Free Children of Wrath by Paul Grossman Page A

platform of the S-Bahn station Willi could see into the otherworldly landscape of the Viehof across a wide river of tracks. Entirely encircled by high brick walls to obscure its more unsavory aspects, the acres of glass-roofed market halls, immaculate stockyards, high ramps, tunnels, and ultra-efficient slaughterhouses were among the engineering marvels of Berlin. This was Willi’s second trip here. How vividly he recalled the first a few weeks ago, a real grand tour. Just two days after visiting Strohmeyer’s Wurst works, it had completed his picture of the city’s meat industry, animal to sausage.
    Viehof director Gruber himself had met him at the station in a shiny Daimler, confessing his admiration for the criminal police and a hopeless addiction to detective novels. It was a usual enough tactic to try to sweet-talk Kripo agents who were poking around your backyard, Willi knew. But Gruber had laid it on thick. “You boys at the Alex are the best.” He’d pumped Willi’s hand as if he were meeting a movie star. “And we at the Viehof —not so very different, if I may sing our own praises. Healthy meat’s no more a luxury these days than law and order, don’t you agree? We all labor for the public good.”
    An elephantine man with a thin mustache, he oozed professional pride.
    “Before 1882,” he proclaimed as they were chauffeured down Eldenaer Strasse toward the Viehof entrance, “anyone could butcher animals wherever they wanted to in Berlin. Quite a mess, actually. Then everything was brought here, into one municipally run facility. Today we have nearly eleven hundred operators, large and small, leasing space under our rules and supervision. A most propitious arrangement.”
    Past the main gates, the avenues, filled with trucks and carts and horse-drawn wagons, were lined with handsome buildings in traditional North German brickwork, from deep reds to honey golds. Gruber pointed out the administrative center, the telegraph offices, the archives, the commodities exchange, the veterinary labs. There were cafeteria-style restaurants, coffeehouses, beer halls. Stores selling every sort of supply from cleavers and hooks to hip boots and aprons. Even a kiosk of Loeser & Wolff, Berlin’s best-known tobacconists, if Willi cared for a cigar.
    “We have fifty-seven buildings on a hundred and twenty acres. Fifteen miles of paved streets. Five thousand people who earn their daily bread here. The Viehof itself employs veterinarians, meat inspectors, sample takers, even our own fire department.”
    On the east side were the stockyards and sales halls. On the west, the slaughterhouses and by-product installations. Joining the two, a series of tunnels enabling livestock to be herded from one to the other. It was Wednesday, market day, so Gruber suggested they stop by and see how it all worked.
    The glass-roofed cattle market was so enormous Willi had barely been able to see the other end, and so loud he couldn’t hear himself think. Endless rows of corrals were filled with countless varieties of steer, and an equal number of men in hats and overcoats screaming offers and counteroffers. Gruber’d pointed out how the butchers’ agents examined the gaze, the mouths, even the breaths of the livestock they were interested in. A healthy cow had bright eyes, a moist nose, easy breathing. A sick one had crusty nostrils, heavy eyes, a hanging tongue. The moment a sick beast was detected, it was sent to a special quarantine ward. Executed. Sterilized. Sold to the poor as Freibank. But few sick ones ever made it this far, Gruber assiduously assured.
    Like everyone on this case, the Viehof Direktor had been trying to convince Willi the Listeria outbreak could not possibly have originated here—an entirely understandable impulse.
    “Our animals arrive from all over Europe. Veterinary and meat inspections are an integral aspect of our work. Before any livestock ever reaches the stables, much less the trading floors, every animal