The Odessa File

Miller felt a sort of black sock pulled over his head until it covered his nose. He remembered the cold blue eyes of the man in the Dreesen Hotel and recalled what the man in Vienna had told him. ‘Be careful, the men of the Odessa can be dangerous.’ Then he remembered Motti, and wondered how one of them could have been reading a Hebrew newspaper in the Jewish Community Centre.

The car drove for twenty-five minutes, then slowed and stopped. He heard some gates being opened, the car surged forward again and stopped finally. He was eased out of the back seat, and with a man on each side he was helped across a courtyard. For a moment he felt the cold night air on his face, then he was back inside again. A door slammed behind him, and he was led down some steps into what seemed to be a cellar. But the air was warm and the chair into which he was lowered was well upholstered.

He heard a voice say, ‘Take off the bandage,’ and the sock over his head was removed. He blinked as his eyes got used to the light.

The room he was in was evidently below ground, for it had no windows. But an air extractor hummed high on one wall. It was well decorated and comfortable, evidently a form of committee room, for there was a long table with eight chairs ranged close to the far wall. The remainder of the room was an open space, fringed by five easy armchairs. In the centre was a circular carpet and a coffee table.

Motti was standing smiling quietly, almost apologetically, beside the committee table. The two men who had brought him, both well built and in early middle age, were perched on the arms of the armchairs to his left and right. Directly opposite him, across the coffee table, was the fourth man. He supposed the car driver had remained upstairs to lock up.

The fourth man was evidently in command. He sat at ease in his chair while his three lieutenants stood or perched around him. Miller judged him to be about sixty, lean and bony, with a hollow-cheeked hook-nosed face. The eyes worried Miller. They were brown and deep-sunk into the sockets, but bright and piercing, the eyes of a fanatic. It was he who spoke.

‘Welcome, Herr Miller. I must apologise for the strange way in which you were brought to my home. The reason for it was that if you decide you wish to turn down my proposal to you you can be returned to your hotel and will never see any of us again.

‘My friend here,’ he gestured to Motti, ‘informs me that for reasons of your own you are hunting a certain Eduard Roschmann. And that to get closer to him you might be prepared to attempt to penetrate the Odessa. To do that you would need help. A lot of help. However, it might suit our interests to have you inside the Odessa. There we might be prepared to help you. Do you follow me?’

Miller stared at him in astonishment.

‘Let me get one thing straight,’ he said at length. ‘Are you telling me you are not from the Odessa?’

The man raised his eyebrows.

‘Good heavens, you have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.’

He leaned forward and drew back the sleeve of his left wrist. On the forearm was tattooed a number in blue ink.

‘Auschwitz,’ said the man. He pointed to the two men at Miller’s sides. ‘Buchenwald and Dachau.’ He pointed at Motti. ‘Riga and Treblinka.’ He pulled back his sleeve.

‘Herr Miller, there are some who think the murderers of our people should be brought to trial. We do not agree. Just after the war I was talking with a British officer, and he told me something that has guided my life ever since. He said to me, “If they had murdered six million of my people, I too would build a monument of skulls. Not the skulls of those who died in the concentration camps, but of those who put them there.” Simple logic, Herr Miller, but persuasive. I and my group are men who decided to stay on inside Germany after 1945 with one object and one only in mind. Revenge, revenge pure and simple. We don’t arrest them, Herr Miller, we kill them like the swine they are. My name is Leon.’

Leon interrogated Miller for four hours before he was satisfied of the reporter’s genuineness. Like others before him he was puzzled for the motivation, but had to concede it was possible Miller’s reason was the one he gave, indignation at what had been done by the SS during the war. When he had finished, Leon leant back in his chair and surveyed the younger man for a long time.

‘Are you aware how risky it is to try and penetrate the Odessa, Herr Miller?’ he asked.

‘I can guess,’ said Miller. ‘For one thing I’m too young.’

Leon shook his head.

‘There’s no question of your trying to persuade former SS men you are one of them under your own name. For one thing they have lists of former SS men, and Peter Miller is not on that list. For another you have to age ten years at least. It can be done, but involves a complete new identity, and a real identity. The identity of a man who really existed and was in the SS. That alone means a lot of research by us, and the expenditure of a lot of time and trouble.’

‘Do you think you can find such a man?’ asked Miller.

Leon shrugged.

‘It would have to be a man whose death cannot be checked out,’ he said. ‘Before the Odessa accept a man at all, they check him out. You have to pass all the tests. That also means you will have to live for five or six weeks with a genuine former SS man who can teach you the folklore, the technical terms, the phraseology, the behaviour patterns. Fortunately we know such a man.’

Miller was amazed.

‘Why should he do such a thing?’

‘The man I have in mind is an odd character. He is a genuine SS captain who sincerely regretted what was done. He experienced remorse. Later he was inside the Odessa, and passed information about wanted Nazis to the authorities. He would be doing so yet, but he was “shopped” and was lucky to escape with his life. Now he lives under a new name, in a house outside Bayreuth.’

‘What else would I have to learn?’

‘Everything about your new identity. Where he was born, his date of birth, how he got into the SS, where he trained, where he served, his unit, his commanding officer, his entire history from the end of the war onwards. You will also have to be vouched for by a guarantor. That will not be easy. A lot of time and trouble will have to be spent on you, Herr Miller. Once you are in, there will be no pulling back.’

‘What’s in this for you?’ asked Miller suspiciously.

Leon rose and paced the carpet.