The Kindly Ones

I must have dozed off a little: Piontek shook me awake around midnight. I had lain down fully dressed, with my kit ready; I went out to take the air while they checked the vehicles. I ate a sandwich and drank some coffee that Fischer, an orderly, had brewed for me. It was late winter, bitter cold out, and I gladly inhaled the pure mountain air. A little farther on, I heard the sound of engines: the Vorkommando, led by a deputy of Eichmann’s, was starting out. I had decided to join the convoy of the Sondereinsatzkommando, which included, aside from Eichmann and his officers, more than 150 men, most of them Orpos and representatives of the SD and the SP, as well as some Waffen-SS. Geschke’s and Achamer-Pifrader’s convoy brought up the rear. When our two cars were ready, I sent them to join the staging area and went on foot to find Eichmann. He was wearing a tank soldier’s goggles on his cap and was holding a Steyr machine pistol under his arm: with his riding breeches, it made him look a little ridiculous, almost as if he were wearing a disguise. “Obersturmbannführer,” he cried out when he saw me. “Your men are ready?” I signed yes and went to join them. At the assembly area, it was still that last-minute confusion, the shouts and commands before a mass of vehicles can get under way in good order. Eichmann finally made his appearance, surrounded by many of his officers, including Regierungsrat Hunsche, whom I knew from Berlin; after having given some more contradictory orders, he got into his Schwimmwagen

, a kind of amphibious all-terrain vehicle, driven by a Waffen-SS; I wondered amusedly if he was afraid the bridges would be dynamited, if he planned on crossing the Danube in his tub, with his Steyr and his chauffeur, to sweep away the Magyar hordes on his own. Piontek, at the steering wheel of my car, exuded sobriety and seriousness. Finally, under the harsh light of the camp searchlights, in a thunder of engines and a cloud of dust, the column set off. I had put Elias and Fischer in the back, with the weapons they had distributed to us; I sat in front, next to Piontek, and he started up. The sky was clear, the stars shining, but there was no moon; going down the winding road toward the Danube, I clearly saw the gleaming expanse of the river at my feet. The convoy crossed over to the right bank and headed toward Vienna. We drove in single file, our headlights kept low because of enemy fighter planes. I soon fell asleep. From time to time an alert woke me up, forced the vehicles to stop and douse the headlights, but no one left the car, we waited in the dark. There was no attack. In my interrupted half-sleep I had strange dreams, vivid and evanescent, which disappeared like a soap bubble as soon as a jolt or a siren woke me up. Around three o’clock, as we were skirting Vienna from the south, I shook myself awake and drank some coffee from a thermos readied by Fischer. The moon had risen, a thin crescent that made the wide water of the Danube gleam whenever we glimpsed it on our left. The alerts forced us to pause again, a long line of disparate vehicles that we could now distinguish in the moonlight. To the east, the sky was turning pink, outlining, higher up, the summits of the Little Carpathians. One of these pauses found us above the Neusiedler See, just a few kilometers from the Hungarian border. The fat Wisliceny passed by my car and rapped on my window: “Take your rum and come with us.” They had delivered a few measures of rum to us for the march, but I hadn’t touched it. I followed Wisliceny, who was going from car to car, getting other officers to come out. In front of us, the red ball of the sun weighed on the summits, the sky was pale, a luminous blue tinged with yellow, without a cloud. When our group reached Eichmann’s

Schwimmwagen

, near the head of the column, we surrounded it and Wisliceny asked him to get out. He had brought along the officers from IV B 4, as well as the commanders of the seconded companies. Wisliceny raised his flask, congratulated Eichmann, and drank his health: Eichmann was celebrating his thirty-eighth birthday that day. He hiccupped with pleasure: “Meine Herren, I am touched, very touched. Today is my seventh birthday as an SS officer. I can’t imagine a better gift than your company.” He was beaming, all red, smiling at everyone, drinking in little sips to the cheers.