This exemplary pine forest, a masterpiece of Teutonic regularity – no one knows its origins. It might have been created especially for its current function, the work, possibly, of an unusually far-sighted German forester at the end of the nineteenth century. A tapering oblong shape, with wide, numbered roads driven through it (each one blocked off by a turnpike) and sight axes in every direction. Bordered by great oaks, evenly spaced, with hunting-stands now built into them. The Sperrzone, the restricted area is in the eastern part of it, away from the road, and separated from the rest by a tall wire fence; a long spiral coil of barbed wire runs across the meadow. The pines are ten inches to a foot in diameter, many have been cut down, the cut stumps have been painted khaki. On the roof of the – unused – cubic bunker, and on the numerous barracks there are artful sylvan still lifes. Camouflage netting dotted with marram grass, that sort of thing. Black cinder paths, stout hydrants, hose boxes affixed to the barracks walls. The barracks of the Führer's Escort Battalion are tricked out with stags' horns and marquetry. The lawn laid – or planted – between the paths has failed to take, and great stretches of the grass have been scorched by the summer sun. Pine cones are collected up in wastepaper baskets by the clerical staffs and used to light fires. Fires are lit as early as September, and each one of the long work barracks sends dozens of thin vertical columns of smoke spinning up into the air, the blue looking strangely vivid against the dappled background of grey-green-brown. Winding air raid passages, their walls reinforced by fascines, always cool and cobwebby. Butter is kept fresh here in canteens (and is occasionally stolen). Rumour has it that the "site" was built over the winter by several thousand Jews, handily nearby is the mass grave they went on to afterwards. In actual fact, it was the work of convicts. Many suffered bad frostbite, as did the guards, who were prevented from lending a hand. Beginning in mid-September, there's an unbroken trickle of browned pine needles. Old stagers from the Organisation Todt, many with hunchbacks and crooked shoulders, are perpetually engaged in raking them away from the paths. Their long tobacco pipes dangle down to their breast pock-ets, they aren't impressed by our generals; mostly they have thick accents. A water cart with two worn-out ponies, a strip of sacking does duty for a harness. Older Luftwaffe construction crews walk up and down with barrows full of fragrant beech logs. They come from an estate on the other side of the river, which has been doomed by the construction of a new road. The logs are stacked outside the urinals.
Vehicles are parked wherever there is denser tree cover. At the edge of the wood, tanks lurk under sun-bleached camouflage netting. Anti-tank guns bulk out tarpaulins. Near the heart of the site there is a constant clamour of geese and ducks. There are hundreds upon hundreds of fowl. From various daily orders of the commandant: "Keeping fowl in the camp has taken on dimensions that…" Dates by which all the birds will have to be slaughtered. The chief medical officer protests. Not until our departure date has been irrevocably fixed does one note a serious reduc-tion in numbers. The small nude bodies hang on window crosses and washing-lines, for the most part decidedly scrawny, the pointless stumps of wings sharp broadswords. The feet hacked off, making the carcasses easier to stuff into parcels. The half-closed eyes of the geese, the size of their heads. Even now, though, two men are continuously employed in herding, sorting and above all slaughtering the fowl. They rise before the sun, lie down in their boots on straw sacks for half an hour at midday, get a ration of vodka in the evening. In one place the pine-needled forest floor is littered with flat chicken heads, every step you take brings up clouds of buzzing flies
