“If the Gruppenführer hears you, Kurt, you’ll end up a Sturmmann in Orel and no more nix ponimai.” Wippern, another department head in the Einsatz, had come over and was scolding Claasen. “Listen, we’re going swimming, are you coming?” Claasen looked at me: “Will you come? There’s a pool in the back of the park.” I took another beer from an ice bucket and followed them through the trees: in front of us, I heard laughter, splashing. On the left, barbed wire ran behind the pines: “What’s that?” I asked Claasen. “A little camp of Arbeitsjuden. The Gruppenführer keeps them there for maintenance work, the garden, the vehicles, things like that.” The pool was separated from the camp by a narrow rise; several people, including two women in bathing suits, were swimming or sunbathing on the grass. Claasen stripped down to his boxer shorts and dove in. “Are you coming?” he shouted as he resurfaced. I drank a little more, then, folding my uniform next to my boots, got undressed and went into the water. It was cool, somewhat the color of tea; I did a few laps and then stayed in the middle, floating on my back and contemplating the sky and the trembling treetops. Behind me, I heard the two girls chatting, sitting by the edge of the pool, paddling their feet in the water. A quarrel broke out: some officers had pushed Wippern, who didn’t want to get undressed, into the water; he was swearing and raging as he extracted himself from the pool in his soaking uniform. While I watched the others laughing, maintaining my position in the middle of the pool with little hand movements, two helmeted Orpos appeared behind the rise, rifles on their shoulders, pushing in front of them two very thin men in striped uniforms. Claasen, standing by the edge of the pool, still dripping in his boxer shorts, called out: “Franz! What the hell are you up to?” The two Orpos saluted; the prisoners, who were walking with their eyes to the ground, caps in hand, stopped. “These Yids were caught stealing potato peelings, Sturmbannführer,” explained one of the Orpos in a thick Volksdeutschen dialect. “Our Scharführer told us to shoot them.” Claasen’s face darkened: “Well, you’re not going to do that here, I hope. The Gruppenführer has guests.”—“No, no, Sturmbannführer, we’ll go farther away, to the trench over there.” A vivid anguish seized me without any warning: the Orpos were going to shoot the Jews right here and throw them into the pool, and we would swim in the blood, between the bodies bobbing on their stomachs. I looked at the Jews; one of them, who must have been about forty, was furtively examining the girls; the other, younger, his skin yellowish, kept his eyes riveted to the ground. Far from being reassured by the Orpo’s last words, I felt an intense tension, my distress only increased. When the Orpos started moving again I remained in the middle of the pool, forcing myself to breathe deeply and to float. But the water now weighed on me like a wet woollen cloak, suffocating me. This strange state lasted until I heard the two gunshots, a little farther away, scarcely audible, like the pop! pop! of Champagne bottles being opened. Slowly, my anguish ebbed away and then disappeared altogether when I saw the Orpos return, still walking with their heavy, steady steps. They saluted us again as they went by and continued on to the camp. Claasen was talking with one of the girls, Wippern was trying to dry out his uniform. I let myself go and floated.
