Midnight came and they paid no attention anymore to the promises. Their very breath was lighter in this new post-Führer Cracow.
By morning, they surmised, there would be dancing in every square, and it would go unpunished. The Wehrmacht would arrest Frank in the Wawel and encircle the SS complex in Pomorska Street.
A little before 1 A.M., Hitler was heard broadcasting from Rastenberg. Oskar had been so convinced that that voice was a voice he would never need to hear again that for a few seconds he did not recognize the sound, in spite of its familiarity, thinking it just another temporizing Party spokesman. But Garde heard the speech from its first word, and knew whose voice it was. “My German comrades!” it began. “If I speak to you today, it is first in order that you should hear my voice and should know that I am unhurt and well, and, second, that you should know of a crime unparalleled in German history.”
The speech ended four minutes later with a reference to the conspirators. “This time we shall settle accounts with them in the manner to which we National Socialists are accustomed.”
Adam Garde had never quite bought the fantasy Oskar had been pushing all evening. For Hitler was more than a man: he was a system with ramifications. Even if he died, it was no guarantee the system would alter its character. Besides, it was not in the nature of a phenomenon such as Hitler to perish in the space of a single evening. But Oskar had been believing in the death with a feverish conviction for hours now, and when it turned out to be an illusion, it was young Garde who found himself cast as the comforter, while Oskar spoke with an almost operatic grief. “All our vision of deliverance is futile,” he said. He poured another glass of cognac each, then pushed the bottle across the desk, opening his cigarette box. “Take the cognac and some cigarettes and get some sleep,” he said. “We’ll have to wait a little longer for our freedom.”
In the confusion of the cognac, of the news and of its sudden reversal in the small hours, Garde did not think it strange that Oskar was talking about “our freedom,” as if they had an equivalent need, were both prisoners who had to wait passively to be liberated. But back in his bunk Garde thought, It’s amazing that Herr Direktor should have talked like that, like someone easily given to fantasies and fits of depression. Usually, he was so pragmatic.
Pomorska Street and the camps around Cracow crawled with rumors that late summer, of some imminent rearrangement of prisoners.
The rumors troubled Oskar in Zablocie, and at Płaszów, Amon got unofficial word that the camps would be disbanded.
In fact that meeting about security had to do not with saving Płaszów from partisans, but with the coming closure of the camp. Amon had called Madritsch and Oskar and Bosch out to Płaszów and held the meeting just to give himself protective coloration. It then became plausible for him to drive into Cracow and call on Wilhelm Koppe, the new SS police chief of the Government General. Amon sat on the far side of Koppe’s desk wearing a fake frown, cracking his knuckles as if from the stress of a besieged Płaszów. He told Koppe the same story he’d given Oskar and the others—that partisan organizations had sprung up inside the camp, that Zionists within the wire had had communication with radicals of the Polish People’s Army and the Jewish Combat Organization. As the Obergruppenführer could appreciate, that sort of communication was difficult to stamp out—messages could come in in a smuggled loaf of bread. But at the first sign of active rebellion, he—Amon Goeth—as Commandant, would need to be able to take summary action. The question Amon wanted to ask was, if he fired first and did the paperwork for Oranienburg afterward, would the distinguished Obergruppenführer Koppe stand by him?
No problem, said Koppe. He didn’t really approve of bureaucrats either. In years past, as police chief of the Wartheland, he’d commanded the fleet of extermination trucks which carried Untermenschen out into the countryside and which then, running the engines at full throttle, pumped the exhaust back into the locked interior. That too was an off-the-cuff operation, not permitting precise paperwork. Of course, you have to use your judgment, he told Amon. And if you do, I’ll back you.
Oskar had sensed at the meeting that Amon was not really worried about partisans. Had he known then that Płaszów was to be liquidated, he would have understood the deeper meaning of Amon’s performance. For Amon was worried about Wilek Chilowicz, his Jewish chief of camp police. Amon had often used Chilowicz as an agent on the black market. Chilowicz knew Cracow. He knew where he could sell the flour, rice, butter the Commandant held back from the camp supplies. He knew the dealers who would be interested in product from the custom jewelry shop staffed by interns like Wulkan. Amon was worried about the whole Chilowicz clique: Mrs. Marysia Chilowicz, who enjoyed conjugal privileges; Mietek Finkelstein, an associate; Chilowicz’ sister Mrs. Ferber; and Mr. Ferber. If there had been an aristocracy inside Płaszów, it had been the Chilowiczes. They had had power over prisoners, but their knowledge was double-edged: they knew as much about Amon as they did about some miserable machinist in the Madritsch factory. If, when Płaszów closed, they were shipped to another camp, Amon knew they would try to barter their inside knowledge of his rackets as soon as they found themselves in the wrong line. Or more likely, as soon as they were hungry.
Of course, Chilowicz was uneasy too, and Amon could sense in him the doubt that he would be allowed to leave Płaszów. Amon decided to use Chilowicz’ very concern as a lever. He called Sowinski, an SS auxiliary recruited from the High Tatras of Czechoslovakia, into his office for a conference. Sowinski was to approach Chilowicz and pretend to offer him an escape deal. Amon was sure that Chilowicz would be eager to negotiate.
Sowinski went and did it well. He told Chilowicz he could get the whole clan out of the camp in one of the large fuel-burning trucks. You could sit half a dozen people in the wood furnace if you were running on gas.
Chilowicz was interested in the proposition. Sowinski would of course need to deliver a note to friends on the outside, who would provide a vehicle. Sowinski would deliver the clan to the rendezvous point in the truck. Chilowicz was willing to pay in diamonds. But, said Chilowicz, as an earnest of their mutual trust, Sowinski must provide a weapon.
Sowinski reported the meeting to the Commandant, and Amon gave him a .38-caliber pistol with the pin filed down. This was passed to Chilowicz, who of course had neither need nor opportunity to test-fire it. Yet Amon would be able to swear to both Koppe and Oranienburg that he had found a weapon on the prisoner.
It was a Sunday in mid-August when Sowinski met the Chilowiczes in the building-material shed and hid them in the truck.
Then he drove down Jerozolimska to the gate. There should be routine formalities there; then the truck could roll out into the countryside. In the empty furnace, in the pulses of the five escapees was the febrile, almost insupportable hope of leaving Amon behind.
At the gate, however, were Amon and Amthor and Hujar, and the Ukrainian Ivan Scharujew. A leisurely inspection was made. Lumbering with half-smiles across the bed of the truck, the gentlemen of the SS saved the wood furnace till last. They mimed surprise when they discovered the pitiable Chilowicz clan sardine-tight in the wood hole. As soon as Chilowicz had been dragged out, Amon “found” the illegal gun tucked into his boot.
Chilowicz’ pockets were laden with diamonds, bribes paid him by the desperate inmates of the camp.
Prisoners at their day of rest heard that Chilowicz was under sentence down there at the gate. The news made for the same awe, the confusion of emotions that had operated the night the year before when Symche Spira and his OD had been executed. Nor could any prisoner decipher what it meant to his own chances.