The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg Read Free Book Online Page B

The section of the ghetto administration
under the city’s jurisdiction was in Moltkestrasse, in central
Litzmannstadt.
    The head of the ghetto administration
was Hans Biebow.
    Biebow supported Rumkowski’s plans from
the very start. If Rumkowski told Biebow they were a hundred cutting-out
machines short, then Biebow arranged delivery of a hundred cutting-out
machines.
    Or sewing machines.
    Sewing machines were hard to get hold
of in wartime, in an economic crisis. Many of those fleeing Poland before the
German invasion had taken their more basic machines with them.
    But Biebow managed to organise even
sewing machines. They might not arrive in full working order, for Biebow always
tried to pay the lowest possible price. But Rumkowski would reply that it didn’t
matter if the Singer machines were in a usable state or not. He had foreseen the
problem and set up two sewing-machine repair workshops in the ghetto: one at 6
Rembrandtstrasse (Jakuba), the other at 18 Putzigerstrasse (Pucka).
    This was how their collaboration
initially worked:
    Whatever the one saw a need for, the
other procured.
    And that was how the ghetto grew:
suddenly, out of nothing, materialised the German army’s most important stock
supplier.
    *
    Here’s
Biebow. He’s holding a garden party for his staff in a leafy inner
courtyard near the offices of the German occupying authorities in
Moltkestrasse.
    In the background: a long table,
decorated with wreaths and freshly cut flowers. Rows of tall, fluted glasses.
Piles of plates. Platters of cakes, pastries and fruit. People are standing in a
crowd round the table, most of them in uniform.
    Biebow himself in the foreground,
wearing a light-coloured suit with narrow lapels to the jacket, and a dark tie.
His hair is in the military style, shaved right up the back of his neck, and
parted to one side, accentuating the angular shape of his face, with its
pronounced chin and cheekbones. Beside him, one can glimpse Joseph Hämmerle, the
head of finance, and Wilhelm Ribbe, who was in charge of goods deliveries and
stock purchase in the ghetto. The latter’s narrow, foxy-looking face looks out
from between two rather plump women, while his arms are round their waists. The
two women have permed hair and very obvious dimples. The reason for their
laughter is the Torah scroll in Biebow’s hand, which he has been given as a
birthday present.
    In actual fact, it is one of the
scrolls the community rabbis were able to save at the last moment from the
burning synagogue in Wolborska Street in November 1939, scrolls which the German
authorities have now, as it were, confiscated all over again, this time with the
express purpose of giving them to Biebow as a gift . It is widely known among senior German officers and officials
in Łódź that Biebow has a comical weakness for Judaica of all kinds. He even
considers himself something of an expert on Jewish questions. He has already, in
a letter to the Reichssicherheitshauptamt in Berlin, offered to take over the
running of the concentration camp in Theresienstadt personally. There are
cultivated Jews there, as opposed to the poor and uneducated workers who jostle
for space here.
    By this stage, Rumkowski thinks he has
got to know Biebow quite well. Er ist uns kein
Fremder , is how he often describes him. Nothing could be further from
the truth.
    Biebow is an erratic administrator.
Sometimes he is absent from the ghetto for weeks on end, only to turn up with a
huge delegation and demand immediate stocktaking in every factory. With his
bodyguards in tow, he then goes from workshop to workshop, searching their
stores of materials for anything hidden away on the sly. If, on his way back to
Bałuty Square, he happens to pass a wagon or handcart of potatoes or vegetables
en route to the soup kitchens of the ghetto, and a single potato falls off the
back, he gestures majestically to halt the vehicle, and goes down on hands and
knees to retrieve the dropped potato. Then wipes it on