The Librarian of Auschwitz(65)
“You are already aware, Herr Kommandant, that this camp is strategically very important to Berlin.”
“Dammit, Herr Doktor, yes, I do already know that! But I don’t know why it’s shown such consideration. Are we now going to set up a child care center for them as well? Have they gone mad? Do they think Auschwitz is a resort?”
“That’s what we would like a few countries that are keeping a close eye on us to think. Rumors are rife. When the International Red Cross started to request more information about our camps and asked to send inspectors, our commander in chief, SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, was brilliant, as always. Rather than banning the visit, he encouraged them to come. We will show them what they want to see: Jewish families living together and children running around Auschwitz.”
“Too many complications—”
“All the work that was done in Theresienstadt will have been useless if, when we receive inspectors of the International Red Cross who have tracked the inhabitants of that ghetto to here, they see what we don’t want them to see. We’ll invite them to see the house, but we won’t show them the kitchen, just the playroom. And they’ll return to Geneva satisfied.”
“To hell with the Red Cross! Who do these cowardly Swiss, who don’t even have an army, think they are, telling the Third Reich what it should do? Why aren’t they shown the door as soon as they get here? Or even better, have them sent to me, and I’ll stick them in the ovens without first stopping off in the kitchen.”
Mengele smiles condescendingly as he watches Schwarzhuber becoming more and more red in the face. He has to restrain himself from grabbing his riding crop and bringing it down on Schwarzhuber’s head. No, not his crop, that’s too valuable. Better yet, he would have enjoyed pulling out his gun and blowing Schwarzhuber’s brains out. But Schwarzhuber is the Kommandant of Birkenau, even if he is a complete idiot.
“My dear Herr Kommandant, don’t underestimate the importance of the image we offer to the world and our project. We must be careful. Do you know which executive office our beloved Führer first held within the Nazi party?”
Mengele pauses theatrically; he knows he’s going to answer his own question, but he enjoys humiliating Schwarzhuber. “Head of propaganda. He talks about it in his book, Mein Kampf—have you read it?” He relishes the Kommandant’s worried expression. “Many people, both within Germany and outside our borders, have still not understood the need to cleanse humanity genetically by eliminating racial degeneration. There are still countries that would go on alert and open up new war fronts. And we absolutely don’t want that right now. We want to be the ones who decide where and when fronts are opened. It’s the same as performing an operation, my dear Kommandant. You can’t cut just anywhere; you have to choose the appropriate place for an incision. The war is our scalpel, and we have to handle it with precision. If you handle it like a madman, you might end up sticking it into yourself.”
Schwarzhuber can’t stand Mengele’s patronizing tone—the same one a teacher might use with a hopeless pupil.
“Dammit, Mengele, you talk like a politician! I’m a soldier. I have my orders and I’ll carry them out. If SS Reichsführer Himmler says we have to keep the family camp, so be it. But this business of a child care center … where does that fit in?”
“Propaganda, Herr Kommandant … pro-pa-gan-da. We’re going to get these inmates to write home and tell their Jewish relatives how well they’re being treated in Auschwitz.”
“And what the devil do we care what those Jewish pigs think about how we treat them?”
Mengele breathes in and mentally counts to three.
“My dear Herr Kommandant, there are still many Jews out there who’ll have to be brought here progressively. An animal that doesn’t know it’s going to the slaughterhouse allows itself to be led there much more docilely than one that knows it’s going to be sacrificed and thus puts up all kinds of resistance. As someone from a village, Schwarzhuber, you ought to know that.”
Mengele’s final comment irritates Schwarzhuber.
“How dare you call Tutzing a village? For your information, Tutzing is considered the most beautiful town in Bavaria, in all of Germany, even … which means we could say in the whole world.”
“Of course, Herr Kommandant. I completely agree: Tutzing is a marvelous town.”
Schwarzhuber is about to reply, but he realizes that this pedantic, middle-class doctor is deliberately provoking him, and he’s not going to play along.
“Very well, Herr Doktor, a child care center, whatever is necessary,” he roars. “But I’m not going to let it cause the slightest problem or disturbance in the camp. It will be closed at the first sign of lack of discipline. Do you think that Jew who’s in charge will be able to maintain discipline?”
“Why not? He’s German.”
“Captain Mengele! How dare you say that a repugnant Jewish dog like him belongs to our glorious German nation?”
“Well, call him what you will, but Hirsch’s file says he was born in Aachen in North Rhine–Westphalia. As far as I know, that’s in Germany.”
Schwarzhuber gives Mengele a fiery look. Mengele can read his thoughts—his superior finds his impertinence intolerable—but Mengele’s not worried, because he can also detect his superior’s mistrust. Schwarzhuber knows that he has to tread carefully, because Mengele has powerful friends in Berlin. There’s a flash of malice in his eyes, as if he’s licking his lips in anticipation of the moment when Mengele’s lucky star will fade and Schwarzhuber can allow himself the pleasure of crushing him. But Mengele smiles affably; he knows that moment will never arrive. He’s always a step ahead of these military men who, in reality, have understood nothing and have no idea why they are at war. Mengele does know. He’s fighting to turn himself into a celebrity. First, he’ll head up the DFG, the German Research Foundation, and then he’ll change the course of medical history. The course of humanity, ultimately. Josef Mengele knows he’s not a humble man; he leaves that to the weak.