The Kindly Ones

The Grosse Aktion began on Monday, September 29, on the morning of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Blobel had let us know this the day before: “They will atone, they will atone.” I had stayed in my offices in the palace to write a report. Callsen appeared on the threshold: “You aren’t coming? You know very well that the Brigadeführer gave the order that all officers should be present.”—“I know. I’ll finish this and then I’ll come.”—“As you like.” He disappeared and I went on working. An hour later I got up, picked up my cap and gloves, and went to find my driver. Outside it was cold; I thought about going back in for a sweater, but decided not to. The sky was overcast; fall was advancing; soon it would be winter. I passed by the still-smoking ruins on Kreshchatik, then went up Shevchenko Boulevard. The Jews were marching west in long columns, in family groups, calmly, carrying bundles or backpacks. Most of them looked very poor, probably refugees; the men and boys all wore Soviet worker’s caps, but here and there you could also make out a soft hat. Some were coming in carts drawn by bony horses, loaded with old people and suitcases. I had my driver make a detour, since I wanted to see more; he turned left and went past the university, then veered off toward the station by Saksaganskaya Street. Jews were coming out with their things from the houses and mingling with the stream of people flowing by in a peaceful murmur. Almost no German soldiers could be seen. On the streetcorners these human streams merged, grew larger, and went on; there was no agitation. I drove back up the hill away from the station and rejoined the boulevard at the corner of the great botanical garden. A group of soldiers was standing there with some Ukrainian auxiliaries and were roasting a whole pig on an enormous spit. It smelled very good, the Jews passing by contemplated the pig with yearning, and the soldiers were laughing and making fun of them. I stopped and got out of the car. People were pouring out of all the side streets and coming to join the main flow, streams merging into a river. Periodically, the interminable column stopped, then started up again with a jolt. In front of me, old women with garlands of onions around their necks were holding the hands of kids with runny noses; I noticed a little girl standing between jars of preserves piled up higher than she. There seemed to me to be mostly old people and children, but it was hard to judge: the able-bodied men must have joined the Red Army, or else fled. To the right, in front of the botanical garden, a corpse lay in the gutter, one arm folded over its face; the people filed by alongside it without looking at it. I went up to the soldiers gathered around the pig: “What happened?” A Feldwebel saluted and replied: “An agitator, Herr Obersturmführer. He was shouting, exciting the crowd and telling lies about the Wehrmacht. We told him to be quiet, but he kept shouting.” I looked at the crowd again: the people seemed calm, a little nervous maybe, but passive. Through my network of informers, I had contributed to spreading some rumors: the Jews were going to Palestine, they were going to a ghetto, to Germany to work. The local authorities put in place by the Wehrmacht had also done their part to avert panic. I knew that rumors of a massacre had also spread, but all these rumors canceled one another out; people must not have known what to think anymore, and so we could count on their memories of the German occupation of 1918, on their trust in Germany, and on hope too, vile hope.

I left. I hadn’t given any directions to my driver, but he followed the flow of Jews, toward Melnikova Street. Still almost no German soldiers were visible; just a few checkpoints at the crossroads, such as at the corner of the botanical garden, or another one where Artyoma joins Melnikova. There, I witnessed my first incident of the day: Feldgendarmen were beating some bearded Jews with long curly sidelocks in front of their ears, rabbis possibly, dressed only in shirts. They were red with blood, their shirts were soaked, women were screaming, ripples ran through the crowd. Then the Feldgendarmen seized hold of the rabbis and took them away. I studied the people: they knew that these men were going to die, that was obvious from their anguished looks; but they were still hoping that it would just be the rabbis, the pious.