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It was the end of November; on the vast circular square, rebaptized Adolf-Hitler-Platz, a gray snow, pale as motes of light, was falling softly from the noon sky. A woman was hanging by a long rope from Lenin’s outstretched hand; some children playing beneath raised their heads to look up her skirt. The hanged were increasingly numerous; the Ortskommandant had ordered that they remain strung up, to set an example. Russian passersby walked quickly in front of them, their heads lowered; German soldiers and children examined them curiously, and the soldiers often photographed them. For several days now I had stopped vomiting, I was begi
Outside, a thin layer of snow was covering the square, dusting the shoulders and the hair of the hanged. Next to me, a young Russian was rushing into the Ortskommandantur, keeping the heavy swinging door from banging back by catching it, with practiced delicacy, with his foot. My nose was ru
Wir haben ein Gesetz
und nach dem Gesetz
soll er sterben.
Bach, I said to myself, a pious man, would not have appreciated such facetiousness. But I had to admit it was comical. Hanika’s face glowed, he applauded every number; he seemed happy. That evening, I felt at ease, I hadn’t vomited, and I appreciated the theater’s warmth and the pleasant ambiance. At intermission, I went to the refreshment stand and offered Hanika a glass of ice-cold vodka; he turned red, he wasn’t used to it. Adjusting my uniform in front of a mirror, I noticed a stain. “Hanika,” I asked, “what is that?”—“What, Hauptsturmführer?”—“The stain, there.” He looked: “I don’t see anything, Hauptsturmführer.”—“Yes, yes,” I insisted, “there’s a stain, there, it’s a little dark. Rub better when you do the wash.”—“Yes, Hauptsturmführer.” This stain troubled me; I tried to forget it by having another drink, then returned to the hall for the second part of the program. Afterward, accompanied by Hanika, I walked up the former Liebknecht Street, now rebaptized Horst-Wesselstrasse or something like that. Farther up, near the park, some old women, supervised by soldiers, were unstringing a hanged man. At least, I thought when I saw this, these Russians we’re hanging have mothers to wipe the sweat and dirt from their faces, close their eyes, cross their stiff arms, and tenderly bury them. I thought of all the Jews with their eyes still open under the earth in the ravine in Kiev: we had deprived them not only of life but also of that tenderness, for we had killed their mothers and wives and sisters with them, and hadn’t left anyone to mourn them. Their fate was the bitterness of a mass grave, their only funeral feast the rich earth of the Ukraine filling their mouths, their only Kaddish the whistling of the wind over the steppe. And the same fate awaited their brethren in Kharkov. Blobel had finally arrived with the Hauptkommando, and discovered with fury that no measures had yet been taken, except the order to wear the yellow star. “But what the hell is the Wehrmacht doing?! Do they want to spend the winter with thirty thousand saboteurs and terrorists in their midst?” He had brought Dr. Kehrig’s replacement, fresh from Germany; thus I found myself relegated to my old subordinate tasks, which, given my state of fatigue, didn’t bother me much. Sturmba