A Murder in Auschwitz (28 page)

Klara and he had already made the decision to remove Anna and Greta from school and Klara now schooled them at home. This was for two reasons. The first was to protect them from any anti-Semitic provocation by the other pupils or the teachers. Also, it gave Klara a full-time occupation which she loved; teaching her girls.

But now the dark shadow which was falling across Germany had encompassed Meyer in its gloom. He sat speechless in Bauer’s office, the injustice of it all igniting the anger inside him.

“I am sorry Manfred,” said Bauer. “You won’t be able to practise as a lawyer but you can still work for the company. The racial laws do not forbid you employment here, and as difficult as it may be, there are still roles which you can fill in the company. I won’t abandon you, Manfred. I promise.”

Meyer felt himself slump further down into the leather of the chair. “I know, Friedrich. I know.”

Auschwitz, 5th February 1944

MEYER pushed against his teeth with his tongue. They were definitely loose. He pondered how these things crept up on you. He was not sure when he first felt the pain, but now when he bit into the hard black bread that they were given, his teeth on the right-hand side of his face sent a dull pain signal to his brain. His gums hurt more than his teeth and they felt soft when he touched them. Klara would know what to do. If he could have asked her.

He wondered what she was doing right then. In his mind’s eye, he always pictured her with the girls. Meyer hoped that they were all still together. They were good, strong girls, who had never been sick since they were babies. Whatever it was that they found themselves doing, probably armaments factory work, he knew that their mother would be there and looking after them.

But he wondered if she gazed over at the men’s camp, hoping to spot him amongst the identical striped men that shuffled to and from the camp each day. He tried to see through to the women’s camp, but the buildings next to the crematoria blocked his view.

He thought back to the days before the war, when the girls were being schooled by Klara and Meyer was running what had become known as the Manfred Line; helping build defences with the lawyers of Bauer & Bauer. Strangely enough, these had been happy times. Maybe even happier than before the Nazi’s had come to power, before the racial laws and the hatred. It was always summer in his memories of the children. The sun catching their hair, their smiles, and sparkling eyes like their mother's. Beautiful, kind, gentle, understanding children. He could not have asked for anything more.

Meyer’s memories were broken by a silence.

There was always a low hum in the hut. Never noise but never silence. The hum of low voices and exhausted snores. The only loud voices and laughter coming from Langer and his followers.

But the deadly silence which filled the camp outside had infiltrated the hut with its terrifying nothingness. The hum had stopped. Even Langer’s cackle and shouted insults had stopped. The silence had entered the hut.

Meyer looked to the door where the silence had come in and saw two SS officers and three guards in the doorway. The two officers meandered slowly around the hut, their disgust at being in such a contaminated place and in such close proximity to men they thought of as less than men painted across their faces. Finally, one of them broke the silence.

“Manfred Meyer. The lawyer, Manfred Meyer.”

Meyer’s heart stopped. An icy cold gripped him, as if the silence had reached over and squeezed his soul.

The officers followed the turned heads of the men in the hut until they were looking directly at Meyer. Then one of them signalled with his gloved hand, and the three guards pushed their way past the men in the crowded hut and pulled Meyer off his bed. Geller looked on in horror as Meyer was marched out of the door, two of the guards with a hand on each of Meyer’s shoulders. The third guard followed the two officers out of the doorway. And then they were gone.

The cold of the winter night penetrated Meyer’s body and joined with the ice left there by the silence, as he was marched towards the gate of the camp. His mind raced. Why had they taken him out of the hut? At first he thought that he would be taken outside and shot, but then he realised that they had asked for him by name. They must know something about him. Had they found the hoard of resin he had been collecting? Would they kill him for that? He tried to keep such a low profile, follow the rules and keep his head down; there was nothing that he had done, no-one he had offended, no crime he had committed which they would want him for. So, if there was nothing that he had done wrong, then they must want something from him.

Meyer was marched through the gates and towards the Gestapo buildings. His fear grew. This was where they took prisoners who were to be questioned about something. This was where they were tortured and, by accounts from the prisoners who had to clean up the blood and mess in the torture rooms, kept in cells which had standing room only.

Why would they torture him? What did he know? Nothing of importance, surely. Meyer slowed his pace but was pushed forward by the soldiers. He was right; it was the stockade, the torture rooms. Meyer was forced in through the doors. An SS officer stood in the corridor, holding a cell door open, effectively closing off the rest of the corridor behind him.

“In here,” were the only words from the officer, and Meyer was pushed into the cell.

Inside, the cell had whitewashed brick walls and a grey concrete floor which held the ghosts of blood stains from past interrogations. It was entirely bare, except for a metal table and two chairs. Behind the desk sat a figure in SS uniform, his face cut and swollen.

“Hello, Meyer. I need your help.” It was Kolb.

Meyer stared at him. His conditioning in the camp stopped Meyer's natural propensity to ask questions. He wanted to know why he was there, what had happened to Kolb, and what it was he could help him with. But he just stared.

“Sit down, Meyer,” said Kolb, and waited for Meyer to take a seat. When he had, he continued. “I need your help. I need your lawyer skills again.”

Meyer sat in front of Kolb. He looked different from when he had known him ten years previously. It was not just age which had changed him, or the damage to his face; it was the uniform. It was the SS runes on his collar. It was the eagle and swastika on his arm. He emanated menace. He was the archetypal SS officer, blonde and blue-eyed, tall and arrogant. And yet, here he was, sitting in a cell in the stockade, bruises on his swollen face, blood stains on his field grey uniform. Was Kolb a prisoner?

“I have been accused of murder. The murder of a fellow officer, and as you can see,” said Kolb, indicating his face, “I have been interrogated already on this matter.”

Meyer pushed his tongue against his sensitive teeth, tasting something new. Iron. Meyer wondered if it was his gums bleeding, or if he could taste the blood from the air. He looked down at Kolb’s hands, which were clasped together on the table. His hands should have been immaculate. An SS officer’s hands were always kept beautifully clean. Meyer had wondered if it was because of the amount of blood that they were metaphorically covered in that they were kept so clean. But Kolb’s knuckles were scraped, and dried blood smeared the back of both hands, his fingers dirty from the floor, ending in broken and filthy nails.

“I didn’t confess, so there will now be a court martial. I will be represented by an officer from my barracks, but he is only an officer. Unfortunately, I am not blessed with a former lawyer as a fellow officer; he went straight into the SS when he left school. But I am fortunate enough that the man who saved me from prison is himself a prisoner here and can perhaps save me from the firing squad now.”

Meyer finally found his voice. It was difficult to start talking to someone in uniform, to ask them questions. This was something which would normally be met with violence. Indeed, Meyer wondered how he could possibly be part of a court martial. He could not imagine how a room full of SS uniforms would accept the word of a faded-striped prisoner.

“Herr Kolb, I am not sure that a Jew would be welcome in your court martial,” said Meyer.

Kolb noticed that Meyer’s voice was hoarse and scratchy. Meyer had aged well, thought Kolb, but the stresses of prison camp life were taking their toll. He was thin and his hair was entirely grey, as was his skin. And his gums on one side of his mouth were black.

“Obviously, you wouldn’t be able to be part of the court martial proceedings, but you can advise Scharfuhrer Fuchs on my case. I haven’t forgotten your ability to take a case apart piece by piece, then put it all back together again in an order that gives you a divine insight into its happenings.”

Meyer sat for a moment. “Why?”

Kolb looked surprised. “Why what?” he asked.

“Why would I?” said Meyer. It was what Kolb had feared.

“Don’t forget who you are talking to, Meyer. I may be under arrest, but I am still an officer of the SS and you are still a Jew!”

“Herr Kolb, I need you to understand something. I have been here for...” Meyer found himself laughing. “I don’t know how long I have been here for, it seems like a lifetime. But I have seen enough death at the hands of the SS, know enough about the gas chambers which deal out death on an industrial scale, to know that my life here is limited. I won’t leave here alive and I have already suffered pain and indignity. There is nothing you can threaten me with to make me do your bidding.”

Kolb felt his fury build. Who was this Jew to question him? This miserable, filthy prisoner. Did he not fear death? Did he not fear the pain that Kolb could have inflicted on him? How dare he resist when Kolb needed him, when Kolb’s own life depended on his skills. Kolb thought hard; what could he threaten Meyer with which would make him do what he told him.

Then, as if he had read Kolb’s mind, Meyer said, “The problem with being in your position for so long is that you only see the world from one point of view. When you wear that uniform all you do is threaten and bully and murder. You forget that most of the world does not work in that manner. Most of the people in the world have exchanges. Exchanges of ideas. Exchanges of currency. Exchanges of gifts. Exchanges of produce. You don’t have to threaten me to have my assistance. Give me something.”

Kolb stared at Meyer. Then felt himself smile. The Jew still had the skills he had demonstrated so many years ago. Meyer could take a position and, before you knew it, you were seeing the same scene from a different point of view. “What do you want, Meyer?”

Meyer ran his hand over his face. He suddenly felt very tired. He had been in the forest all day; the work party had not got back to the camp until late and there had been very little soup left and hardly any bread.

Meyer thought about what he could ask Kolb for; food for himself and the rest of the hut, maybe something that he could use as currency in the camp, cigarettes maybe, a day off for his work party. But actually, there was only one thing that he wanted. However, he did not know if Kolb had the authority for what he would ask for. “I want to see my wife and children.”

Kolb looked at him, blankly. He had thought Meyer would ask for something tangible, something he could eat or swap in the camp with the rest of the prisoners. That would have been easy to organise. But to see his wife and children was another matter. “That can’t be done. Choose something else.”

Meyer shook his head. “There is nothing else. It’s you that needs me. I don’t need you.”

“You be careful, Meyer. Don’t forget who I am. I can have your life snuffed out, and the lives of your wife and children. How about that? Help me or I will have your family killed,” snarled Kolb, his face flushing red.

Meyer had hoped that this threat would not occur to Kolb, but he managed to remain calm. “You aren’t listening.”

“I think it is you who isn’t listening, Meyer,” said Kolb, his voice rising as his temper flared. “I will have your children and your wife killed. Do you understand?”

Meyer nodded. He was gambling with his family’s life, and it was the greatest bluff he had ever perpetrated. Greater than any in any court case he had ever been part of. “Of course I understand, but as I have already told you, we are already under a death sentence. Threatening my life or the lives of my family means nothing. We are all going to be killed anyway. You might as well threaten to starve us and overwork us. It is already happening, how is it a threat?”

Kolb was silent. He stared at Meyer. His temper had abated, and now he searched for something he could tempt Meyer with. Kolb did not think that Meyer would give up on his request to see his family, and as difficult as it would be, he would need to try to convince Kramer to let him see Liebehenschel again and then convince Liebehenschel that, as a reward, Meyer should get to see his wife and children. But until that happened, he needed a hook. Something that would get Meyer working for him, a promise, an incentive, something which would pique his interest, his intelligence, grab him by his natural inquisitiveness. And then it came to him.

“I have something that may interest you. About my original case,” said Kolb. “The court martial is on the tenth of this month, only five days away. Our first meeting with Scharfuhrer Fuchs is tomorrow. That only gives four days to prepare, four meetings. Tomorrow I will tell you something you don’t know about the Josef Pfeiffer case. The next three times we meet, you can ask me a single question about what I tell you. Then, at the end, if I am found not guilty, I will see what I can do about you seeing your wife and children.”