Chapter 48 Long Day’s Journey #2
Joe said, “The captain would like me to speak to you.” His face was pale, with two patches of red on his cheeks.
Had he looked that way when I’d first come out here?
He hadn’t smiled at me, had he? Unfortunately, I’d been too wrapped up in the quarrel to notice.
He went on, “We’ve just come from taking a deposition from a prisoner.
That means a sworn statement under oath. Would you like to know what he said?”
Frau Lindemann said, “We’re sure to read it in the newspapers. The war is over. We’ve lost, and now we starve. What’s the point in all this? How is it helping anyone?”
Joe said, as if he hadn’t heard her, “Do you know what happened before the gas chambers? Do you know why they were developed?” Nobody said anything, and he went on.
“That’s what we found out today. Before the Final Solution—that’s what they called the extermination camps—Einsatzgruppen, task forces, were attached to every German unit fighting in Eastern Europe.
When the Wehrmacht took over a town, they required the Jewish elders to present all Jews for inspection the next day.
When they turned up, the Einsatzgruppe took them to a pit, lined them up in front of it, and shot them.
Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Men, women, children, babies in their mothers’ arms—they shot them all, one row at a time, and piled earth over their bodies to hide what they’d done.
The man we interviewed told us with perfect coldness that he alone was responsible for the deaths of some 95,000 people, and that altogether, the program had produced over a million victims, shot and dumped in mass graves, their numbers and location set down in account books the same way a shopkeeper records his transactions.
He’s sworn to this. He feels no shame, for as he says, he was obeying orders, as were his men. ”
“But we never—” Frau Lindemann said. To her credit, she looked horrified.
“You never knew,” Joe said. “About this, or about the extermination camps. The high command took care to keep their worst actions secret, but there’ll be witnesses at the trial who did see it happen, even the mass executions at the pits.
There were still those who took care to find out what was going on, even at risk to themselves, and are willing to bear witness. ”
He paused, but nobody spoke, and he said, “We discovered something else, too. After some time, a new method of killing was developed. Instead of bringing everybody to the edge of the pits and shooting them there, the Reich provided trucks in which the women and children could be transported. The trucks had a mechanism—an ingenious mechanism, our prisoner called it—by which to fill their cargo areas with poison gas, so the victims arrived at the pits already dead. Our prisoner made it clear that this wasn’t done to make it easier on the victims. No, the problem was that the soldiers suffered too much shooting women and children.
Shooting pregnant women. Shooting grandmothers.
Shooting a little girl clutching her doll. ”
Frau Braun still looked angry, but Frau Lindemann said, “Oh, don’t. Please don’t.”
“It upsets you to hear it,” Joe said. “Of course it does. The German people aren’t monsters, any more than any of us is.
Those soldiers’ sin was believing in absolute obedience to authority, but they believed in it because they were taught to from childhood.
Hitler and Himmler were clever, and they were thorough: propaganda from cradle to grave.
They lied to you. They lied to all of you, and they kept lying.
And I have to believe, for my own soul’s sake, that the men in those death squads are suffering now for what they’ve done.
Killing people isn’t easy, you know. I’m sure your husband will tell you the same.
That’s the reason for the extermination camps and the gas chambers: that ordinary Germans, ordinary soldiers, couldn’t do things like that.
So the Nazis looked for men who could, and they found them.
The number of victims is in the millions, almost impossible to comprehend.
Millions of Poles, of Russians, of Jews.
Millions and millions, killed not for anything they’d done, but simply for who they were.
That’s why we’re here. That’s what we’re trying to show you, and the rest of the world, too, so nobody has to go through again what you’re facing now: the knowledge that your government has made you complicit in atrocities like this.
And, yes, I hope we do end up with laws for war.
I hope the countries of the world can agree not to target civilians in bombing raids, not to shoot prisoners of war, not to wage wars of invasion on our neighbors for our own gain.
I hope so, even though I’m not na?ve enough to believe it will never happen.
And, yes, there were reasons that Hitler found a receptive audience for his poison.
Yes, the Allies made mistakes after the Great War.
Shouldn’t we try, though, to understand that, so we can stop things like this from happening again? ”
“Of course,” Frau Lindemann said stiffly. “Of course nobody wants war.” Frau Adelberg didn’t say anything. She was standing, frozen, behind the counter, her hand at her mouth.
“You see,” Joe said, “we’re not so different, even though we were on opposite sides.
Most of the German soldiers who surrendered to us were a decent lot who thought they were doing the right thing fighting for their country, just as we did.
This war was a tragedy all around, but I’m sure you’d agree that a man who can order the murder of women and children without a second thought shouldn’t walk free again.
I don’t want him living next to me, and I can’t imagine you do, either.
I wish I’d never had to meet him. And I’m sorry to share such terrible news, but it’s been a very long day. ”
“If it’s true …” Frau Lindemann began, then faltered.
“He’ll be testifying,” Joe said. “You can hear it directly from him.” He looked exhausted, suddenly, beaten in a way I’d never seen.
Frau Braun said, “I’ll be patronizing another bakery from now on. And you,” she told me, “are not welcome in the hotel.” She was so angry, she was nearly shaking with it.
Frau Adelberg said, “Does Herr Weissmann agree with that?” The manager of the hotel, she meant.
“I’ll see that he does,” Frau Braun said.
“Does he want no more Americans there, either?” Frau Adelberg said. “No American money?”
Frau Braun opened her mouth, closed it. Opened it again and said, “I— I—”
“You’ll serve me,” Frau Adelberg said, “and Fr?ulein Glücksburg, too, if you know what’s good for you.
As I’ve served you all this time. Here’s this officer, a high-ranking man, ready to declare your hotel off-limits to every American around Nuremberg at a word from Fr?ulein Glücksburg.
Where will the money come from then? Take care before you say anything. Take good care.”
Frau Braun didn’t answer. She clamped her mouth shut, marched to the door, and walked out.
As for Frau Lindemann? She looked in her string bag, seemed startled to see that she’d received her bread, said a stiff “Auf Wiedersehen” to the room, and left.
I said, an odd impulse to laugh trying to bubble up in me, “You realize, Frau Adelberg, that I have no such power.”
“Yes,” she said, “but that cow doesn’t.” She sniffed and told Joe, “You’d better take this last good loaf before she decides to come back for it.”
“Thank you,” Joe said, taking it from her. “Oh—I brought you some margarine. We’ll call it a trade.”
Frau Adelberg looked at me, then. “Well?” she asked. “What are you standing around here for? Your young man came to see you. Hadn’t you better get your coat?”