Pursuit (3 page)

Chapter 2

Beneath the wings of the small spotter plane, the Polish landscape spread to the city of Lublin a few miles to the west. The pilot checked his map. There was the village of Dsiesiata, there the villages of Kalinowka and Abramowicz, all clearly identifiable. There was the Cholm Road, and alongside it, only a mile or so from Lublin, was an obvious suburb noted on his map as Maidanek, and—not noted on his map—a sprawling encampment of some sort. From the height of the droning plane the barracks-like buildings looked like a vast arrangement of children's blocks. Black smoke billowed from a tall square stack rising at the extreme end of the encampment, dissipating itself over the tilled fields beyond.

There was a sudden chatter of machine-gun fire from one of the watchtowers set at regular intervals about the encampment; other guns joined in instantly. The small reconnaissance plane banked almost insolently and drifted off to the east. Inside the cockpit the observer made a note of the strange buildings and its armed watchtowers, and then shrugged as he slid his pencil back into his jacket-sleeve pocket. Whatever it was, they would find out fairly soon. Their troops were less than a hundred and fifty miles from Lublin.

In the area outside the command post barrack, Colonel von Schraeder, deputy commandant of the encampment, paused to study the disappearing plane with a frown. His eyes narrowed as he considered the ease with which the small reconnaissance plane had penetrated the area. He had been back from Strasbourg a day; when he had left for Berlin ten days before, such aerial intrusion would have been unthinkable. He watched the plane disappear in the growing evening dusk, shrugged, and pushed his way into the building.

In the conference room of the command post barrack, the fifteen principal officers responsible for the day-to-day operation of the camp either sat or stood, awaiting the start of the urgent meeting that had been called. Through the open windows the endless sound of the evening roll call from Field I could be heard faintly, now that the chatter of the machine guns had finally ceased. Some of the officers stared from the windows, watching the area of the sky where the plane had disappeared, each with his own disturbing thoughts.

There was a sudden movement at the door and the pudgy red face of the camp commandant, Klaus Mittendorf, was there. He jerked one ham-like hand abruptly; those standing hurried to find seats. A second downward movement of the hand and a young lieutenant walked quickly down one wall of the room, bending over fellow officers, closing windows. In the silence that followed the commandant's voice was harsh.

“Gentlemen! The Russians are approaching the Polish border; Minsk has been recaptured. Reports are that the Army Group
Mitte
has been destroyed—”

A jeering voice broke out. “Propaganda, Commandant!”

“From Guderian?” The commandant was staring at the officer who had made the comment. His fat face was hard, his lips tight. He glared the man into defeat, then walked to his desk at the head of the conference room. He sat down abruptly and looked out over his subordinates. “All right, gentlemen. We have work to do.” He took a paper from an inner pocket and placed it on the desk. “Our orders, gentlemen. We are to exterminate as many of the present prison population as possible, then evacuate the camp and destroy any evidence it ever existed, or at least destroy any evidence as to the purpose of the camp.”

There was a general shifting of bodies; the officers stared at one another. Commandant Mittendorf properly interpreted the reaction to his statement.

“Destroy any evidence it ever existed,” he repeated firmly. “It is an order. We have not lost a camp to the enemy yet, but it is quite possible this one must be evacuated. There must be no evidence, is that clear? None whatsoever. That is an order! So let's get on with it.” He reached across the desk for a list, ran his finger down it until he found the name he wanted; those lesser officers, or those in sections or duties unable to contribute to the purpose of the meeting, were not present. Mittendorf looked up. “Captain Müeller!”

“Sir!”

“How long do you estimate it would take you to dynamite the baths and the gas chamber, as well as the crematoria—both the old and the new—and then bulldoze them level, cover them with earth, and plant grass over them?”

Müeller stared. “Plant grass, sir? Grass takes—”

“Sod, then.” Mittendorf waved a thick hand. “You know what I mean. Take sod from the surrounding farms. Or even seed over the area. Who knows? The soil is rich here—” It was quite true; they all knew the soil was extremely rich. It was thoroughly mixed with human ashes and produced the finest cabbages in all Poland. Which was a fortunate circumstance, since cabbage had been the main staple of their diet for some weeks. The commandant's face hardened. “Well? How long?”

Müeller considered the question carefully; he was a careful man and was not to be rushed into statements if he were to be held responsible for their fulfillment.

“Well, sir, we could probably dynamite the buildings to rough rubble in a matter of hours; that is no problem. If we have sufficient dynamite on hand, of course. But to crush this rubble to fine particles and bulldoze them level will take some time. Covering the resultant area with dirt will be a problem, too. I assume we don't want them to look like burial mounds—”

Mittendorf glared. “I asked, how long? I didn't ask for a speech!”

“If we can arrange the necessary equipment,” Müeller said carefully, aware he was treading on dangerous ground but determined to do his job properly, “and if we have sufficient dynamite, as I said, and if we can take the fine particles and spread them over the fields rather than trying to cover them—which may well kill the cabbage crop, of course—”

“The devil with the cabbages! If we leave here we won't be coming back!” Mittendorf felt the eyes upon him. “At least not for a while,” he added gruffly.

“Then I should say probably three or four days, working nights as well, of course. If I can get an electrician or two to rig up lights—”

“Four days,” Mittendorf said, dismissing him. “No, make that three.” He made a note and passed on. Müeller fell silent, but it was evident he was unhappy at being pressured. It was also evident that Müeller's unhappiness was the least of the commandant's worries. His sausage-like finger moved down the list. “Lieutenant Burgsteller—”

“Sir?”

“Present prisoner population?”

“Let's see, sir. We have roughly ten thousand women in Field V, mostly Poles. Very few Jews left, sir, and even less Russians. And no Gypsies at all. As far as the men are concerned, in Field I—”

“How many all together, Burgsteller! We don't have all day!”

The lieutenant reddened. “I'm sorry, sir. I don't have the exact figures with me. I didn't know you were going to want—” He saw the look on Mittendorf's face and hastily added, “Forty thousand, sir, roughly, but it's very close. It's been approximately that figure for some months past, now, sir. They ship them in as fast as we—”

“Forty thousand.” The fingers wrote and moved on. “Colonel Schneller.”

“Sir.”

“Transportation possibilities. How many prisoners can be moved by rail back to camps further west? Or back to Germany, itself? In the next two weeks, say.”

Schneller had been anticipating the question. He had been going over the transportation possibilities in his mind ever since the commandant had made his first announcement, and the results as far as he could see were apt to bring out another burst of temper from Mittendorf. He frowned.

“The problem, you see, sir, is boxcars. They're extremely tight. With the situation at the front—”

“The situation at the front is the problem of the army,” Mittendorf said, his voice rasping. “The evacuation of this camp is my responsibility. And according to my orders it takes top priority. How many prisoners do you estimate we can move if we have to?”

Schneller looked unhappy.

“I just can't give you a definite answer without checking the rail yards at Lublin, sir, but I would be greatly surprised if I could manage to get more than thirty or forty cars, at the maximum. Even at a hundred people to a car, that would be—” He paused to calculate.

“Three thousand to four thousand. Not even ten per cent.” Mittendorf shook his head almost despondently. Rail shipments, obviously, did not seem to be the answer. His finger moved down the list, and then moved up again, near the top. “Colonel von Schraeder—”

“Yes.”

If Mittendorf noted the calmness of the response, he made no comment on it. Von Schraeder was looking at him with a sardonic look on his patrician face. The commandant bit back a retort; it would not be good for discipline to get into an argument with the bastard before the other men. Von Schraeder had been an insolent and independent shit ever since he had been assigned to Mittendorf as his deputy. A full colonel at twenty-nine years of age! If only the miserable son of a bitch could be left in charge of the camp to be picked up by the Russians! What a pleasure to picture the haughty, supercilious bastard, gloves and all, hanging from a rope in the center of one of the fields, that big mouth open to the flies, and that glib, sarcastic tongue black with congested blood and quiet for once! Unfortunately, the papers for von Schraeder's transfer had already been signed by the brass in Berlin and were on the commandant's desk at the moment. The shit certainly managed to push that Junker family name of his, although the arrogant bastard didn't even have a family anymore! A father a suicide, a mother dead of something long since, probably syphilis if she was anything like that prick of a son of hers! And the family estates long gone to pay debts. So what had the high-nosed, patronizing shit to be so proud of? Mittendorf forced the bile from his throat, bringing his mind back to the matter at hand.

“Colonel—what is the maximum number we can handle in the gas chambers and the ovens? And don't tell me what we've been doing. I want to know the
maximum
.”

“In what period of time?”

Now the commandant finally lost his temper. What difference did it really make what the men thought? Discipline would be gone in a few weeks in any event, so to hell with what the men thought! His tiny eyes, buried like little burned raisins in the doughy mass of his face, blazed briefly and then narrowed dangerously until they were almost completely out of sight.

“How the hell do I know? You tell me, von Schraeder, you're so damned smart! How far away are the Russians at this moment? How fast will they move? How much resistance will our troops be able to put up? Will the Russians stop to destroy everything in Poland once they get here? Or to screw every girl? Or hang every man?” He brought himself forcibly under control, hating himself for his burst of temper, but hating von Schraeder even more for having provoked it. “That was a Russian reconnaissance plane over us a few minutes ago, Colonel. We don't have a month to discuss the matter. So just tell me how many people our equipment can handle per day. Maximum!”

Von Schraeder's only reaction to his superior's outburst was to look faintly amused.

“The maximum we can handle is two thousand per day, exactly what we are doing at the present. No more, no less.” The colonel paused to take a cigarette from a gold case; he twisted it lightly into his holder, lit the cigarette, and set the holder in his mouth at a jaunty angle. He spoke around the smoke. “We can gas many more, of course; the gas pens have a capacity of almost two thousand by themselves. The gas is effective in five minutes.” He glanced at the ceiling, calculating. “If you figure an hour to get them all in, to gas them, to clear the air with the fans; then another hour, say, for the
Sonderkommandos
to get the bodies loaded into the carts for the ovens, we could probably clear out the entire prisoner population in two days.” He leaned over to negligently tip the ash from his cigarette onto the polished floor. “The problem is, of course, that the oven capacity is limited to two thousand bodies per day, taking an average body of men, women, and children. That's the maximum. As I believe I've mentioned to you several times in the past.”

Mittendorf chose to disregard the final remark.

“What about the old ovens? The ones that were here before we built the new ones?”

“No burners,” von Schraeder said calmly. “We cannibalized the burners for the new ovens.”

“And no way to improvise?”

Von Schraeder merely shrugged. He seemed to be enjoying Mittendorf's discomfiture.

“Two thousand per day …” Mittendorf picked up his pencil, made a rapid calculation, and then almost threw the pencil from him. “
Gott in Himmel!
It can't be done!”

“Commandant—”

It was a Sergeant Schmidt. Schmidt had been in charge of the firing squads in Krepiecki Forest, six miles from the camp, and after that he had handled all deaths by gunfire at the Maidanek camp before even the old carbon-monoxide death trucks had been available. Now he was in charge of all hangings in the squares of the six fields. Sergeant Schmidt was a busy man.

Mittendorf looked at him sourly, sure that Schmidt was somehow going to compound the problem. He usually did. “Yes?”

“You said we were supposedly to destroy all the evidence—”

“That is correct.”

“What about the pits, sir?”

Mittendorf almost threw up his hands. He had been right about Schmidt; the pits were going to be an additional problem. The corpses from the firing squads had been buried in shallow pits, in layers, and then a small amount of lye and a thin layer of dirt thrown over them. The pits were easily identifiable; rats and moles had burrowed in them for food. It wouldn't take any genius Russian investigator to uncover them; their damned soldiers would fall over them if they didn't fall into them! Damn! It was easy enough for some big shot in Berlin to sit on his fat ass and issue orders, but carrying out those orders was something else. The pit in the Krepiecki Forest was almost three years old, the result of executions before the camp had been properly prepared for the job. Possibly by now the bodies would have disintegrated, rotted, disappeared somehow. Maybe animals had uncovered them and dragged them away. Well, it was something they would have to hope for, because he would have enough problems with the pits on the camp grounds proper, without sending men and equipment six miles to handle the trouble at Krepiecki.