‘Ha!’ After a pause, Bach-Zelewski bursts out. ‘Such tenacity, Curt! What did you say your name was?’
‘Hauptsturmführer Schlosser. Manfred Schlosser, Herr Polizeiführer.’
‘Erich. Call me Erich. Curt, this is just the sort of man we need. What do you say, Oscar?’
Dirlewanger remains silent. He takes his cigarettes from his breast pocket, places one in his drawn mouth, and strikes a match on the heel of his boot.
‘Hubert,’ says Bach-Zelewski, now at the table, wagging a finger at the mounted head of the Bronstejns twin. ‘I knew Hubert in the old days. And his lovely Gisela! Why on earth would this fellow here … or rather his twin, ha! … why do you think he would do a thing like that?’
‘I have brought a crime investigator with me.’
Manfred nods at me, I step forward with my briefcase.
‘Heinrich Hoffmann, Oberleutnant der Polizei, from Kripo, Hamburg,’ he goes on. ‘He found him. Meticulous police work. It all began with a little girl who witnessed the murder and saw some tattoos …’
Bach-Zelewski sits down, scraping the chair loudly as he draws himself in to the table.
‘Fritz, some more of that delicious cake!’ he thunders, then stabs a finger towards me. ‘And you’re going to tell me a story …’
Almost simultaneously, a young SS-Schütze enters carrying a tall, marzipan-covered gateau on a silver plate. The cake is topped with glazed raspberries.
I clear my throat and begin.
_ _ _
They sent me out of the room after I had delivered my report. Manfred remained, bent over the maps as the door closed behind me, Gottberg standing with a plate in his hand, Bach-Zelewski at the telephone, already relaying his new fairy tale: The Little Jew with the Strange Tattoos.
I am sitting in the shade on the square when they come out, Bach-Zelewski first down the steps, smoking a cigarette. Then Gottberg and Dirlewanger. Manfred beams like a little sun at the rear.
They gave him four companies, 8. SS-Kavallerie-Division, carte blanche, and a slice of the southern sector – starting point Ivenets.
The photographs of Elias Bronstejns are handed out to the company commanders of all regiments. To make sure no one shoots Goga by mistake.
_ _ _
The next day at 09:00 the cordon is in place and we enter the forests.
Manfred is on horseback and is photographed for the Wochenschau. He has laid his hands on a decorated Cossack saddle and mounted the hatbox with the head inside it on the horn.
He holds a short leather whip in his right hand.
Michael is behind the wheel of the Kübelwagen. I sit in the back and stare at his ears.
Semjon and Hans sit with their weapons at the ready.
Manfred sweeps out his arm and barks Forward! for the sake of the cameras. We descend into the landscape and are gone.
_ _ _
The following morning, a gravel track.
In the hollow north-east of our sector, we reach a sign bearing the name of a village: Dory. Low fencing, the flames are splinters in the dazzling sunlight, but we can feel the heat as far away as this. The soldiers, Dirlewanger’s Sonderbataillon, the left flank, are flickering shadow puppets; they have dragged furniture, goods and chattels out in front of the crackling church, the haze reaches fifty metres into the air. Someone has put a record on the gramophone – a march at full volume. They lounge around in armchairs, weapons cradled.
The animals have been herded into a pen to await collection.
The local inhabitants are nowhere to be seen.
Timpani and snare drums.
A ponderous creaking from inside the church.
‘Where death is, I am not,’ says Manfred. ‘Where I am, death is not.’
‘The Bible,’ says Michael. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Right,’ says Hans. ‘Jehovah himself.’
‘It’s Epicurus,’ I say.
‘Epi-who?’ says Hans.
‘Epicurus,’ says Manfred, and flashes me a smile. ‘A Greek. You wouldn’t know him.’
A couple of hours later we run into a police regiment on our right flank, and phase one is complete: Marching up and forming the cauldron.
_ _ _
The same evening, in the forest.
Our Kübelwagen is stuck.
The rear wheels kick up silt and gravel, while four Hiwis shove from behind. Michael, his head turned, yells. Manfred has dismounted, we stand smoking, staring out at the endless puszcza, its ceaseless undulation, soaked in mud, ravaged by creeping insects, mosquitoes – but as yet no partisans.
‘What’s kok-saghyz?’ he says. ‘Do you know?’
‘Kok-what?’
‘Kok-saghyz … look.’
He produces a crumpled piece of paper from the jacket of his uniform and hands it to me. I unfold it. Where did he get this? Der Reichsführer-SS, Order of the Day No. 160/43/10.7.43. Addressee: Bach-Zelewski, cc. Gottberg. Directly from Himmler.
I stare at him.
‘What? Go on, read …’
‘“1. The Führer has decided that the partisan-infested areas of northern Ukraine and central Russia are to be evacuated of their entire population. 2. The entire able-bodied male population will be … ”’
‘Not that,’ he says, snatching the document from my hand and finding the passage in question with his finger. ‘Here …’
‘“5. The areas evacuated of their population are to be planted, in part, with Kok-saghyz … The children’s camps are to be located at the border of these areas, so that the children will be available as manpower for the cultivation of Kok-saghyz and for agriculture. ”’
‘Kok-saghyz. What the hell is kok-saghyz?’
‘Kok-saghyz?’
‘Kok-saghyz.’
‘Kok-saghyz!’
‘The final solution to Jewish Commumism. Kok-saghyz …’
‘Heil kok-saghyz!’
‘Hallowed be Thy name …’
‘Manfred,’ I say seriously. ‘Evacuated of their entire population. All this? Does the Reichsführer know what he’s saying?’
‘Of course. Once we find them. And all the outlying villages to boot.’
_ _ _
Michael is the one who makes the discovery, on the morning of the third day.
The hole is no more than a couple of centimetres in diameter, half concealed by scrub at a sandy bank. He stands with one leg bent at the knee, foot buried in the silt, the other in the stream, his whole body aslant. He begins to scoop at the hole, and the sand gives way. It is an air-hole. I stand and stare.
‘I’ve found a tunnel!’ he shouts out, and men come running. Manfred comes too, cigarette in
