by Chris Petit
Morgen thought. ‘If you are right, they may just be legally accountable, if no specific order was given.’
Dr Wirths agreed to see him in his research office, next door to the punishment block. Despite charges pending, the commandant had overruled Grabner to allow the doctor to carry on with his work. Morgen said Wirths expected them to side with him, given that the charges were patently false.
Wirths made a show of being his reasonable self, if more testy, to correspond with his portrait of the important man inconvenienced.
He stood and insisted on shaking hands, as though he were in charge.
‘Thank you for coming. I want to speak to you so we can clear up this mess.’
His office was on the third floor, looking towards the river. Lower levels would have a view of the prison wall. The doctor’s was a tranquil one of sky and trees. Compared to most, the room was deliciously cool.
He invited them to sit.
‘They’re doing it to discredit me, that must be obvious.’
He wished to address the preposterousness of Grabner’s charges.
Morgen said, ‘Perhaps you can help us too.’
Wirths looked earnest. ‘However I can.’
‘It has come to our attention that corruption in the garrison is the result of another activity, of which we have only recently learned, and to conduct our investigation we need an understanding of the whole picture, if you get my drift.’
Wirths looked less certain. ‘I am not sure . . .’
‘Your duties extend to that other business.’
Wirths gripped the arms of his chair. ‘It is a confidential matter.’
‘Then on whose authority are you acting?’
Wirths cast about uncertainly. This was not what he expected.
‘It’s not straightforward. I don’t get instructions.’
‘Then tell us how it works.’
‘When I came I had no idea of what I would find – a complete absence of meaningful facilities that reduced sick prisoners to defecating in the tins they ate from. One said it was impossible to know what real hunger is until you begin to eye another up in terms of edibility. Can you imagine! In this day and age, like we are in cannibal Africa! I voiced my scruples to the commandant, including my misgivings about what you call the other business, which I consider against my Hippocratic oath. The commandant pointed out the hardness of observing orders without precedence and the need to execute them without prejudice.’
‘Orders?’
Wirths faltered. ‘What else would they be?’
Morgen said, ‘So you represent the arrival of the plausible man, with, if not a conscience, then at least the will to be conscientious.’
Schlegel was surprised by Morgen’s sneer.
Wirths massaged his temples. ‘I have spoken of what I found. With no cure on offer and conditions so dreadful, wholesale clear-outs were considered the only option. I must stress this was before my time.’
‘You inherited the situation,’ said Morgen dryly.
Wirths said nothing.
‘Spell out for us what happened to these prisoners, before your time?’
It wasn’t sarcasm, quite. The flippancy shown to Palitsch was replaced by a harder, sardonic tone that paid scant respect to the doctor’s opinion of himself.
‘They were taken away . . .’ Wirths eventually offered.
‘And?’
Wirths stared, reluctant or unable to go on.
Morgen stared back. ‘Yes, before your time. I am asking what happened.’
‘Gassed.’ The sibilance was exaggerated by his hushed delivery.
‘Or dispatched by lethal injection,’ Morgen added, sounding unnaturally loud.
He yawned ostentatiously, a sign for Schlegel to take over.
‘Tell us about Ingeborg Tanner,’ Schlegel said.
Wirths appeared thrown by her name.
‘Did you know or know of her when she was alive?’
‘I told you she came to my attention for medical reasons.’
‘Are you familiar with the so-called action parties?’
‘Now what are you talking about?’
‘Orgies, more or less,’ said Morgen.
Wirths looked desperate. ‘What are you here to prove? I ask for your help, now you question me about orgies. I am a married man.’
‘Everyone is a long way from home. Tanner was murdered. The fact that you removed and had the body destroyed before autopsy . . .’
Wirths slapped the table with the flat of his hand.
‘Enough! We are not here to talk about this. Of course I had nothing to do with this woman or her death. What I will show you are doctors who get away with murder.’
Morgen said, ‘Can we get to the point?’
‘This is the point.’
‘You select incomers for death.’
Wirths failed to suppress his anger. ‘Are you acting as your own judge now?’
‘I merely said I need to know what is really going on so I can draw my conclusions.’
‘Orders without precedent and the need to execute them without prejudice, the commandant said.’
‘But not without scruple,’ said Morgen, not withholding his sarcasm.
Wirths looked to Schlegel to say he was completely misunderstood.
Morgen asked to whom Wirths answered and whether he acted in consultation.
The doctor shook his head. ‘You have no idea. My brief was to combat the typhus. Everything followed from that. My superiors in Berlin couldn’t care. I was acting not on their instructions but my interpretation of a secret general directive addressed to garrison doctors.’
‘Secret directive?’ asked Morgen.
‘Not what you think. One that reinterpreted the role of the senior doctor as actively working towards the improvement of the health of the camp.’
He threw up his hands to show he acted with only the best motives. He ploughed on, long-winded, apologising, repeating himself, saying how difficult it was for outsiders to understand. A further bulletin issued by the Reichsführer-SS confirmed the task of the garrison doctor was to improve working conditions and control the mortality rate.
‘Which I did. Categorically. Even that dangerous idiot Grabner says so.’
They crossed a line when Morgen said, ‘Tell us about ramp selections.’
Schlegel suspected Wirths wished to unburden, and Morgen had guessed. Wirths sat for a long time, his hands hidden between his knees, looking utterly deflated.
‘It was a complete mess, you have no idea.’
Ramp selection from the start had been troubled by inconsistency, rivalry and contention.
‘Did you know about them before you came?’ asked Morgen.
‘Of course not. I knew nothing.’
‘No preparation or instruction?’
‘None!’
‘Chucked in at the deep end?’
‘There weren’t enough hours in the day to do the job in hand.’
‘Of course. Curing the epidemic. How would you define ramp selection?’
‘Choosing newcomers able to work.’
‘So not mothers, children or the elderly.’
‘More children are being taken now, as messengers,’ Wirths said, on the defensive.
‘I expect they are pleased about that,’ said Morgen, deadpan. ‘Would you say those selected for work are better off than those that aren’t?’
Wirths looked at Schlegel and asked, ‘How am I supposed to answer?’
Morgen went on. ‘I expect we are talking of circles of hell, whichever. Where are these newcomers from?’
‘All over.’
‘By train?’
Again Wirths looked at Schlegel.
Morgen said, ‘I don’t understand why they can’t just send you workers, as they do to other labour camps, do you see what I mean?’
‘I am not privy to that information.’
‘So ramp selection, was it something you chanced upon . . . and decided to refo
rm?’
‘Your tone is not helpful.’
‘I am having trouble working my way around this.’
Wirths adopted a schoolmasterly manner. ‘There is an ideology but on a practical level the considerations are quite different. After the decision to send transportations for labour in the east we were faced with the problem of those unable to work. We couldn’t send them back. We couldn’t send them on. It was impossible to keep them, the camp being too small despite its size. Chronic overcrowding made it a breeding ground for disease. The quarantine zones were at breaking point. It was a humanitarian crisis.’
Morgen laughed in the doctor’s face. ‘That’s one way of describing it.’
Wirths protested. ‘We would have to have protected these incomers against disease, which was why I was sent here in the first place. We lacked effective remedies as it was. It was a nightmare. It still is.’
Morgen asked, ‘And you assumed responsibility for ramp selection?’
Wirths’ defensiveness was making him sound pompous. ‘Any selection is about fitness for work, and must be conducted on medical grounds alone, by qualified doctors. That much is directed by Berlin.’
Schlegel supposed it true. From the beginning, sanctioned killing had sought medical endorsement.
Schlegel wondered if Wirths was a sympathy seeker, turning everything into the tragedy of the perpetrator faced with an impossible task.
Wirths’ vocabulary was always towards reason and consideration. Humanely. Orderly.
Schlegel thought back to the night at the station and wondered whether Wirths saw himself as a man doing the job on his own terms, properly and with decency.
‘Above all for the sake of those not selected,’ Wirths finished.
‘Those not selected,’ repeated Morgen.
‘Do you have any better ideas?’ snapped Wirths.
Morgen leaned back, satisfied to have got a rise.
‘Shall we liken the method to modern slaughterhouse practices, cool and technical as opposed to hot-blooded and arbitrary. You wouldn’t want a riot on your hands.’
Schlegel watched the artery pulse in Wirths’ temple.
‘It was like an Arabian souk. Doctors were being excluded from supervision and selections degenerated into free-for-alls, not made easier by staff strolling down to see what they could salvage. A carnival atmosphere developed, with many drunk. They called it the big welcome.’
Wirths dry-washed his hands in disgust. Even Morgen seemed taken aback by the callousness of the spectacle.
‘How was your complaint met by the commandant?’
‘He argued more transports were being sent than they could handle. Rival departments were promised numbers by Berlin they didn’t get, so they took to going down and recruiting their own workers. The commandant thought it best – what he called soft selection – with everyone getting a chance to take their pick.’
Wirths worked himself into a frenzy of righteousness. He banged the table again. ‘But it was not by the book!’
‘Is that still the case?’
‘The crisis has passed but that didn’t excuse poor organisation, overcrowding in quarantine sections, insufficient supplies and troops drinking on the job.’ Wirths trailed off.
‘Insufficient supplies of what?’
‘Of the fumigant.’
They watched him struggle to decide how much to tell.
Morgen prompted. ‘No one is taking notes.’
‘It was a nightmare,’ Wirths said, offering his favourite preface. ‘Tons of the stuff was needed to combat the epidemic, but the commandant decided not to inform Berlin, so officially there was no epidemic.’
‘Making it hard to justify the size of the order,’ said Morgen. ‘When was this?’
‘July last year.’
‘1942. And you came?’
‘At the end of August.’
‘How much fumigant is needed for gassing?’
‘Almost nothing. Much less than for a block.’
Palitsch had told them the same. Schlegel thought: Floor cleaner for lethal injections, a fumigant capable of eliminating thousands; only Germans could turn a death programme into an extension of domestic science, using forms of household cleaning, leaving everything spick and span.
‘Tell me again, to be quite clear,’ Morgen went on. ‘Any order for the fumigant has to be approved and supplied by Berlin.’
‘Correct.’
‘And is there a separate order for the fumigant when it is used for the other business?’
‘There is only one general order.’
‘So Berlin approved the order, not knowing it was to combat an epidemic that officially didn’t exist, and the other business.’
‘As far as I know.’
‘One general order,’ Morgen repeated.
Schlegel knew Morgen’s methods well enough by then – the slow circling before the swoop.
‘Yes,’ said Wirths, looking uncomfortable.
‘Then on whose authority are you making your selections?’ Morgen asked innocently.
Wirths gestured, incapable of speech.
‘It looks to me as though everyone makes up the rules as they go along.’
‘Not at all!’
‘If you weren’t telling Berlin about the epidemic, what else weren’t you telling?’
Wirths protested. ‘They knew about it by the time they sent me. It’s why I came! The other business . . .’ He trailed off.
‘There are places dedicated to similar ends where there is a chain of command, and the situation there is extralegal and there is nothing I can do, but here . . .’
Wirths stammered. ‘I assure you . . .’
He rallied and belatedly asked if they were cleared to discuss such matters.
Morgen said, ‘I have talked of it with a man whose name is almost identical to yours. Wirth. Do you know him, Dr Wirths?’
‘No.’
‘He answers to the Chancellery. Your near namesake told me in no uncertain terms. I saw his payslips. I am bound to ask whether you know him or answer yourself to the Chancellery?’
‘No.’
‘If you are not part of that machine, to which do you belong?’
Wirths again was lost for words.
Morgen leaned forward. ‘Yet you and your near namesake seem to be in the same business.’
They watched Wirths squirm, a man dishonoured by any question of his integrity.
Morgen went on. ‘I have to ask whether you, as a man with his hands on the controls of what we must call the death machine, is in fact authorised or whether you are a more sophisticated version of the rogue doctors you complain about.’
Wirths turned to Schlegel. ‘The man is mad! No one could be more torn or conscientious about his duties than I. You have seen. I am dedicated to cure. I am on the side of life! I thought you were for us.’
‘Which “us” is this?’ asked Morgen.
‘Reform. Getting rid of the thugs and boneheads who have been here too long and hinder progress.’
‘Death selection?’ asked Morgen quietly.
Wirths wailed again. Morgen asked how he accounted for himself.
Wirths eventually said, ‘One holds only so many cards. It took me weeks if not months to get to the bottom of corruption in my own department.’
‘We are not talking about that.’
Wirths asked why Morgen had got it in for him. Morgen said nothing. Schlegel watched a slow build of cloud on the horizon. Most of the time the sky had been a pitiless blue.
Morgen finally said, ‘I agree it is difficult. Go on.’
Wirths quietened down and apologised, stressing the onerousness of his task and the inappropriateness of what he had found – no consistency, a shambles of improvisation.
‘Selection must be regarded as an extension of the medical authority insisted on from the start.’
‘The start?’ queried Morgen.
‘When the garrison took on the responsibility of removing those
unfit for work it was supervised by medical staff. “Let the syringe remain in the hand of the physician.” I quote. If anyone must be killed then a doctor has to witness.’
Morgen said, ‘And that allowed you to put a medical gloss on selections because doctors had to be consulted on any decision regarding the ability to work.’
Wirths agreed. ‘It made selections part of my medical duty to improve working conditions.’
Schlegel thought: And gave you control. It was extraordinary how logic could be applied to the most twisted situations. He wasn’t sufficiently indoctrinated to believe in racial hygiene but listening to Wirths he could no longer be sure. Was it the first step towards a brave new world where such housekeeping was taken for granted? Crookedness of life would be removed to be replaced by serene pastures dedicated to health, pleasure and efficiency.
Wirths asked if they would help refute Grabner’s charges.
Morgen said, ‘Grabner will no doubt claim Berlin ceded him responsibility to deal with the situation as he saw fit, but he may find no one in Berlin willing to come forward. So may you find yourself exposed alone for having assumed this dreadful responsibility.’
They left Wirths crushed and walked out in silence. Schlegel wondered if the doctor’s selective vision extended to acknowledging the existence of the bathhouse morgue in his basement.
They continued through the camp without talking. Morgen barked at the guard to let them through. The guard jumped to and didn’t ask to see their passes.
Morgen eventually said, ‘Wirths, like the rest of them, suffers from the disease of logic known as paranoia, only in a more rarefied form. His response to the untenable is to select like mad – divide up, pick sides, choose, as though this endless selection and relentless organisation can become a thing in itself.’
Schlegel took to walking past the leather factory in the hope of spotting Sybil.
Everything had begun to look older as the unseasonably hot weather persisted. Schlegel saw in people’s faces they were starting to think of winter and in the shortening evenings he watched families with punnets going to pick the last of the berries.
That night a very drunk man jumped out of the bushes at him, laughing. Without thinking, Schlegel clubbed him with his fist. The drunk fell to the ground, still laughing. It didn’t seem to be Schlegel’s foot kicking the man, seeking out his balls, making him scream. Boredom and terror fused in a moment of electrifying clarity as he was shown the nature of the beast within.
