“And if they were? The Jews of Soviet Russia are the intellectual bearers of the Bolshevik ideology, which makes them our natural enemy. No matter how old they are. Killing Jews is an act of war. Even they seem to understand that, if you don’t. I repeat: Those orders must be carried out for the safety of all army areas. If every soldier only carried out an order after having considered the niceties of whether or not it agreed with his own conscience, then pretty soon there would be no discipline and no army. Are you mad? Are you a coward? Are you ill? Or perhaps you actually like the Jews?”

“I don’t care who or what they are,” I said. “I didn’t come to Russia to shoot old women.”

“Listen to yourself, Captain,” said Blume. “What kind of an officer are you? You’re supposed to set an example to your men. I’ve a good mind to take you to the ghetto just to see if this is some kind of an act—if you really are this squeamish about killing Jews.”

Mundt had started to laugh. “Blume,” he said.

“I can promise you this, Captain,” said Colonel Blume. “You won’t be a captain anymore if you can’t manage it. You’ll be the lowest private in the SS. Do you hear?”

“Blume,” said Mundt. “Look at these.” He handed Blume the papers of the NKVD I’d executed at Goloby. “Look.”

Blume glanced at the documents as Mundt opened them for him. Mundt said: “Sarra Kagan. Solomon Geller. Josef Zalmonowitz. Julius Polonski. These are all Jewish names. Vinokurova. Kieper.” He grinned some more, enjoying my growing discomfort. “I worked on the Jew desk in Hamburg, so I know something about these yid bastards. Joshua Pronicheva. Fanya Glekh. Aaron Levin. David Schepetovka. Saul Katz. Stefan Marx. Vladya Polichov. These are all yids he shot this morning. So much for your fucking scruples, Gunther. You picked a Jewish NKVD squad to execute. You just shot thirty kikes whether you like it or not.”

Blume opened another identification document at random. And then another. “Misha Blyatman. Hersh Gebelev. Moishe Ruditzer. Nahum Yoffe. Chaim Serebriansky. Zyama Rosenblatt.” He was laughing now, too. “You’re right. How do you like that? Israel Weinstein. Ivan Lifshitz. It sounds to me like you hit the jackpot, Gunther. So far you’ve managed to kill more Jews in this campaign than I have. Maybe I should recommend you for a decoration. Or at the very least a promotion.”

Mundt read out some more names just to rub it in. “You should feel proud of yourself.” Then he clapped me on the shoulder. “Come, now. Surely you can see the funny side of this.”

“And if you can’t, then that only makes it all the more funny,” said Blume.

“What’s funny?” said a voice.