Holocaust (7 page)

“I’m not sure what to believe any longer.”

“I mean, look at it this way. What’s the point of picking on Jews forever? That business of killing Christ was a long time ago. Why keep after us?”

“We are of value, my friend. We unite the people. I’m afraid the Nazis care very little about Christ or religious dogma.”

“Yeah. Except when they can use it.”

My father finished the bandaging—he did it like an artist—and said, “Good as new, Lowy.”

My mother knocked at the door. She summoned my father into the hallway.

I’d just arrived, shepherding my grandparents from their ruined apartment. Anna—no fear in her, or at least she never showed it—had come along to help carry the bags.

“This will be your home,” my father said to the old people.

Grandpa pointed to their few bags. “All we have left. They stole everything. The books … gone …”

My mother patted his hand. “You’ll be safe here. And there’s plenty of room. Mama and Papa, you’ll stay in Karl’s old room.”

Grandpa Palitz was shaking his head. “We have no right to make life harder for you.”

My father said, “Don’t be silly. We are honored to have you live with us. I’ve got some good news. One of my patients, fellow with his ear to the ground, he says it’s going to end. The fever has run its course.”

Anna and I picked up the bags and started up the stairs. How blind they all were! Or am I, through the lens of fourteen years, here in my home in Israel, being cruel to them, unkind to their memory? They were not the only ones fooled, lulled, made to feel secure one day, destroyed the next.

“Yes, I’m inclined to agree,” my grandfather was saying. He still wore his Iron Cross! “Economically it makes no sense. Schacht must realize that. To destroy businesses, drive us out of the economy? No sense at all.”

I came downstairs, full of despair at their ability to deceive themselves. “They’ll never learn,” I said. And to my mother, surprised by my own freshness, “Nor will you.”

My father was on the telephone and he looked pale, shaken. “Inga, yes, yes, I hear you … but why … what reason? Karl. I understand. But what did they say? Do you want someone to come over? Yes, yes. We’ll try to make some calls.”

He hung up. I can remember him trying to keep the bad news from my mother. His tall figure was almost bending with the effort of containing his emotions.

“They’ve arrested Karl. They gave no reason. He’s at the main police station. With thousands of others.”

My mother began to weep. Not hysterics, mind you, but discreet tears. “Oh, my son, my Karl.”

“Inga is at the police station. She won’t leave until she gets more information. She’ll call again soon.”

As Anna and I watched, frightened, my mother lost her self-control—that quality she most prided. She began to sob freely, and fell into my father’s arms.

“Karl’ll be okay, Mama,” I said. “He never did anything. He can’t be charged with anything.” I lied to cheer her up; they didn’t need reasons any longer. They hadn’t for years.

“Rudi’s right,” my father said. “You’ll see. He’ll be released. They can’t keep filling the jails with innocent people.”

My mother looked into my father’s hurt eyes. “We are being punished. For my pride. For my stubbornness. Oh, Josef, we should have run away, years ago.”

“No, no, not at all. It isn’t your fault, no one’s.”

She was amazing. In a moment, she was in control of her emotions again, brushing the tears away, straightening her dress. “I must go to make my parents comfortable. Rudi, you will do the shopping for dinner.”

“If there’s a store open.”

My father patted me on the back. “You’re resourceful, son. You’ll find one.”

She started up the stairs, staggered. My father ran to her and took her arm.

“I am all right, Josef,” she said.

“You must rest, I’ll give you a sedative.”

“No, no, I am fine. You left a patient waiting. I shall be fine.”

“So I did,” my father said. He walked to the glass doors, ashen-faced, trying to hide his fears from her, from all of us.

Anna and I watched, said nothing. I cursed myself for being so young, so inexperienced, and worst of all, so unable to help them.

Outside, shopping bag under my arm, I stopped on our steps.

Two louts, grinning bastards in brown uniforms, were painting the word
JUDE
on the low brick wall in front of our house. They ignored me. I clenched my fists, started down the steps.

They carried short wooden clubs in their belts, sheathed knives. What good would a fight do? Oh, how I wanted to wade into them.

“What are you staring at, kid?” one asked.

I said nothing.

“Your old man’s a Jew isn’t he?” the other asked. “Why not advertise it?”

And they went on painting. The six-pointed star next to the four letters.

Berlin
November 1938

Marta is amazed at my rapid rise. I’ve become one of Heydrich’s favorites. He likes what he calls my “agile legal mind.”

As she sat in my lap earlier tonight, more beautiful than ever, happier than she had been in years, I told her that Heydrich wants us to go to the opera with him some night. We are climbing the ladder. We will have to socialize more, entertain.

“Erik, all those rich women. I’ll be embarrassed.”

“You’ll be the most beautiful one there.”

Marta blushed. “Oh, you know me. I’m content to look after the house and the children.”

“A much better house. I’ve got my eye on a new apartment. In a better neighborhood.”

Marta kissed me, threw her arms around me. “Oh, Erik. I’m so happy for us. And you once sneered at—what did you call it? Police work! Look how you’ve succeeded!”

Sitting here with my cognac (it was a long, tiring day at work), I know it is not in my nature to be boastful, but I am finding it easier to talk about myself. And of course, Marta delights in this new version of
Captain
Erik Dorf. I told her, as she listened, smiling, how I solved a tricky problem growing out of recent events.

Many German insurance companies were on the verge of bankruptcy because of claims by Jewish shopkeepers for damages. After mulling the problem, I advised Heydrich that we should let the companies pay the damages, but before the Jews could collect, the government will
confiscate
the payments on the grounds that the Jews incited the rioting and hence are not entitled to reimbursement. The money can then be returned to any Aryan firm that requests it. (Jewish insurance firms are exempted from such repayments.)

Marta confessed she had trouble following my legal reasoning, but she agreed that it is a just solution. The Jews, as she said, brought all this on themselves.

My attitudes toward Jews are unquestionably changed since my naive days three years ago. Now, I see clearly how they have insinuated themselves into our life, spreading their tentacles, preventing Germany from realizing its destiny. I understand what the Führer means by a “Jew-free” Europe. It can only be for the good of all concerned, including the Jews. Every now and then some old concept of law troubles me, but it is not hard to dismiss it under Heydrich’s benign leadership. He was right, of course, at that first meeting. I have to put aside old-fashioned notions of
justice. There are times and cases where they simply do not apply.

When Peter and Laura finished their baths, they came in wearing their new bathrobes. I kissed them.

“Children,” I said, “you smell like spring flowers.”

Peter sulked. “I’m no flower. Maybe she is.” He is almost nine—tall, sturdy, with his mother’s fine features and strong will.

Laura, who tends to be thoughtful, moody—much like me as a child—leaned heavily on my knee, the way children will do when they want attention. Her innocent eyes found mine, and she asked, “Papa, why does everyone hate Jews?”

Peter answered before I could. “‘Cause they killed Christ. Didn’t you learn that in Sunday school?”

“Oh, there are other reasons,” Marta said. “Something you will understand when you are older.” She began to shepherd them off to bed.

I pondered Peter’s ingenuous yet truthful response to Laura’s question. Yes, they killed Christ. And although the party, our movement, the Führer’s writings on the subject make little of this, we are certainly beneficiaries of a long tradition. My historical knowledge is not sufficient, nor am I a philosopher, but it seems to me there is an almost unbroken chain from the denunciation of Jews for the greatest crime against God ever committed to what we are planning for them. After all, we have not invented anti-Semitism.

My ruminations were halted by the door buzzer. Marta looked startled, but I cautioned her to stay with the children, that I would answer it.

It was Dr. Josef Weiss, standing in the hallway, looking older, stooped. “Captain Dorf,” he said. “I am sorry to intrude at this hour, but I was afraid if I called you would refuse to see me.”

I was annoyed with him. He should have known better. “I told you not to come to me.”

“I have nowhere to turn. My son Karl—he’s a bit younger than you, you may remember him from the old neighborhood—has been arrested. Not a word sent
to us, nothing. No reasons given. He’s never had a political thought in his life. He’s an artist. He …”

His voice dwindled away.

I couldn’t help him and told him so.

“What crime have we committed? What have we ever done to you? My father-in-law was a hero of the German army. His shop and his home were pillaged by ruffians. My sons … they have always felt as German as you—”

“These actions are not directed at you personally, or your family,” I said.

“That makes it no easier for us.”

“Doctor, these are long-range policies. For your benefit as well as Germany’s.”

“But lives are wrecked. People destroyed. Why?”

He was getting on my nerves. He had no right to come to me. “I can’t discuss this with you.”

“Captain Dorf, please. You have influence. You are an officer in the SS. Help my son.”

As he stood there pleading with me, Marta appeared in the hallway. “Erik? Is anything wrong?”

“No, my dear.”

Weiss bowed to Marta. “Mrs. Dorf, maybe you’ll understand. Put yourself in my place. Suppose it was your son taken away, as mine was. You both once entrusted your health to me … I ask only—”

Malta’s voice was firm. She ignored him. “Erik. The children.”

Dr. Weiss would not leave. I walked away from him, to Marta.

She whispered to me, “Make him leave. He’ll endanger your career. Explain to him you can’t do anything for him. You didn’t arrest his son.”

“I’ve told him so.”

“Tell him again. Be polite, but tell him there is absolutely nothing you can do.”

I returned to the door. “Dr. Weiss, I’m afraid I cannot help you. These matters are out of my jurisdiction.”

“But a word to your superiors … at least to let us
know where my son is … what charges he faces …”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

His face dropped. “I understand. Good night, Captain.”

The door closed.

I was briefly troubled by his visit. He has always seemed to me a rather decent fellow, and for all I know, his son is also. But I have crossed some bridge, forded some river, and I cannot go back. Heydrich and Himmler have often warned us to be wary of the “good Jew,” the one, as a compassionate German, you want to save. Our program is a long-range one, a complex one, and deals with whole peoples, vast changes. We cannot let sentiment, false sympathies stand in our way.

Only we, the SS, the elite of the SS, Heydrich says, have the steel to get this job done. I know now, after hearing the physician’s slow tread in the hallway, what he means.

A few days after Papa’s visit to Erik Dorf—I had no idea who he was, how important he was, just that he had refused to help us—my father was ordered deported to Poland.

My father, always seeing the best in people, or refusing to think the worst, was convinced Dorf had nothing to do with it. Possibly he was right. It was general policy at the time. All alien Jews resident in Germany—and there were thousands of Polish Jews—were forced to leave.

In fact, when the fellow with the briefcase entered the office, while my father was fixing some kid’s sprained ankle, he was even hopeful that it was good news from Dorf, maybe about Karl.

But the man was from the immigration office and he said to my father, “You are Dr. Josef Weiss, born in Warsaw, Poland, and you are here illegally under the
new laws. You are ordered deported to Poland. Be at the Anhalter railroad station tomorrow at six a.m. with food for one day and one bag.”

I listened outside the office door, weeping for my father, wanting desperately to help him. How I hated those men who had come for him! How I longed to hit them, make them feel pain!

“But my wife and children … the people I take care of …”

“The order applies only to you. Give these documents to the transport officer tomorrow.”

What I remember most clearly is that instead of going upstairs to tell my mother, or being so stunned that he could not continue his work, my father returned to the boy on the examining table and resumed treating his ankle.

My brother Karl had been sent to a prison camp, Buchenwald. The account of his internment there I learned from a man named Hirsch Weinberg, who had been arrested a few days before Karl. Weinberg was a tailor by trade, a native of Bremen. He remembered Karl Weiss the artist well.

Buchenwald is near Weimar. The Germans had built a huge camp there for anyone considered an enemy of the Reich. After
Kristallnacht
, it became a hellhole, packed, unsanitary, a place where hundreds died daily of beatings and disease, or were executed for whatever reason pleased the guards.

The torment began from the moment the prisoners walked through the gate with the legend
ARBEIT MACHT FREI
—work makes you free.

Karl and a batch of other prisoners were ordered into a receiving room filled with typists, guards, office managers—all SS personnel. The usual opening questions, after name and address and profession, were on the order of: