Mendelssohn is on the Roof Read online

  Richard Reisinger was on duty at the guardhouse. Formerly only the old and infirm had been appointed to guard duty. It wasn’t very taxing to look out of the little window, answer questions, take in the mail, lock up the building and give out the keys. But it turned out to be a painful and difficult job. For the guard was the first person that the new masters, uniformed or not, met up with. He had to endure their slaps and hits, whiplashes, kicks and insults. Because those coming into the building uninvited and unannounced first had to show their power. They had to create fear at the very start, right at the door, so that it would circulate through the whole building, so that everyone sitting in the offices giving out orders, sorting the mail, dictating notes, copying facts on to file cards, would recognise that a representative of power was arriving, one who could make decisions affecting life and death. If such visitors were to encounter an old and infirm person at the guardhouse, it would not be gratifying enough to beat him up – he’d pass out right away. And then they’d get even more enraged. They might actually burst into someone’s office to continue their amusement – that was the dangerous possibility. That’s why strong people now sat at the guardhouse.

  Before he was assigned guard duty, Richard Reisinger had worked on the highway, then in a quarry, and finally as a furniture mover at the Collection Agency. His work at the guardhouse was the worst job he’d ever had. He had liked highway work because he enjoyed being out in the fresh air. The work at the quarry had been hard at first, but once he got used to it, he liked it even better than the highway job, because he worked there with the other quarry workers as an equal, and the quarry workers laughed at all the business with the stars. Working as a furniture mover, one could always swipe a bit of this or that if one looked into a drawer or a pantry … Besides which, he received extra tips for heavy labour.

  Being a guard, however, meant hearing pleas, cries and sobs every day, because who else were people to complain to as they entered the building? It also meant having to listen to the insults and curses of the Elders, because these were nervous and terrified people who spent their entire days in fear. At least they could vent their anger and powerlessness on the guard.

  He had grown used to almost everything by now except the foreign visitors. Beating up people was just a regular thing with them. It could also happen that one of them might have him arrested for no good reason, just for fun. It wouldn’t be hard to think up an excuse.

  Before the war he’d inherited a little hardware shop on the outskirts of town. It stocked a bit of everything, so people wouldn’t have to run into town and buy in the chain stores. He used to sit squeezed between a tub and a balance scale because there was little room in the shop. Nor were there many customers. It was in a sort of half-commercial, half-agricultural suburb. He sold scythes and shovels, and also curtain rods. He led a quiet life on the outskirts of town and got along well with people. His only entertainment was boxing at the workers’ club. And now he was sitting in this guardhouse, this wailing wall and entryway to hell. Beasts of prey lurked all around and he could never figure out when they might take it into their heads to organise some amusement at his expense.

  Schulze II was in a hurry. Not only because the order came from Wancke, but mainly because he hated this kind of job. There was peace and quiet in the office. Now they wanted him to bring a Jew, but that was demeaning for a member of a military unit. If Wancke had told him to liquidate a Jew, that would have been all right. Too bad conditions were different here in the Protectorate than in the East.

  ‘I need a learned Jew. Call up and get me one here immediately. Or else …’ he screamed at Reisinger.

  It was clear to Reisinger what that ‘or else’ signified. If only he could figure out what the SS man meant by the words ‘learned Jew’! SS men never said anything properly. They only barked out orders and expected him to carry them out immediately. The fellow might not even know himself what he wanted but might have simply got an order from his superiors. The trouble was that Schulze II didn’t feel like waiting for Reisinger to figure out whom to call. Schulze II started to hit him with his gloved hand. Then, when Reisinger still didn’t answer, he struck him in the teeth with his fist and knocked out an incisor. The blood ran down Reisinger’s chin. Suddenly it occurred to him that he could get rid of the SS man by sending him to another building. He couldn’t think of anything better to do at that moment. He just wanted to get rid of him so he wouldn’t beat him to a pulp.

  He stammered: ‘The Town Hall. Montova Street. That’s where the learned Jews are.’

  The Elders of the Community, who answered directly to Stresovice, had their headquarters at the Town Hall. That was where orders for all the official activities of the Jewish Community came from. That’s where the people responsible for carrying out the orders issued by the higher German authorities were located.

  Schulze II screamed, ‘Get a move on, you filthy Jew, and show me the way there! Did you think I’d go looking for it myself?’

  Reisinger wasn’t too worried about leaving the guardhouse: someone could always be found to stand in for him; inside, they’d even be grateful to him for taking the SS man elsewhere. Of course, there’d be a terrible commotion at the Jewish Town Hall when they arrived, even though the people there were fairly safe from arrest, because Stresovice provided them with a certain amount of protection for as long as they worked for them. But not from being beaten up – no one protected them from that.

  Reisinger flew out of the guardhouse, the blood dripping from his mouth, the SS man in pursuit. Reisinger kept trying to figure out how to extricate himself from this, but in vain. His head was buzzing from the blows, and his thoughts were confused. He kept repeating the words ‘balance scale’ as if it were some sort of magic spell. Perhaps he repeated the words because they stood for something ordinary, something familiar to him. As the horror-stricken clerks and secretaries stopped and stared, he led Schulze II directly to the office of the Chief Elder of the Community.

  The Chief Elder didn’t lose his head. He was experienced in dealing with people from the Security Police. They often called him to Stresovice to receive orders and to listen to abuse for not carrying them out properly. He knew he mustn’t show his fear, that he must maintain a military posture, that he mustn’t argue, but that he also mustn’t whine. He knew his survival depended on acting with complete confidence. But he realised immediately that this SS man did not come from his superiors in Stresovice. He was wearing the uniform of the Elite Guard. The Chief Elder was well versed in these fine distinctions.

  When Schulze II began to scream that he wanted a learned Jew, the Chief Elder calmly asked him who had sent him there, since he’d come without an appointment. The other thing he did was to send Reisinger, still bleeding from the mouth, back to the guardhouse on Josefovska Street.

  The calm manner of the Chief Elder stopped Schulze II short. He wasn’t so stupid as not to know the role Stresovice played. The Elite Guard had nothing in common with the people there, who were neither their superiors nor their inferiors but powerful men who answered directly to Berlin. One had to be very careful with such men. Not even the chief of the SS Elite Guard could stand up to them, to say nothing of Untersturmführer Wancke. Therefore he answered the Chief Elder’s questions, even answered them politely, saying that he’d been sent from the SS barracks, that some officials from the Municipal Division needed a learned Jew, and that they had an order for it from the Acting Reich Protector. Nothing bad would happen to the Jew.

  The Chief Elder waited until Schulze II finished speaking. ‘I’ll call in one of our scholarly workers. He’ll be here in a second.’

  Then he dialled a number on the intercom system.

  ‘Send Dr Rabinovich in at once.’

  Schulze II stood and waited. The Chief Elder also stood. He didn’t dare sit in the presence of an SS officer.

  In a little while an older, stooped man with a small red beard walked in at the door. When he saw Schulze II he turned a de
athly white, but he kept silent.

  ‘This is our best scholarly worker, Dr Rabinovich. You can take him with you.’

  He turned to Rabinovich. ‘The Rottenführer has assured me that nothing bad will happen to you. They seem to need an expert opinion.’

  Schulze II left unceremoniously. Dr Rabinovich shuffled along behind him.

  When they were gone, the Chief Elder sat down at his desk, picked up the receiver of an official telephone, dialled a number, and reported to his superior’s office in Stresovice about Schulze II’s visit. No one responded, but the Chief Elder knew that someone was carefully listening to his report. When he finished he dialled a number on the intercom and gave an order:

  ‘Fire the guard Reisinger immediately for incompetence. Send him to the Work Force Division and let them find him another job.’ This time someone answered at the other end, saying that the order would be carried out.

  Only now did the Chief Elder begin to feel queasy, only now did he feel weak in the arms and legs. He looked out of the window into the street. There the little knots were forming and re-forming as usual. Someone was unloading some junk from a moving wagon into the warehouse across the street. Suddenly the Chief Elder stopped and stared. They were unloading a wooden statue, a statue of Moses. Moses was wearing a long, flowing robe, his beard was plaited, and in his hand he carried the Ten Commandments. The statue must have come from some Catholic church that had closed its doors for good long ago and from which it had been acquired by some rich Jewish collector. What a lot of junk they kept sending. ‘Thou shalt not make graven images …’ His religion forbade all representations. But he’d have to take it in. He was forced to take in everything those bandits in Stresovice didn’t want and that had been declared Jewish. If he were sent a stuffed crocodile, he’d have to put it away in the warehouse as well.

  The Chief Elder stepped away from the window and sat down at his desk.

  FIVE

  THE VILLA at the edge of town did not stand out in any way. It was spacious, it had a garden and a garage, but there were many such houses in this neighbourhood – by no means a working-class suburb. Still, people seemed to avoid it. They crossed to the other side of the street and averted their eyes to keep from seeing the guard at the entrance or the groups of people standing in orderly lines for hours at a time. These people wore stars with scraggly letters in a foreign language sewn on the left side of their chests. They looked at the ground. They didn’t speak at all. They were so quiet they hardly seemed to be breathing.

  The villa was the headquarters of the Central Bureau, a division of the Security Police with direct orders from Berlin for the solution of the Jewish question in the Czech and Moravian Protectorate. The ‘final solution’.

  Death was lurking in hundreds of documents, in file folders, in property deeds, in photographs of houses, villas and factories. It dwelled in signatures and symbols, abbreviations and initials, rubber stamps and graphs. It was neat and orderly, perfectly typed on fine paper, on file cards of various colours. It was everywhere and it filled the house with fear. Over there, where the children’s room had once been, where little animal figures could still be seen peeking out of the whitewashed plaster, was the ‘Jewish room’. That’s what they called it, because Jews were working there, filling out forms, writing names on file cards, dispatching mail. But power over the abbreviations, initials, rubber stamps and graphs belonged to others, those engaged in planning the journey to death with stops along the way. The Jewish room adjoined the offices of less important workers, the coroners and financial experts. For death was connected with complex financial operations, with neat and clean columns of numbers, with adding machines and ledgers. And in the last room on the ground floor sat the executioner’s henchman in a uniform of the lowest rank. He held a rubber stamp which he pressed repeatedly on a stamp pad. He stamped list after list, each time mechanically repeating the word ‘Done’.

  On a closely guarded upper floor sat the true masters over life and death. They wore uniforms with braids and fringes on one shoulder, or two, according to their military rank, while their secretaries were bedecked with French perfumes and stolen jewellery. The Reich resided in these rooms with their flower-filled vases and portraits of the Leader, with their thick Persian carpets and luxurious antique furniture, with paintings and chandeliers made of cut crystal. Here death wore a different face. Though it was surrounded by comfort and luxury, it retained its military character – uniforms, official reports, clicking of heels, crisp commands. For stolen luxury must never soften an official of the Reich. These were the spoils of a victor; yet an official of the Reich knows that he must strike hard to pay for such luxury, he must eradicate, liquidate and root out all enemies, those identified by the signatures, symbols and initials. Once the enemy is turned into numbers, then the numbers must be transformed again into graphs. At first the graphs go up. They keep going up and up, regularly and steadily. And then they go down, also regularly, neatly, until the numbers fade away into nothingness. The officials of the Reich don’t need to concern themselves with these graphs or keep track of these numbers. But they must speed up or slow down their movement according to the interests of the Reich.

  There is no room for shouting and excitement in the world that prevails in the upstairs rooms. There the work is done by servants whose final goal was assigned them by the Leader himself. The head of this branch, the one in charge of it all, knows the secret of the final solution. He receives briefings from the head office in Berlin. He travels to conferences, he submits quarterly, semi-annual and annual reports; these are neat and clean, with carefully drawn graphs and photographic enclosures. The text is businesslike and gratifying. It shows precisely how the property in the warehouses is increasing, how many new objects have been acquired. It also specifies by how many the numbers have decreased. The pages covered with meticulous writing are contained in hard black covers.

  The head of the Central Bureau was a young man; most of his staff were older than he. For when the interest of the Reich and the eradication of its enemies are concerned, regular promotions and years of service don’t count. Yet this agency wasn’t an ordinary office – it was a military, fighting unit. Of course the enemy had no weapons. They were powerless, weak men, women and children. But the Reich couldn’t be hoodwinked in such a manner. The Reich knew well that this enemy was worse, far more dangerous than foreign armies in the field. That was why the Reich considered it more important to exterminate this enemy than to occupy whole countries with subjected populations.

  The head of the Central Bureau had recently returned from the East. He had examined the extermination camps, he had carefully studied the technology of murder. They were obliged to show him everything – he was one of the select circle of the enlightened, after all – he would actually provide the numbers. They complained that liquidation was progressing too slowly, that it required too much ammunition which would serve a better purpose at the front. Other means of killing – clubs, axes, hammers – weren’t effective enough; they were even more time-consuming. At some camps they were trying benzene injections, at others the exhaust fumes of trucks. But now that the proposal to use gas had been approved, the operation would go full-steam-ahead. Zyklon B was a speedy and safe medium.

  The commanders of the camps, of course, had no idea who had conceived of the idea that saved them so much work. The commanders didn’t know that it was the man personally entrusted by the Leader with the execution of the whole campaign: Reinhard Heydrich. They assumed that he was simply the Acting Reich Protector, who was keeping order in Bohemia and Moravia. But his mission was greater, encompassing all of Europe. It was he, the enemy of all enemies, who would carry out the final solution.

  Only a few people were aware of Heydrich’s true mission. Even he, the head of the Central Bureau, learned about it merely by chance from Eichmann. For while Eichmann was ostensibly responsible for all orders and was in charge in the main city of the Reich, the real commander, the s
ource of all orders, was actually here, quite nearby. But needless to say, the head of the Central Bureau never dealt directly with Heydrich. He always went through the agency of his staff in the Reich.

  The head of the Central Bureau smiled to himself. One of the common features of all members of the National Socialist Party was this: they never revealed their goals. Thus they were able to lull and gull and dupe their opponents. Nobody in the Protectorate knew what was going on in the East. Even his own staff did not know, though they could guess certain things because some of the spoils, the stolen goods, came from there. And those who passed through the gates of the Radio Mart with numbers hung around their necks, carrying bundles of their belongings, hurried along by kicks from the SS men, even those did not suspect what was awaiting them at the end of their journey.

  Knowing the secret means invisible power. It means standing high above all people and looking down on them in scornful safety, like a statue. It means being made of stone or bronze. Here on the upper floors, everything is clean, no sounds of screaming ever penetrate these walls, no blood has ever flowed here, nobody ever writhes with pain here. Here you can smell the flowers in vases, and sometimes, when they have parties, you can hear music here, classical music, none of your common popular songs or marches. He wouldn’t stand for any other music. Heydrich is his model in that. After all the head of the Central Bureau had majored in Oriental Studies at the University of Göttingen. Even then he’d been preparing himself for his future service. Of course, he had prepared himself because he foresaw the Leader’s goals – he had diligently read his writings and knew long ago what his task would be. He knows the alphabet and language of those inferior races, that is, the former alphabet and the former language, for the majority of Jews have never learned it. He is even knowledgeable about their literature. He can talk easily with any learned Jew from the Community, with Dr Rabinovich, for example. Such knowledge makes his work easier.