The Madagaskar Plan (13 page)

After the defeat of France in the summer of 1940, an ambitious diplomat named Franz Rademacher proposed a plan to deport the Jews to Madagaskar, a former French colony off the coast of East Africa now at Germany’s disposal. The idea was not original to him, having been conceived in the previous century by the scholar Paul de Lagarde and later appropriated by the French, Polish, and British governments. Before he became prime minister, Lord Halifax had been involved in discussions on the matter; President Roosevelt toyed with a similar proposal (though his preferred location was Ethiopia).

Initially dismissed as a fantasy, word of Rademacher’s scheme soon reached the SS where it was assigned to Adolf Eichmann, head of the Jewish Evacuation Department, for further development. Eighteen months later it was on the agenda at the Wannsee Conference, a meeting of SS and government officials to resolve the Jewish question once and for all. Heydrich adopted the “Madagaskar Projekt” as his own.
It’s either that,
he said,
or we send them up in smoke
. There was a ripple of knowing mirth around the table.

The logistics proved more challenging than Rademacher or Eichmann had foreseen. The sheer volume of people to be moved threatened to overwhelm Europe’s transport networks. After months of interdepartmental squabbling, as millions languished in transit camps, it was Himmler who eased the problem with his “Barbarossa Line” solution: all Jews living to the east of Germany’s border on 22 June 1941—five million of them—were to be marched to Siberia; only those in the west would be sent to Africa. A fee of 360 reichsmarks for women, 310 for men, and 200 for children would be levied against every Jew to pay for their shippage. All Jewish assets would be transferred to a special bank overseen by Göring to finance this exodus.

Hitler approved the plan, insisting that Madagaskar must never become a Jewish state but would remain a “grand reservation” overseen by the SS. He appointed an old stalwart, Philipp Bouhler, as the first governor. Hitler saw another advantage of the Jews remaining under German rule. It would guarantee “the future good behavior of the members of their race in America,” thus eliminating the possibility of conflict with the United States.

Within a year of Wannsee, the project was a reality—though by now the ambitions of the Führer had expanded. He wanted all of European Jewry resettled.

While the Council of New Europe had established the external security of the continent, the new threat to its stability was from within. In an amendment to the founding principles, every member state was required to transfer its Jewish populations, since they did “not belong to the community of white peoples, but to the area of habitation of the coloreds.”

Peace depended on it.

Many of the council’s member states responded with an efficiency worthy of the SS. In London, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden stood in Parliament to confirm that he would also be honoring the country’s commitment to the council, after receiving reassurances from the Colonial Office about the habitability of the island. “‘Madagascar is large, healthy, undeveloped, and sparsely populated,’” he read from the report. “It seems a chance for these wretched people.” There were caws of approval till Churchill got to his feet.

Was this not the nation of the Balfour Declaration?
asked the former prime minister.
Of the Peel Commission?
*
While Palestine remained a British mandate, it was their duty to try to establish a Jewish homeland there rather than yielding to the fanatics in Germania.

Someone shouted “Lehi,” referring to a Zionist terror group killing British soldiers in the Near East. A throng of other voices joined in: more Jews in Palestine could only stoke Arab nationalism and demands for self-governance; with India’s imminent independence, anything that threatened further imperial losses was treachery. The British Empire was weak enough.

And what of the Jews currently living in Palestine?
continued Churchill.
The Germans already call them a threat; must they be deported, too? I foresee a day when the Reich will have a hand in our territories for the sake of peace.

Eden replied that he would address the matter with Foreign Minister Ribbentrop in due course. Later he was heard saying, “We didn’t turn our back on France to hand our empire over to the Jews.” His 1943 Evacuation Bill was decisively passed.

Eichmann identified 330,000 British Jews. Those with sufficient means were permitted ninety days to leave of their own accord; the Americas were still a haven for the wealthy. The remainder were interned at designated ports around the country before embarking on the journey south, two thousand every week. “Few in Britain are truly anti-Semitic,” observed George Orwell as the first ships departed. “The majority, however, are indifferent.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Madagaskar

7 February, 21:00

“COME ON, JEW, push!”

The nurse was wearing a tan uniform and black rubber gauntlets that went past her elbows. Patrolling the ward behind her was an SS obstetrician: a parody of the nervous husband, checking his watch, his jackboots drumming the floor. He had thick blond eyebrows and a scorpion smile. The night sky groaned and gurgled with thunder.

Burton, why have you done this to me?

Madeleine kept repeating the question to herself, her lips moving but no sound emerging. The contractions were coming faster, every twenty-five seconds. She counted the intervals between them as she had been instructed to when giving birth to Alice. That had been in a clinic in Harley Street with an abundance of meperidine and gas, sunlight rippling through the windows, vases ready to be filled with bouquets. Jared sat calmly outside.

Now she was in a long hospital ward of empty bedsteads. Bare white walls, concrete floor. Above the entrance hung a skull-and-palm-tree insignia—symbol of the SS in Africa—carved from a single turtle shell. Madeleine was naked, lathered in sweat even though the air was icy from air-conditioning. The mattress was thin enough for her to feel springs skewering her back, the sheets made from plastic. Each breath flooded her nose with the sting of antiseptic.

“Push!” urged the nurse between her open legs. “Push and we can all go home.”

Why hadn’t Burton listened? Why hadn’t he stayed instead of vanishing to Africa? Why had he chosen Hochburg over her?
She was ashamed of her anger yet clung to its sustenance.

Madeleine had woken that morning in Antzu, her new home in Madagaskar, with a tingle of excitement and a numbing sense of dread. Her body felt distended and open; she knew the baby would be born that day. Her water broke at two in the afternoon, and she tramped through the rain and muddy lanes of Antzu to the hospital. It was in an old rice warehouse that was too small to have separate maternity facilities; Madeleine was given a bed in a packed ward that rumbled with tuberculosis. An ancient doctor and midwife examined her belly, then drew a threadbare curtain around her bed. She caught their whispers:

—
We have to tell the SS,
the doctor said. His voice was fleshless, fragile.

—
It’s not ethical,
replied the midwife.

—
If we don’t, they’ll put us on a work gang. Or worse.

—
How would they ever find out?

The doctor gave a bitter laugh.
Look how busy the ward is. Who wouldn’t snitch for a scrap of meat and extra bag of rice?

—Do you think she knows?

—No. And it’s better she doesn’t.

Madeleine called out to them: “Is there a problem?”

Whatever life promised on Madagaskar, she needed the baby. In the months since arriving on the island, she had spoken endlessly with the unborn child as if it were Burton himself, unburdening herself about her privations, the shaking fear that wouldn’t let her sleep, her despair. Even the stinking humidity was easier to endure if shared, or the heartache when she saw a couple trudging the streets, cowed and hungry but able to clasp each other. The tiny beating heart inside her was the only tangible bond that remained with Burton; she needed to touch it, smell it, embrace it.

The conversation resumed in more hushed voices.

—
You can’t hand her over to those SS butchers,
said the midwife.

—
I’ve got my family to think about. My patients.

There was a long pause before the midwife spoke again. Her voice was pained but pragmatic, that tone heard everywhere in Antzu.
Very well, but I want nothing to do with it.

—
I will make the call. Your conscience can be clear.

Madeleine was left alone. She wished she had Burton’s fingers to fill the gaps between hers. Every time she thought of him, tears surged like a wave that wouldn’t break. The island was four months into the rainy season; the roof thrummed. It was made from corrugated tin; geckos flitted in and out of the spaces beneath the cladding. Madeleine had a horror of one dropping on her, its sticky feet skittering across her stomach. She could feel the contractions now, building in speed and intensity, the pain sharpening.

An hour passed before the rapid approach of boots. Silence descended on the ward, and the curtain was yanked aside.

An SS doctor stood there in his death’s-head cap and a dripping white coat. He gave his scorpion smile and kneaded her abdomen. His fingertips were soft, warm, the nails manicured like Jared’s; there was a steeliness to his touch, as if he were molding clay. He parted her legs, Madeleine trying to resist, but his grip was too strong. Those probing fingertips again. Behind him stood two Jewish orderlies with their heads bowed. He clicked his fingers at them and Madeleine was transferred to a stretcher, strapped down, and carried out of the ward.

“I’m sorry,” said the midwife, reaching out for her.

The SS doctor swiped her hand aside. “She will get the best treatment.”

In the square outside the hospital, where lines of patients formed at sunrise, hoping to see a doctor, a helicopter was waiting. Its rotors began to turn as they approached.

Panic filled Madeleine. “Take me back!” she yelled, fighting against the straps.

Curfew in Antzu was at 20:00. In the darkness that followed, people huddled round to share rumors, the grislier the better, especially of the Eastern Sector: men and women too old to work dashed on the stone spikes of ravines; Romanian Jews forced to drink seawater until their stomachs burst. They reminded Madeleine of those months after the Nazis seized power in Vienna and the stories Abner, her younger brother, used to tell. He claimed they were meant to reassure, that no matter how grim life had become, things were worse elsewhere, yet the only person they comforted was himself. Provoking fear made Abner feel more secure. She imagined her fate as a cautionary tale: a pregnant woman taken high above the mountains and hurled into the air as an experiment for the SS, or maybe their amusement.

As the helicopter lifted into the clouds, she started hyperventilating, her hands jerking as if she was having a fit. The doctor leaned over with a needle. Madeleine felt a sting in her shoulder. Immediately, the world dimmed. She hoped to sink into oblivion; instead she hovered above unconsciousness, watching forest and verdant hills roll past.

“Come on, Jew,
push!
” The SS nurse sounded increasingly irate. Bobbing by her side was a
Blutsschwester
.

Madeleine was panting. The pain intensified with each breath. She screwed her face up, did as she was told. Harsh fluorescent lights poured their glare over her.

“Push!”

The doctor probed between her thighs. “It could be some time yet. Inform me when the head appears,” he said to the nurse and marched to the door.

The
Blutsschwester
called after him: “Please, Herr Doctor, you must give her something for the pain.”

The doctor turned on her. She dipped her head, scrunched her grimy apron in her hands.
Blutsschwestern
—blood sisters—with their clogs and Star of David armbands, were hospital menials, their purpose to mop up the fluids that no German wanted to touch. He considered her words and ordered her to follow him. She returned ten minutes later carrying an enamel mug and a handful of pills, and helped Madeleine into a sitting position.

“Aspirin,” the
Blutsschwester
whispered into her ear.

Madeleine washed down the tablets with warm water as the nurse watched, hands on hips. “I had my three boys as nature intended,” she said scornfully. “Thundered them out. It’s a mother’s duty to endure childbirth, as men must endure the battlefield.”

The contractions were unremitting now, too fast to distinguish between.

Outside it was pouring again. Madeleine concentrated on the farm, picturing herself nestled with Burton as rain lashed the windows. The dry, musty bedroom, the feeling of security that the closeness of his body brought. That’s where sanctuary was to be found, she thought, not in the grand peace treaties of nations or the promise of communities; she had drifted through too many of those—Vienna, London, now Antzu—to believe in their illusion. All she had ever needed was a few bricks, a few roof tiles, and the warm skin of someone who loved life the same way she did. The two of them had planned so many things for the future. How could he have left her like this?

Madeleine arched her back, cried out. The baby was leaving her protection.

The nurse heaved her legs wide open, over her shoulder the anxious face of the
Blutsschwester
. “Push, Jew!
Push!
”

Madeleine squeezed outward. Roared. Squeezed again: an agony like she had never known.

The nurse jerked away. “It’s coming,” she said and curled her mouth; the bottom lip was fat and shiny. She told the
Blutsschwester
to take over, then reached for a telephone on the wall and dialed an extension.

The
Blutsschwester
combed her fingers through Madeleine’s hair. “You’re doing well,” she cooed. “Keep going.” She had parched skin and graying hair and reminded Madeleine of a waitress at Café Herrenhof, where the family used to go for cake and coffee every Friday when she was a girl. Such normality was too distant to seem possible anymore.