Globocnik, an SS police leader, was rumored to have had personal correspondence with the Fuhrerhimself. Globocnik, who had career ambitions and sought a place on Himmler’s staff, had stepped up relocation efforts after a German officer had been killed during a police action against the Jews. The officer in question had died in a drunken motorcycle accident, but the German leadership had never troubled itself over accuracy when a larger purpose was served. Martyrs were cheap, Wolfram well knew.
“ So it’s quiet here?” Wolfram asked.
The guard shrugged. “I sleep. No one here has guns.”
“ Good.” Wolfram drew on his cigarette as the guard sauntered to the shade of the station’s long platform.
“ Rest for now,” Wolfram shouted at the policemen who had debarked the trains, busily wiping their brows and sipping from steel canteens. They were mostly older men, those not fit for combat but who had been pressed into some sort of duty for the Reich. Though unfit for combat, Wolfram’s platoon was organized, obedient, and well-trained.
Some, like Scherr there, the fat one, were all joviality and bluster, full of the nonsense that came from believing happy lies. Kleinschmidt, a sausage maker, complained bitterly about his boots and the poor quality of the field kitchen’s pork. Wassen had been a journalist and spent his evenings writing letters to his family. Few of the men in Wolfram’s First Company platoon thought beyond the immediate soldier’s concerns of a soft bunk and dry socks.
At age 32, Wolfram had no career ambitions himself; he thought only of his wife, Frieda, in the Hamburg apartment with their four-year-old son Karl. Wolfram had headed a small family lumber business and benefited from the initial lead-up to war. When certain high-level officers began hinting that a man like Wolfram was needed by the Fatherland, he enlisted in the Reserve Police.
During 1941, Reserve Police Battalion 101 had been largely concerned with stamping out partisan uprisings and rounding up communist Russians in Czechoslovakia. Later in the year, Jews were targeted as well. Wolfram had heard reports of entire Jewish sections of cities being burned to the ground, and truckloads of Jews occasionally disappeared. But such reports were like the wind, and Wolfram had filed enough of them to know that only a fool or a zealot dared speak the truth.
Scherr, his First Sergeant, approached Wolfram as the train engine let out a long sigh of steam. The smell of coal smoke briefly obliterated the cloying animal stench that came from the cattle cars.
“ Shall I issue the orders?” Scherr said all too eagerly.
“ Gather the men,” Wolfram said.
Scherr obeyed, no doubt promising the men a night in the barracks and the eventual arrival of rations. As the forty reservists gathered around, Wolfram looked into their faces. He was younger than most, and a good deal healthier. Less than a third were Nazi Party members, and most were from the lower orders of society: laborers, clerks, and street merchants. Some were as old as Wolfram’s father, and one, Drukker, reminded Wolfram of his own youth as he looked into the hard blue eyes.
“ We have been selected for an unpleasant task,” Wolfram began, attempting to mimic the words of Captain Herrmansbiel, his immediate superior. “The Jews here have been involved with the partisans. Further, their discontent has led to the Amerikanner boycott of Germany’s goods and services. There’s even talk”-Wolfram wasn’t sure how to add the next part without risking damage to morale-“that the Americans will join England and Russia as allies.”
“ Mein gott,” came a voice from the rear ranks. “ Fick der juden.”
“ The Jews are confined to the ghetto, and per standing orders, any attempting to escape will be shot. We are to round up all the Jews and gather them in the marketplace for processing. Healthy males of working age are to be loaded onto trucks and transported to Lublin. Those who resist or are too frail to march will be summarily executed.”
Scherr licked his lips. He’d already shown an appetite for killing Jews and was always quick to volunteer when there was the possibility of an organized firing squad. Wolfram found him distasteful, but such men made the entire operation easier to manage, and also required less of Wolfram’s presence during the most brutal actions.
“ This duty is necessary, and we must be strong,” Wolfram said. “I don’t want to see any cowards. However, any man who doesn’t feel up to the task may step forward now and be reassigned.”
Some of the men exchanged glances while others stared at the ground. Someone coughed. The train engine clanged. After a moment, Drukker stepped forward, shoulders sagging.
“ Anyone else?” Wolfram asked. Only Drukker met his gaze.
“ Very well,” Wolfram said. “Drukker, you will help guard the train. The rest of you men, proceed to the marketplace in the center of town. Scherr, give them their orders there.”
Scherr grinned, saluted, called the men to attention and led the platoon away. Wolfram lit another cigarette. “Drukker, you will be happy later on. You might be the only one. Before this Jewish business is over, the German nation will be shamed in the eyes of God.”
“ Yes, sir,” Drukker said, subordinate despite being nearly twenty years older than his lieutenant.
Wolfram knew, as an officer, he shouldn’t speak on equal terms with the men, especially on matters of philosophy. After all, the truth could be construed as treason. “Resettlement is a question of military efficiency, Drukker.”
“ Yes, sir.”
Wolfram tossed his cigarette off the platform and checked his watch. He glanced at the forest that covered the rise of land above the village. “We will be efficient.”
He walked into Jozefow. The village was quiet, many of the Poles still sleeping under the thatched straw roofs. Curling pillars of sleepy smoke rose from a few chimneys. The men of Second Company had already fanned out to surround the village, as per Hermmansbiels’s orders.
Already the shouts and cries could be heard inside the narrow white houses of the Jewish section. Scherr had posted four guards in the market square, where the Jews were to be collected. The other men conducted door-to-door searches, and from a small stone house came a woman carrying an infant. Hermmansbiel specifically stipulated that the infants were to be shot along with the elderly. Gunfire erupted along the next block, sending more cries into the morning sky.
Worker Jews were driven at bayonet point, most with beards and thin faces, wearing long, filthy robes. They had already suffered plenty of hardship, but nothing like what they would see today, Wolfram thought. He saw Scherr lead a small squadron of men into a long, low building that could have been a hospital or an old people’s home. Automatic gunfire erupted like popcorn kernels over a fire. Minutes later, Scherr and the other reservists exited the smoky portal that led into the building. No Jews accompanied them.
Nearby, Wassen stood leaning against a stone wall. At his feet was a woman, a blossom of blood on the back of her dress. Wassen dropped his rifle and knelt, vomiting. Wolfram looked around to see if anyone noticed them. An old Jew, who might have been a rabbi, gave a grim nod. Wolfram turned away and stood over Wassen.
“ We have orders,” Wolfram said gently.
“ I can no longer shoot,” Wassen said, wiping his nose on his uniform and leaving a long, greasy smear.
“ Are you out of ammunition?”
“ I can no longer shoot.”
Wolfram looked at the rabbi and the other Jews huddled around him on the rough, pebbled street. “Join Drukker on guard duty at the station.”
“ Thank you, Herr Oberleutnant.”
“ Efficiency,” Wolfram said. “A man who can’t shoot is more useful somewhere else.”
More shots rang out. The men had been given extra ammunition before the train rolled into the station. They must have known this action was to be unusual. They must all have suspected what was coming.