From the window Lutz can see that the city on the far bank of the Danube is alight. German tank columns can be tracked on the bridges that are still intact. He last paid a visit to Rüfenacht the previous year when he broke his journey back to Berne in Vienna. Walter used to compose poetry when he was young, he told Gertrud; he had become a superb official, but he always strove to turn the conversation on to art. Even with you, Gertrud had asked? Just imagine, even with me.
They had stood by the window in the consular office. Rüfenacht had shown him his bust of Lessing and said proudly, You see, Carl, German culture has given the world some great minds. Lutz had nodded, ashamed that all he knew of Lessing was just the name, he admitted, and you know, Walter, it has also given the world some great minds that were driven out of Germany. Rüfenacht had taken a newspaper out of a desk drawer. I understand who you are hinting at. Thomas Mann had declared that the age-old spirit of German art would help defeat the horror state that Germany had become.
Lutz is musing now that what had come to mind in Rüfenacht’s office was not Thomas Mann, even though he had read two of his novels in his younger days.
He can also see from his window the burning cupola of Western Railway Station.
He fishes out from a desk drawer a tube of liniment. He takes off his socks, loosens his necktie, unbuttons his shirt, leaving only his left arm sticking out while with his right hand he rubs the liniment on to his left shoulder. He had pulled a muscle when he helped carrying the buckets of glass shards. He sits down on the one and only chair. He pulls open the lowest drawer of the desk. The movement again reminds him of Walter Rüfenacht when he pulled out the newspaper he had hidden there. It may well have been an English paper, as a German one would most certainly not print a statement by Thomas Mann.
He spreads out a map on the table. A young man who worked in the Swiss Legation’s Department of Foreign Interests had sought him out during the weeks immediately following his arrival in Budapest. Not long after the man had unexpectedly been recalled to Zürich. On his farewell visit he had handed over a large envelope. In it was a map that he had drawn up, and he asked the Vice-Consul to study it if he got the time. Lutz had wanted to open the envelope straight away. No, not now, please, but wait a couple of days, he had said, because then I will no longer be in Budapest.
Is it an official report?
Oh no, Mr Vice-Consul! It’s an appendix from the dissertation I submitted to Zürich University.
A likeable fellow, quiet and modest, mused Lutz. I’m sorry you are leaving, he had said. A few days later he had opened the envelope. In fact, it had been a map of the countries of Europe. The USSR was a big red blot, the other countries in various colours. On each country was inscribed a year.
He read the text appended to the map then hid it in the lowest desk drawer. He was to take it out every so often in the years that followed, always taking care to close the door.
Various dates had been written on the territories of the countries of Europe, with countries bearing the same date being coloured similarly. The first group of countries were dated 1950; the second, 1960; the third, 1980, the fourth, 2000. The first group consisted of the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria; the second the Baltic states, Romania and Hungary; the third the Nether lands, Belgium, France and Greece; the fourth the Scandi navian countries, the southern countries and the French and Italian parts of Switzerland.
Lutz reads the notes.
One proponent of a theory of races in the nineteenth century had been the anthropologist Vacher de Lapouge. He argued that Europe would perish if the long-headed (or dolichocephalic) Germanic races were to be squeezed out by intruding short-headed (brachycephalic) non-Germanic races. He had written that in the twentieth century millions would destroy each other because of just fractional differences in their cephalic index. According to Gobineau the Aryan races had created European civilization; development always came to a halt when Aryan blood became exhausted. Racial purity was a guarantee of a successful history, which was why the Aryan race had a historic mission — a Germanic world empire. That was what Rosenberg propounded and what Hitler wanted to accomplish. The first step was the crushing of the anti-Germanic Judaic world conspiracy, the annihilation of the Jewish race. Race theory under pinned genocide. That is what had prepared the ground for the Wannsee Conference the previous month. The succeeding steps were slave status for the enemies of the Nordic — Germanic world empire and varying degrees of assimilation of non-hostiles.
Lutz recalls how surprised he had been by the unexpected transfer of his young colleague in the legation. Wavy fair hair, thick fair eyebrows, blue eyes, a slightly stooping posture. Lutz also recalls making enquiries about the young man in Zürich in 1942. All he was told was that he was no longer in the diplomatic service but had returned to his scientific career. Of his own accord? Lutz had asked. You will have to ask Dr Heinrich Rothmund, head of the Police Division of the Federal Department of Justice and Police, for the answer to that.
On the evidence of his diary, in February 1942, when he received the envelope, he noted that he should speak to no one about it, not even Gertrud. When he first heard about the Wannsee Conference he wrote in his diary: how long was I blind, how long have all of us been blind? The entry for 15 November 1944:
Today we again went out to visit the Óbuda Brickworks. I managed to place a lot of people under protection. It has been certain for quite some time that Hitler is going to lose the war and his plan for a German world empire cannot be realized. What if it had been?
There is a knock on the door. Lutz places both envelope and diary back in the lower desk drawer.
I would never have believed that I would be able to survive what happened to us, Mother said once, but I would definitely not have been able to deal with what fell to Gizi’s lot, and yet I carried on without searching for words to endorse what Mother had said, that she covered the route to Hegyeshalom not on foot but by military car. The look on Gizi’s face when she talked about it was as if she were relating a fairy-tale, although I would say it was rather that she looked like someone who knew full well that what she was speaking about could only happen in a fairy-tale.
In the houses of the international ghetto those in possession of a safe-conduct letter are being lined up, Gizi tells Carl Lutz, and then taken off either to the main ghetto or to the bank of the Danube. Darling, you ought to make a telephone call to Major General Sédey, Gertrud says. Lutz does not telephone but summons his chauffeur. Charles, if you don’t mind, there is one more trip to make after all, and he puts on his fur coat, as do Gertrud and Gizi, while the chauffeur buckles on a holster and pistol.
Coming in from Buda the black Packard moves at walking pace over the Széchenyi Chain Bridge. People with haversacks or suitcases in their hands are crossing from the Pest side in among tanks, helmeted troops of the Waffen-SS and troops of the Hungarian Army. The Packard is stopped in the middle of the bridge by two men with Arrow Cross armbands. Charles indicates the Swiss flag on the car, and Carl Lutz has to produce his diplomatic pass as do Gertrud and Gizi. A bombing attack had raked the upper storeys of the Gresham Palace building on the Pest bank overlooking the Chain Bridge, the windows of the Academy of Sciences had been smashed. There are six tanks by the Parliament building. Another check. One of the machine-gunners cannot be more than fourteen years old. What a nice face he has, says Gertrud to Gizi on the rear seat. The youngster is wearing an officer’s cap cocked over one ear. He demands the papers with his gun trained on Carl Lutz. Lutz asks him if he speaks German. He does. Where did he learn it? At cadet school in Kőszeg on the frontier with Austria, but anyway his parents had engaged a Fraülein as governess. Lutz asks him what is the point of the war. We are fighting for the homeland, the boy says. They leave Kossuth Square in front of the Parliament building by Alkotmány Street before taking a left turn into Honvéd Street.