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Junior Administrator Albert Dunkel was having a bad day at the
office. The senior administrator was in an especially bad mood, and was
using his subordinate as a verbal punch-bag to alleviate his stress. It
was not as if Dunkel was incompetent however, he was an excellent
worker, and he knew it. He could not help it if people below him were
slow in completing their work or sending him the right papers, he could
only ever be as strong as the weakest link in the chain after all, and
their were far too many weak links near him for his liking. The Senior
Administrator was upset that important papers were not being processed
quickly enough, but Dunkel could only deal with the papers that reached
him and had very little control over the speed at which they did so.
This lack of control made him very annoyed, but at the same time he
recognised (and consistently tried to suggest to his superior) that the
level of work being processed by his office had increased vastly in the
past few months and that the bureaucracy would need time to grow to the
extent where it could cope with such extra stress. Anyway, it was
almost midday and therefore almost time for lunch. It was a bright,
sunny day and he would take a walk in the park to get some fresh air.
Work was dull, but it had to be done, he needed the money and as a
civil servant the work he was engaged in was vital to the running of
the state. This often made him feel very proud, his country depended
him just as much as it depended on the soldiers, sailors and airmen. He
was just a different kind of soldier, and, he liked to think, a
effective and loyal one.

Half an hour or so later and Dunkel returned from his walk in the park
feeling refreshed and reinvigorated. He hung his coat on the stand and
sat down in front the growing piles of paper on his desk. He sighed
softly to himself before picking up his pen (a very elegant black
instrument that had been a present from his wife many years ago) and
commenced work on the papers in front of him. He quickly read over a
covering letter, it was from the factory in Kulmhof and concerned the
Saurer vans that had been in use there for a only a few months but, it
seemed, were experiencing problems already. He remembered having
reservations about the commissioning of the vehicles because they
seemed to him to be a very temporary solution to what he had always
considered to be a very long-term problem. He had always doubted
whether the vehicles would be sufficiently long-lasting to justify the
expense, and now it seemed his concerns had been well-placed, for they
were requesting changes and improvements be made already. This would no
doubt mean more cost, the Senior Administrator would not be happy!
Dunkel sighed again, more heavily this time. He was pleased to read
that the vehicles had processed ninety-seven thousand pieces since
December, but suspected the figure to be artificially high. He knew the
man who ran the operation in Kulmhof and did not trust him not to lie
about the success of his work there. Nevertheless, even taking
potential exaggeration into account, ninety-seven thousand was an
impressively high number for such a short space of time. The letter
went on to request several technical changes and referenced the
appropriate plans and diagrams on accompanying papers.

The first change recommended was a reduction in the load space of the
vans. According to the officer who had written the report, loading the
van to full capacity badly affected its stability, but reducing the
number of pieces loaded was inefficient, as the empty space in the van
must still be filled with carbon monoxide. Dunkel noted that the
manufacturers of the vans had apparently claimed that reducing the size
of the back of the van would unbalance it, but actual usage had shown
that during operation the load naturally accumulated near the rear
doors and therefore this would not actually be the case. This seemed
convincing enough to him and he moved on to the next recommendation. He
heard children playing out in the street below and smiled to himself,
he would be a father soon too. The thought filled him with pride, joy
and happiness, but also a great deal of trepidation too. He was unsure
if he was ready to be a father, he was still fairly young. Still, he
was confident that he and his wife would make great parents together,
and besides it was vital that the country have plenty of strong young
men and women to lead it into the future. Recognising that he was
getting sidetracked, he returned to the report and was pleased to see
that the second improvement was even more minor. Better protection for
the lighting in the vans was requested, since they were easily damaged.
At first Dunkel wondered why, given the nature of the task the vans
performed, lighting was even necessary, but the report went on to
explain this satisfactorily to him. If the lights were not on during
the first few moments of the operation there was a tendency for the
merchandise to rush towards the light when the doors closed, making it
difficult to actually close them at all. He also noted that in total
darkness, some screaming usually occurred, but he did not see how this
was a problem.

The third and final recommendation of the report was that a sealed
drain be installed in the middle of the floor of each of the vehicles
to make cleaning them easier. The report suggested that the drainage
hole's cover should be eight to twelve inches in diameter, and be
equipped with a slanting trap so that fluids could drain off easily
during operation. Dunkel noted with satisfaction that this drain would
be dual-purpose in that it could also be used to 'evacuate large pieces
of dirt' during cleaning as well. The report had no further
recommendations and Dunkel was pleased to see that the three changes
suggested would be neither costly nor time-consuming, and would
potentially greatly increase the efficiency of the processing plant at
Kulmhof. He stamped the report with the word 'APPROVED' and signed his
name below it. He would have to submit to the senior administrator
later for final clearance but he was confident that there would be no
resistance. There were many more reports for Dunkel to read that day,
but as he picked up the next one and began to scan its contents he felt
no resentment. He knew he was doing important work, he was playing an
essential role in what he knew would be remembered as one of the
greatest endeavours of all time. He was a vital part of the final
solution, and neither history nor memory would ever forget men like
him, the Holocaust was always a supremely efficient butchery.