A Family Madness (14 page)

Two honks from the direction of the railway bridge told Delaney and Stanton it was time to move in. As they left the car and jumped the ditch, one of the blond boys had taken up a rubber-coated mallet for eventual use on the windows. Stevo strode to the front of the building to write a further slogan, this time on the paved and tabled area set aside for al fresco devouring of chickens. Delaney felt wonderful and deliciously waited before crying out his prepared sentence: “Fixing the site, gentlemen?” He had in his line of vision both the oblivious blonds and Stevo the professional vandal.

Before he could speak he saw Rudi and Scott Kabbel appear behind the man. There was a sharp burst of light from the camera in Scott's hands. Then the whole event, as Stanton would later pungently detail it, burst open like a garbage bag dropped from a height. One of the blond boys began to run back toward Stevo's station wagon, and Delaney brought him down with a classic head-behind-the-hamstrings tackle, as if it were turf and not gravel and tar which were waiting to receive them as they fell. Delaney slid painlessly across the glass-strewn surface of the parking lot. He heard cries of pain however from the boy he had felled and saw him lift to the streetlights the cut pad of his right hand. The damage was not enough to stop him from retrieving the mallet and bringing it down on Delaney's shoulder, emitting as he did it a grunt worthy of the martial arts. As Delaney rolled on his side and vomited onto Stevo's pavement graffiti, he could hear the evil breathless screams of someone savagely hurt rising behind him. It happened that Stevo had sent a blast of acidic paint straight into Scott Kabbel's eyes.

18

F
ROM THE
J
OURNALS OF
S
TANISLAW
K
ABBELSKI
, C
HIEF OF
P
OLICE
, S
TAROVICHE
.

Children and Danielle went under escort to a party given by Willi Ganz at his apartment. Occasion: young Radislaw's ninth birthday. Delightful event. I looked in and spent over half an hour. My leisure not as great as our dear Kommissar's. Pathetic to see the joy of young Radek—a joy threatened on all sides by the partisans. Last night for example, in fortified village of Krotinitsa, the jewel of our pilot scheme, partisans raided police outpost and took my men to a barn and shot them. Left them obscenely arrayed, flies open and hands placed as if engaged in self-abuse. Cold night, and villagers did not dare move the dead; hence found them frozen this morning in these horrendous postures. Spent the morning lying to their relatives in town here.

Partisans further hanged the Krotinitsa mayor from a telegraph pole. Have moved in stronger detachment of my men, and Kuzich appointed young Daskovich from the city office here to look after Krotinitsa's civil side, since none of local people willing to take risk. All this barbarity continues; both Germans and Russians behave like savages; we bear it for the sake of Bela Rus. And in the midst, like the well-known jewel among the dungheap, my son smiles. Genia more sullen, no longer a child, suffering the double assaults of womanhood and the awful life we are forced to lead here.

Ganz fantastic—parties are his especial gift. Got out his violin and played the famous theme from
Midsummer Night's Dream
, even thoughMendelssohn, grandson of a Jewish philosopher of assimilation, is scarcely on the approved repertoire for SS Oberführers.

Anyhow, really waltzed the theme along, and the boy's eyes glittered in a way that would have brought pure joy to any parent if it were not—as I say—for the omens which surround us. The Russians counterattacking in the Don bend—Comrades Vatutin, Rokossovsky, and Eremenko. German Sixth Army now isolated in Stalingrad, and if
that
place falls, far as it is from Staroviche, increase in partisan activity will stretch us till we squeak. SD documents say 65,000 partisan operatives are loose in the Ukraine and Belorussia. A German debacle in the Don bend could double that figure. Ganz still pushing the
Wehrdorfer
and the plausible concept that when the SS and SD try to get even with a village which has harbored partisans by sending in the Correctional Battalions composed of German, Austrian, and Hungarian psychopaths, partisan numbers are actually swelled (
vide
the assassin of Mrs. Kuzich).

And in the midst of all these monstrous balances, my son listens to jazzed-up Mendelssohn with such certainty of a bright future. Have such certainty myself, though by now a little tainted. Was just about to leave and return to office when Wehrmacht sentry came pounding in. Something in the Herr Kommissar's garage across the courtyard had exploded. The place was in flames. Asked was it partisans but was told consensus among my police (including my driver Yuri), who were fighting fire with Yakov, was that a can of shellac had exploded.

All the children clamoring to attend fire, but self and Danielle forbade it. Self, Ganz ran downstairs. Saw string of German soldiers and Belorussian police handing buckets across the courtyard until they reached Yuri's hands, who threw them into the face of fire surging through open doors of garage. Ganz's driver Yakov stood by screaming orders at Yuri—I could not catch what he was saying. In the end though Yuri tipped three buckets of water over his head, cursing the Jew as he did it. Yakov then stopped pestering Yuri and, taking a breath like a man about to dive, raced into the banks of chemical-looking smoke. “Shit my aunt!” screamed Ganz uncharacteristically. “Leave it, leave it!” He ran across the courtyard. The bucket line had heard his roar and thought he'd been talking to them. On orders from the Kommissar they were quite willing to let a garage burn down. Level with Yuri and staring at the revived flames, Ganz yelled, “Pour it on, you fool!”

Saw that the children had now arrived despite orders, and Danielle grabbed Radek and tried to cover his eyes in case Yakov ran out of garage burning.

Ganz's limousine all at once emerged from fire and smoke at perhaps 35 km/hour, nearly skittling poor sweating Yuri. It rolled two-thirds of way across courtyard and braked. Yakov toppled from it, wheezing horrendously, hacking and retching. Ganz stood by him clapping his back and occasionally lifting his right arm upward as if Yakov had just won a race or a prize fight. When Yakov breathing well enough to stand upright, Ganz pulled him to him by the shoulder and kissed him on the side of the face. There was nothing sexual in the kiss. Nonetheless Ganz ill-advised to break his country's race laws in front of so many men.

If anything, fire added to Radek's excitement in the day. Got home that evening to find wife upset. Seems Hirschmann the tutor has been showing children his Iron Cross as a means of acquiring leverage over them. Radislaw started on Danielle in Ganz's car, the one rescued by Yakov, on way home. All the more embarrassing for the revived and scrubbed Yakov being the driver. Hirschmann and his wife exist through my intervention—most of the rest of their shipment has “gone east.” Seems Radek reminded of Hirschmann by sight on way home of fifteen Jewish escapees being marched down Bryanska Street, a sight in which Yakov may well read his own potential fate. Radek on seeing them began to weep and cry out, “If I ask Daddy as a special birthday present will he let Mr. Hirschmann stay? Mr. Hirschmann is a hero and killed twenty Americans.”

Shall speak to Hirschmann—that part easy. What to say to Radek, how to explain the limits of my influence? What does Radek know of SS activities. Possible of course for children in a sense to know more than they actually
know
they know.

If Hirschmann has told the children anything distressing it's the end of him.

19

F
ROM THE
J
OURNALS OF
S
TANISLAW
K
ABBELSKI
, C
HIEF OF
P
OLICE
, S
TAROVICHE
.

Meeting called by Ganz at provincial hall. Present: Dr. Kappeler of Political Section of Gestapo from Kaunas; Bienecke and Harner of the SS and SD, Staroviche; the present garrison commander Lustbader, an elderly colonel who tells me his men had a frightful time in the Voronezh sector six weeks back. General Golikov destroyed 70 percent of this paternal old gentleman's battalion, now being brought back to strength by conscripts who arrive daily in Staroviche, not bad-looking men though a few older than me—Germany not yet at bottom of its remarkable barrel though. Lustbader not likely to survive another such shock however as the one he suffered on the Don, so can't help hoping he'll never be posted to front again.

Also present at Ganz's meeting: Mayor Kuzich, the widower; Daskovich, whose administration of the armed village of Krotinitsa has provided him with some interesting insights on what should be done in the Belorussian countryside; my aging deputy Beluvich. Subject of meeting: forthcoming clearance of ghetto and relocation of inhabitants in labor camps.

Ganz said he was as devoted to solution of Jewish question as anyone—“hard and ready” was the way he put it. But there were standards which civilization had the right to exact. There should be no extraction of gold fillings from prisoners' mouths—we should all be above such animality. Though there were established channels through which the property of prisoners could be dedicated to the war effort, personal looting was not to be countenanced. Many instances of such behavior last year when Staroviche Jews expelled from ghetto and sent to site in the forests near the Gomel road. Bedding and items of jewelry taken for personal use—the delinquents included some of my men, some of Bienecke's SS squads, and some army personnel involved in the action.

Resented this reference to my men, because my control of their behavior very firm on that occasion. Fully aware that Ganz mentioned my men first just to salve Bienecke's vanity, because his men and some of the Wehrmacht
did
loot. Ganz simply massaging the unfounded German sense of superior morality, confirming the image of us as temporary barbarian auxiliaries. Let it pass for moment.

Ganz further complained of reports of sexual license at certain execution sites—assaults on partisan women captured in the raid on the barn at Bonachev, for example. (Raid carried out by the Staroviche SS assisted by a platoon of my police under one of my deputies.) He was aware of frightful excesses committed against forty Latvian Jewish women who had turned up in Staroviche as part of a transport the previous spring.

“These acts carried out by our Latvian or Belorussian allies?” asked Bienecke with apparent innocence.

Ganz: “By members of our own corps, Hauptsturmführer Bienecke. Acts unworthy of German manhood. Acts of literal sadism.”

I was beside young Harner and saw him write on his pad, “Acts unworthy of the culture which produced Offenbach and Mendelssohn.” Knew then Ganz would be better to keep silent.

Bienecke said, in way that seemed conciliatory, “With respect, Herr Kommissar, I don't think administrators understand the stress that operates within a squad of men assigned to these sorts of duties. We are faced with inhuman tasks and required still to retain our humanity. Many of our men are heads of families, older than is desirable for combat purposes. Others are boys, but of the type who lack the fiber or initiative for conventional battlefields. What can I say—it is not always possible to wage war as a philosopher would. Schopenhauer and Kant are not members of the Security Forces, even though many of the leaders and senior officers of the Special Action Squad are doctors of philosophy and divinity. Now the men of the Special Action Squads have a particular cross to bear. They do their duty and are reproached by a variety of administrators with such terms as ‘sadism.' It is their fault, it seems, if the world's estimation of Germany is ruined. So not only are they faced with the necessity of performing particularly nasty jobs [here Bienecke suddenly became more heated], but they have to be the target for mudslinging. I protest most emphatically against the Herr Kommissar's last accusation.”

Ganz stayed calm throughout. “Leaving that aside for a moment, though I should warn Hauptsturmführer Bienecke that I have testamentary evidence to support the accusation he finds objectionable, there are instances not only of barbarity but of what is worse from a military and political point of view: folly. The fifteen wounded Latvian Jews who recently crawled their way out of a mass execution site and, on being recaptured, were led covered with mud and blood through the center of the city to the Mogilevska Street prison! I don't believe that
this
didn't happen, since guests of mine—including two children—saw the procession while being driven home from my apartment, and were naturally very distressed by it. The effect on the civilian population of such wanton and careless displays can be guessed at. We are virtually confessing that we cannot do these things humanely.
That
first of all. We are also encouraging partisan recruitment. My point is, gentlemen, that to the benefit of all of us I would like the
Bezirk
, or oblast, of Staroviche to act as a lighthouse of wise and humane policy. I am grateful to Dr. Kappeler that he found the time to be here for what I consider a crucial discussion on this very concept.”

Ganz put his argument. Recent report of anti-terrorist sweep in Sluzk region shows 9,500 supposed partisan sympathizers slaughtered and 492 rifles discovered. These were characteristic figures for such sweeps. In what could be called by other names but what he himself chose for the moment to call excessive zeal, said SS and Belorussian raid in the Sluzk area might have justifiably unearthed some 750 partisans and partisan informers to match the 492 rifles. But the Security Forces had liquidated thirteen times the credible number of people it should have. The Belorussian countryside abounds, says Ganz, with such instances of extreme reaction. In the Mogilev area certain leaders of the Security Forces boasted of the destruction of 150 villages. It is the witnesses of this sort of behavior, and the tithe of survivors, who turn to the partisans as to their only recourse.