Return to Grace

My name is Heinrich Richter, I am a 34 year old Captain of the Einsatzgruppen, the SS, under Adolf Hitler’s glorious Third Reich.

I failed to find one Jewish family, the Meijer family in Holland, so I have been transferred to the Eastern front. I hate it here. I’ve heard of Russian winters being cold, but this is ludicrous. Minus thirty-four degrees Celsius. Minsk, Stalingrad, define shit-hole, especially when compared to Paris, Eindhoven, any of the cities to the west. Why the Furor wants to take these frozen wastelands is beyond me, and the people, with their vodka and borsch, I wouldn’t feed that to dogs. Here I am demoted to this frozen hell, searching for Belarusian Jews in the woods. Reports came in from Minsk that some of the ghettos emptied in the night and that the Jews there joined Russian partisan brigades hiding in the forests. The idea that Russians are tolerating the Jews in their ranks is absurd. When I received this assignment, I assumed it would be temporary, quick. Afterall, the Russians don’t like the Jews either. On January 19, 1942, after months of sending patrols into the forests, just to have none of them return, I was called into Generalkommissar Kube’s (my superior) office for what I assumed to be another official reprimand. Kube was extreme even by SS standards, and a little crazy. Earlier that year he ordered non-Jewish children to be thrown into a ditch and filled with sand…while they shrieked and cried drowning in the sand he threw candy to them. All the children drowned in the sand. I had no idea if I was going to be shot the moment I entered his office or hugged. There were two guards posted outside his office and a secretary, her name was Olga. I knocked reluctantly.

“Enter!”

I entered his office at attention, a German soldier is always disciplined and at attention when in the presence of a superior. “Hail Hitler!”

“Hail Hitler!”

He took a seat behind his desk. There was a Jewish boy no older than fourteen in the corner of the room polishing his shoes and boots. Emaciated and slow moving, I could tell the shine would not be to his standards.

“Do you know why I have called you in here today, Captain?”

“Not exactly Sir, but I have an idea.”

“Please tell me your idea.”

“I have not captured or killed many partisans – Jews especially - in the forests.”

The Jewish boy in the corner was fainting or passing out from lack of food and the fumes from the shine. If he was my Jew, I would have sent him back to the ghetto for a replacement. But it is not my place to instruct the Generalkommissar on how to train or regulate his Jews.

“You are correct! Why are you failing so spectacularly?”

I could tell the Kommissar was noticing what I had noticed about his Jew.

“JEW!”

He threw a coffee cup at the wall which shattered into a dozen pieces and shook the boy awake.

“Polish! Faster!”

The boy doubled his efforts.

“Sir, I feel that I am lacking the necessary resources to appropriately flush out these partisan Jews from the forests and the men necessary to finish the job. The small patrols I have been assigned are being annihilated due to their insufficient number.”

“Are you attempting to blame your failures on the high command?”

“No sir! My failures are my own, but I do desire success, and I feel the best chance I have for success is with increasing my resources.”

The boy began to fall asleep again. Kommissar Kube noticed again, grabbed a glass of water, and poured it over the boy’s head. He immediately awakened and began to polish.

“If you pass out again, I will shoot you. Do you understand.”

The boy weakly replied, “Yes sir, Kommissar sir.”

“Would you like some chocolate cake and tea?” The Kommissar asked continuing our conversation.

“That would be lovely sir.”

From the corner of my eye I could see the boy licked his lips thinking about what was just uttered.

“Olga! Bring some tea and cake in here!” Kommissar Kube yelled to his secretary.

“What resources do you believe will get the job done?” Kube inquired.

“Three companies, two panzer tanks and one tiger tank should be more than overwhelming for any ground forces we encounter. But, and if you’ll permit me, (I motioned to my pocked, he nodded, so I reached into my pocket for a piece of paper with my strategy on it) I have given this a lot of thought, if I could also have access to some light bombers, and fighters, with a scouting plane to coordinate precision bombing of the forest settlements, in a sense ‘flush our prey from the bush’.”

The boy fainted again in the corner of the room. As Olga entered the room with our cake and tea, I could see a wild look in the eyes of the Kommissar, exhilarated that the boy had fainted again, Kube drew his pistol and shot the boy in the chest three times and the head once. He never knew what hit him. Olga didn’t miss a beat she placed the cake in front of the Kommissar and I with forks, napkins, and tea. The two guards outside came in immediately to remove the body.

“Another! Really! These Jews don’t grow on trees my Kommissar.” Olga said sharply.

Kube shrugged, “Olga, fetch me another Jew, one not so sleepy.”

“Yes Kommissar.” She led the guards out of the room, they dragged the dead boy behind them.

The Kommissar inspecting my plan, “I like this plan Captain. You have my authorization. Make sure you have plenty of winter clothing. This wretched country is colder than Stalin’s bed.” We both laughed. “Please eat.” He continued.

“I had no idea you had such a wonderful sense of humor Kommissar.”

I picked up my fork and began to eat my cake, it was delicious.

“Captain, how many Jews does it take to polish my boots?”

I couldn’t tell if he was being serious. I shrugged.

“I don’t know either, I keep shooting them.”

We both laughed again.

“That’s a good one, may I use that with your permission Kommissar.”

“As long as you don’t tell that cunt Himmler, it's yours.”

My plan was executed to perfection. I used the scouting plane to verify the location of the partisans, bombers and fighters to destroy their forest dwellings and push them out into the open, where the tanks and three companies of troops decimated their numbers. A large portion did flee from the forest and over a river into another area which forced our pursuit. They know these woods better than any of my men. A blizzard came through during our pursuit and we lost the group completely. I cannot fail, if I fail, I will be shot just like that Jewish boy in Kube’s office. When the blizzard subsided, we continued to sweep the area, it took us a few days and nights to find the rest of them, but when we did, we found them by tall frozen brush around a small frozen pond. One man was frozen on the pond with a small hammer trying to break through to the unfrozen water beneath. He was unsuccessful.

“It appears as though God is on our side eh Captain?”

“Indeed lieutenant, tell your men to shoot anything that might still be alive and lets return to base.”

“Yes sir!”

When I returned to base, I was greeted as a hero by Kommissar Kube.

“Well done, Captain!”

“Thank you, sir!”

“I understand you made those Jews freeze to death in the woods. Ha! Brilliant! We didn’t even have to use bullets.”

“Apparently not sir.”

“I have something for you. It appears that Berlin wants you for a special assignment, so you are being reassigned from Operation Barbarossa. Your train leaves tomorrow. It is a shame; I wish I had more officers like you…with your ingenuity.”

I returned to Berlin the following day and was reassigned to doing what I do best, hunt Jews. After six months, reassigned to Paris. A year went by like nothing. I heard GeneralKommissar Kube was assassinated by partisans, when Himmler discussed Kube’s assassination he said that “…he had been well on the way to booking himself a place in a concentration camp anyway, his assassination was a blessing." Although I didn't entirely agree, I echoed the sentiment among my peers. What plagues me aside from these effeete Parisians the only assignment to successfully elude me, that family that escaped me in Holland...the Meijer family.

I never stopped looking for the Meijer family. The Jews that escaped my grasp. I put feelers out everywhere. Even asked for a transfer from Paris to Eindhoven. Eventually, my request was granted and I moved to Eindhoven to “finish what I started” and continue my pursuit of the Meijer’s. “They are long gone.” My contemporaries touted, but I knew better. They were here somewhere. I would find them. On September 24, 1944, while in Eindhoven, I received post from a colleague in Paris, a veteran file from The Great War with some very interesting information in it, including a picture of the patriarch of the missing family, Judah Meijer, and his commanding officer Kyland Jansen side by side. The man in Kyland Jansen’s home the night we invaded Arnhem was not his son! I had them! Duplicitous! I have never been made to feel like more a fool in my life. Kyland Jansen is the key to finding the missing family, the only blemish on an otherwise flawless record. I grabbed three men and my car and made my way to Kyland Jansen’s farm north just west of Arnhem.