the Commandant believed there would be leisure to kill him later. In the meantime, life for a day was still life.
The space, as it proved, was for an elderly prisoner who, by unwise dealings with men like John and Hujar, had let it be known he had a cache of diamonds somewhere outside the camp. While Pemper sank into the sleep of the reprieved, Amon had the old man summoned to the villa, offered him his life for the diamonds’ location, was shown the place, and, of course, executed the old man and added his name to the reports to Koppe and Oranienburg—to his humble claim of having snuffed out the spark of rebellion.
CHAPTER 30
The orders, labeled OKH (Army HIGH COMMAND), already sat on Oskar’s desk. Because of the war situation, the Director of Armaments told Oskar, KL Plaszow and therefore the Emalia camp were to be disbanded. Prisoners from Emalia would be sent to Plaszow, awaiting relocation. Oskar himself was to fold his Zablocie operation as quickly as possible, retaining on the premises only those technicians necessary for dismantling the plant. For further instructions, he should apply to the Evacuation Board, OKH, Berlin.
Oskar’s initial reaction was a cool rage.
He resented the tone, the sense of a distant official trying to absolve him from further concern. There was a man in Berlin who, not knowing of the black-market bread that bound Oskar and his prisoners together, thought it was reasonable for a factory owner to open the gate and let the people be taken. But the worst arrogance was that the letter did not define “relocation.” Governor General Frank was more honest than that and had made a notorious speech a little earlier in the year. “When we ultimately win the war, then as far as I’m concerned, Poles, Ukrainians, and all that rabble idling around here can be made into mincemeat, into anything you like.” Frank had the courage to put an accurate name to the process. In Berlin, they wrote “relocation” and believed themselves excused.
Amon knew what “relocation” meant and, during Oskar’s next visit to Plaszow, freely told him so. All Plaszow men would be sent to Gross-Rosen. The women would go to Auschwitz. Gross-Rosen was a vast quarry camp in Lower Silesia. The German Earth and Stone Works, an SS enterprise with branches throughout Poland, Germany, and the conquered territories, consumed the prisoners of Gross-Rosen. The processes at Auschwitz were, of course, more direct and modern.
When the news of the abolition of Emalia reached the factory floor and ran through the barracks, some Schindler people thought it was the end of all sanctuary. The Perlmans, whose daughter had come out of Aryan cover to plead for them, packed their blankets and talked philosophically to their bunk neighbors. Emalia has given us a year’s rest, a year’s soup, a year’s sanity. Perhaps it might be enough. But they expected to die now. It was apparent from their voices.
Rabbi Levartov was resigned too. He was going back to unfinished business with Amon. Edith Liebgold, who’d been recruited by Bankier for the night shift in the first days of the ghetto, noticed that although Oskar spent hours talking solemnly with his Jewish supervisors, he did not come up to people and make dizzying promises. Perhaps he was as baffled and diminished by these orders from Berlin as the rest. So he wasn’t quite the prophet he’d been the night she’d first come here more than three years ago.
Just the same, at the end of summer, as his prisoners packed their bundles and were marched back to Plaszow, there was a rumor among them that Oskar had spoken of buying them back. He had said it to Garde; he had said it to Bankier. You could almost hear him saying it—that level certainty, the paternal rumble of the throat. But as you went up Jerozolimska Street, past the Administration Building, staring in newcomer’s disbelief at the hauling gangs from the quarry, the memory of Oskar’s promises was very nearly just another burden.
The Horowitz family were back in Plaszow. Their father, Dolek, had last year maneuvered them to Emalia, but here they were back. The six-year-old boy, Richard; the mother, Regina. Niusia, eleven now, was again sewing bristles onto brush paddles and watching, from the high windows, the trucks roll up to the Austrian hill fort, and the black cremation smoke rise over the hill. As Plaszow was when she had left it last year, so it continued. It was impossible for her to believe that it would ever end. But her father believed that Oskar would make a list of people and extricate them. Oskar’s list, in the mind of some, was already more than a mere tabulation. It was a List. It was a sweet chariot which might swing low.
Oskar raised the idea of taking Jews away from Cracow with him one night at Amon’s villa. It was a still night at the end of summer. Amon seemed pleased to see him. Because of Amon’s health—both Doctors Blancke and Gross warning him that if he didn’t cut his eating and drinking he would die—there had not been so many visitors to the villa of late.
They sat together, drinking at Amon’s new rate of moderation. Oskar sprang the news on him. He wanted to move his factory to Czechoslovakia. He wanted to take his skilled workers with him. He might need other skills from among the Plaszow workers too.
He would seek the help of the Evacuation Board in finding an appropriate site, somewhere down in Moravia, and of the Ostbahn in making the shift southwest from Cracow. He let Amon know that he’d be very grateful for any support. The mention of gratitude always excited Amon. Yes, he said, if Oskar could get all the cooperation he needed from the boards involved, Amon would then allow a list of people to be drawn up.
When that was settled, Amon wanted a game of cards. He liked blackjack, a version of the French vingt-et- un. It was a hard game for junior officers to fake losing without being obvious. It did not permit of too much sycophancy. It was therefore true sport, and Amon preferred it. Besides, Oskar wasn’t interested in losing this evening. He would be paying enough to Amon for that list.
The Commandant began by betting modestly, in 100-zloty bills, as if his doctors had advised moderation in this as well. He kept busting however, and when the beginning stake had been raised to 500 zl., Oskar got a “natural,” an ace and a jack, which meant that Amon had to pay him double the stake.
Amon was disconsolate about that, but not too testy. He called for Helen Hirsch to bring coffee. She came in, a parody of a gentleman’s servant, crisply dressed still in black but her right eye blinded by swelling. She was so small that Amon would need to stoop to beat her up. The girl knew Oskar now, but did not look at him. Nearly a year past, he had promised to get her out. Whenever he came to the villa he managed to slip down the corridor to the kitchen and ask her how she was. It meant something, but it had not touched the substance of her life. A few weeks back, for example, when the soup hadn’t been the correct temperature—
Amon was pernickety about soup, flyspecks in the corridor, fleas on dogs—the Commandant had called for Ivan and Petr and told them to take her to the birch tree in the garden and shoot her.
He’d watched from the French windows as she walked in front of Petr’s Mauser, pleading under her breath with the young Ukrainian. “Petr, who’s this you’re going to shoot? It’s Helen. Helen who gives you cakes. You couldn’t shoot Helen, could you?” And Petr answering in the same manner, through clenched teeth, “I know, Helen. I don’t want to. But if I don’t, he’ll kill me.” She’d bent her head toward the spotted birch bark. Having often asked Amon why he wouldn’t kill her, she wanted to die simply, to hurt him by her willing acceptance. But it wasn’t possible. She was trembling so hard that he could have seen it. Her legs were shaking. And then she’d heard Amon call from the windows, “Bring the bitch back. There’s plenty of time to shoot her. In the meantime, it might still be possible to educate her.”
Insanely, in between his spates of savagery, there were brief phases in which he tried to play the benign master. He had said to her one morning, “You’re really a very well-trained servant. If after the war you need a reference, I shall be happy to give you one.” She knew it was just talk, a daydream. She turned her deaf ear, the one whose eardrum he had perforated with a blow. Sooner or later, she knew, she would die of his customary fury.
In a life like hers, a smile from visitors was only a momentary comfort. Tonight she placed the enormous silver pot of coffee beside the Herr Commandant—he still drank it by the bucket in cups laden with sugar—made her obeisance, and left. Within an hour, when Amon was 3,700 zl. in debt to Oskar and complaining sourly about his luck, Oskar suggested a variation on the betting. He would need a maid in Moravia, he said, when he moved to Czechoslovakia. There you couldn’t get them as intelligent and well trained as Helen Hirsch. They were all country girls. Oskar suggested therefore that he and Amon play one hand, double or nothing. If Amon won, Oskar would pay him 7,400 zl. If he hit a “natural,” it would be 14,800 zl. But if I win, said Oskar, then you give me Helen Hirsch for my list.
Amon wanted to think about that. Come on, said Oskar, she’s going to Auschwitz anyhow. But there was an
