From Cracow, I had already phoned to make an appointment with Gruppenführer Globocnik, the SSPF of the Lublin district. Globocnik in fact had two offices: one for his SSPF staff, and another, on Pieradzky Street, from which the Einsatz Reinhard was run and where he had invited me to meet him. Globocnik was a powerful man, much more than his rank indicated; his superior in the hierarchy, the HSSPF of the Generalgouvernement (Obergruppenführer Krüger), had almost no right of supervision over the Einsatz, which covered all the Jews in the GG and thus extended quite a bit beyond Lublin; for that, Globocnik reported directly to the Reichsführer. He also held important functions within the Reichskommissariat for the Strengthening of Germandom. The HQ of the Einsatz was set up in a former medical school, a squat, yellow ocher building with a red pitched roof, characteristic of this region where German influence had always been strong, and where you entered through a wide double door under a half-moon archway, still surmounted by the inscription COLLEGIUM ANATOMICUM. An orderly welcomed me and led me to Globocnik. The Gruppenführer, buttoned into a uniform so tight it seemed a size too small for his imposing build, received my salute perfunctorily and waved a mission order in front of me: “So, just like that, the Reichsführer sends me a spy!” He let out a loud laugh. Odilo Globocnik was a Carinthian, born in Trieste, and was probably of Croat origin; an Altkämpfer from the Austrian NSDAP, he had briefly been Gauleiter in Vienna, after the Anschluss, before being sacked over some currency trafficking. He had served prison time under Dollfuss, for the murder of a Jewish jeweler: officially, that made him a martyr of the Kampfzeit, but malicious tongues argued that the Jew’s diamonds had played a larger role in the affair than ideology. He was still waving my paper: “Admit it, Sturmbannführer! The Reichsführer doesn’t trust me anymore, is that it?” Still standing at attention, I tried to justify myself: “Gruppenführer, my mission…” He let out another Homeric burst of laughter: “I’m joking, Sturmbannführer! I know better than anyone that I have the Reichsführer’s full confidence. Doesn’t he call me his old Globus? And not just the Reichsführer! The Führer in person has come to congratulate me on our great work. Have a seat. Those are his own words, a great work. ‘Globocnik,’ he said to me, ‘you are one of the forgotten heroes of Germany. I would like every newspaper to be able to publish your name and your exploits! In a hundred years, when we can talk about all this, your great deeds will be taught to children right in elementary school! You are a valiant knight, and I admire the fact that you have been able to remain so modest, so discreet, having accomplished such things.’ And I said—the Reichsführer was there too—‘My Führer, I’ve only done my duty.’ Have a seat, have a seat.” I took the armchair he indicated; he flopped down next to me, slapping me on my thigh, then reached behind himself for a box of cigars and offered me one. When I refused, he insisted: “In that case, keep it for later.” He lit one himself. His moonlike face beamed with satisfaction. On the hand that held the lighter, his thick, gold SS ring looked as if it were encrusted in a pudgy finger. He exhaled the smoke with a grimace of pleasure. “If I understand the Reichsführer’s letter right, you’re one of those bores who want to save the Jews under the pretext that we need labor?”—“Not at all, Gruppenführer,” I replied courteously. “The Reichsführer gave me the order to analyze the problems of the Arbeitseinsatz as a whole, in view of future evolutions.”—“I imagine you want to see our installations?”—“If you mean the gassing stations, Gruppenführer, that doesn’t concern me. It’s more the question of the selections, and the use of the Arbeitsjuden that preoccupies me. So I would like to begin with Osti and the DAW.”—“Osti! Another of Pohl’s grand ideas! We’re gathering millions, here, for the Reich, millions, and Pohl wants me to look after secondhand clothes, like a Jew. Ostindustrie, give me a break! Another fine piece of crap they’ve inflicted on me.”—“Perhaps, Gruppenführer, but…”—“No ‘but’! The Jews are going to have to disappear in any case, all of them, industry or no industry. Of course, we can keep a few, long enough to train Poles to replace them. The Poles are dogs, but they can look after secondhand clothes, if that’s useful for the Heimat. So long as it’s profitable, I’m not against it. But you’ll see that. I’ll fix you up with my deputy, Sturmbannführer Höfle. He’ll explain to you how it all works and you’ll sort things out with him.” He got up, the cigar wedged between two fingers, and shook my hand. “You can see anything you want, of course. If the Reichsführer sent you, that’s because you know how to hold your tongue. Here I shoot blabbermouths. That happens every week. But for you, I’m not worried. If you have a problem, come see me. Goodbye.”

Höfle, his deputy for the Einsatz Reinhard, was also an Austrian, but much more staid than his superior. He received me with a dispirited, weary air: “Not too shaken up? Don’t worry about him, he’s like that with everyone.” He chewed his lip and pushed a piece of paper toward me: “I have to ask you to sign this.” I skimmed over the text: it was a declaration of secrecy, in five points. “But it seems to me,” I said, “that I’m already compelled to secrecy by my very position.”—“I know. But it’s a rule imposed by the Gruppenführer. Everyone has to sign.” I shrugged my shoulders: “If it makes him happy.” I signed. Höfle put the paper away in a folder and crossed his hands on his desk. “Where do you want to start?”—“I don’t know. Explain your system to me.”—“It’s quite simple, really. We have three installations: two on the Bug and one on the Galician border, in Belzec, which we’re in the process of closing because Galicia, aside from the labor camps, is mostly judenrein. Treblinka, which mainly served Warsaw, is also going to be closed. But the Reichsführer has just given the order to transform Sobibor into a KL, which will be done toward the end of the year.”—“And all the Jews pass through these three centers?”—“No. For logistical reasons, it wasn’t possible or practical to evacuate all the little towns in the region. For that, the Gruppenführer received some Orpo battalions that dealt with those Jews on-site, little by little. I’m the one who directs the Einsatz on a day-to-day basis, together, with my inspector of the camps, Sturmbannführer Wirth, who’s been there since the beginning. We also have a training camp for Hiwis, mostly Ukrainians and Latvians, in Travniki.”—“And aside from them, all your personnel are SS?”—“Actually, no. Out of about four hundred and fifty men, not counting the Hiwis, almost a hundred were assigned to us by the Führer’s Chancellery. Almost all our camp commanders are from there. Tactically, they’re under control of the Einsatz, but administratively, they depend on the Chancellery. They supervise everything having to do with salaries, leaves, promotions, and so on. Apparently it’s a special agreement between the Reichsführer and Reichsleiter Bouhler. Some of those men aren’t even members of the Allgemeine-SS or of the Party. But they’re all veterans of the Reich’s euthanasia centers; when most of those centers were closed, some of the personnel, with Wirth at their head, were transferred here so that the Einsatz could profit from their experience.”—“I see. And Osti?”—“Osti is a recent creation, the result of a partnership between the Gruppenführer and the WVHA. Since the beginning of the Einsatz, we’ve had to set up centers to deal with the confiscated goods; little by little, they’ve expanded into various kinds of workshops, for the war effort. Ostindustrie is a limited liability corporation created last November to regroup and rationalize all those workshops. The board of directors named an administrator from the WVHA, Dr. Horn, to run it, along with the Gruppenführer. Horn is a rather nitpicking bureaucrat, but I suppose he’s competent.”—“And the KL?” Höfle waved his hand: “The KL has nothing to do with us. It’s an ordinary WVHA camp; of course, the Gruppenführer is responsible for it as SS- und Polizeiführer, but it’s completely separate from the Einsatz. They also manage companies, especially a workshop of the DAW, but that’s the responsibility of the SS economist attached to the SSPF. Of course, we cooperate closely; some of our Jews have been handed over to them, either to work, or for Sonderbehandlung; and not long ago, since we were overflowing, they set up their own installations for the ‘special treatment.’ Then you have all the armament enterprises of the Wehrmacht, which also use the Jews we’ve provided them; but that’s the responsibility of the Armaments Inspectorate of the GG, headed by Generalleutnant Schindler, in Cracow. Finally, you have the civilian economic network, under the control of the new district governor, Gruppenführer Wendler. You might be able to see him, but be careful, he doesn’t get along at all with Gruppenführer Globocnik.”—“The local economy doesn’t interest me; what concern me are the channels for assigning prisoners, in terms of the economy as a whole.”—“I think I understand. Go see Horn, then. His head’s a little in the clouds, but you can probably get something out of him.”