The Kindly Ones

I awoke surrounded by children. They formed a wide circle around us, dozens of them, looking at us in silence. They were in rags, dirty, their hair disheveled; many of them wore scraps of German uniforms, a jacket, a helmet, a coarsely cut coat; some were clutching farm tools, hoes, rakes, shovels; others, rifles and submachine guns made of wire or cut from wood or cardboard. Their gazes were sullen and threatening. Most of them looked between ten and thirteen years old; some of them weren’t yet six; and behind them stood a few girls. We rose, and Thomas greeted them politely. The tallest of them, a blond, lanky boy wearing a staff officer’s coat with red velvet lapels over a tank-driver’s black jacket, stepped forward and barked: “Who are you?” He spoke German with a thick Volksdeutscher accent, from Ruthenia or maybe even the Banat. “We are German officers,” Thomas calmly replied. “And you?”—“Kampfgruppe Adam. I’m Adam, Generalmajor Adam, and this is my command.” Piontek burst out laughing. “We are from the SS,” Thomas said.—“Where are your insignia?” the boy spat out. “You’re deserters!” Piontek stopped laughing. Thomas didn’t lose his calm, he kept his hands behind his back and said: “We are not deserters. We were forced to remove our insignia for fear of falling into Bolshevik hands.”—“Standartenführer!” Piontek shouted, “why are you talking to these brats? Can’t you see they’re nuts? We should give them a thrashing!”—“Shut up, Piontek,” Thomas said. I didn’t say anything, I was beginning to be horrified at the fixed, insane gaze of these children. “Well, I’ll show them, I will!” Piontek bellowed, reaching for the submachine gun on his back. The boy in an officer’s coat made a sign and a half-dozen children rushed Piontek, hitting him with their tools and dragging him to the ground. A boy lifted a hoe and split his face open, crushing his teeth and flinging an eye out of its socket. Piontek was still screaming; a blow from a metal pipe caved in his forehead, and he fell silent. The children kept hitting until his head was nothing but red pulp in the snow. I was petrified, seized with uncontrollable terror. Thomas wasn’t moving a muscle, either. When the children abandoned the corpse, the tallest one shouted again: “You are deserters and we are going to hang you like traitors!”—“We are not deserters,” Thomas coldly repeated. “We are on a special mission for the Führer behind Russian lines, and you have just killed our driver.”—“Where are your papers to prove it?” the boy insisted.—“We destroyed them. If the Reds captured us, if they guessed who we were, they would torture us and make us speak.”—“Prove it!”—“Escort us to the German lines and you’ll see.”—“We have other things to do besides escorting deserters,” the child hissed. “I’m going to call my superiors.”—“As you like,” Thomas said calmly. A little boy about eight years old came through the group, a box on his shoulder. It was a wooden ammunition crate with Russian markings, on the bottom of which were fixed a number of screws and nailed several colored cardboard circles. A tin can, tied to the crate by a wire, hung from the side; clamps held a long metal rod in the air; around his neck, the boy wore real operator’s earphones. He adjusted them on his ears, put the crate on his lap, turned the cardboard circles, played with the screws, brought the tin can to his mouth and called: “Kampfgruppe Adam to HQ! Kampfgruppe Adam to HQ! Answer!” He repeated this several times and then freed one ear from the earpieces, much too big for him. “I have them on line, Herr Generalmajor,” he said to the tall blond boy. “What should I say?” The blond boy turned to Thomas: “Your name and rank!”—“SS-Standartenführer Hauser, attached to the Sicherheitspolizei.” The boy turned back to the little boy with the radio: “Ask them if they confirm the mission of Standartenführer Hauser of the Sipo.” The little boy repeated the message into his tin can and waited. Then he declared: “They don’t know anything, Herr Generalmajor.”—“That’s not surprising,” Thomas said with his incredible calm. “We report directly to the Führer. Let me call Berlin and he’ll confirm it to you in person.”—“In person?” the boy in charge asked, a strange glint in his eyes.—“In person,” repeated Thomas. I was still petrified; Thomas’s boldness froze me. The blond youth made a sign and the little boy took off the helmet and passed it with the tin can to Thomas. “Speak. Say ‘Over’ at the end of each sentence.” Thomas brought the earpieces to one ear and took the can. Then he called into the can: “Berlin, Berlin. Hauser to Berlin, answer.” He repeated this several times, then said: “Standartenführer Hauser, on special assignment, reporting. I have to talk to the Führer. Over…Yes, I’ll wait. Over.” The children surrounding us kept their eyes riveted on him; the jaw of the boy who went by the name of Adam was quivering slightly. Then Thomas stiffened, clicked his heels, and shouted into the can; “Heil Hitler! Standartenführer Hauser from the Geheime Staatspolizei, reporting, mein Führer! We have met Kampfgruppe Adam and request confirmation of our mission and our identity. Over.” He paused again and then said: “Jawohl, mein Führer. Sieg Heil!” He handed the earpieces and the can to the boy in the officer’s coat. “He wants to speak to you, Herr Generalmajor.”—“It’s the Führer?” the boy said in a muted voice.—“Yes. Don’t be afraid. He’s a kind man.” The boy slowly took the earpieces, put them to his ears, stiffened, threw an arm into the air, and shouted into the can: “Heil Hitler! Generalmajor Adam, zu Befehl, mein Führer! Over!” Then: “Jawohl, mein Führer! Jawohl! Jawohl! Sieg Heil!” When he took off the earpieces to return them to the little boy, his eyes were moist. “That was the Führer,” he said solemnly. “He confirms your identity and your mission. I’m sorry for your driver, but he had an unfortunate reaction and we couldn’t know. My Kampfgruppe is at your disposal. What do you need?”—“We need to rejoin our lines safe and sound to transmit secret information of vital importance for the Reich. Can you help us?” The boy withdrew with some others and conferred with them. Then he returned: “We came here to destroy a concentration of Bolshevik forces. But we can accompany you as far as the Oder. To the south there’s a forest, we’ll pass under the nose of those brutes. We’ll help you.”