by Gary Haynes
Berlin, 1945.
Now, five hours later and in the early hours of the morning, Kazapov leaned over a long bench in a large cellar beneath the barracks. The air was surprisingly dry and smelled of something akin to baked bread. There was a lightbulb above his head, with a tin shade painted white. Many of the items held previously in the Nazi bunker had been stored there. It was guarded by four NVKD internal troops.
A makeshift screen had been rigged up, a canvas sheet tied to an iron bar that ran the length of the ceiling. The sheet had been secured crudely to the floor with nails. A box projector had been salvaged from a Berlin institute. Kazapov had acquired it from a corporal for a near pristine pair of jackboots and a gold signet ring he’d taken from a dead German officer in East Prussia. Wartime souvenirs he could do without.
Resting his elbows on the bench, Kazapov leaned forward and propped his chin up with his clasped hands. He watched as the flickering black and white images came into view. There were the smiling faces of the Heer, officers and NCOs, who stood about a half-track on barren land, smoking and holding aluminium field drinking cups. They were obvious veterans, who were likely regular German soldiers rather than conscripts.
He stopped the projector. There was a man standing to the left, his profile partly obscured by another man’s head and his officer’s visor cap. He played the two-second clip time and again until he satisfied himself. He clenched his jaw and nodded a fraction.
He continued viewing the film. There were the smiling faces of the Kalmyk volunteers, mingling with the Germans, and their backs were slapped in a congratulatory fashion. The Kalmyks examined what looked like their new European rifles to replace the old Soviet ones, as if they were orphan street children who’d just been handed chocolate bars.
The images changed. Battle preparations. Makeshift firing ranges and stick grenade drills. Rudimentary explosives training.
The images changed. Actual combat scenes — and the smiles were no longer perceptible.
The images changed. Retribution for those Russian partisans taken alive. Violent interrogations. Hangings. Shootings.
The images changed. A group of what looked like Russian Jews rounded up by a dozen or more Einsatzgruppen and herded onto trucks.
The images changed. A farm cart and huge-jawed mules, with their heads bowed.
He averted his wet eyes for a few seconds.
His mother and sisters were huddling together beside the wooden spokes of a wheel, about to undergo a terrible ordeal before their deaths, he had no doubt of that.
He looked back, but he could not bear it. He grabbed his head in his hands, and screamed silently, as if a trapped insect was burrowing its way along his ear canal. But he had to know.
It took a long time before they died. And in that time, part of Kazapov died too.
*
An hour later, Kazapov had managed to calm himself sufficiently to stand up. He knew he must remain calm, despite the brain-numbing pain he felt. If he did something rash or unexpected, it would be noticed. He would not be able to fulfil what he saw as his duty to his deceased family then. And that was the only duty he recognized now. He would speak with the German officer as soon as possible.
He stumbled forward, his legs shaking. He put his hand against a support beam and had to stifle a howl.
He’d reported his mother and sisters missing in Kalmykia as a separate report to the ChGK. He’d hoped that would lead to a breakthrough. It hadn’t, of course. He knew that in the future the one-page report would be kept in a crate in a cellar somewhere remote, buried underneath other unconfirmed missing persons’ reports. They would be forgotten about. Greater crimes than anyone had ever seen before had taken place, after all. Not just imagined ones. He would not report what he now knew to be the truth. No one would know but him. No one would make a connection. He’d already decided to take a personal revenge.
He walked over to remove the sheet and had something akin to a terrible epiphany. He knew he’d never recover from what he’d seen. It was as if the world had become a prison that had shuttered up its windows to the sun forever.
59
‘It’s you?’ Richter said, sitting in the interrogation cell.
He’d recognized the young man as soon as he’d entered the room, even though he wore a spotless NKVD officer’s uniform, as opposed to the unwashed camouflage he’d had on when he’d led the Russian troops that had captured him.
‘My name is Lieutenant Joseph Kazapov. I am to discuss certain matters with you,’ he said. ‘Have you recovered from your illness?’
‘I feel a little better.’
‘What happened to your nose?’
A large blue-black bruise was visible on the bridge of Richter’s nose.
Richter shrugged. ‘Where is Volsky?’
Kazapov frowned. ‘Major Volsky has been assigned other duties. They intend to move you from here, and soon.’
The word ‘they’ was not lost on Richter. An inclusive ‘we’ would have meant more of the same, but the lieutenant had consciously sought to detach himself from the NKVD and Richter wondered why. He decided to test that notion.
Richter spoke softly. ‘What’s happening in the city?’
Kazapov was silent for a few seconds.
‘The birds are returning,’ he said. ‘In those areas that have been under occupation for some time, the roads are being cleared, little by little, by large groups of Berlin women. We call them rubble women. They are no longer being raped indiscriminately. There seems to be a semblance of normality, even here. Even after all that has transpired. I suppose they feel that being ruled by the Soviet state is preferable to the unbridled chaos of the last days.’
‘I see,’ Richter said, nodding.
He watched Kazapov put his hand into his pocket and take out a piece of paper. Kazapov unfolded it, placed it on the table and slid it over to him. Richter looked down at it. He had to stop his mind from drifting back to what had been the most fulfilling months of his life after he’d seen what had been drawn there.
Kazapov prodded his long finger at the paper. ‘You know what this is, don’t you?’
‘It’s a belt buckle.’
‘Tell me about it?’
But Richter’s mind was elsewhere now. The memories were too vital. Too potent.
Kazapov leaned forward and snapped his fingers close to Richter’s face. ‘Are you listening to me?’
Richter nodded. He focused. He knew that the longer he survived the initial outbreak of violent reprisals, the more chance he had of staying alive. The arrival of this young lieutenant had just made that all seem more likely, he thought.
‘I’m interested in this,’ Kazapov said, pointing at the belt buckle again. ‘I’m interested in the papers you were so eager to burn.’
‘The buckle was worn by the Kalmyks who fought for the German Army, but I suspect you know that. The papers were just reports,’ Richter said, with a dismissive motion of his hand.
‘The few papers in the street outside the bunker and on its floors, bore the same design,’ Kazapov said. ‘I know they detailed the map coordinates of installations. Ordnance and logistical matters. Of little use now. That means the papers you took with you were something different.’
‘They weren’t, I can assure you.’
He’d lied. The papers had been comprehensive reports of the Kalmyks’ military activities for the Germans. Dates, names, locations.
Kazapov looked down at his hands, rotating them, as if he had just committed some awful crime. Richter didn’t doubt that he’d done his fair share. He was NKVD, after all. A front line officer, he suspected.
Kazapov said, ‘Do you know the Kalmyk language?’
‘Do you have a cigarette?’
Kazapov took a packet out of his breeches, together with a matchbox and handed them to Richter. He smiled. ‘Please answer my question.’
‘Yes.’ Richter said. ‘I know the Kalmyk language.’ He smiled back. ‘Am I to be transferred to
one of your camps?’
But it was Kazapov’s turn to ignore a question. ‘Were your language skills one of the reasons you were assigned to Kalmykia?’
Richter flinched. There was no doubt in his mind that Kazapov knew the truth. He’d been found out. He knew too that there was no point in denying it.
‘How do you know what your superior officer is ignorant of?’
Ignoring him again, Kazapov said, ‘The Kalmyk traitors were known for their brutality and ruthlessness, especially on the steppe. Did you see any of those things?’
Richter had personally intervened to stop numerous atrocities in Kalmykia. The Buddhist horsemen had gone too far on occasion, even by the standards of the day. They had had the bloodlust. The Russian partisans they’d fought against had not been afforded a modicum of mercy. Things had been done that could not be undone. This he knew.
But he said, ‘Of matters that took place out on the far steppe, I cannot say. I never left Elista, the capital.’
He saw a look in Kazapov’s dark eyes that demanded more.
He told him that the volunteers had joined up with a small band of Kalmyks from Belgrade that had advanced into the Caucasus with a motorized corps known as Windhund. He said that it had reached as far east as twenty miles from Astrakhan on the northern shores of the Caspian Sea. The Kalmyk volunteers had been mainly used to protect the flanks of Wehrmacht units, to kill partisans and guard installations and lines of communication. Those that had refused to remain on the steppe as the Wehrmacht Heer retreated in 1943 had formed the Kalmücken-Kavallerie-Korps. They wore the belt buckle. Their families followed the Germans home, too. Thousands of women and children and old people. Some sat atride camels. A marvellous and tragic sight.
‘I have read Major Volsky’s report,’ Kazapov said. ‘You lied to him. You said you’d never left Berlin.’
‘I am only supposed to tell you my name and rank.’
Kazapov nodded, sagely. ‘I have it on good authority that all the Kalmyk traitors will be forcibly deported back to us, with their families. You know what will happen to them then. Let me tell you what happened to your precious Kalmyks that remained in Kalmykia after you retreated.’
Richter had heard a few rumours, but he didn’t know for sure. He didn’t know why Kazapov wanted to tell him either. Perhaps he had misjudged him.
‘On the twenty-seventh of December 1943, Soviet authorities declared the Kalmyk people guilty of co-operation with the German Army and ordered the deportation of the entire population, even those who had served with the Red Army and the loyal partisan units. Even the 8,000 that had received medals for battle merit and for courage. Everyone was sent to various locations in Siberia. In conjunction with the deportation, the Kalmyk autonomous republic was abolished. Stalin has obliterated all trace of the Kalmyk people there. He even ordered the renaming of their towns and villages.’
Kazapov filled in the details. ‘They were transported in trucks from their homes to the local railway stations, where they were loaded in cattle wagons. They had no prior notification and no time to collect their belongings or warm clothes. Men and women, the old and the young, were rammed into the wagons, which had no sanitation or food. Water fell through the cracks in the roofs and froze at their feet. The suffering was so bad en route to the east that many of the oldest and youngest did not survive the journey.’
He paused, wiped his mouth.
‘Your beloved Kalmyks are scattered like chaff in a wind. A cold Siberian wind, that is. Half or more will die in that unforgiving place.’
Richter felt a knot in his stomach and put his hand to his forehead. He did not speak. He could not. One hundred thousand Kalmyk families had trekked west for forty-two years before reaching the Volga steppe. Peter the Great of Russia had given them a khanate. But the Russian Revolution had been the beginning of the end for them, just as Stalingrad had been the beginning of the end for the Reich. He mourned the fallen, silently.
‘They want to take you to Moscow,’ Kazapov said. ‘They want to take you to the mincing machine.’
Richter sensed his blood draining from his face and he clenched his jaw to stop himself from panting. He’d heard of the terrifying nickname for Moscow’s notorious NKVD HQ that doubled up as the most feared prison in the Soviet Union. The Soviet intelligence gathering centre was incomparable in its brutality to any other. Lubyanka building. The mincing machine.
‘Do you believe in a god?’ Kazapov said.
Richter only heard a vague noise. ‘What did you say?’
Kazapov repeated the question and said, ‘You can seek guidance, if you wish. Strength.’
‘Everything I believed in has turned to ashes. To dust. Perhaps it would be better if I went to Moscow, after all,’ he said.
Only now did he realize that he had spoken the words he’d been thinking. But he didn’t believe that, let alone want it to transpire. The very thought of the mincing machine filled him with dread.
‘It is not a good way to die,’ Kazapov said. ‘The NKVD torturers are known by the implements they use. Hammer. Axe. They do the vilest acts to Russian men, women and even children. Imagine what they’ll do to you.’
Richter sat with his mouth agape.
‘There may be a way out, even now. I will ask you some questions and you will answer me truthfully. We may be able to do a deal between us. Only between us. I may have to take you on a drive to verify an important piece of information. Do you understand me?’
Richter was silent.
‘Take you time and gather your thoughts,’ Kazapov said.
He got up and left the room.
In truth, Richter didn’t know how he felt. But he’d seen enough emotional pain in his life to know that Lieutenant Kazapov was dying inside, despite his attempt to hide it. He had enough curiosity left — his dominant trait since childhood — to wonder why, despite his predicament.
60
Ten minutes later and after returning to the interrogation cell, Kazapov said, ‘I know Doctor Doll was a codename for Othmar Rudolf Werba, a military intelligence officer in the Abwehr. I know that he spent three years working with the German consulate in Odessa, that, like you, he was a speaker of the Kalmyk language. I know he commanded the Kalmüken Verband and that he died in the retreat. I know these things because I went to Kalmykia to investigate the atrocities that took place there. This is my role within the NKVD.’
Kazapov watched as Richter tried unsuccessfully to mask his astonishment. But he wasn’t finished yet.
‘I know you are a Sonderführer. I know you were an officer under Doctor Doll, that you helped lead the Kalmyk volunteers. I know that you had the Red Army soldiers, Kazakhs and Uzbeks, killed in the bunker in that way because they were Muslims, the historic enemies of the Buddhist Kalmyk. For Doctor Doll and the Kalmyks loyal to Germany too, perhaps. You learned to kill like that from the Buddhist horsemen. Punishment amputations and disfigurements. A bullet to the back of the neck. I saw it on the steppe, I suspect that you assisted Einsatzgruppe D in finding the Jews that were murdered in Kalmykia too. A place you loved.’
Kazapov paused. He lit two cigarettes in his mouth and handed one to Richter, who accepted willingly. Kazapov saw that the German’s hand was shaking.
‘I volunteered to go with the snipers to the observation post overlooking the bunker because the captured SS sergeant who had the coordinates beaten and burned out of him had a handwritten letter on him. The letter was signed by you, Lutz Richter. I had heard the name once before while I was in Kalmykia. I contacted my superior in the ChGK and he confirmed it. And then I saw you there.’
Richter sucked hard on the cigarette, letting the smoke out in little billows. ‘How, may I ask?’
Kazapov said, ‘I found the reel of film in the bunker. It was in a brass casket with some ancient parchments and scrolls. I saw your face on the Kalmyk steppe. There is no doubt who you are. And if you go to Lubyanka there will be no doubt there, either.’
‘I did not
assist the Einsatzgruppen,’ Richter said. ‘The parchments and scrolls are wrapped in yak hide. Brought from Lhasa in Tibet to Elista via Siberia and the Volga region. They are as useful to you as the documents I burned.’
He paused. His face was almost hidden by a cloud of smoke. ‘I couldn’t leave those items you found in the bunker in Elista for Stalin to burn either,’ he said. ‘I took them to the bunker to safeguard them.’
He snorted and shock his head.
‘So much for that. But I disapproved of the — ’
Ignoring him, Kazapov said, ‘Only I have watched the film.’
Richter tugged the cigarette from his lips. ‘It was all meant to be destroyed. Strict instructions were given. Fucking incompetent bastards. I should have checked. I should have, it’s true. But I didn’t, young man. Always check. Always.’
He looked to have aged five years, Kazapov thought, as he watched him suck hard on the cigarette once more.
‘The Einsatzgruppen officers were young men of letters,’ Richter said. ‘Orators, who could encourage the murder. They were helped by uniformed volunteers from the auxiliary police forces in the occupied territories. In Lithuania, the Einsatzgruppen were outnumbered ten to one by the locals. They gathered up the watches and rings as payment. Ukrainian civilians travelled far to kill Jews in this manner. It’s no surprise Ukrainians were the guards at Treblinka, other death camps too.
‘In Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, the fascist administrations killed their Jews without our help at first. They killed Roma women and children, even those whose male kin were fighting in the army. In other parts of the Soviet Union, the pogroms against the Jews started as soon as we invaded. The local populations did the gruesome work as the SS just looked on. But it was a messy and uncoordinated affair. German thoroughness was called for.
‘But what the Einsatzgruppen did was incremental. A stage at a time. The men first. Then the women and children. The officers organized grotesque processions of Jews, even mock Passion Plays before the slaughter. Himmler stopped the shootings due to the psychological effects on his men. This led to Himmler bringing the gas vans in. This led to the industrial destruction of the Jews, did it not? A detachment from the act itself. Was it not so?’
