I woke up to the smell of someone smoking a cigarette. Someone was here in this yard. Another Polish fireman? Pausing for a break while putting out the fires? Or a German taking time out from the hunt? Or was it a fighter? A comrade? A friend? Not likely. I’d used up all my luck for today.
Judging by the light that fell through the feathers, dawn was breaking. So I would have to get back to Miła 18 quickly or else stay hidden where I was for the rest of the day. With nothing to eat or drink. And what would I do if the Germans decided to set fire to the buildings here?
I listened for a moment and then decided to risk it. The man seemed to be alone. I leaped out, holding my gun. If I wasn’t wrong, there would still be one or two bullets left.
I was standing in front of an SS soldier. He jumped and dropped his cigarette.
I was startled, too. I knew this man.
It was the officer who had saved me from the fat pig in the guardhouse. The German who could speak some Polish and had more or less resembled a human being.
It was the first time that I had ever stood facing an SS man like this. One who was in my power. I had to make use of it. To try to understand.
“Why?” I asked him.
He was confused.
“Why … what?”
“Why are you doing this to us?”
He thought about it.
“Your life doesn’t depend on your answer.”
I wanted him to tell the truth and not just say something to save his skin.
He nodded. He understood now.
“Do you want to know why I am here, or why my superiors are doing this?”
“Both.”
“Himmler and the others are mad.”
“And you?”
“I wish I could say the same.” He laughed bitterly.
“That’s not an answer.”
“I wanted a better life for myself and my family.”
“They are better off if you slaughter people here?”
“Rubbish!” he snapped. He seemed to have forgotten for a moment that I was pointing a gun at him. Then he remembered and got more factual. “I’ve got a good position in the SS, money—”
“So you murder for money,” I interrupted.
“That was not the plan. I didn’t look that far ahead. Who could have imagined anything like this?”
“Hitler never mentioned that he hated the Jews?” I asked sarcastically.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “My family doesn’t have a better life. Hamburg is being bombed, and I’ll return home with my wife and daughter emotional wrecks. If they are still alive.”
Part of me hoped they weren’t.
“And,” he continued carefully, “if you let me live.”
“Why should I?”
“I saved you from Scharper. You should have seen what he did to the other girls.”
“The ones you didn’t save.”
“I don’t have all that much room to act. I can’t save hundreds of Jews.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“You think so because you’ve got nothing to lose.”
“Thanks to you.”
“As head of a family, I stand to lose a lot.”
The longer I let him speak, the more human he seemed and the more I detested him.
“If you kill me, my family will lose the father, the husband—”
“Shut up!” I snapped, and pointed my gun at his head.
The officer stopped talking. He tried to look calm. But his hands were shaking.
“Turn around.”
He did as I had ordered. He was shaking all over now.
“Bitte,” he pleaded in German.
“I said: Shut up!”
He began to cry.
I wanted him to stop.
He cried even more.
And I struck him with the handle of my gun as hard as I could.
The officer fell to the ground. The back of his head was bleeding; he couldn’t move but he moaned. He wasn’t unconscious yet.
So I struck him again. And again. Until I’d knocked him out.
I let him live. Not because he had saved me from a worse fate in the guardhouse. Or because I felt sorry for him. Or his family. I let him live because the sound of a shot would have alerted his comrades.