Helen Zelon

Tuhk tuhk, tuhk tuhk.

Silence.

Then again: tuhk tuhk, tuhk tuhk, tuhk tuhk.

Getting closer. The sounds of hard heels on cobblestones, the sharp clatter of an officer’s walk on ancient, uneven streets. Now fading: tuhk tuhk, tuhk tuhk, soft in the gaining distance.

Rudolf Natter, on his evening rounds, walking on Mila Street, passing the blocks of crammed apartments, lingering on the corner, near Pawiak Prison. Deliberately he steps, his oiled leather boots gleaming silver in the moonlight. The boots are his pride; he steps over muddy gutters and choleric beggars to avoid soiling their hand-stitched soles. Tuhk tuhk, tuhk tuhk, then a little sigh of exertion as he hoists himself over just such an obstacle, and again, tuhk tuhk, tuhk tuhk, tuhk tuhk.

Natter was an SS man. Assigned to the Warsaw Ghetto, he prowled the streets with a pistol on one hip and a bullwhip curled on the other. No one saw him actually use the whip; it seemed permanently coiled in its place, more trophy than weapon. But the pistol, well, he did not hesitate when the time to shoot was at hand.

The time to shoot was a flexible thing. Sometimes, of course, one had to shoot unbidden – say, when a laborer leaving the Ghetto for a shift at the Derringwerke munitions plant stepped out of line or clumsily, idiotically, tried to slip away. Then, Natter shot. A single shot, usually, sometimes to hurt, sometimes to kill, but always – or nearly so – a hit. People saw him shoot and laugh; heard him hold a conversation with barely a breath-stop for shooting and then saw a limp body crumple, or heard the cry of a man in hot, searing pain. Natter shot. He was good at his job. Took pride in it. He kept his pistol as clean as his boots. …

Read the rest of Part I at ducts.org.

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