"Paul-Loup Sulitzer - The Green King" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sulitzer Paul Loup)

"Keep it as long as it takes."
"Many thanks," said Klimrod, looking at the American officer once again. He continued. "Before Belzec, we had been at Janowska since August 11, 1941. And before that, at Lvov, at the parents of my mother, Hannah Itzkowitch. We had gone to Lvov on Saturday, July 5, 1941. My mother wanted to see her parents again and had obtained passports for the four of us in Vienna. We had left Vienna on July 3, a Thursday, because Lvov was no longer occupied by the Russians, but by the Germans. My mother had great faith in passports. She was wrong."
He started to leaf through the book, but his gesture was mechanical. He leaned over so that he could read the other titles.
"Montaigne. I know him."
"Take it as well," said Tarras, emotion forcing him to speak. Of the twenty books he had brought with him, as refuge from the horror if he had had to choose one, it would have been Montaigne.
"As for me," said Klimrod, "I survived."
Trying to regain his composure, Tarras reread his notes. He recited the list of camps, this time in chronological order: "Janowska, Belzec, Janowska again, Plaszow, Grossrosen, Buchenwald, Mauthauser . . ." He asked: "You really went through all these places?"
The boy nodded indifferently. He closed the glass doors of the cabinet, holding Tarras's books against his chest, with both hands.
"When did you become part of this group of young boys?" Klimrod moved away from the cabinet, took two steps toward the door.
"October 2, 1943. At Belzec. The ObersturmbannfUhrer assembled us at Beizec."
"This Obersturmbannf'dhrer whose name you don't know?" "That one," said Klimrod, taking another step toward the door.
He's lying, of course, thought Tarras, more and more disconcerted. Accepting the rest of the story as true-and Tarras believed it-it was inconceivable that the boy, who had such a fantastic memory, could forget the name of a man with whom he had lived for twenty months, from October 1943 to May 1945. He's lying and he knows I know. And he doesn't care. Nor does he try to justify himself, or to explain how he survived. Nor does he seem to feel any shame or hatred. But maybe he's in a state of shock.
The last explanation was the least convincing to Tarras. He didn't believe it. Truthfully, during this first visit with Reb Michael Klimrod, a visit that didn't last more than twenty minutes, Tarras suspected that there was in this emaciated boy, who barely had enough strength to stand, a great aptitude for dominating any given situation. A superiority-that was the word that came to his mind. Just as he could feel, physically, the overwhelming weight of intelligence burning behind Klimrod's pale, deep eyes.
The boy took another step toward the door. His profile had a cruel beauty to it. He was getting ready to leave. So, the last questions asked by Tarras were meant mainly to prolong the interview.
"And who whipped you and burned you with cigarettes?"
"You know the answer."
"The same officer, for twenty months?"
Silence. Another step toward the door.
"You told me that the Obersturmbannflihrer formed the group at Belzec on
"October 2, 1943."
"How many children were there?"
"One hundred and forty-two."
"Assembled for what reason?"
A slight movement of the head; he did not know. And this time, he is not lying. Tarras marveled at his own certainty. He asked more questions, hurriedly.
"How did you leave Belzec?"
"By truck."
"For Janowska?"
"Only thirty went to Janowska."
"And the other hundred and twelve?"
"Majdanek."
The name didn't mean anything to Tarras. He would learn later that it was another extermination camp, on Polish soil, on the order of Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Oswiecim, Chelmno.
"And it was the Obersturmbannflihrer who chose these thirty boys? There were only boys?"
"Yes, to both questions."
Reb Klimrod took the last two steps that separated him from the door, stood on the threshold. Tarras could see his profile.
"I will return them to you," he said. His hands moved over the Whitman and the Montaigne. "The books. I will return them to you." He smiled. "No more questions, please. The Obersturmbannfilhrer took us to Janowska. He started using us as women then. Later, when the Russians moved in, he and the other officers pretended to the German Army that they were on a special mission, to transport us. That is why they did not kill us, except when we couldn't keep up."
"You don't remember the names of any of these men?"
"None."
He's lying.
"How many children arrived with you at Mauthausen?"
"Sixteen."
"You were only nine in the grave where Lieutenant Settiniaz found you."
"When we arrived at Mauthausen, they killed seven of us. They kept only their favorites."
This was said in a calm and detached tone. He crossed the threshold, stopped one last time.
"May I ask your name?"
"Georges Tarras."
"T-a-two r's-a-s?"

Silence.
"I will return the books to you."
Austria had been divided into four military zones. Mauthausen was in the Russian zone. A large number of former prisoners were transferred to a camp for missing persons in Leonding, near Linz, in the American zone, in the buildings of a school on whose benches Adolf Hitler had sat, and across from a little house where Hitler's mother and father had lived for a long time. Georges Tarras, David Settiniaz, and their War Crimes unit went to Linz. Although the move put an added strain on their time, they didn't interrupt their search for former SS guards hiding in the area.