Breakfast in the Ruins - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Michael John Moorcock (13 At The Anschwitz Ball: 1944: Strings) #13

13 At The Anschwitz Ball: 1944: Strings

The war in Europe has been won; but the air of Europe smells of blood. Nazis and Fascists have been defeated; but their leaders have not yet been destroyed. It is still touch-and-go even now, whether the surviving Nazis are to have another chance of power, or whether they can be made harmless for ever by their swift arraignment as war criminals. And make no mistake this is not simply a matter for self-evident criminals such as Goering, Rosenberg and those others guilty of outstanding crimes, or responsible for the orders which caused major atrocities.

I have before me about twenty dossiers from small, unimportant French villages, and some from better-known places. They are unemotional accounts based on the evidence of named witnesses, of events which occurred during the German occupation. The Massacre of Dun Les Plages on June 26, 1944; the destruction of the village of Manlay on July 31, 1944; the treatment and murder in the Gestapo barracks at Cannes—and so it goes on. Sometimes the names of the local Nazis responsible have been discovered and named; often not.

The full horror of these cold indictments are revealed by the photographs which accompany them. It is difficult to describe them. Two or three of the mildest only are reproduced here. The Nazis took delight in having themselves photographed with their victims while these were in their agony of outrage and torture. It is not a simple crime that is depicted, but a terrible degradation of man. All the most horrible instincts which survive in our subconscious, have come brutally out into the open. It is no relapse into savagery, because no savages ever behaved with such cold, unfeeling, educated brutality and shamelessness.

These dossiers are French. But the same story is repeated in every country the Germans occupied, and also from those countries which allied themselves with the Nazis. Arrests, deportations, questionings and punishment were all carried out with a deliberate maximum of brutality accompanied by every conceivable carnal license. Like the concentration camps, these methods aimed at the destruction of confidence in democratic values; at inducing a total surrender to the Nazi terror.

They succeeded for a time—probably more than most people who have never lived under Nazi domination care to believe. That fear and horror of the Nazi bully has not yet been eradicated. The war will not be over until all the outraged millions of once-occupied Europe enjoy full confidence that democratic Governments can protect their rights, and that those who have offended are punished and broken. The Nazis mobilized the Untermensch, the sub-human, into their ranks. The wickedness he worked is a vivid memory, and it must be exorcised before Europe can have peace.

PICTURE POST, June 23,1945.

— Don't try that with me, you little white bastard! Karl displays his arms.

— I'm a black bastard now.

— We can soon change that.

— Oh, hell, I'm sorry, says Karl.—It was just an impulse.

— Well, says his friend grimly, you're certainly losing your inhibitions now, aren't you.

Karl is eighteen. He is very lucky, along with the other members of the orchestra. His mother told him there was a point to learning, that you never knew when it came in useful, fiddle playing. And it was beautifully warm in the barracks. He hoped they would dance all night.

— Come back to bed, says Karl.—Please...

— I thought you were a nice, simple, uncomplicated sort of chap, says the black man.—That's what attracted me to you in the first place. Ah, well—it was my own fault, I suppose.

Karl is eighteen and playing Johann Strauss. How beautiful. How his mother would have loved it. There are tears in his eyes. He hoped they would dance forever! The Oswiecim Waltz!

— Well, I'm not at my best says Karl.—I wasn't when you met me. That's why I was in the Roof Garden.

— It's true, says his friend, that we hardly know each other yet.

KARL WAS EIGHTEEN. His mother had been given an injection some time ago and she had died. His father had probably been killed in Spain. Karl sat behind the screen with the other members of the orchestra and he played the violin.

That was his job in Auschwitz. It was the plum job and he had been lucky to get it. Others were doing much less pleasant work and it was so cold outside. The big barrack hall was well-heated for the Christmas Dance and all the guards and non-commissioned officers, their sweethearts and wives, were enjoying themselves thoroughly, in spite of rations being so short.

Karl could see them through a gap in the screen as he and the others played The Blue Danube for the umpteenth time that evening. Round and round went the brown and grey uniforms; round and round went the skirts and the dresses. Boots stamped on the uncarpeted boards of the hall. Beer flowed. Everyone laughed and joked and sang and enjoyed themselves. And behind the leather upholstered screen borrowed for the occasion the band played on.

Karl had two pullovers and a pair of thick corduroy trousers, but he hardly needed the second pullover, it was so warm. He was much better off than when he had first come to the camp with his mother. Not that he had actually seen his mother at the camp, because they had been segregated earlier on. It had been awful at first, seeing the faces of the older inmates, feeling that you were bound to become like them, losing all dignity. He had suffered the humiliation while he summed up the angles and, while a rather poor violinist, had registered himself as a professional. It had done the trick. He had lost a lot of weight, of course, which was only to be expected. Nobody, after all, was doing very well, this winter. But he had kept his dignity and his life and there was no reason why he shouldn't go on for a long while as he was. The guards liked his playing. They were not very hot on Bach and Mozart and luckily neither was he. He had always preferred the lighter gayer melodies.

He shut his eyes, smiling as he enjoyed his own playing.

When he opened his eyes, the others were not smiling. They were all looking at him. He shut his eyes again.

— Would you say you were a winner? asks Karl's friend.

— No. Everything considered, I'd say I was a loser. Aren't we all?

— Are we? With the proper encouragement you could be a winner. With my encouragement.

— Oh, I don't know. I'm something of a depressive, as you may have noticed.

— That's my point. You've never had the encouragement, I love you, Karl.

— For myself?

— Of course. I have a lot of influence. I could get your work sold for good prices. You could be rich.

— I suppose I'd like that.

— If I got you a lot of money, what would you do?

— I don't know. Give it back to you?

— I don't mean my money. I mean if your work sold well.

— I'd buy a yacht, I think. Go round the world. It's something I've always wanted to do. I went to Paris when I was younger.

— Did you like it?

— It wasn't bad.

What Would You Do? (13)

You own a dog. It is a dog you inherited from a friend some years ago. The friend asked you to look after it for a short while and never returned.

Now the dog is getting old. You have never cared much for it, but you feel sympathetic towards it. It has become long in the tooth, it makes peculiar retching noises, it has difficulty eating and sometimes its legs are so stiff you have to carry it up and down stairs.

The dog is rather cur-like in its general demeanor. It has never had what you would call a noble character. It is nervous, cowardly and given to hysterical barking.

Because of the stiffness in its legs you take it to the veterinary clinic.

The dog has lived several years beyond its expected life-span. Its eyes are failing and it is rather deaf.

You have the opportunity to ask the veterinary to destroy the dog. And yet the dog is in no pain or any particular discomfort most of the time. The vet says that it will go on quite happily for another year or so. You hate the idea of witnessing the dog's last agonies when its time does come to die. You have only a faint degree of affection for it. It would really be better if the vet got it over with now.

What would you say to the vet?