T HE TRIAL was in another town, about an hour’s drive away. I had no other reason ever to go there. Another student drove. He had grown up there and knew the place.
It was a Thursday. The trial had begun on Monday. The first three days of proceedings had been taken up with defense motions to recuse. Our group was the fourth, and so would witness the examination of the defendants at the actual start of proceedings.
We drove along Bergstrasse under blossoming fruit trees. We were bubbling over with exhilaration: finally we could put all our training into practice. We did not feel like mere spectators, or listeners, or recorders. Watching and listening and recording were our contributions to the exploration of history.
The court was in a turn-of-the-century building, but devoid of the gloomy pomposity so characteristic of court buildings of the time. The room that housed the assize court had a row of large windows down the left-hand side, with milky glass that blocked the view of the outdoors but let in a great deal of light. The prosecutors sat in front of the windows, and against the bright spring and summer daylight they were no more than black silhouettes. The court, three judges in black robes and six selected local citizens, was in place at the head of the courtroom and on the right-hand side was the bench of defendants and their lawyers: there were so many of them that the extra chairs and tables stretched into the middle of the room in front of the public seats. Some of the defendants and their lawyers were sitting with their backs to us. One of them was Hanna. I did not recognize her until she was called, and she stood up and stepped forward. Of course I recognized the name as soon as I heard it: Hanna Schmitz. Then I also recognized the body, the head with the hair gathered in an unfamiliar knot, the neck, the broad back, and the strong arms. She held herself very straight, balanced on both feet. Her arms were relaxed at her sides. She wore a gray dress with short sleeves. I recognized her, but I felt nothing. Nothing at all.
Yes, she wished to stand. Yes, she was born on October 21, 1922, near Hermannstadt and was now forty-three years old. Yes, she had worked at Siemens in Berlin and had joined the SS in the autumn of 1943.
“You enrolled voluntarily?
“Yes.”
“Why?
Hanna did not answer.
“Is it true that you joined the SS even though Siemens had offered you a job as a foreman?”
Hanna’s lawyer was on his feet. “What do you mean by ‘even though’? Do you mean to suggest that a woman should prefer to become a foreman at Siemens than join the SS? There are no grounds for making my client’s decision the object of such a question.”
He sat down. He was the only young defense attorney; the others were old—some of them, as became apparent, old Nazis. Hanna’s lawyer avoided both their jargon and their lines of reasoning. But he was too hasty and too zealous in ways that were as damaging to his client as his colleagues’ Nazi tirades were to theirs. He did succeed in making the judge look irritated and stop pursuing the question of why Hanna had joined the SS. But the impression remained that she had done it of her own accord and not under pressure. It didn’t help her when one of the legal members of the court asked Hanna what kind of work she expected to do for the SS and she said that the SS was recruiting women at Siemens and other factories for guard duties and she had applied and was hired.
To the judge’s questions, Hanna testified in monosyllables that yes, she had served in Auschwitz until early 1944 and then in a small camp near Cracow until the winter of 1944–45, that yes, when the prisoners were moved to the west she went with them all the way, that she was in Kassel at the end of the war and since then had lived in one place and another. She had been in my city for eight years; it was the longest time she had spent in any one place.
“Is her frequent change of residence supposed to be grounds for viewing her as a flight risk?” The lawyer was openly sarcastic. “My client registered with the police each time she arrived at a new address and each time she left. There is no reason to assume she would run away, and there is nothing for her to hide. Did the judge feel it impossible to release my client on her own recognizance because of the gravity of the charges and the risk of public agitation? That, members of the court, is a Nazi rationale for custody; it was introduced by the Nazis and abolished after the Nazis. It no longer exists.” The lawyer’s malicious emphasis underlined the irony in this truth.
I was jolted. I realized that I had assumed it was both natural and right that Hanna should be in custody. Not because of the charges, the gravity of the allegations, or the force of the evidence, of which I had no real knowledge yet, but because in a cell she was out of my world, out of my life. I wanted her far away from me, so unattainable that she could continue as the mere memory she had become and remained all these years. If the lawyer was successful, I would have to prepare myself to meet her again, and I would have to work out how I wanted to do that, and how it should be. And I could see no reason why he should fail. If Hanna had not tried to escape the law so far, why should she try now? And what evidence could she suppress? There were no other legal reasons at that time to hold someone in custody.
The judge seemed irritated again, and I began to realize that this was his particular trick. Whenever he found a statement either obstructionist or annoying, he took off his glasses, stared at the speaker with a blank, short-sighted gaze, frowned, and either ignored the statement altogether or began with “So you mean” or “So what you’re trying to say is” and then repeated what had been said in a way as to leave no doubt that he had no desire to deal with it and that trying to compel him to do so would be pointless.
“So you’re saying that the arresting judge misinterpreted the fact that the defendant ignored all letters and summonses, and did not present herself either to the police, or the prosecutor, or the judge? You wish to make a motion to lift the order of detention?”
The lawyer made the motion and the court denied it.
法庭的審理在另外的一個城市里進行，開車去那里需要近一個小時的時間。此前，我與那個城市從未發(fā)生什么關系。另外一位同學開車，他是在那里長大的，對那里的情況非常熟悉。
那是一個星期四。法庭的審理在星期一就開始了，前三天的審理時間都用于辯護律師為辯護人提申請。我們第四組將要經(jīng)歷的是法庭對被告人的直接審理、這將是法庭審理的真正開始。
我們輕松愉快，情緒高漲地沿著山路在盛開的果樹下面行駛。我們的所學總算有用武之地了，我們感覺自己不僅僅是觀眾、聽眾和記錄員，觀審、聽審和做記錄是我們對清理工作所做的一份貢獻。
這座法庭是一座世紀之交的建筑，但又沒有當時法庭建筑所常有的富麗堂皇和睦俄昏暗。刑事陪審法庭開庭的大廳里，左邊是一排大窗戶，乳白色的玻璃擋住了人們從里向外張望的視線，但卻擋不住從外面照射進來的光線。檢察官們坐在窗前，在明媚的春天和夏日里人們只能辨認出他們的輪廓。法庭上坐著三位身著黑色長袍的法官和六位陪審員。他們坐在大廳的正面，在他們右側的長椅上坐著被告人和辯護律師。由于人數(shù)眾多，桌椅一直擺到大廳中間，擺到了觀眾席前。有幾位被告和辯護律師背對著我們坐著，其中就有漢娜。當她被傳喚，站起來走向前面時，我才認出她來。當然，我立即就聽出了她的名字：漢娜·史密芝。隨后我也辨認出了她的形體，她的頭，她的脖頸，她的寬闊的后背和她那強健有力的手臂，令我感到陌生的是那盤起來的頭發(fā)。她站在那兒，挺著胸，兩腿紋絲不動，手臂松弛下垂，穿著一件藍色的短袖上衣。我認出了她，但是，我什么感覺都沒有，我什么感覺都沒有。
當法官問到她是否愿意站著時，她說是；當問她是否于一九二二年十月二十一日在赫爾曼市附近的一個地方出生，現(xiàn)年四十三歲時，她說是；當問她是否在柏林的西門子公司工作過并于一九四三年秋去了黨衛(wèi)隊時，她說是。
"您是自愿去黨衛(wèi)隊的嗎？"
"是的。"
"為什么？"
漢娜沒有回答。
"盡管西門子給您提供了一個做領班的職位，您還是去了黨衛(wèi)隊，對嗎？"
漢娜的辯護律師跳了起來："盡管'在這里是什么意思？這不就是假設一個女人應該更喜歡在西門子做個領班而不應該去黨衛(wèi)隊嗎？您沒有任何理由就我的委托人的決定提出這樣的問題。"
他坐下了。他是誰一的一位年輕的辯護人，其他人都上了年紀，有幾位很快就暴露出來是老納粹。漢娜的辯護人制止了他們使用隱語和推論。但是，他很急躁，這對他的委托人非常不利，就像他的同事們的滿口納粹論調對他們的委托人也十分不利一樣。盡管他的話讓審判長看上去不知所措，使他對漢娜為什么去了黨衛(wèi)隊這個問題不再刨根問底，但是他的話給人留下一個印象，那就是，她去黨衛(wèi)隊是經(jīng)過深思熟慮的，并非迫不得已。一位陪審法官問了漢娜想在黨衛(wèi)隊里做什么工作。漢娜解釋說，黨衛(wèi)隊在西門子和其他工廠征聘女工做替補看守，這樣，她就報了名，并被錄用了。盡管她做了這樣的解釋，但是，人們對她的不佳印象已無法改變了。
審判長要求漢娜用是與否來證實下列問題：是否直到一九四四年年初一直在奧斯威辛，是否于一九四四年與一九四五年之交的冬天被派往克拉科夫一所小集中營，與那里的被關押者一起西行并到達了目的地，是否在戰(zhàn)爭結束時到過卡塞爾，是否從那以后經(jīng)常更換居住地。她在我的家鄉(xiāng)住了八年，那是她居住時間最長的一個地方。
"經(jīng)常更換居住地就能證明有逃跑的嫌疑嗎？"辯護律師用很明顯的諷刺口吻問道。"我的委托人每次更換居住地都在警察局登記和注銷戶籍。沒有任何跡象說明她要逃跑，她也掩飾不了任何事情。逮捕法官認為我的委托人受到的指控嚴重，面臨引起公憤的危險，他感到無法容忍。難道這可以成為剝奪她人身自由的理由嗎？我尊敬的法官先生，這是納粹時期抓人的理由，是納粹時盛行的做法，納粹之后被廢除了，這種做法現(xiàn)在早已不存在了。"辯護律師說話時帶有一種人們在兜售下流故事時所表現(xiàn)的不良用心和洋洋得意。
我對此感到震驚。我發(fā)現(xiàn)，我認為逮捕漢娜是自然的和理所當然的，不是因為人們對她提出了控告、嚴重譴責和強烈懷疑——關于這些我還一點不知詳情，而是因為把她關在單人牢房里她就會從我的世界中，從我的生活中消失。我想離她遠遠的，讓她遠不可及，讓在過去幾年里成為我生活中的一部分的她變成一種記憶，僅僅是一種記憶。如果辯護律師成功的話，那就意味著我必須做好再次見到她的準備，我就必須使自己清楚我是否見她和如何見她。而且，我看不出他怎么能不成功。如果漢娜到目前為止沒有企圖逃跑，那么她為什么現(xiàn)在要去這么做呢？她能掩飾什么呢？這恰是逮捕她的一個理由。
審判長看上去又不知所措了。我發(fā)現(xiàn)這是他的一個計策。每當他認為某種意見具有阻礙性和令他感到不愉快時，他就摘掉眼鏡，用近視的、不肯定的目光打量著發(fā)表意見的人，同時皺著眉頭，或者避而不談已經(jīng)發(fā)表的意見，或者開始這樣發(fā)問："您的意思是……"或"您是想說……"并用另一種方式重述一遍別人發(fā)表的意見，讓人確實感到他對此不感興趣，同時也使人相信逼他是沒用的。
"您的意思是逮捕官錯誤地估計了下面的情況：被告人沒有對書面的傳訊做出反應，沒有去找警察局、檢查院和法官？您是想提交一份撤銷逮捕令的報告嗎？"
辯護律師提交了一份這樣的報告，被法庭駁回了。
It was a Thursday. The trial had begun on Monday. The first three days of proceedings had been taken up with defense motions to recuse. Our group was the fourth, and so would witness the examination of the defendants at the actual start of proceedings.
We drove along Bergstrasse under blossoming fruit trees. We were bubbling over with exhilaration: finally we could put all our training into practice. We did not feel like mere spectators, or listeners, or recorders. Watching and listening and recording were our contributions to the exploration of history.
The court was in a turn-of-the-century building, but devoid of the gloomy pomposity so characteristic of court buildings of the time. The room that housed the assize court had a row of large windows down the left-hand side, with milky glass that blocked the view of the outdoors but let in a great deal of light. The prosecutors sat in front of the windows, and against the bright spring and summer daylight they were no more than black silhouettes. The court, three judges in black robes and six selected local citizens, was in place at the head of the courtroom and on the right-hand side was the bench of defendants and their lawyers: there were so many of them that the extra chairs and tables stretched into the middle of the room in front of the public seats. Some of the defendants and their lawyers were sitting with their backs to us. One of them was Hanna. I did not recognize her until she was called, and she stood up and stepped forward. Of course I recognized the name as soon as I heard it: Hanna Schmitz. Then I also recognized the body, the head with the hair gathered in an unfamiliar knot, the neck, the broad back, and the strong arms. She held herself very straight, balanced on both feet. Her arms were relaxed at her sides. She wore a gray dress with short sleeves. I recognized her, but I felt nothing. Nothing at all.
Yes, she wished to stand. Yes, she was born on October 21, 1922, near Hermannstadt and was now forty-three years old. Yes, she had worked at Siemens in Berlin and had joined the SS in the autumn of 1943.
“You enrolled voluntarily?
“Yes.”
“Why?
Hanna did not answer.
“Is it true that you joined the SS even though Siemens had offered you a job as a foreman?”
Hanna’s lawyer was on his feet. “What do you mean by ‘even though’? Do you mean to suggest that a woman should prefer to become a foreman at Siemens than join the SS? There are no grounds for making my client’s decision the object of such a question.”
He sat down. He was the only young defense attorney; the others were old—some of them, as became apparent, old Nazis. Hanna’s lawyer avoided both their jargon and their lines of reasoning. But he was too hasty and too zealous in ways that were as damaging to his client as his colleagues’ Nazi tirades were to theirs. He did succeed in making the judge look irritated and stop pursuing the question of why Hanna had joined the SS. But the impression remained that she had done it of her own accord and not under pressure. It didn’t help her when one of the legal members of the court asked Hanna what kind of work she expected to do for the SS and she said that the SS was recruiting women at Siemens and other factories for guard duties and she had applied and was hired.
To the judge’s questions, Hanna testified in monosyllables that yes, she had served in Auschwitz until early 1944 and then in a small camp near Cracow until the winter of 1944–45, that yes, when the prisoners were moved to the west she went with them all the way, that she was in Kassel at the end of the war and since then had lived in one place and another. She had been in my city for eight years; it was the longest time she had spent in any one place.
“Is her frequent change of residence supposed to be grounds for viewing her as a flight risk?” The lawyer was openly sarcastic. “My client registered with the police each time she arrived at a new address and each time she left. There is no reason to assume she would run away, and there is nothing for her to hide. Did the judge feel it impossible to release my client on her own recognizance because of the gravity of the charges and the risk of public agitation? That, members of the court, is a Nazi rationale for custody; it was introduced by the Nazis and abolished after the Nazis. It no longer exists.” The lawyer’s malicious emphasis underlined the irony in this truth.
I was jolted. I realized that I had assumed it was both natural and right that Hanna should be in custody. Not because of the charges, the gravity of the allegations, or the force of the evidence, of which I had no real knowledge yet, but because in a cell she was out of my world, out of my life. I wanted her far away from me, so unattainable that she could continue as the mere memory she had become and remained all these years. If the lawyer was successful, I would have to prepare myself to meet her again, and I would have to work out how I wanted to do that, and how it should be. And I could see no reason why he should fail. If Hanna had not tried to escape the law so far, why should she try now? And what evidence could she suppress? There were no other legal reasons at that time to hold someone in custody.
The judge seemed irritated again, and I began to realize that this was his particular trick. Whenever he found a statement either obstructionist or annoying, he took off his glasses, stared at the speaker with a blank, short-sighted gaze, frowned, and either ignored the statement altogether or began with “So you mean” or “So what you’re trying to say is” and then repeated what had been said in a way as to leave no doubt that he had no desire to deal with it and that trying to compel him to do so would be pointless.
“So you’re saying that the arresting judge misinterpreted the fact that the defendant ignored all letters and summonses, and did not present herself either to the police, or the prosecutor, or the judge? You wish to make a motion to lift the order of detention?”
The lawyer made the motion and the court denied it.
法庭的審理在另外的一個城市里進行，開車去那里需要近一個小時的時間。此前，我與那個城市從未發(fā)生什么關系。另外一位同學開車，他是在那里長大的，對那里的情況非常熟悉。
那是一個星期四。法庭的審理在星期一就開始了，前三天的審理時間都用于辯護律師為辯護人提申請。我們第四組將要經(jīng)歷的是法庭對被告人的直接審理、這將是法庭審理的真正開始。
我們輕松愉快，情緒高漲地沿著山路在盛開的果樹下面行駛。我們的所學總算有用武之地了，我們感覺自己不僅僅是觀眾、聽眾和記錄員，觀審、聽審和做記錄是我們對清理工作所做的一份貢獻。
這座法庭是一座世紀之交的建筑，但又沒有當時法庭建筑所常有的富麗堂皇和睦俄昏暗。刑事陪審法庭開庭的大廳里，左邊是一排大窗戶，乳白色的玻璃擋住了人們從里向外張望的視線，但卻擋不住從外面照射進來的光線。檢察官們坐在窗前，在明媚的春天和夏日里人們只能辨認出他們的輪廓。法庭上坐著三位身著黑色長袍的法官和六位陪審員。他們坐在大廳的正面，在他們右側的長椅上坐著被告人和辯護律師。由于人數(shù)眾多，桌椅一直擺到大廳中間，擺到了觀眾席前。有幾位被告和辯護律師背對著我們坐著，其中就有漢娜。當她被傳喚，站起來走向前面時，我才認出她來。當然，我立即就聽出了她的名字：漢娜·史密芝。隨后我也辨認出了她的形體，她的頭，她的脖頸，她的寬闊的后背和她那強健有力的手臂，令我感到陌生的是那盤起來的頭發(fā)。她站在那兒，挺著胸，兩腿紋絲不動，手臂松弛下垂，穿著一件藍色的短袖上衣。我認出了她，但是，我什么感覺都沒有，我什么感覺都沒有。
當法官問到她是否愿意站著時，她說是；當問她是否于一九二二年十月二十一日在赫爾曼市附近的一個地方出生，現(xiàn)年四十三歲時，她說是；當問她是否在柏林的西門子公司工作過并于一九四三年秋去了黨衛(wèi)隊時，她說是。
"您是自愿去黨衛(wèi)隊的嗎？"
"是的。"
"為什么？"
漢娜沒有回答。
"盡管西門子給您提供了一個做領班的職位，您還是去了黨衛(wèi)隊，對嗎？"
漢娜的辯護律師跳了起來："盡管'在這里是什么意思？這不就是假設一個女人應該更喜歡在西門子做個領班而不應該去黨衛(wèi)隊嗎？您沒有任何理由就我的委托人的決定提出這樣的問題。"
他坐下了。他是誰一的一位年輕的辯護人，其他人都上了年紀，有幾位很快就暴露出來是老納粹。漢娜的辯護人制止了他們使用隱語和推論。但是，他很急躁，這對他的委托人非常不利，就像他的同事們的滿口納粹論調對他們的委托人也十分不利一樣。盡管他的話讓審判長看上去不知所措，使他對漢娜為什么去了黨衛(wèi)隊這個問題不再刨根問底，但是他的話給人留下一個印象，那就是，她去黨衛(wèi)隊是經(jīng)過深思熟慮的，并非迫不得已。一位陪審法官問了漢娜想在黨衛(wèi)隊里做什么工作。漢娜解釋說，黨衛(wèi)隊在西門子和其他工廠征聘女工做替補看守，這樣，她就報了名，并被錄用了。盡管她做了這樣的解釋，但是，人們對她的不佳印象已無法改變了。
審判長要求漢娜用是與否來證實下列問題：是否直到一九四四年年初一直在奧斯威辛，是否于一九四四年與一九四五年之交的冬天被派往克拉科夫一所小集中營，與那里的被關押者一起西行并到達了目的地，是否在戰(zhàn)爭結束時到過卡塞爾，是否從那以后經(jīng)常更換居住地。她在我的家鄉(xiāng)住了八年，那是她居住時間最長的一個地方。
"經(jīng)常更換居住地就能證明有逃跑的嫌疑嗎？"辯護律師用很明顯的諷刺口吻問道。"我的委托人每次更換居住地都在警察局登記和注銷戶籍。沒有任何跡象說明她要逃跑，她也掩飾不了任何事情。逮捕法官認為我的委托人受到的指控嚴重，面臨引起公憤的危險，他感到無法容忍。難道這可以成為剝奪她人身自由的理由嗎？我尊敬的法官先生，這是納粹時期抓人的理由，是納粹時盛行的做法，納粹之后被廢除了，這種做法現(xiàn)在早已不存在了。"辯護律師說話時帶有一種人們在兜售下流故事時所表現(xiàn)的不良用心和洋洋得意。
我對此感到震驚。我發(fā)現(xiàn)，我認為逮捕漢娜是自然的和理所當然的，不是因為人們對她提出了控告、嚴重譴責和強烈懷疑——關于這些我還一點不知詳情，而是因為把她關在單人牢房里她就會從我的世界中，從我的生活中消失。我想離她遠遠的，讓她遠不可及，讓在過去幾年里成為我生活中的一部分的她變成一種記憶，僅僅是一種記憶。如果辯護律師成功的話，那就意味著我必須做好再次見到她的準備，我就必須使自己清楚我是否見她和如何見她。而且，我看不出他怎么能不成功。如果漢娜到目前為止沒有企圖逃跑，那么她為什么現(xiàn)在要去這么做呢？她能掩飾什么呢？這恰是逮捕她的一個理由。
審判長看上去又不知所措了。我發(fā)現(xiàn)這是他的一個計策。每當他認為某種意見具有阻礙性和令他感到不愉快時，他就摘掉眼鏡，用近視的、不肯定的目光打量著發(fā)表意見的人，同時皺著眉頭，或者避而不談已經(jīng)發(fā)表的意見，或者開始這樣發(fā)問："您的意思是……"或"您是想說……"并用另一種方式重述一遍別人發(fā)表的意見，讓人確實感到他對此不感興趣，同時也使人相信逼他是沒用的。
"您的意思是逮捕官錯誤地估計了下面的情況：被告人沒有對書面的傳訊做出反應，沒有去找警察局、檢查院和法官？您是想提交一份撤銷逮捕令的報告嗎？"
辯護律師提交了一份這樣的報告，被法庭駁回了。