The Boy: A Holocaust Story - Hardcover

On a fall afternoon in 1913, eighteen-year-old Josef Stroop stood on the eighty-foot-high observation deck of the Hermann Monument in the Teutoburg Forest gazing up at the larger-than-life sculpture of the first-century leader of Germanic tribes, who, according to legend, had defeated the Romans in a decisive battle. Bright turquoise from the oxidation of the copper sheath, Hermann stood with his chest puffed out, a winged metal helmet covering his head and high leather boots adorning his feet. His fully extended right arm firmly gripped the hilt of a twenty-foot-long sword, the sharp blade pointing high into the blue sky.

A breeze rustled the green treetops in the thick forest. Stroop, enjoying the light wind ruffling his thick dark blond hair, stared into the distance. From this panoramic height he was able to make out a sprinkling of dots on the horizon’s green hills. Those were the buildings of his hometown, Detmold—a town of fifteen thousand residents, the capital of the independent principality of Lippe.

As the sun descended, Stroop entered a small opening directly beneath the statue’s feet. As on each of his frequent visits, he found it difficult to leave this inspiring shrine to the hero of Germany’s glorious past. But it was late and he had to depart. His hand on the rail, he walked down the dark spiral staircase, careful not to stumble. Emerging at the foot of the monument, he soon was walking in the shade cast by the tall trees on either side of the forest trail that led to Detmold. It was an hour’s walk, and before he reached home owls hooted overhead.

At dusk, Stroop passed the first houses on the outskirts of Detmold and then reached Neustadt Street. Across the canal that ran along Neustadt Street, over the high walls, he could see the red roof tiles of the royal family’s massive summer palace. A bit farther on, he could see the tops of the beech, walnut, and cedar trees, part of royal gardens accessible only to members of the royal family. He had heard of their large, oval pools with fountains and water cascades, but as an ordinary citizen he had, of course, never seen them.

Stroop followed the canal, its banks covered with shrubs, as it veered left onto Wallgraben Street. Across the strip of dark water towered St. Bonifatius Church. With his devout Catholic mother, Käthe Stroop, and his brothers, Conrad Jr. and Ferdinand, he passed through the church’s wide arched doors each and every Sunday. And on each and every weekday in the adjacent brown brick building, he had attended the parish school. In 1909, at the age of fourteen, after completing eight years of schooling, he, like most of his friends, had to quit school and find work.

Looking at the school’s shut door, he recalled his old aspiration to become a teacher. It was not that he had been a remarkable student possessed by intellectual zeal, or that he held a fondness for children. No, it was the thought of long straight rows of students looking up at him that inspired him. Dressed in a suit, he would tap a foot-long springy wooden cane on his fist as he marched back and forth before the blackboard, dozens of small eyes following his every move. As had been the case in his day, any student whose gaze wandered would be rewarded with a lash on the palm. Naughtiness would result in a more thorough caning. But Stroop’s parents had vetoed this aspiration; they couldn’t afford tuition for continuing his education.

After church, his father, dressed in his carefully ironed police uniform, took him to stand by the canal and watch the parade of the uniformed and sword-bearing honor guard pass to the music of local marching bands. Following them would roll a horse-drawn carriage carrying the royal family, citizens bowing as they passed by. Then Stroop’s father, a former coachman to the royal family, would solemnly remind his son that he must obey the prince.

It was dark when Stroop entered his parents’ modest two-story home at 7 Mühlen Street, which his father rented from the municipality of Detmold for reduced rent. The father, now a policeman, oversaw a nearby municipal shelter for the homeless and unemployed. He was frequently called out at night to break up a brawl or resolve a dispute.

Like his father, Stroop was now employed by the local government. He worked in the Land Registry, located in the government building on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz, as an apprentice in the tax collector’s office. For the past four years he had sat for hours glued to his wooden chair alongside a few other low-ranking clerks, laboriously registering in his stiff calligraphic handwriting the land tax on a farm sale, or hitting the typewriter keys to fill out a building license.

In the summer of 1914, with the clouds of war hovering over Europe, nineteen-year-old Stroop took a leave of absence from his job and volunteered for the 55th Prussian Infantry Regiment. The lanky six-foot-tall Stroop fit perfectly into the gray military uniform with its shiny buttons. Following a short ceremony under fluttering flags on Detmold’s train station platform, Stroop and his comrades, with long guns resting over their shoulders and spiked silver helmets on their heads, boarded a train. Over the sound of a brass band, crying crowds bid farewell to husbands, fathers, and sons destined for the Rhine River.

Within weeks, Stroop’s regiment was battling French forces. And near La Bassée, on October 22, a French bullet struck him in the shoulder. This injury took Stroop away from the battlefield, away from his comrades, and away from his service to the fatherland. He traveled back to Detmold to recuperate, where he impatiently awaited his return to the front. Finally, after a few months he was employed in the 256th Reserve Infantry Regiment (RIR) and fought along the eastern front in Poland, Lithuania, White Russia, Galicia, Romania, and Hungary. Bullets and shells hit comrades to the left and right of him, and Stroop suffered light wounds in battles in Hungary and Romania. Not once, however, did he request to be sent back home. Military service agreed with him.

The army recognized Stroop’s dedication, ability, and courage. His superiors awarded him three medals: the Lippische Principality Cross for Loyal Service, the Lippische Military Merit Medal with crossed swords, and the Iron Cross Second Class. And Stroop was promoted to vice sergeant, which gave him power to oversee other soldiers. He dreamed of higher ranks, but given his family’s modest social status and his limited education, this was an impossibility.

The signing of the armistice on November 11, 1918, ending the Great War caught Stroop and his fellow soldiers occupying Hungarian soil. To them it was self-evident that Germany had not been defeated, and they could not fathom the reason for what seemed an unwarranted, even shameful, surrender. In late December, after a farewell ceremony in Hungary and a speech from the revered German general August von Mackensen about the need to restore national unity at home, the units of the 256th RIR meekly boarded a train. On Christmas Eve, after four years on the battlefield, Stroop stepped out onto Detmold’s almost empty train station platform. Only a few family members were there to greet the returning soldiers. No local dignitaries awaited them, no admiring schoolchildren, no town band, not a flag or banner.

Days after Christmas, he returned to his tedious job at the Land Registry. While stationed in Bucharest, Stroop had taken a four-month topography course. He presented his new credentials to his superiors at the registry and requested a promotion. They rebuffed his requests time and again. In the small and...