The Gruppenstab kept all our research materials in Voroshilovsk. I compiled a brief report for Bierkamp and Leetsch with what I found: the results were meager. According to a 1941 pamphlet from the Institute for the Study of Foreign Countries, entitled List of Nationalities Living in the USSR, the Bergjuden were in fact Jews. A more recent SS brochure gave a few additional precisions: Mixed Oriental peoples, of Indian or other descent, but of Jewish origin, arrived in the Caucasus in the eighth century. Finally, I found a more detailed evaluation, ordered by the SS from the Wannsee Institute: The Jews of the Caucasus are not assimilated, the text asserted, referring to the Russian Jews as well as to the Bergjuden. According to the author, the Mountain Jews or Daghestani Jews (Dagh Chufuti), like the Jews of Georgia (Kartveli Ebraelebi), arrived, around the time of the birth of Jesus, from Palestine, Babylon, and the lands of the Medes. Without citing any sources, it concluded: Regardless of the accuracy of one opinion or another, the Jews as a whole, newcomers as well as Bergjuden, are Fremdkörper, foreign bodies in the region of the Caucasus. A cover note from Amt IV specified that this evaluation was enough to give the Einsatzgruppe the necessary clarity to identify the Weltanschauungsgegner, the “ideological enemies,” in its theater of operations. The next day, when Bierkamp returned, I presented my report to him, which he quickly skimmed through. “Very good, very good. Here is your mission order for the Wehrmacht.”—“What does Sturmbannführer Persterer say about the village mentioned by Shadov?”—“He says they did liquidate a Jewish kolkhoz in that region, on September twentieth. But he doesn’t know if they were Bergjuden or not. In the meantime, one of the elders of those Jews came to the Kommando, to Nalchik. I had an account of the discussion drawn up for you.” I examined the document he held out to me: the elder, a certain Markel Shabaev, had presented himself wearing a cherkesska and a tall astrakhan hat; speaking Russian, he had explained that there lived in Nalchik several thousand Tats, an Iranian people whom the Russians mistakenly called Gorski Evrei. “According to Persterer,” Bierkamp added, visibly annoyed, “it’s this same Shabaev who asked Shadov to intercede. You’ll have to see him, I guess.”
When von Gilsa called me to his office two days later, he looked preoccupied. “What’s going on, Herr Oberst?” I asked him. He showed me a line on his large wall map: “Generaloberst von Mackensen’s Panzers have stopped advancing. The Soviet resistance has dug itself in in front of Ordzhonikidze, and it’s already snowing down there. But we’re just seven kilometers away from the city.” His eyes followed the long blue line that snaked along and then rose up to vanish in the sands of the Kalmuk Steppe. “They’re stuck in Stalingrad too. Our troops are worn out. If the OKH doesn’t send reinforcements soon we’ll spend the winter here.” I didn’t say anything and he changed the subject. “Were you able to look at the problem of those Bergjuden?” I explained to him that according to our documentation they had to be considered Jews. “Our experts seem to believe the opposite,” he replied. “And Dr. Bräutigam too. General Köstring suggests we call a meeting about this tomorrow, in Voroshilovsk; he wants the SS and the SP to be represented.”—“Fine. I will inform the Oberführer.” I telephoned Bierkamp, who asked me to come; he too would attend the meeting. I went up to Voroshilovsk with von Gilsa. The sky was overcast, gray but dry; the peaks of the volcanoes disappeared into shifting, wild, capricious, nebulous whorls. Von Gilsa was in a glum mood and was brooding over his pessimism of the day before. An assault had just failed again. “The front won’t move anymore, I think.” He was also very worried about Stalingrad: “Our flanks are very vulnerable. Our allied troops are really second-rate, and the corsetting doesn’t help much. If the Soviets try to pull off something big, they’ll collapse. In that case, the position of the Sixth Army could be weakened fast.”—“You don’t really think, though, that the Russians still have the reserves necessary for an offensive? Their losses in Stalingrad are enormous, and they’re throwing in everything they have just to hold the city.”—“No one really knows what the state of the Soviet reserves is,” he replied. “Since the beginning of the war, we’ve been underestimating them. Why wouldn’t we have underestimated them again here?”
