by Gerald Green
All prisoners in Buchenwald had to work. Karl was an artist, so it was assumed he was accomplished with his fingers. He was assigned—through Weinberg’s influence—to the tailoring shop.
Weinberg explained to him how much better off he was working inside. At least it was reasonably warm, and the work was not exhausting. Outside, prisoners died daily in the quarries, the road-building teams, the so-called “garden” detail, which consisted of ditch-digging.
The older man—he’d been a tailor by trade—explained that deaths by beating and torture for any infraction were the order of the day. Late for roll call, answering back, talking out of turn—all these resulted in severe beatings. And anything considered more grave—an attack on a guard, theft—meant a quick death, usually in a special room where the prisoner was made to stand in a corner. Through a hole behind his head, an unseen executioner killed him with a single shot.
“Does anyone ever get out?” Karl asked.
“Heard stories of some rich guys buying their way out. Goyim mostly. Maybe even a few Jews. The SS runs this like a racket. They keep the valuables, the gold, divide it up. So it might even be the bastards take a bribe from some rich Jew and let him go.”
The kapo—the prisoner-guard or trusty—came by and warned Weinberg to shut up. Weinberg made some excuse—he was just explaining the ropes to Karl. (This kapo’s name was Melnik, a big fellow, a pickpocket on the outside. The Nazis often took common criminals—Jew and Gentile—and put them in positions of authority. It helped terrify the other prisoners.)
When Melnik was out of hearing, Weinberg took a box of cloth patches and started to explain them to Karl.
“So you’ll know your fellow inmates,” he said. He began to hold up triangles of varying colors. “Red means a political prisoner. Anything from a Trotskyite to a monarchist. Green, a common criminal. Purple, Jehovah’s Witness. Black, what they call shiftless elements—beggars, tramps, so on. Pink is for homosexuals. Brown is for gypsies.”
“Gypsies?”
“Buchenwald’s full of them. They give the guards fits because they won’t work. The SS ordered two of them buried alive yesterday. When they dug them out their tongues were sticking out like salamis.”
Weinberg then showed Karl the six-pointed yellow star.
“I know what that is,” my brother said. “But what’s this?” He picked up a cloth patch with the four letters BLOD on it.
“Idiots, morons, feeble-minded,” Weinberg explained.
“But … what crime can they have committed?”
“Considered useless by the state. You should see the way the guards have a field day with them—teasing, dressing them up. Some of the guards take the feebleminded women and do things …”
“I can’t believe this.”
“Can’t you? Listen. I’ve heard stories. There’s a house not far from here where they take the crazies. Halfwits, cretins, cripples. They gas them to death.”
“Gas?”
“Some guy on a truck detail swears it’s true.”
The kapo came by and shut them up again, threatening Karl with his truncheon. The kapos wore dark caps and dark jackets, in contrast to the striped suits of the prisoners. Everyone hated them.
Suddenly music was piped over the loudspeaker. Not recorded music, but real music, from the Buchenwald orchestra.
Weinberg winked at Karl. “Half the Berlin Philharmonic is in here. The guards like good music. Germany will go to hell listening to Das Rheingold.”
One morning, in March 1939, my mother and I heard voices downstairs. My father’s office had been closed for months, of course. We couldn’t imagine who it could be.
I followed Mama down to the old office—my mother still dusted it every day, kept it clean, in the vain hope that some day Dr. Josef Weiss would practice again—and we opened the doors.
A tall shaven-headed man wearing rimless eyeglasses, along with two workmen, was taking inventory and moving things about.
The bald man clicked his heels and bowed. “Ah, Mrs. Weiss. I am Dr. Heinzen. I have been assigned to take over your husband’s office. You’ll recall my telephone call? The keys, please.”
Mama sent me for them. I could hear Heinzen checking out my father’s equipment. “X-ray … basal metabolism … diathermy … autoclave …”
I returned with the ring of keys and gave them to my mother, who handed them to Dr. Heinzen. “These are all of them, doctor. Office, rear and front entrance, garage, basement.”
“You are most kind.”
“I am unable to say the same for your people.”
“I apologize for the abrupt manner … still, it was a pity to let this office, this equipment go to waste. I knew your husband professionally, and I am personally sorry.”
“You knew him before he was fired from Central Berlin Hospital.”
“Other times, other customs, madame. I am a party member, and the party has ordered me to take over the clinic and the house.”
My mother’s eyes were on fire. “And our reimbursement?”
“The party medical board is reviewing your case.”
Mama gave him a slip of paper with an address and phone number on it. It was Karl’s old studio, Inga’s apartment. “If you have any word for us, Dr. Heinzen.”
He bowed. “You shall be the first to hear, madame.”
I couldn’t take any more. “They’re stealing everything, Mama. Crooks. That’s all they are.” I moved a step toward Heinzen. He stared at me as if I were crazy. The two workmen stopped moving my father’s desk and looked up.
“Rudi, please,” my mother said. “Take your father’s diploma.”
I walked past Heinzen, removed Papa’s diploma from the wall and left.
They were still checking out everything that had been my father’s, preparatory to stealing it. I could hear Heinzen’s voice: “Fluoroscope … centrifuge … ultraviolet lamp …”
We spent all day packing. There was little space in Inga’s apartment, and we took only essentials. Anna and Mama and I sat in the darkened parlor. I knew we would never live in this house on Groningstrasse again. It seemed to me I could hear my brother Karl’s voice, when I had once played a trick on him, a rotten trick. Hey, Rudi, you hide my paints? I need them….
“Can’t we take the piano, Mama?” Anna asked.
“Maybe later, Anna. Inga has so little room.”
“Well, let’s play one last piece together.”
My mother and my sister sat at the piano and began to play the Lorelei. I could hear Anna saying, “Oh, Mama, remember how we all sang this at Karl’s wedding?”
The piano music sounded louder, filling the house. For some reason I now hated it. In a sense the Bechstein, and all it symbolized, had kept us glued to Berlin. We were prosperous, secure, people with pianos. Who would hurt us? (Now, a kibbutznik, a man who owns virtually nothing and gives his meager salary to the commune, I realize how little people need to get by, how destructive these material things can be. I don’t mean that starvation or poverty are ennobling; far from it. But to be a slave to things? To define one’s life in terms of pianos and fur coats? Perhaps it explained—in part, only—why we had blinded ourselves.)
We had told our grandparents to be dressed and packed and ready to leave by four that afternoon. I knew grandpa—the old military man. He would be ready.
I knocked at the door, but there was no answer.
I went into the room. It was dark, the shades drawn.
“Grandpa, time to go,” I said.
For a moment I thought they were sleeping. But they were fully clothed. Grandpa was wearing his dark suit, his wing collar shirt, a black tie. Grandma was wearing a black velvet dress. They were lying peacefully on the bed, their arms about one another.
I walked to the night table and saw an opened dark-brown bottle. I smelled it. A strange sweetish odor, like rotten peaches. Then I took a mirror from the dresser and held it to their mouths. No fogging. They were dead.
I cursed the damned music, the dam
ned piano, and I even wanted to hate my mother, hate my father for having deceived themselves so long. I bent over my grandparents and kissed them on their cheeks, wondering how I would be able to tell this to my mother. Perhaps, I reasoned, the old people had chosen the only way out. And they had not been alone. That winter, after Kristallnacht, thousands of Jews chose suicide. For them, all hope had vanished.
Erik Dorf’s Diary
Vienna
July 1939
Marvelous day. Heydrich has sent me to Vienna to confer with Adolf Eichmann, who heads up the Jewish “resettlement” program in Austria and in the new territories of Bohemia and Moravia—the so-called “protectorate” of what was once Czechoslovakia.
A charming man. Slender, dark, casual and polite in his manner, but with rather intense eyes. He claims to know a great deal about the Jewish problem. He told me he spent time as an agent of some kind in Palestine, and that he speaks some Yiddish and Hebrew.
“I understand them,” he said to me. “They have been conditioned to obey, to accommodate, to bend. Well, we will bend them.”
He explained, not without a touch of humor, that he handled Austria’s Jews (and would now proceed to handle the Czech Jews) as if running a factory.
“Imagine this large factory building, Dorf,” Eichmann said. “A Jew enters at one end, with all his valuables, his properties, his birthright. We process him, the way one would a pig or a chicken, and he comes out plucked, denuded, with nothing but an order to get out of Austria, or accept a ticket to one of our camps.”
This conversation took place in the lovely Prater, that vast, beautiful, flowery park. Heydrich was kind enough to let me take Marta and the children here for a summer holiday, and we are all enjoying the fairyland atmosphere. (Eichmann, always the cautious fellow, made no comments about the Jewish problem in the presence of my family.)
“More ice cream?” he asked Peter and Laura.
Marta ordered the children to say “No, thank you” to Major Eichmann. They did. She was firm about good manners.
Laura, her little face flushed with excitement, asked, “Mama, can we ride the carousel now?”
Around us, balloon peddlers, men selling pinwheels and toy flutes, flower vendors, nannies pushing prams, formed a colorful crowd. It was indescribably lovely. I could understand why the Führer had wanted Austria. It is German. It belongs to us.
“Laura, I’m afraid that pastry and ice cream will go around and around in your tummy,” Marta said.
At which point both Peter and Laura began to cry for a carousel ride. Usually, we were strict with them, but today was a special day.
“Go on,” I said. “This is a day for children.”
Eichmann smiled. “And if they get ill, Mrs. Dorf, I’ll provide free medical care.”
When Marta and the children had left—Marta complaining that she would need a rest after the youngsters had their fill of rides—Eichmann looked at me with kind, understanding eyes.
“Your wife is ill?”
“A slight heart murmur. She tires easily, but she’s fine otherwise.”
I wondered how he knew she was ill.
“Charming woman,” he went on. “I’m delighted Heydrich sent you here. Berlin appreciates my operation. Train scheduling, warehousing, processing. You’ll have to see our stockpile of fine old china, silver, antiques. A room full of Steinways and Bechsteins. All the property of the state, of course.”
“I had no idea …”
“Oh, Himmler is very strict about looting, private gain. Except for a few of us who enjoy the privileges of rank.”
A rather enigmatic fellow, Eichmann. Does he really feel that the seizure of Jewish property is the privilege of those of us in the upper echelons of the SS? I cannot be sure. He has intense, glittering eyes, and it is difficult for me to gauge if he is being sarcastic and mocking at times, or if the intensity of those eyes convey fervor and devotion.
Flattery, I have learned, is always a useful tool with my superiors, so I complimented him repeatedly on the reports in Berlin. His handling of Jews was exemplary. Now, with Czechoslovakia absorbed, he will be responsible for another quarter of a million Jews. Eichmann is as susceptible to flattery as Heydrich. He spoke freely of his clever methods for attracting Jews, registering them. They were not threatened; they were promised relocation, fair treatment. Honey, not garlic, Eichmann said, is what draws both flies and Jews.
But how, I asked, did he explain the expropriation of their valuables? He laughed. Oh, that was simple. The possessions were being held “in trust” for them until the international situation quieted down. But did they believe this? I asked. Again that jewel-like glitter illuminated his eyes. They believe it because they have no choice, he said. They have no arms, no powers to resist, no press, no advocates in government. But then, I was about to say, it really gets down to a matter of force. For all Eichmann’s “psychology” and alleged knowledge of Hebrew, Yiddish and Jewish mores, the rock-bottom fact was that we had the power of life and death over them. But I did not tell him this.
“And for my part,” he said, “I simply obey orders. Un bon soldat. You understand French, Dorf.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve seen your file. I try to get a look at everyone’s records. It helps.”
For a fleeting instant I was ill at ease. Why should he look at my file? He noted the discomfiture on my face.
“Father, Klaus Dorf,” Eichmann said. “A baker in Berlin. Killed himself with his World War Luger in 1933 after his business failed. He was apparently a Socialist at one time.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“You worked your way through law school. Excellent student, but a bit self-effacing. Wife, the former Marta Schaum, from a Bremen family. Church people.”
I must have turned pale, begun to sweat a bit. He knew a great deal about me, perhaps more than he was letting on. Not that I had anything to hide. But it was a little unnerving to know that Eichmann, my genial, generous host, had learned so much about me. To tell the truth, I was vaguely frightened. The happy day in the Prater had an edge of nightmare about it.
Eichmann must have noticed the change in my expression. He slapped my boot and assured me he meant no harm, none at all. The SS, being a police and security operation, obviously has to know its own members well. Gestapo, SS, SD, RSHA, all the specialized branches—they all keep an eye on one another.
“It’s how we survive, Dorf,” he said.
I told him it was not my intention to survive in that manner, but rather by being utterly obedient to Heydrich, the most brilliant man I had ever met.
At this point, Eichmann leaned back and yawned, and that mocking look passed over his lean features again. “Of course, Dorf, of course. Brilliant, inventive, fearless. But like all of us, Heydrich has an Achilles’ heel.”
I must have looked as if I’d been struck with a brick.
“You mean you haven’t heard the rumors? Heydrich is supposed to have a Jew in his family tree.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Went to court years ago to sue. Paid people off. Had records burned. It drives him crazy. That’s why he’s so intent on following the Führer’s racial policies. To kill the Jew in himself. At least that’s what they say.”
It took me a few seconds to absorb this shocking information—false though it may have been. “And what do they say about me?” I asked.
“Oh, that you’re a hard-working, loyal aide to the chief of the Gestapo and the Security Service. A sort of house intellectual. I must tell you, Dorf, Heydrich’s memoranda are infinitely more readable since you took over.”
“You’re baiting me, Major.”
“Not at all. I love the substitute words you’ve developed for us. Code words, as it were.” He seemed to savor the sound as he spoke. “‘Resettlement,’ ‘relocation,’ ‘special handling.’ Marvelous synonyms for getting rid of Jews.”
“I’m pleased to have supplied amusement for a brother offic
er.”
Eichmann snapped his fingers, ordered more wine. The waiters fairly sprained their ankles racing to serve him. People know him well. They understood the power of the black uniform and the jack boots.
“You needn’t be upset,” Eichmann said. “Reports on you are good. Besides, Heydrich has the goods on everyone. It’s his insurance if this Jew business ever surfaces again. He’s got dossiers on Himmler, Goering, Goebbels. Sometimes I think he even keeps a file on the Führer.”
I sat there, too disturbed to think clearly.
Marta returned with our children. “Too much excitement,” she said. “For them and for me.”
I suggested we go to the Sacher Hotel—Eichmann had gotten us a prized suite of rooms at party expense—and rest.
Peter would not hear of it. He wanted to ride the Ferris wheel. So did Laura. They set up the kind of wailing that can only come from the throats of over-stimulated children.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll take them. Marta, you keep Major Eichmann company.”
Marta sat. Eichmann bowed to her, complimented her again on her beauty and charm. They talked about our children, how much they meant to the future of Germany, the new revitalized Germany that was remaking Europe.
I watched them touching wine glasses, drinking to family, home and honor. As I lifted the children into the Ferris wheel, I was able to dismiss Eichmann’s rather startling revelations (if that was what they were) about our organization being a nest of internal spies.
It has been, truly, a happy, fruitful day. Perhaps I have not advanced my career by acting a bit naive in front of Eichmann. But Marta, with her simple charm, more than makes up for it.
Later tonight in the Sacher Hotel, we loved one another with a fervor, an abandonment of hesitation about new—what shall I say?—approaches, methods, that astonished both of us and left us gasping, wilted. In some way, the new powers I feel in my work, the fearlessness of being a member of the organization, are having an effect on our sexual engagements.
Rudi Weiss’ Story
My father was in one of the last groups of Jews to be allowed into Poland. He and the people with whom he was deported spent a week being shuttled back and forth on cramped, filthy trains before the Poles reluctantly agreed to accept them. A woman died of heart failure aboard the train, and my father attended her to the very end.
