I spent a few days in Cracow, to go to meetings and also to enjoy this beautiful city a little. I visited the old Jewish quarter, the Kasimierz, now occupied by haggard, sickly, and unkempt Poles, displaced by the Germanization of the Incorporated Territories. The synagogues hadn’t been destroyed: Frank, they said, wanted some material traces of Polish Judaism to survive, for the edification of future generations. Some served as warehouses, others remained closed; I had the two oldest ones opened for me, around the long Szeroka Square. The so-called Old Synagogue, which dated back to the fifteenth century, with its long crenellated-roof annex added for women in the sixteenth or early seventeenth century, served the Wehrmacht to store food supplies and spare parts; the brick façade, many times remodeled, the blocked windows, white limestone arches, and somewhat randomly set sandstone blocks had an almost Venetian charm, and owed much to the Italian architects working in Poland and Galicia. The Remuh Synagogue, at the other end of the square, was a small, narrow, sooty building of no architectural interest. But of the large Jewish cemetery surrounding it, which would certainly have been worth the trouble of visiting, nothing more remained but a vacant, desolate lot; the old gravestones had been taken away as construction material. The young officer from the Gestapostelle who accompanied me knew the history of Polish Judaism very well, and showed me where the grave of Rabbi Moses Isserles, a famous Talmudist, had been. “As soon as Prince Mieszko began to impose the Catholic faith on Poland, in the tenth century,” he explained, “the Jews appeared to sell salt, wheat, furs, wine. Since they made the kings richer, they obtained franchise after franchise. The people, at that time, were still pagan, healthy and unspoiled, apart from a few Orthodox Christians to the East. So the Jews helped Catholicism implant itself on Polish soil, and in exchange, Catholicism protected the Jews. Long after the conversion of the people, the Jews kept this position of agents of the powerful, helping the pan bleed the peasants by every means possible, serving them as bailiffs, usurers, holding all commerce firmly in their hands. Hence the persistence and strength of Polish anti-Semitism: for the Polish people, the Jew has always been an exploiter, and even if the Poles hate us profoundly, they still approve of our solution to the Jewish problem from the bottom of their hearts. That’s also true for the supporters of the Armia Krajowa, who are all Catholics and bigots, even if it’s a little less true for the Communist partisans, who are forced, sometimes against their will, to follow the Moscow Party line.”—“But the AK sold weapons to the Jews in Warsaw.”—“Their worst weapons, in ridiculous quantities, at exorbitant prices. According to our information, they agreed to sell them only on direct orders from London, where the Jews are manipulating their so-called government in exile.”—“And how many Jews are left now?”—“I don’t know the exact number. But I can assure you that before the end of the year all the ghettos will be liquidated. Aside from our camps and a handful of partisans, there won’t be any more Jews left in Poland. Then it will finally be time to look seriously into the Polish question. They too will have to submit to a major demographic diminution.”—“Total?”—“I don’t know about total. The economics departments are in the process of studying it and making calculations. But it will be sizeable: the overpopulation is far too important. Without that, this region can never prosper or flourish.”

Poland will never be a beautiful country, but some of its landscapes have a melancholy charm. It took me about half a day to get from Cracow to Lublin. Along the road, large, gloomy potato fields, interspersed with irrigation canals, alternated with Scotch pine and birch woods, the ground bare, without undergrowth, dark and silent, seemingly sealed off from the beautiful June light. Piontek drove capably, at a steady speed. This taciturn family man was an excellent travel companion: he spoke only when addressed, and carried out his tasks calmly and methodically. Every morning, I found my boots polished and my uniform brushed and ironed; when I went out, the Opel was waiting, cleaned of any dust or mud from the day before. At meals, Piontek ate with gusto and drank little, and between meals, he never asked for anything. I had immediately given him our travel budget folder, and he kept the expenses meticulously up to date, noting down, with a pencil stub wetted between his lips, every pfennig spent. He spoke a rasping German, with a strong accent but correctly, and also got by in Polish. He had been born near Tarnowitz; in 1919, after the Partition, he and his family had found themselves Polish citizens, but had chosen to stay there, so as not to lose their plot of land; then his father had been killed in a riot, during the days of unrest before the war: Piontek assured me that it was an accident, and didn’t blame his old Polish neighbors, most of them expelled or arrested during the reincorporation of that part of Upper Silesia. Having become a citizen of the Reich again, he had been mobilized and had ended up in the police, and from there, he didn’t really know how, he had been assigned to the service of the Persönlicher Stab in Berlin. His wife, his two little girls, and his old mother still lived on their farm, and he didn’t see them often, but sent them most of his salary; in return they sent him things to supplement the usual fare—a chicken, half a goose, enough to treat a few comrades. Once I had asked him if he missed his family: Especially the little girls, he had replied, he missed not seeing them grow up; but he didn’t complain; he knew he was lucky, and that it was much better than freezing his ass off in Russia. “Begging your pardon, Sturmbannführer.”

In Lublin, as in Cracow, I put up at the Deutsches Haus. The taproom, when we arrived, was already animated; I had called ahead, and my room was reserved; Piontek would sleep in a dormitory for enlisted men. I took my things up and asked for some hot water to wash with. Twenty minutes later there was a knock on my door, and a young Polish servant came in with two steaming buckets. I pointed to the bathroom, and she went in to put them down. Since she didn’t come back out, I went in to see what she was doing: I found her half naked, undressed to the waist. Stunned, I looked at her red cheeks, her little breasts, tiny but charming; fists on her hips, she was staring at me with a bold smile. “What are you doing?” I asked severely.—“Me…wash…you,” she answered in broken German. I picked up her blouse from the stool where she had put it and handed it to her: “Get dressed and leave.” She obeyed with the same naturalness. That was the first time such a thing had happened to me: the Deutsches Häuser I knew were strictly run, but obviously this must have been a common practice here, and I didn’t think for an instant that it was restricted to the bath. After the girl had gone, I got undressed, washed, and, having changed into a dress uniform (for long journeys, because of the dust, I wore a gray field uniform), I went downstairs. A noisy crowd was now filling the bar and the restaurant. I went out into the backyard to smoke and found Piontek standing, cigarette dangling from his mouth, watching two teenagers wash our car. “Where did you find them?” I asked.—“Not me, Sturmbannführer. The Haus. The garage owner complains about it, actually—he says he could have Jews for free, but that the officers made scenes if a Jew touched their car. So he pays Poles like them, one reichsmark a day.” (Even in Poland, that was a ridiculous amount. A night at the Deutsches Haus, although subsidized, with three meals, came to about 12 RM; a coffee in Cracow cost 1.50 RM.) I watched the young Poles wash the car with him. Then I invited him to have dinner with me. We had to clear our way through the throng to find a free spot at a table. The men were drinking, shouting as if for the pleasure of hearing their own voices. There were SS there, Orpos, men from the Wehrmacht and from the Organisation Todt; almost everyone was in uniform, including many women, probably typists or secretaries. Polish waitresses threaded their way with difficulty with trayfuls of beer and food. The meal was plentiful: sliced roast beef, beets, seasoned potatoes. As I ate I observed the crowd. A lot of people were just drinking. The waitresses were having trouble: the men, already drunk, groped the girls’ breasts or buttocks as they went by, and since they had their hands full, they couldn’t defend themselves. Near the long bar was a group in SS-Totenkopf uniforms, probably personnel from the Lublin camp, with two women among them, Aufseherinnen, I imagine. One of them, who was drinking brandy, had a masculine face and laughed a lot; she held a riding crop with which she tapped her tall boots. At one point, one of the waitresses was blocked near them: the Aufseherin held out her whip and slowly, to the laughter of her comrades, lifted the girl’s skirt from behind, up to her buttocks. “You like that, Erich!” she exclaimed. “But her ass is filthy, like all Poles.” The others laughed louder: she let the skirt fall and whipped the backside of the girl, who let out a cry and had to make an effort not to spill her glasses of beer. “Go on, move, sow!” the Aufseherin shouted. “You stink.” The other woman chuckled and rubbed shamelessly against one of the noncoms. In the back of the room, under an arch, some Orpos were playing billiards, shouting loudly; near them, I noticed the young servant who had brought me hot water; she was sitting on the lap of an OT engineer, who had his hand slipped under her blouse and was feeling her up while she laughed and stroked his balding forehead. “Well,” I said to Piontek, “it’s definitely lively here, in Lublin.”—“Yeah. It’s known for that.” After the meal, I had a Cognac and a little Dutch cigar; the Haus had a full shelf at the bar; you could choose from many quality brands. Piontek had gone to bed. They had put music on, and couples were dancing; the second Aufseherin, obviously drunk, was holding her partner by the buttocks; an SS secretary was letting her neck be kissed by a Supply Corps Leutnant. This stifling, cloying, lewd, noise-filled atmosphere got on my nerves and ruined the pleasure I took from traveling, the joyful feeling of freedom I had felt during the day on the long, almost deserted roads. And it was impossible to escape this grating, sordid atmosphere; it followed you even into the john. The large room, though, was remarkably clean, tiled in white up to the ceiling, with thick oak doors, mirrors, fine porcelain sinks, and brass taps for running water; the stalls too were white and clean, they must have scrubbed the seatless Turkish-style toilets regularly. I undid my trousers and squatted down; when I had finished, I looked for paper, but there didn’t seem to be any; then I felt something touch my backside; I jumped and turned around, trembling, already reaching for my service revolver, my underpants ridiculously lowered: a man’s hand was stretched out through a hole in the wall and was waiting, palm up. A little fresh shit was already staining the tips of his fingers, where they had touched me. “Go away!” I screamed. “Go away!” Slowly, the hand withdrew from the hole. I burst into nervous laughter: it was vile, they had really gone mad, in Lublin. Fortunately I still had some squares of newspaper in my tunic, a good precaution when traveling. I quickly wiped myself and fled, without pulling the chain to flush. When I went back into the main room I had the impression that everyone would look at me, but no one was paying any attention, they were drinking and shrieking, with brutal or hysterical, crude laughter, like a medieval court. Shaken, I leaned on the bar and ordered another Cognac; as I drank, I looked at the fat Spiess from the KL, with the Aufseherin, and, repulsive thought, imagined him squatting down, having his ass wiped with delight by a Polish hand. I also wondered if the women’s bathroom benefited from a similar arrangement: looking at them, I thought the answer was yes. I finished my Cognac in one gulp and went up to go to bed; I slept poorly, because of the noise, but still better than poor Piontek: some Orpos had brought Polish girls back to the dormitory, and spent the night fornicating in the beds next to his, without any qualms, trading girls and making fun of him because he didn’t want one. “They pay them in canned food,” he explained to me laconically over breakfast.