A small thing, it had passed unnoticed during the afternoon; one of a dozen or so scraps of paper stuffed at random into a torn folder. It was a circular from SS-Gruppenfuhrer Richard Glucks, Chief of Amtsgruppe D in the SS Economic Administration Main Office. It was dated 6 August 1942.
Re: the utilisation of cut hair.
In response to a report, the Chief of the SS Economic Administration Main Office, SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Pohl, has ordered that all human hair cut off in concentration camps should be utilised. Human hair will be processed for industrial felt and spun into thread. Female hair which has been cut and combed out will be used as thread to make socks for U-boat crews and felt stockings for the railways.
You are instructed, therefore, to store the hair of female prisoners after it has been disinfected. Cut hair from male prisoners can only be utilised if it is at least 20 mm. in length.
The amounts of hair collected each month, separated into female and male hair, must be reported on the 5th of each month to this office, beginning with the 5th September 1942.
He read it again: “U-boat crews…”
“One. Two. Three. Four. Five…” March was underwater, holding his breath, counting. He listened to the muffled noises, saw patterns like strings of algae float past him in the dark. “Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen…” With a roar he rose above the surface, sucking in air, streaming water. He filled his lungs a few more times, took an immense gulp of oxygen, then went down again. This time he made it to twenty-five before his breath exploded and he burst upwards, slopping water on to the bathroom floor.
Would he ever be clean again?
Afterwards, he lay with his arms dangling over the sides of the tub, his head tilted back, staring at the ceiling, like a drowned man.
PART SIX
However this war may end, we have won the war against you; none of you will be left to bear witness, but even if someone were to survive, the world would not believe him. There will perhaps be suspicions, discussions, research by historians, but there will be no certainties, because we will destroy the evidence together with you. And even if some proof should remain and some of you survive, people will say that the events you describe are too monstrous to be believed: they will say that they are the exaggerations of Allied propaganda and will believe us, who will deny everything, and not you. We will be the ones to dictate the history of the Lagers.
ONE
In July 1953, when Xavier March had not long turned thirty and his work as yet consisted of little more than the arresting of whores and pimps around the docks of Hamburg, he and Klara had taken a holiday. They had started in Freiburg, in the foothills of the Black Forest, had driven south to the Rhine, then eastwards in his battered KdF-wagen towards the Bodensee, and in one of the little riverside hotels, during a showery afternoon, with a rainbow cast across the sky, they had planted the seed that grew into Pili.
He could see the place still: the wrought-iron balcony, the Rhine valley beyond, the barges moving lazily in the wide water; the stone walls of the old town, the cool church; Klara’s skirt, waist to ankle, sunflower yellow.
And there was something else he could still see: a kilometre down-river, spanning the gulf between Germany and Switzerland — the glint of a steel bridge.
Forget about trying to escape through the main air or sea ports: they were watched and guarded as tightly as the Reich Chancellery. Forget about crossing the border to France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Italy — that was to scale the wall of one prison merely to drop into the exercise yard of another. Forget about mailing the documents out of the Reich: too many packages were routinely opened by the postal service for that to be safe. Forget about giving the material to any of the other correspondents in Berlin: they would only face the same obstacles and were, in any case, according to Charlie, as trustworthy as rattlesnakes.
The Swiss border offered the best hope; the bridge beckoned.
Now hide it. Hide it all.
He knelt on the threadbare carpet and spread out a single sheet of brown paper. He made a neat stack of the documents, squaring off the edges. From his wallet he took the photograph of the Weiss family. He stared at it for a moment, then added it to the pile. He wrapped the entire collection tightly in the paper, binding the clear sticky tape around and around it until the package felt as solid as a block of wood.
He was left with an oblong parcel, ten centimetres thick, unyielding to the touch, anonymous to the eye.
He let out a breath. That was better.
He added another layer, this time of gift paper. Golden letters spelled GOOD LUCK! and HAPPINESS!, the words curling like streamers amid balloons and champagne corks behind a smiling bride and groom.
By autobahn from Berlin to Nuremberg: five hundred kilometres. By autobahn from Nuremberg to Stuttgart: one hundred and fifty kilometres. From Stuttgart the road then wound through the valleys and forests of Wurttemberg to Waldshut on the Rhine: a hundred and fifty kilometres again. Eight hundred kilometres in all. “What’s that in miles?”
“Five hundred. Do you think you can manage it?”
“Of course. Twelve hours, maybe less.” She was perched on the edge of the bed, leaning forward, attentive. She wore two towels -one wrapped around her body, the other in a turban around her head.
“No need to rush it — you’ve got twenty-four. When you reckon you’ve put a safe distance between yourself and Berlin, telephone the Hotel Bellevue in Waldshut and reserve a room — it’s out of season, there should be no difficulty.”
“Hotel Bellevue. Waldshut.” She nodded slowly as she memorised it “And you?”
I’ll be following a couple of hours behind. I’ll aim to join you at the hotel around midnight.”
He could see she did not believe him. He hurried on: “If you’re willing to take the risk, I think you should carry the papers, and also this…” From his pocket he drew out the other stolen passport. Paul Hahn, SS- Sturmbannfuhrer, born Cologne, 16 August 1925. Three years younger than March, and looked it.
“She said: Why don’t you keep it?”
“If I’m arrested and searched, they’ll find it. Then they’ll know whose identity you’re using.”
“You’ve no intention of coming.”
“I’ve every intention of coming.”
“You think you’re finished.”
“Not true. But my chances of travelling eight hundred kilometres without being stopped are less than yours. You must see that. That’s why we go separately.”
She was shaking her head. He came and sat beside her, stroked her cheek, turned her face to his, her eyes to his. “Listen. You’re to wait for me — listen! — wait for me at the hotel until eight-thirty tomorrow morning. If I
