Too Many Men (19 page)

In one particular dream, the baby was a boy. A baby boy born not quite right. Something was wrong with him, but in dream after dream what was wrong was not clear. The baby always disappeared by the end of the dream and she was left searching for it. Ruth sometimes woke up crying after this dream. The dream had started when she was twenty. She had told Rooshka about it once. Her mother had left the room. Ruth knew that her mother had had too much real loss to take in people who went missing in dreams. Ruth knew that her dreams were made up of imagined absence, and she knew that what was only imagined, was nothing to worry about.

“I did not sleep so well myself,” Höss said.

“You sleep?” said Ruth

“Of course I sleep,” Höss said. “Dead people can be asleep and awake.

I myself am forced to sleep on a wooden bunk without even a straw mat-tress to lie on. I have a bare light bulb hanging above my bunk, and drab sacking that sags terribly draped across my window.”

“You have windows in hell?” Ruth said.

“Of course we have windows in Zweites Himmel’s Lager,” said Höss.

“We have inside and outside. We look outside through our windows.”

“No wonder your bones hurt if you have to sleep on a wooden bunk,”

she said. She kept the glee out of her voice. It was an effort.

“It is harder to sleep in Zweites Himmel’s Lager,” said Höss. “It is very noisy. People are crying. Some of them are sick. If you do not take care, they can be sick on you, and then you get sick. And you stay sick. There is no medical treatment, as I have mentioned to you, and there is no relief, in death. In Zweites Himmel’s Lager, we are all, of course, already dead.”

Höss sighed. “In Himmel they have the very best doctors in the world.

And new doctors are constantly arriving. They bring with them the very latest advances in medical science. The newest medical breakthroughs, unfortunately, no longer come from Germany. They seem, all of them, to come from America.”

“Are many of the doctors Jewish?” Ruth said.

“There are again, yes, many Jewish doctors in the world,” Höss said.

T O O M A N Y M E N

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“Many of them are in Himmel. I will when I get to Himmel not have so wide a choice of personal physicians as other people because of this.”

“Are you saying the Jewish doctors are prejudiced against you?” Ruth said.

“I am not saying anything against Jews,” said Höss. “I was never planning, when I get to Himmel, to become a patient myself of any of the German doctors who are Jews, of course. Most of them have been in Himmel for a long time but I doubt if one of them has forgotten me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Ruth said. “I’m sure they’ve got more in their lives, or their deaths, than you.”

“I read books written by Jews,” Höss said. “It is compulsory, for me.

Why do Jews write so many books? Why do Jews have this obsession with words?”

“Because we talk so much,” Ruth said. “We need all the words we can get.”

“That is a rude comment, is it not?” Höss said. “It is fortunate for you that you do not have to pass this sensitivity-training class.”

“It’s not rude if I say it,” Ruth said. “There’s a difference between me saying something about Jews and your making a similar statement. If you don’t know the difference you’re going to be in Zweites Himmel’s Lager for a long time.”

Ruth got up. She had to go to the bathroom. She pressed her heel down more firmly than she needed to. Höss screamed.

“Could you please not turn so quickly?” he said.

“You’ve got a low threshold of pain, have you?” she said, and dug her heel into the carpet again.

“I do not have a low threshold of pain,” Höss spluttered. “It is merely that I do not like the unexpected. I am orderly, like you.”

Ruth was fed up. This aligning of herself and Höss was giving her a headache. Why couldn’t he leave her alone? This trip would have been stressful enough with only her father to contend with. “What are you going to do?” she said to Höss. “Follow me around Poland?”

“I do not have to follow you,” Höss said. “I am part of you.”

“No you are not,” she said, and twisted her heel on the carpet. Höss must have held his screams in because there was no sound.

“We are all part of each other,” he said eventually, a bit breathlessly.

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L I L Y B R E T T

“Don’t give me that crap,” Ruth said. “You are not part of me or part of anyone who has anything to do with me. You’re not part of any Jew. Alive or dead. Which parts of you went up in smoke? It wasn’t your soul. That had already disintegrated. It wasn’t your heart, your heart wasn’t there.”

She stopped for a moment. Her throat was sore. She felt as though she was shouting. She couldn’t have been shouting. No one in the café was paying any attention to her. Höss was not part of her. He was not the criminal in her. He was not the Nazi in her.

“Calm down, calm down,” Höss said.

“Well, don’t give me that animistic shit,” Ruth said. “You and I are not part of the same anything.”

“You would subscribe to an existential notion then?” Höss said.

“I wouldn’t think existentialism and individual responsibility and morality would be something that you would know much about,” she said.

“Germany produced an existential philosopher who was considered to be one of the greatest thinkers of all time,” Höss said. “Have you noticed by the way that I am overlooking all of your accusative barbs? I didn’t bring you here to argue with you.”

“You didn’t bring me here?” Ruth said. “What do you mean by that?”

“Why do you think you have visited Poland twice already?” Höss said.

“You have been trying to get to me. I have been beckoning you.”

“I have not been trying to get to you,” Ruth said. “No one in their right mind would want to get to you. I’m here with my father. I want to be here, on this piece of earth, where it all happened, with him. Side by side.”

“And you think that he wants this?” said Höss.

“I think I know more about what he thinks than you do,” she said. She called the waitress over and asked for the bill. She pushed the uneaten apple strudel out of her reach. Having Höss with her had at least saved her some calories.

“Heidegger’s writings about angst and dehumanization even in 1927

were a clear indication of his link to the Nazi party that was to come,”

Höss said.

“Are you trying to impress me with the quality of your colleagues?” she said. “I know about Heidegger’s emphasis on blood and intimacy. I’ve read his books. He was the rector of Freiburg University in 1933. He called T O O M A N Y M E N

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Hitler a genius and praised him for showing the German people the way out of ‘rootless and impotent thinking.’ ”

“You know a lot about Heidegger,” Höss said. “You know more than I do.”

“The Allied powers prohibited Heidegger from teaching in any public capacity from the years 1945 to 1951,” she said. “It didn’t hurt him. In 1951, he was appointed an honorary professor at Freiburg University and went back to his teaching.”

“These Hs are interesting, are they not?” Höss said.

Ruth could feel that she was red-faced. She found it hard to reconcile the adulation and respect and recognition accorded Heidegger and the lack of interest in his Nazi affiliations. It always disturbed her when public figures were conveniently forgiven their pasts. “You do agree that the Hs are interesting?” Höss said.

“You could take any batch of Nazis and find much that is of interest,”

said Ruth.

“That is true,” Höss said. “But I maintain my belief that the Hs are of even greater interest.”

“You can maintain whatever belief you like,” Ruth said. “I don’t care.”

“Why are you upset?” Höss said. “You are more upset about Heidegger than you were about that deficient chicken farmer Himmler.”

“I think you’ve got a thing about Himmler,” Ruth said. “You deride him continually.”

“Are you defending Himmler?” Höss asked.

“God no,” she said. The question made her laugh.

“I thought we were eliminating God?” Höss said.

“Well, you’re the master of elimination,” Ruth said. “Go ahead.”

“Let us get back to the Hs,” Höss said. “What about Harlan. Veit Harlan. The filmmaker. He was the son of the novelist Walter Harlan.”

“Novelists can produce very difficult children,” Ruth said.

“Veit Harlan married the Swedish actress Christina Söderbaum,” Höss said. “Harlan made all his best films with her. He displayed his complete commitment to Nazi ideology in the films. One of Harlan’s movies was of particular use to us. We showed it every time there was a liquidation or a deportation of Jews planned.”

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L I L Y B R E T T

“That was
Jud Süss
, the
Jew Süss,”
Ruth said.

“Yes,” said Höss. “Harlan made this film in 1940.”

“The anti-Semitism in
Jud Süss
was just out of control,” she said.

“Can you have anti-Semitism out of control?” Höss said.

“You are never going to pass that class,” said Ruth.

“Of course, of course,” Höss shrieked. “How stupid of me. It was a philosophical question. I was trying to say that all anti-Semitism is bad. All racist thinking is bad. There are no degrees of racism that are acceptable.”

“You sound like a parrot,” Ruth said. “Are they lines from your textbooks?”

“Of course,” Höss said. “It is these lines that I have had to study, to memorize.”

“Well, you’ll never understand them, so you might as well memorize them,” she said. “Did you know that Harlan was imprisoned after the war, but finally tried and found not guilty of crimes against humanity? Harlan continued to make films, all starring Söderbaum, until the year before he died, in 1964.”

“Yes, I knew of course that he was found not guilty,” Höss said. “Harlan was found not guilty and I was executed.”

“You should have filmed your Jews, not shot and gassed them,” Ruth said.

“Is that not an anti-Semitic sentiment?” Höss asked.

“No,” she said. “You really are hopeless. Don’t they have classes in bigotry and prejudice detection in Zweites Himmel’s Lager?”

“They do, of course,” Höss said. “But I have to pass the sensitivity-training class before I can enroll in bigotry and prejudice detection.”

“You’ve got a long way to go,” said Ruth.

“I used to be so good at things,” Höss said.

“It can be difficult to change careers, particularly in middle age,” Ruth said.

“That is true,” said Höss. “I was promoted to the position of adjutant at Sachsenhausen on August 1, 1938. I was only thirty-eight.”

“I’m wildly impressed,” Ruth said. Höss seemed to think she was being sincere.

“My inner questions and concerns about my qualifications and readi-ness and suitability for concentration camp life receded into the back-T O O M A N Y M E N

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ground now that it was no longer necessary for me to come into such direct contact with the prisoners.”

“How handy,” Ruth said. Höss appeared not to hear.

“The first execution of the war was carried out in Sachsenhausen,”

Höss said. “I was extremely busy with the preparation and planning of the execution. I only realized what had happened when it was already over.”

“You seem to have been a slow learner even then,” Ruth said. Höss ignored her.

“All of the officers who attended the shooting were, of course, deeply affected,” he said.

“Of course,” she said.

“But in the days to come we were going to have many more of this kind of experience,” said Höss.

“It was a tough job for you?” Ruth said.

“Yes, absolutely, a very difficult job,” Höss said. “We had many Jehovah’s Witnesses in Sachsenhausen. Many of them had refused to do military duty. The Führer ordered their death.”

“More executions to have to struggle through,” Ruth said.

“I learned many things from these executions, which took place in Sachsenhausen early in the war,” Höss said. “People went to their death in many diverse ways.”

“How surprising,” said Ruth. She felt agitated that Höss appeared oblivious to her sarcasm. Why was she attempting to irritate a dead Nazi with slivers of sarcasm? she wondered. She decided it was a useless pursuit.

“The Jehovah’s Witnesses went to their death with a strange sense of peace and composure,” Höss said. “They had a state of grace, and sanctifi-cation, their eyes shone. It was almost a euphoria. They were very sure that they were about to enter the Kingdom of Jehovah. Among the other prisoners, the political prisoners, the conscientious objectors, and the political demonstrators against the regime went to their death calmly and quietly with an acceptance of the inevitability of what was to come.”

“Do I have to hear this?” Ruth said. It was getting late. She wanted to go back to the hotel, to bed.

“This is a most interesting point, my point about how people go to their death,” Höss said.

“I have to get some sleep soon,” she said.

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L I L Y B R E T T

“The professional criminals were the worst,” said Höss. “On the outside these criminals were full of bravado. They were unabashed and insolent and impudent and impertinent. On the outside, they swaggered to their death but on the inside they were trembling. You could see it. Some of these asocial types could not hide their fear. They would scream and cry or whimper and beg for spiritual support. They were really terrified of what might be waiting for them on the other side. It was far too late for any of these types to be looking for spiritual support,” Höss said, and roared with laughter.

“On May 1, 1940, I began my new job as commandant of Auschwitz,”

Höss said. “My job in Auschwitz, mind you, was not an easy one. It is much easier to construct a brand-new concentration camp than it is to put one together from an existing series of buildings that has been neglected for years. Also, time was essential. I was told I had to do this in the shortest possible period of time.”