ZDOLBUNIV / ZEUGEN (2026)

“I call on counsel for the United States. When Your Honours adjourned on 20 December, we were presenting the Gestapo and had referred to the use of the death vans in the eastern occupied countries. The final reference that I want to make in that connection is Document 2992-PS. This is an affidavit made by Hermann Graebe. Hermann Graebe is at present employed by the United States Government at Frankfurt. This witness was manager and engineer in charge of a branch office in Zdolbuniv, Ukraine, of the Solingen building firm of Josef Jung, and he was an eyewitness to the anti-Jewish actions in the town of Rivne, Ukraine. During the night of 13 July 1942, all the inhabitants of the Rivne ghetto, where there were still about 5,000 Jews, were liquidated. I would describe the circumstances of my being a witness to the dissolution of the ghetto and the carrying out of the pogrom as follows…”

I remember the first time I heard the word “Holocaust” — in the classroom, from a teacher. I was nine or ten, and it was one of a few new words: “Jew”, “Nazi”, “Hitler”. I remember watching a videotape. I realise now that it was an excerpt from Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, and those infamous scenes from Nuremberg 1934. I heard the words; I saw the tape. I understood almost nothing, except that it was the most evil thing in the world. A plague that wore human skin. A monster, screaming in tongues through ghostly black and white, as if it were something supernatural. I remember being absolutely terrified. The terror stuck with me. At times, it even arose in me. I remember playing a video game: The Grinch on PlayStation. Unknowingly, I had accidentally switched the language to German. As if that virus from the videotape had spread to the console, to my horror the creature too spoke in tongues. I fled the room and begged my dad to fix the machine.

As I got older and was returned to the subject of the Second World War, there were more new and terrifying words — like “Kristallnacht”, “Lebensraum” — which in turn came to accompany new and terrifying images: a field of Panzers, soldiers dressed in gauze. Black substances: wet soil, gelatinous blood. Trenches, truck beds. Piles of shoes and naked skeletal bodies. Train tracks, barbed wire, blue and white stripes. Gothic arteries of a human abattoir, built from brick, iron, steel, electricity, fire and gas. Industrial extermination on such a scale, with such emotionless determination and intent that attempting to name it risks trivialising it. I want to name it, but these words just point to the horror without confronting it. And so, the question for me is, what can I actually say about the Holocaust? Especially the Holocaust in Ukraine, when I am neither Jewish nor Ukrainian. What words could work? If mine don’t, I’ll have to look elsewhere. After all, from Mein Kampf to Todesfuge and everything in between, there's no shortage of words.

What began with, “Today it seems to me providential that fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace,” ended in:

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at noon death is a master from Germany
we drink you at sundown and in the morning we drink and we drink you
death is a master from Germany his eyes are blue
he strikes you with leaden bullets his aim is true
a man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete
he sets his pack on to us he grants us a grave in the air
He plays with the serpents and daydreams death is
a master from Germany 

your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith.

However, seeing such words on the screen, it occurs to me that reproducing any more of them might be in bad taste. Perhaps it's enough to say simply: “Death is a master from Germany.” And try something else. Let’s go back to Nuremberg.

With the surrender of the Third Reich, the rally became the trial and the euphemism of “Endlösung” became the charge of crimes against humanity. Across 240 witnesses, in 218 days and four languages, Nuremberg sought to confront that horror in examination, indictments and affidavits. But of all the witnesses, there was only one German. And as the only German willing to denounce the German state, the eyewitness account of Hermann Graebe, would become a pillar of the prosecution.

“Your honours, with your permission I wish to read from a sworn affidavit of one Hermann Freidreich Graebe, a German construction manager who in a civilian capacity was employed by the German army in occupied Ukraine from 1941-1944.”

“The Tribunal has before it an affidavit of one Hermann Graebe, describing the immense mass murders which he witnessed.” “Then the electric arclights which had been erected in and around the Ghetto were switched on. The SS men and militia broke the windows, forced the doors with beams and crowbars and entered the houses.” “Let Graebe speak again of Dubno. The people who had got off the trucks —men, women, and children of all ages—had to undress upon the order of an SS-man, who carried a riding or dog whip. They had to put down their clothes in fixed places, sorted according to shoes, top clothing and underclothing…”

The harrowing affidavit of Hermann Graebe might be the defining testimony of Nuremberg. Yet it might also be unnecessary to reproduce such an account here. Eighty years on, the depravity of the Nazis' crimes is well established. Graebe's testimony is perhaps most valuable to me not for what he said exactly, but for why he said it.

I found an interview with Graebe from 1984. As I have the witness without the court, and the court without the witness, I thought, why not put them together.

Today is Tuesday, September 18, 1984, and I am interviewing Hermann Graebe.
Graebe!
Graebe—excuse me.
G-r-a-e-b-e.

And your first name, please?

Hermann.

Where and when were you born?

In Germany, Solingen, on the 19th of June, 1900.

And your occupation?

Engineer.

Engineer.

I built railroad facilities for the railroad directorate of Berlin. The German troops, on June 22nd, 1941, moved into Russia, and they assigned me to a job in Zdolbuniv, Ukraine. When I arrived, I needed an office and I needed an interpreter. So I hired a lady. She was competent in four or five languages, and she became not only my secretary, she became a confidante. She told me that four or six weeks before I came, the SS mobile killing unit had come into that town and killed 150–200 men. She told me that her husband got killed together with all the other men. I couldn't believe that Germans did that. I didn't believe it because I'm a German. But later I found out, yes, it was true.

So I was enraged. Is that National Socialism? If so, I don't participate anymore. So already in my mind I was determined to help these poor people—to defend my honour. I'm a German, but how should I do it? So I decided at least to help her.

For that I needed the help of the District Commissioner. I knew him. He asked me, "Can I be of help to you?"

I said, "I have something which I don't like. I have a secretary."

"That black one?"

"Yes, that black one... She is acting like she is a Jew. She is not a Jew."

"She is not a Jew? She has yellow patches here and on the back. Then she is a Jew."

"No. She is not."

"Why not?"

"Her husband was a Jew. She isn't. She's a Catholic."

I made that up.

"Well then, I have to forbid her to wear the patches."

That's what I wanted! I said, "You do that. I cannot."

I said to him, "Do you have any objection?"

"No," I said. "If you make me trouble, you know what I have to do. I have a direct connection with Berlin."

I had a very big telephone—maybe fifty connections. They didn't know what connections I had in Berlin.

Do you understand that? He got a telephone where it showed many connections. You know those telephones with different lines, and the story that he has a direct connection with Berlin—when the Commissioner came and saw that telephone, and heard that story that supposedly it had a direct line, it made an impression. He said, "Well, this is a big shot. I don't want to start with him."

I said, "There will be trouble for you if you interfere."

That was a clever move!

You have to know the mentality of Germans during the war. Everyone feared someone above him—especially an unknown figure. I could see how important they thought I was without my saying anything. I always wore civilian clothes and was very well dressed—tailor-made.

Could you translate that, please?

— "Clothes make the man."

Do you speak German? Then I realised that the people feared me, not the police, me! Sometimes I told her. She laughed. I said, "Stop laughing. That's not a laughing matter. It's a matter of life and death!"

Then came November 7, 1941. I was alarmed that in Rovno they had already killed two, three, four thousand people. I said, "I have to do something. What should I do?" Then I got informed there would be a Jewish Aktion coming in Zdolbuniv too. I said to my secretary, "I'll do something. I'll bring you to Poltava and open an office there." We had there three, four, five hundred people. During the war there were shortages—drinking, food, entertainment.

Where did you get the money?

My own money. By 1939 I had already made 350,000 Marks.

Just from working as an engineer? This is from your salary?

Yes, I had to pay for food and everything that went with it.

For the workers? They didn't get food from the Germans?

No!

Translate.

In Poltava there were two or three hundred unemployed Jews. There was no work, so they didn't receive rations. But they still needed food. So he bought food for them with his own savings. Some of the Jews who were employed were actually working. Those who worked received food. But because the Aktion was coming, he had around two hundred Jews who were supposedly employed by the railway, but there was no work. Since they had no work, they had no cards, so they received no food, so he used his own savings to feed them.

But all the work you were doing was for the German government?

No, no, no. Poltava was a bluff. The other places were not. But Poltava was a bluff.

You had workers in the ghetto. Did they leave the ghetto to work?

Yes. At night they had to return to the ghetto. In Rovno I found out that on Monday, the thirteenth, there would be an Aktion. They would take all one hundred and thirty people away. I said, "No questions. Take them out."

Can we try to do this in English?

He knew about the Aktion that was going to take place in Rovno. He removed the Jews from the ghetto and brought them to Zdolbuniv. The SS officer asked, "Who allowed them to leave? Why did they take them out?" Someone answered, "Graebe."

"Who is Graebe?"

So the SS went...

The police had told me honestly, "Mr. Graebe, nothing is going to happen on Monday." I went to Mizoch where one hundred and thirty people lived. I spoke to the parents. The young people were twenty, twenty-two, twenty-four years old. I told them they had to go back. They cried and cried. The parents came to me and asked, "Please." I said there was no way out. They had to go back. I told them, "If anything happens, I will be in the ghetto. I will protect them."

At that time my wife was there with my ten-year-old son. When Monday came and I knew it would be the Aktion, I was nervous. My wife asked, "Why are you so nervous?" Finally I told her. "Tonight is a Jewish Aktion in Rovno."

"What is that?"

"They may kill two, three, four, five thousand people."

She said, "What have you to do with that? Stay away. You're not Hitler! They cannot blame you."

I said, "Yes, yes, yes. You're always right."

But I told her, "Yesterday I was in Mizoch. I promised the parents that if anything happened, I would be there to protect them."

She cried. Then she said,

"That's fate. But you cannot break that promise. You promised the parents. There is no way out. You have to keep that promise."

Find me a thousand other women who would say that—with a ten-year-old boy at home. Who had nothing to do with Hitler's greedy orders.

She said, "You have to keep the promise."

So at ten o'clock I was in the ghetto. I stood there with a machine gun—no, a pistol. At three o'clock in the morning I became very thirsty. I said, "I'll go to the office, have a cup of coffee, and come back in fifteen minutes."

In front of the office people came running to me. "They're breaking into our houses."

I could see them breaking windows. It was the craziest night of my life. I fired two or three shots into the air. It didn't help. They shot at me. We lost seven or eight people.

German people?

Jewish people!

Do you know why I asked whether they were Germans? Because he said, "We lost." He fully identified with the Jews. He was not a German anymore. That's why I asked.

The next bullet could have been for me. I saw two SS men. I said, "You told me nothing was going to happen. What is this? I have one hundred and thirty people here. Seven or eight are already dead."

I said, "I am taking the people to Zdolbuniv."

He said, "No."

I said, "Yes, I am taking the people to Zdolbuniv, regardless of what you say."

Then I saw him put his hand on the holster of his gun. My God—I wanted to live too. He drew his gun. Then I drew mine. I had an overcoat, and I pulled it in front so he could see I meant business too.

I said, "Don't make the wrong move. One of us will die, and I hope it's going to be you."

He said nothing.

"I take the people out."

I said, "I will report it to Berlin."

I don't know if that did the trick or not. He finally said, "Go... go."

I went to the houses. The people were shaking. I got them out and took them to Zdolbuniv.

Then on October 13th all the Jewish people in Zdolbuniv were killed. October 14th in Mizoch. October 15th in Ostroh.

My Dubno statement is well known. I saw people being killed there like sheep. They undressed. Their underwear here, their shoes were over there. I saw it.

You said you wanted to live. Why did you do it?

I have heard this question 100,000 times! All the time people ask me, "Why did you do it?"

Yes, why?

Why? Some people have honour. My wife said, "If you made a promise yesterday, you have to keep that promise."

My wife is now mentally crippled. She suffered a stroke. She is living in a Jewish nursing home in San Francisco.

This is the end of the interview with Hermann Graebe.

We’re here. Zdolbuniv. 80 years and twelve thousand kilometres from Nuremberg. Zdolbuniv. Now that’s a strange word—Zdolbuniv. What exactly is a Zdolbuniv? A cake, maybe? Or a kind of tool? Well, no. It’s a cement town in Western Ukraine. A town which on the surface, might seem a little helpless against the harsh wind of history, but it tries its best.

Let me ask you: what comes to mind when you see this? The railway yard, the mass of tracks and overhead cables. If you asked me, I'm not sure I'd have an answer. I suppose on the platform there's a sense of anticipation, but on the train, I don't think about much at all. In fact, these trips might be the closest I ever get to meditation. The experience is simply about getting from point A to point B. But, you know, I spend a lot of time watching urbex videos on YouTube. In those videos, almost every big trip starts with a surf, and so I suppose for them the image of the tracks represents a kind of euphoric escape. "Illegal Freedom", as they put it.

But what about this one? The steel rail, the hypnotic concrete, the setting sun. It could even be beautiful, so why does it appear so ominous to me? Well, from where I'm stood—in what used to be Poland and is now Ukraine—it's almost impossible not to think of the camps or the Gulag. In Claude Lanzmann's Shoah, this shot appears constantly. As the camps had largely been destroyed, the landscape that bore witness is itself implicated in the horror, and the railway is the motif through which the Holocaust continues to haunt the present.

If I could talk to Graebe, a railway man, and ask him the same question I asked you, what would he say? Would he give me an answer? Might he say simply: 1,520 millimetres. The Russian gauge. Or might he say something else? A job. A promise. A tragedy. The defining moments of his life.

A job brought him here, and he became a witness to an inexplicable evil. He did what he could. If this landscape is implicated too, then at least Graebe can take solace in knowing that he did nothing to spoil it.

Today, Zdolbuniv once again finds itself in the shadow of war and evil. But the case of Hermann Graebe reminds us that when a monster speaks for you when horror is committed in your name—you still have the agency to confront it.

Next to the image of Graebe, the railway takes on another meaning. For the Jews under his employment, it meant survival—at least for a while. And so, finally, I have one last question. What time is the train to Poltava?