The Kindly Ones

Before leaving me, Thomas had asked me for a favor: “I’d like you to see someone. A statistician.”—“From the SS?”—“Officially, he’s the statistics inspector for the Reichsführer-SS. But he’s a civil servant, he’s not even a member of the Allgemeine-SS.”—“That’s odd, isn’t it?”—“Not really. The Reichsführer clearly wanted someone from outside.”—“And what would you like me to tell your statistician?”—“He’s in the process of preparing a new report for the Reichsführer. An overview of the diminution of the Jewish population. But he’s questioning the numbers in the reports from the Einsatzgruppen. I’ve already seen him, but it would be good for you to talk with him. You were closer to the field than I was.” He scribbled an address and phone number in a notebook and tore the page out: “His office is right near here, at the SS-Haus, but he’s always closeted at the IV B 4, with Eichma

Why had I asked him that idiotic, useless question? How did that concern me? It had been nothing but morbid curiosity, and I regretted it. I wanted to take an interest in nothing but positive things now: National Socialism still had a lot to build; that’s where I wanted to direct my energies. But the Jews, unser Unglück, kept pursuing me like a bad dream in early morning, stuck in the back of my head. In Berlin, though, not many were left: all the so-called protected Jewish workers in the arms factories had just been rounded up. Yet fate decreed that I would meet up with them in the most incongruous places.