I inspected the different parts of the camp in detail. I went back several times to Birkenau, and had them show me the systems for inventorying the confiscated property at the Kanada. It was chaos: crates of uncounted currency lay in heaps, one walked on banknotes, torn and pressed into the mud of the alleys. In principle, the inmates were searched at the zone’s exit; but I imagined that with a watch or a few reichsmarks, it must not have been difficult to bribe a guard. The “green” kapo who kept the accounts confirmed this to me indirectly: after showing me around his piles of clutter—the shifting mountains of used clothing, from which teams unstitched the yellow stars before repairing the clothes, sorting them, re-piling them; the crates of glasses, watches, pens, jumbled together; the orderly rows of strollers and baby carriages; the clumps of women’s hair, consigned in bales to German firms that transformed it into socks for our submariners, mattress stuffing, and insulating material; and the disparate piles of religious paraphernalia, which no one really knew what to do with—this inmate functionary, as he was about to leave me, said to me carelessly, in his cheeky Hamburg dialect: “If you need anything, let me know, I’ll take care of it.”—“What do you mean?” “Oh, sometimes it’s pretty easy. Anything to be of service, y’know—we like to oblige.” That was what Morgen was talking about: the camp SS, with the complicity of the inmates, had come to consider this Kanada as their private reserve. Morgen had advised me to visit the guards’ barrack rooms: I found SS officers lounging on expensively upholstered sofas, half drunk, staring off into emptiness; a few female Jewish inmates, dressed not in regulation striped uniforms but in light dresses, were cooking sausages and potato pancakes on a large cast-iron stove; they were all real beauties, and they had kept their hair; and when they served the guards, bringing them food or pouring them alcohol from crystal carafes, they addressed them familiarly, using the du form, and calling them by their nicknames. Not one of the guards had gotten up to salute me. I gave the Spiess who accompanied me on my visits a shocked look; he shrugged: “They’re tired, Sturmbannführer. They’ve had a hard day, you know. Two transports already.” I’d have liked to have them open their lockers, but my position didn’t authorize me to: I was sure I’d have found all kinds of objects and money. What’s more, this generalized corruption appeared to rise to the highest level, as remarks I’d overheard suggested. At the bar of the Haus der Waffen-SS, I had surprised a conversation between a camp Oberscharführer and a civilian; the noncom, sniggering, was explaining that he had delivered to Frau Höss “a basket full of panties, the best quality, in silk and lace. She wanted to replace her old ones, you see.” He didn’t say where they came from, but I guessed readily enough. I myself received propositions; I was offered bottles of Cognac or victuals, to improve my usual fare. I refused, but politely: I didn’t want these officers to mistrust me; that would have harmed my work.
