Free Children of Wrath by Paul Grossman Page B

is inspected at the ramp. Come, I’ll show you.”
    He’d taken Willi to the Entladenbahnhof, the enormous rail station inside the Viehof linked directly to the Ringbahn, the system of rails encircling Berlin. Here, arriving tracks branched into multiple ramps, each capable of unloading a twenty-wagon freight train. A separate disinfection ramp contained a facility capable of cleaning empty train cars at a rate of fifty per hour. When it functioned as designed, the process went like clockwork, Gruber boasted.
    The shrill shriek of a steam whistle turned their heads in unison. A giant black locomotive was pulling in with its load.
    “I wish I could say I arranged it for you, Herr Sergeant. But these transports arrive with frequent regularity. Now you can see the whole show.”
    The train of twenty wooden freight cars rumbled up, originating, Willi saw, from a town in Poland. The journey, Gruber told him, had taken eleven hours. An ear-piercing screech of brakes brought the whole thing to halt. Jumping from the locomotive, the conductor looked down the length of the train, and when teams of attendants were ready by each wagon, he blew a whistle. Simultaneously all twenty sealed doors were flung open, and like a dam burst, a flood of pink pigs poured from each car, squealing, snorting, screaming, grunting, driven by men with sticks. Channeled down ramps into single files, they were met by teams of veterinary police in long canvas smocks. Before they were allowed into a holding pen, each creature had to pass muster. Most made it inside, awaiting further herding to the stockyards and market day. The few who did not were driven down a ramp directly to oblivion. In either case their fate was sealed. Once they arrived , Gruber had chuckled, the only way an animal ever left the Viehof was in quarters, hinds, or cutlets.
    They’d driven through a gate to the western zone, down avenues lined with giant redbrick structures, each several football fields long with towering smokestacks at the end. They might have been factories, machine shops, or tool sheds. But these, Gruber explained, were the slaughterhouses. Seven of them, processing eight thousand animals per day. Nearly 3 million per year. The shiny black Daimler halted.
    Blocking the road in front of them, a herd of sheep had emerged from a tunnel fresh from the market halls. Baying and bleating by the hundreds, they were driven by men with sticks up numbered ramps—26, 27, 28—into the nearest brick building and forced one by one through swinging doors.
    “Care to see how it’s done?” Gruber’d asked.
    Willi looked at the fleecy, white bodies pushing up against each other as they pressed inside. A man wearing hip boots and a long, white apron was standing at the door smoking. His apron, Willi saw, was splattered with blood. He shook his head no thanks. He didn’t need to see. But for a guy who’d killed his fair share of humans, it was kind of embarrassing.
    Gruber just smiled. “Most visitors don’t want to. I understand. I assure you, though, it’s as humane as we can make it. Basically, the animals never know what hits them. They’re isolated by sliding grates. Immobilized, stunned, suspended, bled from the throat. Then they’re flayed, scraped, gutted, hacked. Conveyed by overhead carriers to the cold chambers. Once there, each carcass is inspected for parasites and other signs of disease. Then they’re divided into meat and nonmeat parts. That’s one of the cold-chamber buildings there.” Gruber pointed to a massive windowless structure down the road.
    “The temperature never rises above thirty-five degrees. Butchers rent separate areas and draw on supplies as business requires. After leaving the Viehof, the better meats go to the wholesale market across Landsberger Allee, where they’re purchased by dealers who ship them to the Central Market at Alexanderplatz or directly to retail shops. Beef, generally, is sold by the side. Pigs, sheep, calves, usually