their journey began four nights ago. SS guards force those able to walk into two lines. As families separate, they shout to one another. With many gestures and calls the columns march off in different directions. The able-bodied men go toward the work camp. The rest head toward the screen of trees, with Weidemann and myself following. As I look back, I see the prisoners in their striped clothing clambering into the freight cars, dragging out the baggage and the bodies.
8:30 a.m.: Weidemann puts the size of the column at nearly 2,000: women carrying babies, children at their skirts; old men and women; adolescents; sick people; mad people. They walk five abreast down a cinder path for 300 meters, through a courtyard, along another path, at the end of which twelve concrete steps lead down to an immense underground chamber 100 meters long. A sign proclaims in several languages (German, French, Greek, Hungarian): "Baths and Disinfecting Room." It is well lit, with scores of benches, hundreds of numbered pegs.
The guards shout, "Everyone undress! You have ten minutes!" People hesitate, look at one another. The order is repeated more harshly, and this time, hesitantly but calmly, they comply. "Remember your peg number, so you can recover your clothes!" The camp trustees move among them, whispering encouragement, helping the feeble-bodied and the feebleminded to strip. Some mothers try to hide their babies in the piles of discarded clothing, but the infants are quickly discovered.
9:05 a.m.: Naked, the crowd shuffles through large oak doors flanked by troops into a second room, as large as the first but utterly bare, apart from four thick, square columns supporting the ceiling at twenty-meter intervals. At the bottom of each column is a metal grille. The chamber fills, the doors swing shut. Weidemann gestures. I follow him out through the empty changing room, up the concrete steps, into the air. I can hear the sound of an automobile engine.
Across the grass that covers the roof of the installation bounces a small van with Red Cross markings. It stops. An SS officer and a doctor emerge wearing gas masks and carrying four metal canisters. Four squat concrete pipes jut from the grass, twenty meters apart. The doctor and SS man lift the lids of the pipes and pour in a mauve granulated substance. They remove the masks, light cigarettes in the sunshine.
9:09 a.m.: Weidemann conducts me back downstairs. Only sound is a muffled drumming coming from the far end of the room, from beyond the suitcases and the piles of still-warm clothes. A small glass panel is set into the oak doors. I put my eye to it. A man's palm beats against the aperture and I jerk my head away.
Says one guard, "The water in the shower rooms must be very hot today, since they shout so loudly."
Outside, Weidemann says: now we must wait twenty minutes. Would I care to visit Canada? I say: What? He laughs: "Canada"—a section of the camp. Why Canada? He shrugs: nobody knows.
Canada. 1 km. north of gas chamber. Huge rectangular yard, watchtower in each corner and surrounded by barbed wire. Mountains of belongings—trunks, rucksacks, cases, kitbags, parcels; blankets; prams, wheelchairs, false limbs; brushes, combs. Weidemann: figures prepared for RF-SS on property recently sent to Reich—men's shirts: 132,000; women's coats: 155,000; women's hair: 3,000 kg. ("a freight car"); boys' jackets: 15,000; girls' dresses: 9,000; handkerchiefs: 135,000.1 get doctor's bag, beautifully made, as souvenir—Weidemann insists.
9:31 a.m.: Return to underground installation. Loud electric humming fills the air—the patented "Exhator" system, for evacuation of gas. Doors open. The bodies are piled up at one end [illegible] legs smeared with excrement, menstrual blood; bite and claw marks. Jewish Sonderkommando detachment enters to hose down corpses, wearing rubber boots, aprons, gas masks (according to W., pockets of gas remain trapped at floor level for up to two hours). Corpses slippery. Straps around wrists used to haul them to four double-doored elevators. Capacity of each: 25 [illegible] bell rings, ascend one floor to . . .
10:02 a.m.: Incineration room. Stifling heat: 15 ovens operating full blast. Loud noise: diesel motors ventilating flames. Corpses from elevator loaded onto conveyor belt (metal rollers). Blood etc. into concrete gutter. Barbers either side shave heads. Hair collected in sacks. Rings, necklaces, bracelets, etc. dropped into metal box. Last: dental team—eight men with crowbars and pliers—gold removal (teeth, bridgework, fillings). W. gives me tin of gold to test weight: very heavy. Corpses tipped into furnaces from metal pushcarts.