The Kindly Ones

At the end of Melnikova, in front of the Jewish cemetery, some antitank barriers and barbed wire made the roadway narrower, guarded by soldiers from the Wehrmacht and some Ukrainian Polizei. The cordon started there; after this bottleneck, the Jews could no longer turn back. The sorting zone was a little farther on, to the left, in an empty lot in front of the immense Christian cemetery of Lukyanovskoe. A long red-brick wall, rather low, surrounded the necropolis; behind, some tall trees barred the sky, half bare or else still red and yellow. On the other side of Degtiarovska Street, a row of tables had been set up in front of which the Jews were made to line up. There I found some of our officers: “So, it’s already begun?” Häfner motioned his head to the north: “Yes, it started hours ago. Where have you been? The Standartenführer is furious.” Behind every table was a noncom from the Kommando, flanked by an interpreter and some soldiers; first the Jews had to hand over their papers, then their money, their valuables and jewelry, then the keys to their apartments, legibly labeled, and finally their clothes and shoes. They must have suspected something, but they didn’t say anything; in any case, the zone was sealed behind the cordon. Some Jews tried to argue with the Polizei, but the Ukrainians shouted, struck them, sent them back into the line. A stinging wind was blowing; I was cold and regretted not having brought my sweater; from time to time, when the wind rose, a faint crackling noise could be heard; most of the Jews didn’t seem to notice it. Behind the row of tables, our Askaris were bundling the confiscated clothing into trucks; the vehicles set off for the city, where we had set up a sorting center. I went to examine the pile of papers, thrown in a heap in the middle of the lot to be burned later on. There were torn passports, workbooks, union or ration cards, family photos; the wind was carrying away the lighter papers, the square was littered with them. I gazed at some of the photographs: snapshots, studio portraits, of men, women, and children, grandparents and chubby-faced babies; sometimes a shot of vacation scenery, of the happiness and normality of their lives before all this. It reminded me of a photograph I kept in my drawer, next to my bed, in high school. It was the portrait of a Prussian family from before the Great War, three young Junkers in cadet uniforms and probably their sister. I don’t remember where I found it, maybe during one of our rare outings, in a thrift store or a postcard shop. At that time I was very unhappy, I had been placed by force in that horrible boarding school after a major transgression (this all took place in France, where we had gone a few years after my father’s disappearance). At night, I would examine this photo for hours on end, by moonlight or beneath the covers with a little pocket flashlight. Why, I wondered, couldn’t I have grown up in a perfect family like that one, rather than in this polluted hell? The Jewish families in the scattered photos seemed happy too; hell, for them, was here, now, and they could only lament the vanished past. Beyond the tables, the Jews in underclothing were trembling with cold; the Ukrainian Polizei separated the men and boys from the women and little children; the women, children, and old people were loaded into Wehrmacht trucks to be transported to the ravine; the others had to go on foot. Häfner had joined me. “The Standartenführer is looking for you. Watch out, he’s really in a rage.”—“Why?”—“He’s mad at the Obergruppenführer for imposing his two police battalions on him. He thinks the Obergruppenführer wants to take all the credit for the Aktion.”—“But that’s idiotic.” Blobel arrived, he had been drinking and his face was glistening. As soon as he saw me he began railing at me rudely: “What the hell have you been up to? We’ve been waiting for you for hours.” I saluted him: “Standartenführer! The SD has its own tasks. I was examining the arrangements, to prevent any incidents.” He calmed down a little: “So?” he grumbled. —“Everything seems in order, Standartenführer.”—“Good. Go up there. The Brigadeführer wants to see all the officers.”