But, of all the sequences in Shoah, the one that haunted me the most was the memorandum – the first part of which we saw at the beginning of this book. It had no narrative to it, it was not connected to a human being, just a disembodied voice reading a letter, a communication from one businessman to another. An interminable shot of industrial Germany, the Ruhr, wet roads, factories, cooling towers, and then a close-up image of the front of a truck. The camera focussed in further and further on a strange blue and white logo on the grill – ‘Saurer’ – a name I didn’t know.
It transpired that the letter being read was a memorandum sent from one SS officer (with hellish irony a man named Just) to another, Obersturmbannführer Rauff, concerning how Saurer lorries might be adapted to gas people more rapidly, more efficiently. A piece of bureaucracy. A business transaction. The tone is pragmatic, almost bored. And in those few minutes in the Curzon cinema, though I didn’t realise it at the time, something shifted within me. Instinctively I felt that the coldness and seeming banality of this document was more significant than all the accounts of the Holocaust I’d read before. Primarily because the language was so commonplace, it could have been a communication between departments of any corporation at any time over the last fifty years. In this moment I glimpsed something I later realised as a critical truth – the modernity of what we habitually think of as ‘the Holocaust’, a distant, historical event. No, the language, and therefore the psychology and the behaviour of the men who exchanged this memo, is entirely of our times. After this realisation it was impossible for me to think about those years as in the distant past, I was compelled by a sense of past and present colliding – of our absolute connectedness to this language and the terror it unleashed, and still unleashes today – because such memos are being written now as you read this page. The subject of the memos may change, but the result is still death on a massive scale. Memos by operators of drones in Afghanistan, memos by lawyers in Washington, memos by politicians trying to justify illegal ‘interventions’. All today, still stamped ‘Secret Business’ at the top.
I’ve finally been able to find a copy of the original memorandum, including the underlinings made by Just.fn1 It is noteworthy that only a single copy of this document was sent, reflecting the extreme secrecy of the correspondence with Rauff.
II D 3 a (9) NI. 214/42 GRS
Berlin, 5th June 1942
Only copy
Reich Secret Business
I. Note:
Conc.: Technical adjustments to special vans at present in service and to those that are in production.
Since December 1941, ninety-seven thousand have been processed, using three vans, without any defects showing up in the vehicles. The explosion that we know took place at Kulmhoffn2 is to be considered an isolated case. The cause can be attributed to improper operation. In order to avoid such incidents, special instructions have been addressed to the services concerned. Safety has been increased considerably as a result of these instructions.
Previous experience has shown that the following adjustments would be useful:
1.) In order to facilitate the rapid distribution of CO, as well as to avoid a build-up of pressure, two slots, ten by one centimetres, will be bored at the top of the rear wall. The excess pressure would be controlled by an easily adjustable hinged metal valve on the outside of the vents.
2.) The normal capacity of the vans is nine to ten per square metre. The capacity of the larger special Saurer vans is not so great.fn3 The problem is not one of overloading but of off-road manoeuvrability on all terrains, which is severely diminished in this van. It would appear that a reduction in the cargo area is necessary. This can be achieved by shortening the compartment by about one metre. The problem cannot be solved by merely reducing the number of subjects treated, as has been done so far. For in this case a longer running time is required, as the empty space also needs to be filled with CO. On the contrary, were the cargo area smaller, but fully occupied, the operation would take considerably less time, because there would be no empty space.
The manufacturer pointed out during discussions that a reduction in the volume of the cargo compartment would result in an inconvenient displacement of the cargo toward the front. There would then be a risk of overloading the axle. In fact, there is a natural compensation in the distribution of the weight. When [the van] is in operation, the load, in its effort to reach the rear door, places itself for the most part at the rear. For this reason the front axle is not overloaded.
3.) The pipe that connects the exhaust to the van tends to rust, because it is eaten away from the inside by liquids that flow into it. To avoid this the nozzle should be so arranged as to point downward. The liquids will thus be prevented from flowing into [the pipe].
4.) To facilitate the cleaning of the vehicle, an opening will be made in the floor to allow for drainage. It will be closed by a watertight cover about twenty to thirty centimetres in diameter, fitted with an elbow siphon that will allow for the drainage of thin liquids. The upper part of the elbow pipe will be fitted with a sieve to avoid obstruction. Thicker dirt can be removed through the large drainage hole when the vehicle is cleaned. The floor of the vehicle can be tipped slightly. In this way all the liquids can be made to flow toward the centre and be prevented from entering the pipes.
5.) The observation windows that have been installed up to now could be eliminated, as they are hardly ever used. Considerable time will be saved in the production of the new vans by avoiding the difficult fitting of the window and its airtight lock.
6.) Greater protection is needed for the lighting system. The grille should cover the lamps high enough up to make it impossible to break the bulb. It seems that these lamps are hardly ever turned on, so the users have suggested that they could be done away with. Experience shows, however, that when the back door is closed and it gets dark inside, the load pushes hard against the door. The reason for this is that when it becomes dark inside the load rushes toward what little light remains. This hampers the locking of the door. It has also been noticed that the noise provoked by the locking of the door is linked to the fear aroused by the darkness. It is therefore expedient to keep the lights on before the operation and during the first few minutes of its duration. Lighting is also useful for night work and for the cleaning of the interior of the van.
7.) To facilitate the rapid unloading of the vehicles, a removable grid is to be placed on the floor. It will slide on rollers on a U-shaped rail. It will be removed and put in position by means of a small winch placed under the vehicle. The firm charged with the alterations has stated that it is not able to continue for the moment, due to a lack of staff and materials. Another firm will have to be found.
The technical changes planned for the vehicles already in operation will be carried out when and as major repairs to these vehicles prove necessary. The alterations in the ten Saurer vehicles already ordered will be carried out as far as possible. The manufacturer made it clear in a meeting that structural alterations, with the exception of minor ones, cannot be carried out for the moment. An attempt must therefore be made to find another firm that can carry out, on at least one of these ten vehicles, the alterations and adjustments that experience has proved to be necessary. I suggest that the firm in Hohenmauth be charged with the execution.