The Kindly Ones

by Jonathan Littell

Koch was transferred here, to command the KL, and I followed him. I discovered a network of corruption that covered all the camps. Finally, last summer, Koch was suspended. But he had also had most of the witnesses assassinated, including a Hauptscharführer in Buchenwald, one of his accomplices. Here, he had all the Jewish witnesses killed; we opened an investigation into that too, but then all the Jews in the KL were executed; when we tried to react, they pleaded superior orders to us.”—“But such orders exist, you must know that.”—“I learned it then. And it’s clear that in that case we have no jurisdiction. But, still, there is a distinction: if a member of the SS has a Jew killed in the context of superior orders, that’s one thing; but if he has a Jew killed to cover his embezzlements, or for his own perverted pleasure, as also happens, that’s another thing, that’s a crime. Even if the Jew is to die anyway.”