by Gerald Green
The door burst open and the squad flew into the room. Everyone was ordered to stand against the wall. No one dared speak.
Maria recalls several of the artists looking at Felsher—as if to say, “You have given us away; those sketches have been found.”
Tables were smashed, wallboards ripped apart, easels turned over. The stockroom was searched from top to bottom, the file drawers where Frey kept paints, brushes, and other supplies were yanked out and thrown about.
One soldier went through Karl’s desk, checked every portfolio, threw all the posters to the floor. The sergeant stood in the middle of the floor, smacking a machine pistol against his side, shouting, “Find them, find them, goddammit.”
What the SS could not know was that all the incriminating drawings had been removed the previous day. They were safe, protected. Still in the camp, but hidden elsewhere.
Erik Dorf’s Diary
Theresienstadt
April 1943
Eichmann, to my surprise, was rather casual about the affair of the “horror propaganda” pictures. I know why though. He is in Kaltenbrunner’s good graces because of his transport system—Auschwitz is going full blast—and if any blame devolves from the matter of the secret paintings, the ax will fall on me. There are no secrets from Eichmann; he knows I have been given the prime responsibility for finding the guilty artists and the remaining works of art.
Rahm, the Theresienstadt commandant, was present, as we looked at the sketches I had brought from Berlin.
“Do you have any idea who did these?” Eichmann asked him.
“It could have been any one of a dozen. We pamper those bastards, give them privileges—and look how they repay us. I’d like to hang the whole bunch.”
“Calm down, Major,” Eichmann said.
He then studied the drawings with a connoisseur’s eye. Eichmann has that wonderful cool quality. In the midst of consigning thousands to die, he can still appreciate a landscape, a fine bit of ceramic.
Rahm and I wondered why Berlin was in such an angry sweat over five paintings. And Eichmann seemed rather indifferent himself. “Actually these are not bad,” he said. “A kind of Georg Grosz decadence, but whoever did them has talent.”
“Berlin demands the identity of every artist involved,” I said. “And they want every such secret work—painting, drawing, whatever. And also the conspirators who smuggled them out. We can’t let the outside world see these. Theresienstadt cannot be defamed by these disgusting pictures.”
Rahm shook his bull-like head. “Such a fuss over some lousy paintings.”
“The Jews have to be kept quiet, believing,” I explained. “We must proceed with the final solution in a swift and orderly manner. There have been some minor rebellions in the eastern camps.”
Eichmann rapped the desk with his crop. “Bring them in,” he said.
Rahm left us.
Eichmann winked at me. “It sounds as if you’re under a bit of pressure, Major.”
“Pressure?”
“How well do you know your Old Testament? ‘Now there rose up a new King over Egypt who knew not Joseph.’ Kaltenbrunner’s our new king, eh, Dorf?”
I knew what he meant, but I said nothing. My career had been a direct rise so long as Heydrich lived. And now …
“But you are right about no impediments to the resettlement plan,” Eichmann said. “Have you any idea the pressures I’m under? We’re liquidating the last of the Polish ghettoes. Warsaw is the only tough nut remaining. All the Jews remaining in Vienna, Luxembourg, Prague and Macedonia are going directly to Treblinka to meet their Jewish God. We are giving the Führer his Jew-free Europe, Dorf.”
“More credit to you, Eichmann.”
Rahm and an SS corporal returned with three prisoners. They were unremarkable-looking men. Unlike the inmates of other camps who wear the striped suits, these men were in civilian dress—work shirts and trousers (marked front and back, of course, with the yellow star)—and seemed a bit healthier than the usual prisoner. They were all artists and were all under suspicion.
Eichmann introduced himself, told them who I was. His manner was polite but authoritative. “In turn, please, your names, home cities and any other pertinent data.”
“Otto Felsher, Karlsruhe,” said the smallest and oldest of the trio.
“Emil Frey, Prague.”
“That big bastard is the ringleader,” Rahm said. “Give me an hour with him and we’ll find out.” “Karl Weiss, Berlin.”
He was tall and thin, stooped, with a sad yet handsome face. A dark pensive man.
“Good.” Eichmann said. “Now please, each of you come forward and tell me which of you is responsible for these horror pictures.”
Rahm jabbed Frey in the back. “Move!”
The three men walked to the large desk. (The office is quite ornate, beautifully furnished; the furniture carne from some of the best Jewish homes in Prague.)
I arranged the drawings on the desk—“Waiting for the End,” “The Master Race,” “Ghetto Children,” the others.
“Well?” asked Eichmann.
To my amazement, Frey, the big man who was alleged to be the leader, pointed to two pictures. “These are mine,” he said.
Felsher indicated one. “Mine.”
Weiss touched the last two. “I did these.”
“Splendid,” Eichmann said. “Now we are getting somewhere. Sit down, all of you.”
The men did so. Eichmann offered them cigarettes, smiled at them. They were obviously frightened to death—they knew what went on in the Kleine Festung—and seemed more than willing to co-operate.
“Now to the heart of the matter,” Eichmann said. “Major Dorf has come from Berlin to find out how many more of these atrocious pictures exist, where they are hidden, and who are your contacts on the outside who are helping you smuggle them out. Surely there are more than these five, and surely your intention is to flood the world with them and tell lies about us. Frey?”
“There are no other pictures.”
“Weiss?”
This man, who looked vaguely familiar to me, lowered his head. “There are none. These were the only such drawings we made.” I saw at once he was terrified; the answers would come from him.
“Felsher?” Eichmann asked.
“They … they …”
“Please go on,” I said. “Tell us.”
“They … are the only pictures done in that manner. The commandant knows our work. Posters, portraits.”
Rahm cracked the back of his hand against Felsher’s face. “You lying, sneaky kike. Talk.”
“No … no … others.”
Eichmann motioned to Rahm not to hit him again, and like a schoolteacher, paced in front of the three. He stopped in front of Weiss and asked, “You—what is the function of art?”
Oh, how he enjoyed the role—man of culture, critic, collector.
“The function of art?” asked Weiss. “Berenson said the function of art was to enhance life.”
A glow suffused Eichmann’s face. “Superb! Marvelous! To enhance life!” He indicated the drawings. “You call these life-enhancing? This garbage, this filth? How could you distort reality like this and dare to call it art?”
“It is the truth,” Weiss said. He said it in a soft, persuasive voice—and I had a sudden recollection of the Jewish physician I had known years ago. But Weiss is a common name; there were thousands in Berlin.
“Then tell me why the Red Cross has inspected this camp a dozen times and never found such conditions.”
“They were deceived,” Weiss said.
Rahm now smashed him across the face. A thin stream of blood trickled from the man’s nose.
I got up. “Weiss, be reasonable. I am a Berliner, like you. And we Berliners are practical people. You won’t be punished. You people have privileges here. Just tell us who your contacts are on the outside. How you intend to get this stuff out.”
“We have no contacts.”
“Then tell us
where the other pictures are hidden.”
“There are none.”
Rahm was muttering to Eichmann. “Give me an hour with these lying bastards and we’ll know. With all due respect, Colonel, they don’t appreciate your art lectures.”
“Weiss? You two?” I asked. “Care to change your mind?”
They said nothing. Frey, the big man, looked firmly at the other two.
I tried a new tack. “Weiss, the commandant tells me you have a lovely Aryan wife, who arrived here recently.”
He straightened up, turned white.
“I am sure she would want you to tell the truth,” I said.
“I am telling the truth.”
“Felsher?” I asked. Here surely was the weak link.
“I … I …”
To my amazement, my fellow Berliner, Weiss, grabbed his arm. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Let him answer!” Rahm shouted.
“No … nothing,” Felsher said.
Whispering, I suggested to Eichmann that I talk to Weiss. Many Jews, despite their attempts at bravery, can often be argued into agreement, submission, merely by talk—perhaps part of their heritage of Talmudical discussion.
I took Weiss to the corner of the room. “Is it possible we’ve met?” I asked.
“I doubt it.”
“Listen, Weiss. Forget about those Austrians and Czechs. This is Berliner to Berliner.”
“Berliners have kept me in prison four years. Berliners sent my parents to Warsaw.”
“Well, maybe something can be done to make amends. Tell us where the paintings are. Perhaps I can work something out.”
“Freedom?”
“I can look into it. Otherwise, you’ll be turned over to Rahm’s people. Your wife won’t want to look at you when they are finished with you.”
For a moment the old ghetto fear shaded his face; the fear of pain and torment and humiliation, which we have perfected, which we have made a national policy. (Heydrich, my mentor, understood this—the total modern state, the use of technology, the refusal to shrink from using any and all means to keep control, to bend wills, to force issues.)
But then he seemed to recover his courage, and he said, just as stubbornly as before, “There are no more pictures.”
I shook my head and walked back to Eichmann, who was now seated at the desk. “Useless.” I said.
Eichmann gave Rahm the order to take them away. They were marched out. The older man, Felsher, was weeping softly.
“You look as pale as they do,” Eichmann said.
“Do I?”
“Don’t let it upset you. Rahm’s guards will get the information. You can go back to Berlin a hero—with a collection of ghetto art under your arm.”
Rudi Weiss’ Story
In April 1943, Karl and two other artists were interrogated by Eichmann and some other SS bigshots. None of them would talk. My brother, who shrank from street fights, ran from kids calling him dirty names, was defying these murdering sadists.
Inga recalls Karl and two other men, Emil Frey and Otto Felsher, being marched from the commandant’s office, shoved on a truck, and taken to the Kleine Festung—the isolation and punishment barracks.
She and Maria Kalova and some other women hurled themselves at the rear of the truck and tried to drag the men off. They were beaten back by kapos. An SS corporal fired shots over their heads.
Inga screamed that he had done nothing, that they must let him go, but the truck took off. Karl smiled at her and made a “thumbs up” signal. But all expected the worst. Few people ever came out of the Kleine Festung alive. A Hussite clergyman, a Czech suspected of contacting the resistance, had been tortured to death there a few weeks back.
The three men were put in separate but adjoining cells—iron doors with slots for food, one tiny high window, thick stone walls.
They were able to call to one another.
“What will they do to us?” Felsher cried.
“Beat us, I imagine,” Frey said. “Felsher, remember our agreement.”
“It … it was my fault. I had no right to sell the pictures.”
“You can make up for it now,” Karl said. “Just keep your mouth shut.”
“But I can’t stand pain, Weiss.”
“Neither can I,” Karl said. “But we’ll learn to.”
“I’m past sixty,” Felsher wept. “Weak kidneys. I’m no hero.”
Later, Inga told me, Karl realized his own surprising courage stemmed from his need to prop up Felsher; without Felsher to reassure, to encourage, he might have cracked.
“They won’t kill us,” Frey said.
“Yes, and they tell me that after a while, you don’t even notice it,” Karl added.
Felsher would not stop sobbing.
Karl rattled the iron door to get his attention. “Listen, Felsher, have you ever been to Italy?”
“No.”
“Frey?”
“No, Weiss, but it’s been a dream of mine for years.”
“Well, let’s make an agreement. When this is over all three of us will go there. Venice, Florence, Rome, Siena. I’ve always wanted to see Michelangelo’s David—not a photo or a copy, but the huge, real white thing, all by itself.”
Frey continued the game. “You’ve got a deal, Weiss. The three of us and our wives. Italy! Yes, an artist’s tour. We mustn’t forget Arezzo. I am a Piero della Francesca man myself. There, Weiss, is the greatest figure of the high Renaissance.”
My brother laughed. Felsher had stopped sobbing. “Well, I have a prejudice for Pinturicchio,” Karl said.
“Bah,” Frey said. “An illustrator. Not in the same class with Piero.”
Felsher was beaten first.
The guards stood him against the wall, with his back to them, and slowly, methodically beat him with rubber clubs, starting at the back of his head, working their way down his back, buttocks, legs, feet.
He screamed, of course, and my brother and Felsher kept shouting at him not to say anything.
“To hell with them!” Karl shouted. “We’ve given in too long! Felsher, tell them to go to hell!”
At length his screams diminished. He must have fainted.
Karl was next.
The two SS men entered his cell. “Well, Jewboy? Want to go back to the commandant’s office and talk? You saw what we did to the old man.”
“It’s easier than getting hit,” the other said.
“I have nothing to tell you.”
They repeated the punishment with Karl. He was stripped, made to face the wall, as if having a chest X-ray taken—chin and chest against the stone, legs back, arms on hips.
They beat him for fifteen minutes, hard, punishing short blows against his head, back, kidneys, legs, genitals, feet. He screamed also. Frey shouted at him to be silent; not to surrender. And he was silent about the pictures. There were several hundred paintings and drawings—what the Nazis called “horror propaganda”—hidden about the camp. The artists were determined that they would not be found.
Frey was shouting, trying to make himself heard over Karl’s screams. “Florence!” he shouted. “Listen to me, Weiss! Venice, Perugia! We’ll spend a whole day in the Ufizzi Gallery! A day in the Bargello!”
Finally, Karl collapsed and slid to the floor. His back was a bloody mass of bruises.
“Talk?” a guard asked.
“No.”
“You will next time. Stand him up.”
They beat him again; he collapsed again.
They then did the same to Emil Frey, and he too refused to divulge any information about the works.
When the guards returned to Felsher’s cell, on the assumption that a second beating would loosen his tongue, they found he was dead.
Apparently there was now a pause, as the SS men returned to Rahm’s office to report on Felsher’s death.
Inga and the other women, waiting outside the office, held back by the kapos, shrieked at the SS guards not to hurt the men again. No one learned
immediately that Felsher had been beaten to death.
A guard grinned at Inga. “They’ll talk now. Talk or Auschwitz.”
In the Kleine Festung, Karl and Frey, soaked with blood, bruised so badly they could not move, heard the guards returning.
“They won’t kill us,” Frey whispered. “The idea of those drawings is driving them insane. They have to have them. The bastards have an unnatural fear of being found out. In their corrupted souls, Weiss, they know they are evil, and that they will be punished someday. So they will have to keep us alive.”
“I can’t hold out,” Karl muttered.
“I’m not sure I can. We’ll make it a contest, Weiss. Whoever can hold out the longest … he gets a free gondola ride in Venice.”
And so the beatings resumed. Every hour the guards returned. At the end of the day Karl and Frey were senseless, inanimate lumps of flesh, deformed, misshapen, their bodies screaming with pain, their faces twisted like gargoyles. But they had not talked.
But while this was going on, Inga and Maria Kalova had buried the last of the paintings. They were stored in waterproof metal containers, wrapped in waterproof paper. Then they were hidden in a dozen places—the vegetable garden, flower beds, an abandoned gravel pit. They would never be found until after the war, Inga was certain.
As the women tossed earth on the last of the works of the “Artists of Terezin,” Inga began to cry.
“Oh, Maria,” she said. “Does it mean anything? For them to suffer so over these pictures? Why don’t we just give them to the SS.”
“Karl believes in the pictures, Inga. They are the truths that the world will have to know.”
“I suppose so. But I tell you, I want to rush into the commandant’s office and say, ‘Here they are, give me my husband.’”
“He and Frey would prefer this. I know.”
“I hope so. Oh, I hope so.”
For four days Frey and my brother were beaten.
On the last day, Karl, through cracked lips, called hoarsely to Frey. “They broke my hands. All the fingers. Bones cracked.”
“Mine too,” Frey said.
