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The Travellers - Book IV - The Grey Zone - Part 1 Good and Evil explored

This image is from a model of the "processing" of a transport at Auschwitz Birkenau. (Link here) It takes the viewer all the way from the train's arrival on the ramp, via "Selection" to the gas chambers and beyond. Here we see the first moment of truth, Selection.

Today I move on from Vespasian, I don't want to get ahead of myself, and return to events that unfold in the upcoming Book 4 of the series.

In this the next series of posts of background notes from my books, The Travellers, we discover why a character, Lev Weissmann, the finest diamond cutter in the world, has retired to atone for some unknown sin he committed in the camp. When I created Lev, in Book 3, I had no idea what might have taken place. After months of research, his story and the story of people like him, was seared into my mind and his part of the book just poured out.

Today, nearly all the survivors are dead. But there is a mass of first-hand material written and spoken about this. No one else can know what this was like but I have done my best to immerse myself in these eye witness accounts and I have put nothing in my book that someone did not see or do.

What I have been careful to do however is not to use outrage as my lens. Much of the discussion of the camps is set in the context of evil and outrage. I have instead done my best to use the lens of The Grey Zone.

The late Primo Levi, writes from his soul when he describes what he calls the "Grey Zone". In his book The Drowned and the Saved, he makes the point that we cannot separate the inmates into easy categories of the good and the bad. He instead shows us the Grey Zone. The grey zone is inhabited mostly by people who compromise and collaborate with their oppressors to varying degrees and with varying degrees of freedom of choice in exchange for preferential treatment. The stark reality is that most of those that did not make such concessions died.

Those that lived had to make sense of what they had done. Many could not and in spite of writing so much to understand, Levi himself committed suicide. 

In this series we will explore Auschwitz mainly through the experience of those that had a "privileged" existence for one reason or another. All of them inhabited this Grey Zone. Like my true life characters who survived the Great War, the burden of surviving was to cause many great suffering later.

My protagonist, Lev and his two protégés, the twins, Dan and Ben are invented.

Everyone else in Book 4 are historic characters. These range from camp doctors like Dr Nyiszli who was Mengele's pathologist in Krema 2, to members of the Sonderkommando, to a family of dwarves, the Ovitz family, to Jews who were saved because they looked Aryan, like Marc Berkowitz and we end this part of The Travellers with in my mind the hero of the camp, a Kapo, Zhvi Spiegel. Spiegel was in charge of the hut that contained many of the boy twins and the Ovitz family. It was Spiegel that kept the boys alive in the camp and who escorted 39 boys across the battlefields of Europe in 1945 to safety at war's end.

Many then and later have vilified these people for living. I think that we all have to ask ourselves, what would we have done? This question is the paramount one for me.

Central to our story is Dr Mengele. It is he, on the ramp, who sent more people to their deaths than any other but who paradoxically was also responsible for saving some of these people. All our characters have his "protection". This meant that while they survived, they often had very confused feelings about him.

Marc Berkowitz

Marc Berkowitz, was selected to live because he looked so Aryan. He became Mengele's orderly. On January 17, 1945, as Mengele left the camp he made a point of stopping to see Berkowitz and telling him that "You have been a good boy."

Livia Bitton Jackson had a similar story. Tall with long blonde hair, she is stopped by Mengele on the ramp and asked if she is Jewish. She says "Of course I am Jewish". Mengele turns her and her mother to the right but sends her aunt to the left. Just as she stepped off to her second chance for life, he stopped her again. "How old are you?" he asked. "I am thirteen", she replied. "Tell everyone that you are sixteen." Here she tells this story herself.

How do you live with this? She has written a number of fine books that offer us some answers. Here is where to start. She has never been able to reconcile the guilt that she feels at being given this chance of life. Here is a talk she gave at a school. Most touching of all is when she talks about her guilt at being spared. I find that she has an inner beauty that radiates from her and fills the auditorium.

Here is Mengele with his wife Irene.

We also explore the other side. Mengele is the central character in this drama that involves those that he protected. Drawing mainly on Nyiszli's account, who saw Mengele almost daily, we hear about his work in his own words. We meet Irene, his wife who comes up for a quick visit and then falls ill and stays for months. We discover the paradox of his care for certain people coupled with his sense of duty and enjoyment as he sends millions of others to their deaths.

Here are the older Hoess children in the garden of the Kommandant's house in Auschwitz. 

We also explore the bizarre world of the Hoess family who raise their children in the Kommandant's house next to the camp. Mrs Hoess insisted in remaining at the house even after, her husband got a promotion and was reposted for a while to Berlin. She found the place idyllic! The issue for me is that their life, feet away from the camp, is so normal. When we merely express outrage and label this as evil, we miss the point. 

Like then, our world today has become increasingly binary: good versus bad, Us versus Them. The Holocaust was the result of such a set of values. I think it is important for us all today, when it has become so normal again to see "The Other" everywhere,  to dig beneath these labels. 

Hannah Arendt warns us that evil appears in practice as banality. What could be more banal than Hedwig Hoess being a proud housekeeper feet away from such crimes? What could be more banal that her husband's memoirs where he rails against the bureaucratic failures of Berlin to meet his needs for more support. Or finally, what could be more banal than Mengele's burning ambition to find the secret of twins so that he might win a Nobel Prize for creating a master race?

In part 2 of this series, we will explore Lev Weissmann's own accommodation with the devil. In later posts we will look at the real people who surround him, both the inmates and Germans who inhabit the camp.

I think that it is in the Grey Zone and in the "Banality of Evil" that we can find the truth of the human condition.

 

Vespasian - The Thracian Connection - The Horsemen

 

The Jockey of Artemision ( 150 BC) - The statue is life-size for both horse and rider. The boy is under three feet tall well within the height of a 4 year old. Note that there is no saddle and no one had stirrups in those days. My point is that a boy-rider who had been riding from the age of two can ride a full-sized horse like this.

It had taken them 4 days to travel from the base at Argentoratum (Strasbourg) to Matisco (Macon) where the boy would be met by Leo and the Praetorian escort who would take him back to Rome. They had stretched the journey out because both the man and boy treasured every hour that they spent with each other. With Stallos returning to the Ala Thracum and going on to Britannia, both knew that these days might be their last together. 

Every morning on the march, Stallos would put the boy through his paces for three hours and then the two of them would ride knee to knee. Following behind were the pack mules, the ten men of the escort and Phyllis, his nanny, who rode as well as any of the men. She too was a Thracian. At night, the boy would sit by the fire, leaning against Stallos and listening to the stories and songs of the men. He now spoke Greek better than Latin for, back at the fort, he had spent most of his time in the horse lines. Aged only four, he now rode like a centaur. 

On this, their last day, the two of them rode on ahead. Neither wished to be witnessed as they said farewell.

They stopped at the final ridge. From this point, they could see the town and the dock. The boy swung down from his pony. Stallos dismounted from his stallion.

Stallos handed Titus the reins.

"You cannot go home with only a pony, young man. You need a horse now."

The boy was stunned. Able to be the stoic Roman for only seconds, he launched himself at Stallos who caught him, lifted him into the air and held him hard against his chest. Their tears said everything. When he was calmer, Stallos put the boy down. The two of them stood before, Zeus, the pride of Ala Thracum. The noble stallion bowed his head and allowed Titus to breathe into his nostrils. The boy ran his hand up the horse's head and touched his ears. Zeus whickered in response.

Titus looked back at Stallos.

"Mine, really mine?"

"Yours, really yours."

Titus hugged the man's legs. Stallos kissed the top of his head.

Titus stepped back and looked his friend in the eye.

"Come home safe." the boy said.

"I will."

They hugged again. Stallos boosted Titus onto the saddle. Zeus, settled easily with the tiny weight of the boy. A boy whose confidence was total and whose small legs had the command of a man. Leaning forward, Titus pulled Zeus into a rear of triumph, nudged the horse's head to the right towards the town and, with a yell of joy, galloped down the hill.

Vespasian - Titus, the best son - the early years

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, RA, OM - The Triumph of Titus

It was about 5.30 in the morning (June 24, 79 AD). The Emperor was sitting in his chair, on the balcony at the palace in Rieti, looking out at the valley to the south. He had wanted to see the sun rise. Next to him, on his right, was an empty chair. This was where Caenis always sat. Behind him, with his hand on his father's shoulder, was Titus. Standing to his right was Stallos, his horse master. To his left, stood Epaphroditus and in the background, the doctor and the ever present scribes and household slaves.

The sky in the east was just making that shift from purple to gold and the first streaks of light glimmered on the surface of the sacred lake below.

Vespasian turned to his son and smiled. As he did, a wave of pain roiled through him.

"Get me to the commode, my boy, I don't want to make a mess as I die."

Stallos and Titus picked him up, he was as light as a child, while Epaphroditus brought the commode forward. Titus pulled his father's tunic clear and they sat the Emperor on his last throne. Vespasian groaned. His face was scrunched up with pain and then suddenly relaxed with relief as his bowels emptied for the first time in days.

With that smile, that everyone would miss so much, he joked. "I think I am becoming a god."

His head slumped forward. The doctor gave Titus a beseeching look. Titus nodded. The doctor stepped forward and felt for a pulse in the Emperor's neck. The doctor looked up at Titus and bowed his head. At the back of the room, one of the female slaves began to sob.

With tears in his eyes, Titus leaned forward and kissed his father's cheek. 

His chest heaving with emotion, Stallos kneeled before his dearest friend, the dead Emperor, and in the old Thracian way of honouring a dead chief, kissed Vespasian's feet. No one moved. No one said a word. Steadying himself, Stallos stood up, raised his arm in salute to Titus and shouted, "Hail Augustus."

So, the best prepared new Emperor succeeded his father.

Vespasian - The Familia and the Mafia - a model to understand Rome

Here is the blood side of the Corleone family. This is not the whole picture as we will see in this post.

Today, we will see how the archetypal Corleone "Family" helps us understand how the Roman Familia works.

First of all, a mob Family and a Roman Familia are not only connected by blood - though blood is very important. 

The strongest connections between the Don, or Familia head, are with "Made Men" or "Freedmen" or "Libertae".

Here we see the equivalent of the "Freedmen" in the Familia - the "Made Men". Because the "Made Men" are not family by blood, they can never take over the Family. Freedmen and Libertae are the same. They can never marry into the family or hold power on their own. So, they can be trusted more than blood. For, in the end, because blood can rule, all the blood relations are possible threats.

Most important of all the Made Men in the Godfather is the Tom Hagen character who might be Narcissus or Epaphroditus in our story. They are not blood, but their power is based entirely on the Godfather. Tessio, by the way, would never have betrayed Don Vito. Tom has been adopted by Don Vito. Maybe not in law but in custom. He has no family of his own. Libertae, such as Narcissus or Caenis have the same relationship to Claudius and Antonia. There is no one else that will interfere with this connection. Like Tom, both are sent on the most delicate of missions. Narcissus saves the invasion from Mutiny. It is he and Herod that buy off the Guard and put their man, Claudius in the purple. Caenis and Pallas are the messengers to Tiberius and so bring down Sejanus.

Sons in law are very weak characters and prone to betrayal. Marrying into the family, as Carlo did, is no guarantee that you get good work or that you will not be killed. Nor is there a guarantee that your family widow will never get over your death. In the end, Connie reverts back to blood and finds power by being in effect her brother's woman.

On the whole women, in Rome or in the Mafia, play a supporting role, as does Mrs Corleone senior. Some like Connie, Michael's sister,  grow into real power players. Those that cannot fit, like Kay, get cast aside. Love is not enough in either Rome or the Mafia.

In Rome, as in the Mafia, adoption, or going outside the obvious line of succession happens often. The point for the older leader is to ensure that the best family member gets the job.  Look at Octavian and Caesar. In this case, Michael is the heir supplanting his older brother Fredo. Michael later supports the candidature of Vincent, Sonny's illegitimate son. His own son, though beloved will never make it in the mob. Before her death, you are given the suggestion that Mary was being groomed to play a leading role. But a marriage to Vincent was key to this. Married to Mary gives him the best legitimacy and offers Mary the ability to be a player too. Emperors used marriage all the time to reinforce legitimacy. Nero's marriage to Octavia being a good example. 

Nothing in the Godfather shows how blood can be a problem better than Fredo. As Titus was dying after only two years as Emperor, he says that he only made one mistake. The historians of the time make this to mean that he had not killed his brother Domitian. It's interesting though that Michael waits until his mother dies before killing Fredo. There is a code. 

In the Mafia Family and in the Roman Familia, the size of the group is much larger and more complex than blood and Made Men/Libertae. 

In Roman society, the "Dons" have "Clients". These are people that have obligations to the family head or in the Mafia to the Don. In the Godfather we see the baker in the wedding scene who wants justice for his raped daughter or even more clearly we see how Johnnie Fontaine, the Frank Sinatra figure, is granted a huge favour. In return, the client base owes an obligation to the patron. In the Mafia the head of the family is called often, the Padrone. In Rome, as in modern life, the reality is that most jobs and contracts depend on connections or on the Patron being able to make an offer that cannot be refused. At the death of the family leader the clients in Rome pass to the successor. So Octavian, who had a tiny circle of his own, suddenly has access to a massive network of clients. This is power.

Most Patron's have a particular go-to man for the really hard job, like killing your mother as in Nero's case, or your brother as in Michael's case. For Nero this was Anicetus. Even the name tells us something. Loosely translated it means, "Mr Fixit". Al Neri is this figure in the Godfather. He is the one who kills the top Mafia leader in the climax of G1. In GIII, he kills Fredo.

It's interesting that Anicetus's plan to kill Agrippina was in a boat!

Anicetus could be trusted because he had been Nero's tutor as a boy. Nero had been abandoned as a child as was brought up by his slaves, of which Anicetus and Epaphroditus were the most important. We never know Al Neri's story. But we meet him here in a very favoured position with Michael on the other side of Tom. We are told in this shot that Al is no bit player in Michael's trust. There has to be a story behind this bond. We are never told it but Al could never be just a button man.

Throughout the Godfather films, Michael becomes ever more paranoid and the issues of trust become ever more central. So it was in Rome at the top. But more like Don Vito, Vespasian made great and lasting friends in his life. Men like Tiberius Alexander and Pliny the elder or even Cogidubnus. His son, Titus, was the son that he could trust and he too made life long friends that included Tiberius and extended to Herod and his sister Berenice and Agricola. But as we see with poor Tessio, Michael inspired fear but not friendship. So it was with Domitian whose final mistake was to have Epaphroditus killed. Once the Imperial bureaucracy of Freedman felt that they could be a target for the Emperor's paranoia, Domitian was doomed. He had broken faith with his Made Men.

Why do so many people enjoy Mafia movies? I think that while there is death and betrayal, we are attracted to the idea of personal honour. In a bland corporate world of platitudes and polite meanness, it is refreshing to witness a community that puts honour at the centre and personal courage as the process. They also play for the highest stakes and so, like mountain climbers, experience life at its most precious.

This is how Vespasian and those at the core of power in Rome lived.

Time I think to talk about, Sonny, or Titus. Much later we will talk about Domitian, who is a blend of Michael and Fredo.

 

Vespasian - The Mystery that is Acte

Rosalie Crutchley playing Acte opposite Peter Ustinov as Nero in Quo Vadis

The two women embraced. 

"Welcome to my home, Caenis. I rejoice to see you. We both still live"

Caenis smiled, "May we both live for a long time, my dear Acte."

The two women sat down by a table in the garden at Acte's villa in Villitrae, a day away from Rome. 

"I have to ask you right away, are Epaphroditus and Phaon safe?"

"Yes, my dear, the Emperor will ask them to rejoin the administration. I also have a letter here from Titus for them. They saved his life and he will never forget his debt."

Acte began to weep.

Vespasian - Agrippina and Nero

This is a statue of the new Emperor, Nero aged 16, and his mother Agrippina. It is unique in the history of Rome. Here we see a woman sharing the status of the Emperor. In fact, in the first 2 years of his reign she ruled.

Vespasian was eating dinner with his eldest son, Titus. After the disaster in Greece, when he fell asleep during one of Nero's interminable concerts, Vespasian had been banished from court and told not to return to Rome. He had enjoyed the break from court and hoped that he would never have to return. How he loved the farm at Rieti.

"General," Stallos, his horse master, burst into the dining room, "There is a squad of Praetorians coming up the drive."

Titus gasped. Vespasian went white. 

"Well my boy, it looks as if I didn't get away with it, after all."

Titus stood up, pulled his father to his feet and kissed him.

"They probably want me dead too. Divorcing Marcia was maybe not enough?"

The two men embraced again and stood back, preparing themselves to die like Romans.

"You know what annoys me the most about this, father?" said Titus.

"What?"

"That my brother will outlive me."

Vespasian smiled grimly.

Vespasian - A Good Old Boy

Pictured above, lying 30 feet below the modern street, are the partial ruins of the Imperial Villa, Horti Sallustiani. This was Vespasian's favourite place to stay as Emperor when he was in Rome. Most historians remark on this, even in Roman times, as a sign of how Vespasian wanted to be seen as a "man of the people". But, by piecing together fragments of evidence, I can now see that there is more to this than propaganda. This part of Rome had always been his home and it was also where Caenis, the love of his life lived.

This map of ancient Rome, layered on modern Rome, shows approximately where Vespasian lived as Emperor and where Caenis had her house. She was 5-10 minutes walk away. They were always discrete. The Imperial Villa was also close to the Salarian Gate - look just north of the Gardens and you will see it. This is significant because the Via Salaria was the road to Rieti. Vespasian could go to his country place often without travelling through Rome and he could do so with the least amount of publicity. We know from accounts of his death there, that he had set Rieti up as the country HQ of the Empire. His staff were used to working there.

So far we are on the same page as most accounts. But as I was looking into the early years of his children, I had an aha. Suetonius says that Titus and Domitian were born in a very poor house that just happens to be down the road from the Horti Sallustiani. 

Titus - "was born on the third day before the Kalends of January, in the year memorable for the death of Gaius, in a mean house near the Septizonium1  p323 (Cannot be the one that Severus built near the Palatine as Suetonius died long before then) and in a very small dark room besides; for it still remains and is on exhibition."

Much more likely Vespasian's Domus was here where Suetonius tells us of Domitian's birth  "Domitian was born on the ninth day before the Kalends of November of the year when his father was consul elect and was about to enter on the office in the following month, in a street of the sixth region called "the Pomegranate,"¹ in a house which he afterwards converted into a temple of the Flavian family. He is said to have passed the period of his boyhood and his early youth in great poverty and infamy." -

Here are the notes on this location - Various quarters and streets of the city were designated (p339)in this way; cf. ad Capita Bubula, Aug. v; ad Pirum, Mart. 1.117.6. Ad Malum Punicum was a street on the Quirinal hill, probably corresponding with the modern Via delle Quattro Fontane; see Platner, Topography of Rome, p485.

Look for the VI on the map above that shows the area where Domitian is born and you can see that Vespasian's old Roman house, was in the same area as later when he was Emperor. Like many of us, he was a man of habit. He liked the area and wanted to stay there. Here is the modern street - Via delle Quattro Fontane - just down the road from the Horti.

Vespasian's relative poverty was real enough. His marriage to the low status Domitilla proves that. Ironically, I think that Caenis had a lot of money after the death of her mistress, Antonia, who left her extensive property on Egypt that was looked after by the Familia Alexander.

Vespasian's poverty and lower middle class origins were politically useful assets. How could someone like him be seen as a threat to Caligula or Nero? Just as Claudius had played the gibbering idiot and so avoided being seen as a contender, Vespasian, in middle-life, played the role of the poor country yokel. This kept him off the murder roles. 

His poor origins also helped him as Emperor. Here he could play the role of man of the people. 

He made a point of not living in the Palace on the Palatine. To showcase his lowly origins, he made his old house into a museum of humility and, I bet, he kept his country Sabine accent. Titus, secure in his military achievements also played the man of the people. But, I think this rankled Domitian. Unable to share in his older brother's achievements, Domitian proved his status by building grand monuments - principally the vast palace on the Palatine that makes up most of the ruins there today. 

These humble origins came to fruition in the fateful year of 67 AD. When the Judaean Revolt broke out, who was Nero to call upon? The best General in the Empire or stodgy old Vespasian. Both men received messengers from the Praetorian Guard. In the next post, we will see why Vespasian went to Judaea and why Corbulo had to kill himself.

 

Vespasian - Caenis the power behind the man

This is the reverse side of a gold Aureus in the reign of Vespasian. We see an idealized woman holding a wreath of victory over his head. Is this the only image that we have of Caenis? Who was she? What was the attraction between her and Vespasian? - 

"Thank you Aglaus, thank you," Vespasian embraced, Caenis's steward, "An altar fit for an empress."

"My boys and I will miss her, my lord. She was like a granny to them."

"My boy Titus feels the same," Vespasian sighed , "but sadly not my other son."

"Children, my lord, both a blessing and a curse."

Vespasian smiled ruefully.

Vespasian - The Assassination of Caligula

The killing of Gaius, Caligula, was the first assassination of an Emperor. I have done my best to explain who might have organized this, Narcissus and Caenis on behalf of the Familia Alexander, but how was it done?

Like all Emperors after him, Caligula was very concerned about assassination and, knowing the power of the Praetorian Guard, surrounded himself with a German bodyguard loyal only to him. How could a killer get close? The answer was that it had to be someone that he trusted and that person had to find a place where the Germans could not intervene.

There was only one place where it may be possible to isolate the Emperor from his guard. This was in the tunnel that led back to the palace under the Palatine. Archeologists think they have found this now. In the tunnel, an insider could isolate the Emperor from his body guard. 

The insider was Cassius Chaerea, a Tribune of the Guard. He was one of a tiny number of Romans allowed in the Emperor's personal space in public. Why he kill Caligula? Who was he and why did he have the trust of the Emperor?

The story goes that Cassius Chaerea had been offended by Caligula's constant teasing about his high voice and by giving him lewd passwords. Hardly I think grounds for the risks of killing the Emperor. I like Robert Graves's idea better. 

The sources say that Chaerea had been a veteran under Augustus. Graves suggests more. For whom do Emperors trust the most? People that they had known as children. What had been the most exciting part of Caligula's childhood? Being dressed up as a legionary and pretending to be a soldier in his father's camp. Who would have looked after him? The answer has to be a soldier. Certainly not either of his parents or his nanny. Then who was Chaerea? Graves thinks that he was this soldier guardian. This makes sense. 

I think that Graves's novelist's eye sees the truth of the matter. He also picks up the prophecy. Caligula was told that he would be killed by a horse. Now what games might a boy play with a soldier? Might Chaerea be "Horsey"?

Graves goes further and suggests that Chaerea was a survivor of the Varus disaster at Teutoburg. I favour this too. For how might Germanicus choose a guardian for his boy? That man had to be special. What could be more special than a survivor of that disaster?

How Chaerea dies offers us a clue for motive. At his execution, Chaerea, asks his executioner if he can use his sword, the one that Chaerea used to kill Caligula. His executioner agrees. This suggests to me that honour is involved.  

Our best source here is Josephus - who is on the inside of the Familia Flavia - and so had the best insight. 

"Now it is reported that Chaerea bore this calamity courageously..... And as a great many men went along with them to see the sight, when Chaerea came to the place, he asked the soldier, who was to be their executioner, whether this office was what he was used to or whether this was the first time of his using his sword in that manner? and desired him to bring him that very sword, with which he himself slew Gaius. So he was happily killed at one stroke."

Chaerea's motive for killing his "boy" must have been a deep one. Deeper than being insulted. There must have been a betrayal by Caligula. Why would he go to his grave so calmly? I think that he was going home to be with his comrades who had died 32 years before.

Today we know a lot more about PTSD. My own grandfather, who spent 3 1/2 years at the front in France in the Great War, killed himself 38 years after the war ended. Many soldiers who have served in our modern wars, kill themselves today, many years after their service. Their survival guilt grows over time and so do their nightmares. Death for them is often a release. Using Chaerea's own sword would not have been a decision of only his executioner. Claudius or Narcissus would have to have agreed. 

Why then did Claudius kill Chaerea if Chaerea was part of the plot? Claudius has to kill Chaerea because an Emperor cannot condone the murder of an Emperor. Chaerea knows this and accepts that this is the price. Why? The answer can only be that for Chaerea, his life was over. All that he had left was his honour.

 

Vespasian - 37 to 41 - From Disaster to Triumph

The discovery and acclamation of Claudius by Gratus of the Praetorian Guard after the assassination of Caligula in 41 AD (By Lawrence Alma Tadema)

"Herod Agrippa, the King of Chalcis, my lord," announced Narcissus.

Agrippa prostrated himself before the new Emperor, Claudius.

"Arise, King of Judaea and Samaria," said the Emperor. As Herod stood, Claudius beckoned the new king to his side.

"Well done my old friend," he whispered, "and how is the Alarbach?"

"Well my lord, pleased to be freed from prison and happy to have been of service."