CONTENTS
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Map
Dedication
Title Page
Epigragh
Note
Steiner
Letters
North-east of Stützpunkt 43
The Girl
Tattoos
Minsk
Stalags
The Yellow Man’s Friend
The Truth
Goga
Questions
Taxidermy
The Roads
Hare Hunt
Belorussian Black Pied
In the Death Zone
Phase 3: The Concentric Attack
Entertainment
Gold
Eline
Correspondence
Escape Plan
The Train
Home
Klaus Maier
So it Goes
Report
Fear Not
The House
Note
Glossary of Terms
Acknowledgements
List of Real Persons and Events
Copyright
About the Book
In the lawless killing fields of the Eastern Front, SS Oberleutnant Hoffmann is on a mission to find a murderer.
Belorussia, July 1943.
As the Battle of Kursk rages to the east and the tide turns against the Nazi offensive, large swathes of White Russia are declared death zones – and a terrifying onslaught is unleashed on the civilian population.
German detective Oberleutnant Heinrich Hoffmann, posted to the brutal fringes of a crumbling Reich, is struggling to keep his focus, as his thoughts stray to Eline back in Hamburg. But when a visiting General and his wife are found murdered and mutilated, Heinrich is charged with finding the culprit, at whatever cost. His only witness: a six-year-old local girl.
In the man hunt that follows, Heinrich struggles to retain his humanity in the face of shifting loyalties, violence, and deadly SS politics, in the wild bloodlands between Berlin and Moscow.
Winner of the Danish Crime Book Award
About the Author
Simon Pasternak is a Danish author, screenwriter and publisher living in Copenhagen. He is the co-author of a bestselling crime series with Christian Dorph, and has co-written two feature films including the historical thriller,
The Idealist
.
Death Zones
is his first solo novel, for which he drew inspiration from his own family history and Jewish roots in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Martin Aitken is the acclaimed translator of numerous novels from Danish, including works by Peter Høeg, Jussi Adler-Olsen and Pia Juul, and his translations of short stories and poetry have appeared in many literary journals and magazines. In 2012 he was awarded the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen Translation Prize.
To Mikael, my maternal grandfather
Simon Pasternak
DEATH
ZONES
Translated from Danish by
Martin Aitken
Henceforth, in the death zones, all people are fair game.
Curt von Gottberg
SS- und Polizeiführer, Belorussia
1 August 1943
Death Zones
takes place in the summer of 1943, in what is today known as Belarus, at the time most commonly Belorussia, a land whose borders during the course of the twentieth century were fluid and which carried many names. With various demarcations, it has belonged to Tsarist Russia (until 1917), the German Empire (1917–18), the Soviet Union (1918–20), Poland (1920–39), and the Soviet Union again, as the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belorussia (1939–41 and 1944–91). Under the German occupation (1941–44) it was divided into a region of civil administration, the
Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien,
and the
Rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte
, administered by the Wehrmacht.
Death Zones
is fiction, and many of the events described in it did not occur. Some, however, did. A number of the characters were real people (here, the reader is referred to the
notes
at the end of the book).
STEINER
Letters
Lida, 4 July 1943
Letter 7
Dear Eline
Thank you for the honey. I wonder if it might be drawn from our secret place on the heath, the abandoned beehives in the hollow, down near the banks of the Alster, the ones we found on our last night together? I like to think so. ‘And yet, how much he says who utters “night”, for from this word deep grief and meaning pour, like heavy honey from the honeycomb.’
To think it is eleven months now since we bade each other farewell at the station and Manfred and I departed for the unknown … Belorussia …
The jar is here on my desk, amid case files and topographic maps. It shall be our little secret, untouched by this raging war. Now and then I pick it up and unscrew the lid, allowing the fragrance of
fragrant of summer
the smell
now and then I must breathe in its scent of balmy, luxurious summer
I must take in its scent of balmy, luxurious summer. I pretend
that it is your flaxen hair … fragrant …
I put the fountain pen down on the desk and read the last lines again. The jar of honey is next to the typewriter, on top of the case files concerning the killing of the Jew, Feigl. My work, my predicament: the dogfight between SS officers Heinz Breker and Sigmund Kindler.
I unscrew the lid of the jar, smell the solidified wax, the creamy white crust. It smells of nothing. I dip a finger, sweeping it round in an arc, then draw it out to lick. It tastes of honey, not of summer. Certainly not of Eline’s hair.
I toss the letter into the wastepaper basket, draw the typewriter towards me once more and turn the paper bearing my official letterhead into the carriage:
Heinrich Hoffmann
Oberleutnant der Polizei
GK Weissruthenien
Case No. LZ 512–A, – GHETTO LIDA/A. Feigl, in conclusion
cc: Hptstführer S. Kindler, Hptstführer H. Breker
The investigation instituted by SS-Hauptsturmführer Sigmund Kindler as to the deceased individual identified as Jozef Feigl, a Jew …
My cigarette lies smouldering in the ashtray.
After a long moment of indecision, I continue:
It is therefore to be concluded that the shots that killed the Jew Jozef Feigl were fired by SS-Hauptsturmführer Heinz Breker, attached to SS-Dienststelle Lida. Pursuant to regulations re. impunity within the administrative boundaries of the Reichskommissariat Ostland, the case is deemed not to be encompassed by sections 211 or 212 of the German Penal Code. Charges will not be brought.
Case closed.
H.H. Oberleutnant d.P., Lida District
I remove the paper from the typewriter and furnish it with my stamp, Heinrich Hoffmann, Oberleutnant d. Polizei. I place the report in the case file, only to be struck by doubt. I have to telephone Manfred.
Eline’s brother. He is SS, and knows the hierarchy better than I.
No answer.
Today is his big day. He will be strutting about, barking at his minions, peering at their buttons and boots, inspecting weapons, making sure the streets are swept clean. The Obergruppenführer
