Wednesday 15th – Jan and Mechelen – Spring and Summer 1941

Jan’s cold, but he’s starting to nod off: he’ll need to get to bed soon if he’s to refresh himself for tomorrow’s 4AM start.
But Mechelen is in full flow now: “So we’re stuck at the end of the railway line, with the [Slavs] all detrained, and the rail trucks all gone, and our own transport and supplies still nowhere in sight. And I’m already thinking that as soon as we get our ammunition and sappers we’re going to have to find a way of getting these people all funnelled out of here and into the woods, and we’ll definitely have to end up having to shoot them all because we’ve got no destination, and no transport, and no food or shelter, and not enough men to look after the columns. No options. Christ, what a mess.”
Jan pulls his sleeves down as far as they’ll go over his hands. He feels the fabric of his tunic stretching over his chilly shoulder blades.
“So that’s what we do. We hold the Slavs in the cattle pens behind the station until first light, when our trucks and support people turn up, and then we cobble together a timetable to get the ditches dug up in the woods and march the Slavs up there.”
“And it all goes off OK. The ghetto gets cleared, and we make room for the Westerners, and the Slavs disappear. But it was all so…amateurish and ad hoc. When the regional headquarters people find out what we’re done, and how we had to do it all off the cuff, without any formal authority or coordination, and without taking into account the proper demarcations of authority and responsibility, they send us a reprimand, saying it’s ‘against policy’ or saying we’ve overstepped the mark – ‘exceeded our authority’ is what they always seem to say – or ‘transgressed our jurisdiction’, one of the memos said – all ignorant rubbish. What were we supposed to fucking do? Find them food and shelter? Build a camp? Magic a small town into existence? Wait for somebody to come up with a better idea? [more context that illuminates the complexities and pressures they felt they were under?]… Stupid fuckers.”
“Anyway, six weeks later we get a detailed order coming through from the High Command, telling us to ‘use the measures implemented with success recently’ to resolve the problems of ‘overcrowding and inappropriate resettlement solutions’; i.e. ‘shoot them all, here, here, and here.’ Bloody ridiculous – they haven’t got a clue. Heads up their arses. And the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. We just have to get on with it, despite them. Whereas we know what we’re doing, and when we come up with something that works, or which they like, they pick up on it and turn it into the ‘new policy’. Fuck them. Christ, it’s cold. I’m going indoors for some schnapps – coming? You should probably get to bed early tonight – chances are you’ll find tomorrow pretty tiring. Come on.”