Perpetrator and victim - visiting Auschwitz

Beyond the electric fences which kept the prisoners inside the camp, there is a pleasant looking, double story house. This was the house of Rudolf Hoess, who ran the camp. It is located within easy walking distance of the gas chambers and the ovens. From one of the windows on the top floor, you could see the roof of the gas chamber, if you were to look, on any day, at any hour.

It was here that Hoess raised his children. This is where his family slept and ate their breakfast. This is where he relaxed. This is where he made love to his wife, heard his children preparing for school. This is where he listened to the radio, read a book, brushed his teeth, combed his hair, where he slept and where he rose in the morning for work.

As it happens, it was also within sight of his house, that he was hanged for his crimes, on a simple wooden scaffold, erected with wooden pillars on either side, holding aloft a single piece of railway track. It was erected for him and it stands today, in his terrible memory.

But it is this extraordinary fact of placement that grips one, when one visits Auschwitz. That the crimes he was committing, he did within easy walking distance from his family life. Thousands upon thousands of people were being tortured, maimed, experimented upon, shot, gassed and murdered in many other ways. On a daily and routine basis. Children were wrenched from their fathers arms and led to their deaths. Mothers were forced to watch while their babies were murdered in front of their eyes and then were put to death themselves.

Families were ruthlessly split. The weak and less useful were disposed of as quickly as possible. It was not, in a macabre sense, a problem for the Nazis of how many people could be killed at any one time. Their ability for this was fairly limitless. But the numbers of deaths posed a logistical problem of the time it took to dispose of their bodies. The first solution was mass burial. This required considerable space and the right kind of soil. In Birkenau, (also known as Auschwitz 2, and just down the road from Auschwitz 1) mass burial became unsustainable, because the soil was clay - and the bodies eventually would re-emerge , whenever it rained. So mass cremation replaced mass burial - and cremation placed an irritating limit on the amount of people who could be killed on any one day. Birkenau is, incidentally, some 30 times larger than Auschwitz 1. And when you walk on that ground, in some areas, it is the ashes of the dead that forms the dust on your shoes.

In one of the rooms in Auschwitz, there is a very large glass urn. It is filled with the ashes of what were once human beings. People with lives, and homes, and children, and hopes and dreams. There they lie now. All and everything that remains of them. Mixed together with others who shared their fate. A tragedy of innocence.

Innocence, because these people had done nothing other than live where they lived, worship where they worshipped, shop where they shopped, learn where they schooled. They had simply lived their lives. And this was what was deemed to be a crime worthy of the most indescribable punishment, suffering, death and utter and absolute dehumanisation and commodification.

One of our party found it most extraordinary that there was so much deception involved in the process: The Jews were told that they needed to bring a packed suitcase with them. (If they packed a suitcase, there must be a future!) They were told to bring a basin in which they would wash themselves. (If they had a basin and they could wash - surely it wouldn't be so bad!) They were told very explicitly, that Work means Freedom, on their arrival, as they walked into hell. (I'm strong. I can work. I will get my freedom!) They were told that they could bring with them fifty Deutschmark, to see them live in a little comfort after they arrived. (There must be, at least, the chance of a little more comfort! Why else would they suggest i bring money?)

Those who were so selected were told they would be able to shower. (If I shower, at least I will feel a little better!) The men should undress on the one side of a wall and the women on the other. It was a shower! It was so very welcome! They could not know that they would meet each other, naked, beyond that door. Their naked children would be with them. Their human dignity would be utterly destroyed, but they would be there, naked and alive, long enough to feel it all draining from their bodies. When the Zyclon B gas was pumped into the room, there was time enough for them, by far, to know what was happening to them - what had happened to them.

It took 10 minutes on a good day - but anything up to 30 minutes on a bad day - depending on weather conditions, after the gas was delivered into the chamber - for them all to die. There would be panic. There would be desperate and vain attempts to escape the horror. There would be prayers which were never answered. There would be people trampled beneath, in an orgy of despair and desperation.

When the chamber fell completely silent, as it always did, the bodies would be removed and processed. The bodies would be disinfected and the hair would be removed for recycling. Jewelry would be removed and collected, sorted, counted and dispatched. Clothes would be sorted and searched. Everything and anything useful or valuable would be sent back to Germany for sale or re-use. Nothing was discarded, unless it really was useless. Metal eyelets would be removed from the shoes of the victims - so detailed and so precise was the processing of the commodity.

Hitler needed an enemy. He needed an enemy to galvanize his party and his people. And when choosing an enemy, it would be wise to choose an enemy that is not too poor, which is why the Jews suited him so well. Because they were, effectively, the middle class of Poland. They could be trusted to bring with them their allocated fifty Deutschmark. They would have a suitcase. They would fill it with their belongings. They would, most likely, have gold filled teeth.

Hannah Arendt coined the phrase, some time ago, about the banality of evil. Banal, because it is so easy. Banal because of the fact that it does not take anyone very extraordinary to be evil. You do not need any special talents. You do not need to be athletic, or gifted, or beautiful (or indeed, ugly!) You do not need to be bright, or stupid, or particular in any way. You can be all of these things, and none.

Some years ago, I encountered the Psychologist, Elaine Bing, who has spent most of her professional life working with perpetrators of violence. These people - usually men - are obviously not the most beloved of society. They have committed horrible crimes. More often than not way in excess of any order they might have received. More often than not, they are outwardly normal. They lead seemingly normal lives. You would not be able to identify them by the way they look or the way they live. To all intents and purposes, they are upstanding members of society. They will frequently attend church. They will, perhaps, love culture. They will appreciate art or a good novel. But below the surface, they are something very different.

They have no pity for their victims. They have no boundaries for any of their chilling behaviour. They have no remorse. They have no insight into any of the pain or any of the suffering and destruction they have caused.

I asked Elaine how she coped with dealing with them. How did she survive her encounters? How did she not feel contaminated and sullied? Her response was as powerful as it was shocking. She said "I think to myself, that could be me".

Whalemeat Rissoles

In her younger days, my cousin was a very elegant woman indeed. She tells me now, aged 87, that she always had an inferiority complex about the way she looked – which is odd, because she always looked extremely elegant. But complexes aren’t based on fact, usually – anyway, I digress.

She is about to move into a frail care unit and so she is turfing out a whole range of stuff she once used but now no longer needs. To me came two cookbooks “The Royal Hostess – South Africa’s own cookbook”, the first version (dated 1953), calls itself. The second, the 10th edition revised – is dated 1978.

It was recipes for Whalemeat, which caught my eye. The book does a little preamble to the recipes which reads as follows:

“During the War years, whalemeat (sic – no capital even!) was introduced in England to supplement the very meagre amount of animal protein supplied by the few ounces of weekly meat ration. With proper handling and cooking, British housewives found they could produce nourishing and tasty meals from Whalemeat. South Africa too has had to fall back on whalemeat during the severe meat shortages we experience each winter...”

The preamble continues:

"The following suggestions and recipes may tempt housewives to try whalemeat for themselves, and, if they follow the instructions carefully”, the writer assures us, they will be “agreeably surprised at the appetizing results”.

Just in case you may have wondered about it, the taste of Whalemeat is described as “a blend of steak and liver” which is hard to distinguish from “ordinary meat” if correctly prepared.

So that is what the fuss is about in Japan! That is why they need as much Whale hunting as they do “for scientific purposes” of course. For the “blend of steak and liver” taste.

If any Japanese readers (or indeed other Whale eaters) are looking for the “proper methods of handling, and suitable recipes for the preparation of this cheap yet valuable protein food”, just let me know. I will be happy to share with them Whale meat recipe tips from the Royal Hostess.

What about bad heritage?

Picture: Art Harris - Fort Wynyard 2003

There is an interesting piece in today's Cape Times newspaper on the intended actions of Polish mayor Maria Kurowska, who is mayor of a town called Jaslo, in rural south-eastern Poland. Apparently, an oak tree is obstructing progress towards building a traffic circle in a particular area. When plans were submitted to the authorities, it was discovered that the tree had been planted during the Second World War, to mark Adolf Hitler's birthday. "So," said the mayor, "should I try to improve our town's communications, or should I allow a memorial to that criminal to remain standing? The choice is simple!"

Naturally, not everyone agrees. A certain man by the name of Kazimierz Polak, who was at the planting ceremony 67 years ago, said that his father told him that the seedling was brought from Braunau am Inn (in Austria) where Hitler was born. "It's an historic curiosity. What is the oak guilty of? It's not the tree's fault that it was planted here to honour the biggest criminal and enemy of Poland."

Now, to my mind, they both make pretty reasonable points. And I did a bit of mental shifting to place the same thing in our South African context. I have to say that I have been a bit surprised by the reticence and even restraint there has been in relation to dealing with Apartheid, Afrikaner and Colonial history in our country. I bet there are still Hendrick Verwoerd and DF Malan streets all over the place, even though the main ones in the big cities have given way to kinder personalities. The Voortrekker Monument still stands proudly on a hill overlooking the city which is still called Pretoria.

I went to visit, the other day, Fort Wynyard, which is literally within the shadow of the new Greenpoint Stadium, which is being built for the FIFA 2010 World Cup. It was one of the fortifications which has protected Table Bay for a very long time, and whose existence has meant that the Bay itself was never invaded. It is in terrible condition. There are rusted guns lying all over the place, but it is still there and there are intelligent discussions going on at the moment to ensure rehabilitation before 2010.

Now is that a good thing or a bad thing? One could certainly argue that paying for the rehabilitation (or at least preservation) of a fortification, as opposed to feeding babies, or housing people, is a bit difficult to justify. Why not just sell the land to developers (who would be falling over themselves to get at it) and use the money to build clinics and houses?

Well, because it is short sighted - that's why. While I am really not convinced that tourists would flock to see an oak tree planted in honour of Adolf Hitler, to cut it down does have the effect of depriving the town, or village (or country) of some of its heritage - bad as that heritage may be. And where does one stop? After you have cut down the oak tree, should they then get rid of Auschwitz? After we have sold off Fort Wynyard, why not turn the Castle of Good Hope into a boutique themed hotel?

There has been a lot of noise recently, about the changing of street names in Durban - which itself is named after a really evil colonialist, Benjamin d'Urban. There is even an advert on the radio saying that this street is now called that street and then (by strange inference), this car hire company is now called that car hire company. There have been people weeping and wailing in radio talk shows about how difficult it is for tourists to get around with outdated maps and how people who get lost and going to inevitably get led astray and mugged.

Personally, I have very little sympathy for this. I don't know the detail of Durban, but I was overjoyed when places like Pietermaritzburg changed its street names to those of people who are undoubted and unarguable icons of South Africa. (Sadly, it will be a very long time before Cape Town follows suit). But what do we keep? At the moment, we seem to be somewhere betwixt and between. A bit like our political settlement itself. But just as there are issues being raised at the moment, about the viability and the necessity of having the kind of peculiar hybrid anthem which we have, surely other issues of heritage must also be placed on the table for scrutiny and re-examination.

But when we do so, let us be clear. If we choose to make the traffic circle which requires that we cut down the tree, at the very least, we should name it Hitler Birthday Tree Planting traffic circle, or something like that - so that some of that history is retained and not lost forever in the wake of progress and development.