by Yehuda Avner
Dan took the day’s new set of emigration papers from his briefcase. He laid the stacks on the desk as Eichmann settled into his chair and slung a shiny jackboot over his knee.
“Come now, Herr Ambassador. Let’s not be in such a hurry. Sit, please.”
Dan had never before been invited to take a seat. He pulled up a swiveling office chair from the empty clerk’s desk in the corner. It left him lower than Eichmann, even as the Nazi reclined and lit a cigarette.
“Was it not a magical performance last night, Herr Ambassador? The Obergruppenführer was quite enchanted with your Herr Gottfried.”
“He’s an extraordinary musician, yes.” Dan slipped the pile of new applications across the desk.
Eichmann measured the stack with his thumb and forefinger. “Quite a collection you have for me once again.”
“We have our quotas to keep to.”
Eichmann pursed his lips. “Indeed you do.” The quota was Eichmann’s invention. To force Jews out of Vienna, in 1938, he had informed the local Jewish Council that they were to find four hundred of their people each day who were prepared to emigrate. He had instituted the same kind of system in Berlin. He required the city’s Jews to put forward the names of seventy families each week. Because of Nazi laws against the employment of Jews and restrictions on Jews in the professions, most were now destitute and couldn’t meet the minimal capital requirements necessary to obtain visas to Western countries. The advantage of immigration to Israel was that there was no such capital requirement. Any Jew could go, no matter how much of his wealth had been stolen by the Nazis. Which was why Dan’s pile of papers grew as opportunities for Jews to flee to the US or Western Europe diminished.
“This lot—” Eichmann flicked at the new papers on his desk “—will no doubt take me until Herr Gottfried’s next concert.”
Dan cleared his throat.
“The Führer will be enchanted by the performance,” Eichmann said. “I’m sure of it. The Obergruppenführer Heydrich is extremely gratified by the prospect.”
“Do you not think that it’s something of a risk?”
Eichmann frowned.
“The Führer has an…antipathy toward Jews,” Dan said. “I believe I do not go too far in saying such a thing.”
Eichmann dropped the corners of his mouth, as though Dan had suggested merely that the Führer wouldn’t wish to be served liver, or tinned fruit.
“Do you not think, Herr Sturmbannführer Eichmann, that perhaps it is a risk for you and for the Herr Obergruppenführer Heydrich to present a Jew as entertainment for the Führer?”
“You concern yourself with issues that are beyond your understanding, Herr Ambassador.”
Dan wondered what was in this for Eichmann and Heydrich. If he could figure that out, he’d know how forcefully he could oppose the concert. “Of course, you know better than I, but—”
“The Obergruppenführer measures all his actions carefully, believe me.”
“But why—why do you want to bring the Führer to listen to this music?”
“Do you not attempt to provide your Herr Ben-Gurion with certain entertainments to curry his favor?”
Herr Ben-Gurion. It took Dan a moment to get past that, and the notion that anything other than work and no-holds-barred debate provided diversion for the Israeli prime minister. He played along. “Naturally.”
“This is our purpose. In this I can be frank with you, Lavi. To entertain the Führer and thus to earn a little more of his good will.”
“Might the Führer perhaps react negatively?”
“The Führer overlooked the race irregularities of the baritone, Hofmann, at the Bayreuth festival, because the Führer is a music lover. He even had the fellow come to him in his box. The Führer’s favorite singer in the truly Germanic role of Siegfried is Max Lorenz, in spite of the fact that the singer is married to a Jew. Rest assured, Lavi, that the Führer will see this as an excellent entertainment. It doesn’t represent a shift in policy. Herr Gottfried is, after all, within our power. We wish to hear him play. It will gratify the Führer’s own creative faculties, which, as you know, are considerable. One might even describe them as on the level of genius.”
“Gottfried works for me at the embassy. We’re extremely busy. His duties are quite onerous.”
“It would appear, in fact, that Gottfried works for me.” Eichmann lifted the pile of emigration applications from his desk. He dropped them down with a thump. “As do you.”
Dan imagined Ben-Gurion sitting in his place. He tried to bring the prime minister’s scrappiness into his own actions now. “I have instructed Herr Gottfried that he is not to perform at the concert.”
“Have you, indeed?” Eichmann’s voice was quiet. He stubbed out his cigarette, not looking at Dan.
“I believe it presents a risk to the operation of our embassy and to our mission as diplomats, which is to save—”
“Save? Who do you want to save, Herr Ambassador? Surely you don’t suppose my Jews are in danger here in Berlin?”
My Jews. Eichmann’s possessions. To be disposed of as he wished.
“Gottfried, as I said, is in my power,” Eichmann said. “And so are you, Herr Ambassador.”
“On this matter, I cannot alter my instructions. I refuse to allow Gottfried to perform for the Führer.”
“How dare you, you sack of shit.” Eichmann’s voice lost all its poise and restraint. He grabbed his riding crop from the desktop and slapped it across Dan’s face. “I’ll ride you like a sled.”
The whip bit into the skin of Dan’s jaw. The uncouth idiom Eichmann had flung at him meant that the Nazi was ready to control and crush him. Like a boy throwing his weight onto the frame of a sled and speeding wherever he cared to direct the runners. Dan lowered his eyes. He took out his handkerchief to staunch the cut on his face.
Eichmann stared at him, breathing loudly through his nostrils, his mouth pursed and hard. He opened the drawer of his desk and took out an index card. The corner of the card was marked with a red tab and the letter A. He set it on top of the pile of papers.
Dan read Eichmann’s neat handwriting along the top line of the card. Polkes, Arvid. “What does this mean?”
“The red tab signals an immediate danger to the Reich. A is for arrest.”
Dan remembered Anna’s fear the previous night. He thought of Bertha, huddled in the basement waiting for her husband to return with their emigration papers. He had sent Polkes to Eichmann. Now the man’s card was marked with an A. “Polkes came to you at my request. His case is a very simple one. Why have you arrested him?”
“His case is a very simple one, indeed. He left the country some years ago, but he returned. Emigration is supposed to be final. When a Jew comes back to the Reich, he does so illegally. He is not wanted here. So this Polkes fellow has been arrested.”
“I must protest that—”
“The card mentions that Polkes has a wife. Do you know where she is?” Eichmann flicked at the index card.
“I have no idea.”
“Of course you don’t.” Eichmann put the card back in his drawer. “I don’t have time to deal with your pettifogging. I’ve made arrangements for a concert at which the Führer will be in attendance. The matter is done. I have to take a brief working trip to Poland, which will occupy me until next week. Meanwhile kindly rescind your order to your first secretary. I should be very disappointed if Gottfried failed to perform for the Führer. I hope you will allow him time off from his regular diplomatic duties to rehearse his pieces. Do not disappoint me, or this Polkes fellow shall suffer for it most grievously.”
Dan watched the card-file drawer slide shut. Arvid Polkes was in the Gestapo cells on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. If Gottfried didn’t play for Hitler, the best Polkes could hope for would be to remain in those cells. The worst? Dan knew what they could do to him.
“Gottfried will play,” Dan said. “As the Herr Sturmbannführer wishes.”
Chapter 33
T
he walk to the Berlin Philharmonie took Gottfried through the government district. He could have skirted around the ministries to Askanischer Platz, where the concert hall stood across from the Anhalter Station. Instead he strode down Wilhelmstrasse, passing almost every major government institution, the Ministries of Justice and of Propaganda, of Finance, Transportation, and Aviation. Past Hitler’s Chancellery and the Gestapo headquarters. He felt like a wild animal on the loose because he was a Jew, seemingly the greatest fear of those who inhabited these looming palaces of destruction. He imagined the Germans on the sidewalk fleeing in terror as a beast of prey loped toward them, rather than a violinist. The instinctual rage of the tiger dwelled in him now.
He passed the old concierge at the stage door. The man started to greet him with a Heil Hitler, but stuttered and went silent when he recognized Gottfried. As he approached the hall, he smiled at the sound he had heard so often before—Furtwängler in a tirade about the musicians’ performance.
He reached the corner of the stage. Furtwängler saw him over the harp and the first violins. Gottfried gestured for him to carry on. The orchestra played the D minor Scherzo of Schumann’s Fourth Symphony. As the piece developed, Gottfried heard again so much of what he had always loved about Furtwängler. The conductor never knew until the performance exactly how the piece should sound. Others in his role tried as quickly as possible to let the orchestra grasp exactly what was required of it, so that the music could be perfected. Furtwängler needed to explore the symphony, to enter into it and engage with every possibility and emotion in its structure.
He brought Gottfried along with him. Schumann’s music pulled the violinist’s heart from his body and tossed it around in the orchestra, returning it to him when the piece ended, energized, beating more strongly.
Furtwängler crossed the stage to Gottfried. He was sweating and flushed, and he might have appeared irritated to someone who didn’t understand that the musical score continued to surge through him. His very footsteps seemed to mark out a new coda to the music.
“I need your help,” Gottfried said.
Furtwängler took him to his dressing room. The conductor dropped into a sagging wing chair and waited.
Gottfried shut the door. “I am to play a private concert. I wish for you to accompany me on piano.”
Furtwängler started to speak. Then he stopped, holding himself back. Gottfried couldn’t tell if he had intended to refuse or to ask for more details. It hadn’t looked as though he would agree. Instead he motioned for Gottfried to continue.
“The performance is at Countess von Bredow’s home. At her regular soiree, where we met the other week.”
“I see. Why do you need me?”
“I want us to play together. I want us to show that German music is at its best when performed by those whose spirits are clear.”
“What do you know about my spirit?”
“Don’t be obtuse. I’ve heard your music. I know all about your spirit.”
Furtwängler let his head loll forward. He could make no counterargument on that point. “I appreciate, Gottfried, that you have not carried a grudge against me since your return to Berlin.”
“A grudge? I came back for two reasons. One of them was of a personal nature. An affair of the heart. The other was you.”
“Truly?”
“You carry the soul of German music. But so do I. I want Germany to understand that when it expels the Jews, it expels a part of its soul. Your music is lessened without me. Just as I am a lesser musician when I perform in Israel, without you. I want Germany to feel in our music how the country is being robbed of its own soul without the Jews that it believes to be so alien to it.”
Furtwängler frowned a moment. Then he stared at Gottfried in shock. “Germany? Who are we supposed to play before?”
“Adolf Hitler.”
“You’re mad. Damn it, Gottfried, do you know how carefully I’ve had to tread each time that lunatic attends a performance here? Now you want me to play for him as the accompanist to a Jew?”
“The concert is being organized by Heydrich.”
“The Hangman?” Furtwängler laughed sarcastically. “Is that supposed to put me at my ease?”
“You will do it.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“I’m utterly convinced of it.” Gottfried went to the door and smiled. “Because you want to rub that bastard’s nose in your genius just as much as I do.”
Chapter 34
Rudolf Höss wore the Iron Cross and Gallipoli Star on his tunic and the Death’s Head on his gray field cap. Trim and energetic, he led Eichmann across the churned mud where Soviet prisoners of war and Polish schoolteachers and journalists were at work renovating the single story buildings. The cavalry barracks of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire times were being transformed into the central buildings of a sprawling camp.
“The Reichsführer chose the location primarily because of its access to intersecting railroads,” Höss said. “Shipments of inmates can arrive with unfettered regularity from any part of the east.”
Eichmann glanced across the dirt yards to the rails. “We will need to install considerably more track.”
“There’s space for as many as you like. We can run them parallel.”
“I’ve yet to conclude exactly what numbers will be involved. But I estimate at least forty tracks. Perhaps forty-four.”
Höss murmured his approval. “My main concern is that we should improve on some of the processes I observed at Dachau. I believe we can greatly increase the efficiency of the entire camp.”
They walked in parallel to a herd of two hundred bedraggled Russian POWs. A half dozen Death’s Head men bullied them across the mud toward a low building at the edge of the camp furthest from the gate. It was the only new structure.
“I was in Lublin this week,” Eichmann said. “With Globocnik.”
Höss lifted his chin, approving and thoughtful. “He has been very eager to press ahead with the special treatment program.”
“It’s a matter of discipline among our troops for him. The Einsatzgruppen have disposed of hundreds of thousands of Jews, as well as many Russians and Poles, in the last two years. But there’s a negative effect on morale.”
One of the Death’s Head men cracked his whip. A Russian stumbled and fell. The SS overseer kicked him until he got back to his feet.
“In my discussion with Globocnik we touched on the danger with the Einsatzgruppen that the men will run amok,” Eichmann said. “They dispose of so many people at rifle point and suffer such terrible dreams that it’s only a matter of time before discipline breaks down. We can’t have that here.”
“Certainly not.” Höss drew Eichmann on by the elbow. “The process must be mechanized and streamlined so as to have greater efficiency and less potential for damage to our personnel. That is the whole purpose of my operations here.”
The Russians tripped down the steps in silence, into the new built chamber. A Death’s Head man slammed the door shut and pushed home the locking arm.
Höss led Eichmann to the door. “I understand exactly Globocnik’s point about the Einsatzgruppen and their morale. I must admit that the gassing process you’re about to witness has a calming effect on me. I always had a horror of the shootings, thinking of the number of people, the women and children. I am relieved that we are to be spared those bloodbaths.”
The Death’s Head men were on the roof of the building. Höss gave a signal to one of them. The trooper stumped away, calling to his comrades who had spread along the length of the chamber. They unscrewed the lids of the yellow tubs at their feet.
“Zyklon B?” Eichmann asked.
The Death’s Head men tipped the contents of the tubs into trays set in the roof and kicked the lids shut.
“They’re feeding the pellets in now. Much better than the diesel engine they’ve been experimenting with at Treblinka. That simply doesn’t work much of the time, and anyway we need the diesel for our Panzers.
This stuff is quicker, too. Drop it in, and death comes within moments. See for yourself.”
Eichmann put his eye to a window the size of a slice of bread. Through the door he saw the Russians grouped tightly in the center of the large chamber, jostling each other.
“By a quite splendid irony, Zyklon B was developed for pest control,” Höss remarked. “That’s rather good, isn’t it?”
The Russians shouted, their voices emerging only faintly, muffled, from the chamber. “Gaz, gaz.” They ran for the door, trampling each other, every man desperate to save himself. They charged against the door, hammering at it with their fists.
Eichmann recoiled. “They’ll break the door down,” he said. “The gas, we’ll breathe it.”
Höss looked alarmed. The door shuddered, but held. The screams of the men inside became a low hum, like an approaching swarm of bees. Gradually, the sound dropped off.
Höss glanced through the window. “It seems to be all right. Take another look.”
Eichmann watched the men writhe on the bare concrete. He rested a hand on the door and let it take his weight. His knees wouldn’t hold him. The death before him was too much. He whispered to himself, “I believe in Jesus Christ. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and was born of the Virgin Mary. He was crucified and rose again and shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”
