Freaky Nazi job Interview.

Last week I went to the oddest of odd job interviews.

Looking through the ‘writers jobs’ section of Craigslist I found a listing for  ’author needs an assistant to help finish a World War II / Holocaust book.’ The little hairs on my neck stuck up. “This is the perfect job for me. I have a masters degree in History. I’ve studied world war two and the Holocaust on a number of occasions. I’ll assist a respectable author. Great experience. Gimme gimme.” I whacked together a resume and sent it to the email address. An hour later an assistant phoned me and I had an interview for 2pm the next day.

2pm the following day I knocked on the door of an apartment in the most exclusive apartment block in Marina Del Rey. I was expecting the scholarly Jewish gentleman to answer the door. Instead a teenage skater-dude answered and told me to wait in the living room while his boss finished an important meeting. The living room had a small kitchenette, panoramic views of Los Angeles and  a lot of Nazi Memorabilia.  displayed in glass cases and hanging on the wall. My expectant, hopeful, little heart hit the floor. The owner weren’t no balanced historian, he were a fetishist. I wanted home but a  sense of manners, it’d be rude to walk out,  made me stay.

Adolfs, not Himmlers, but Goring's is similar.

I cautiously  inspected the display cases; officers hats from the army and SS. Knives, belt-buckles, flags. Mannequins with complete officers uniforms, one with a black leather SS coat. Two large Wehrmacht Eagles hanging from the wall. Air Marshall Goring’s gold-plated, engraved Walther PPK pistol.Plus, as  an after thought, one set of concentration camp pajamas and a baby blue electric guitar with a feather boa shoulder strap. “Give this sad old twat some chat. Don’t get into an argument and get out of here.” I sense someone standing behind me. I swivel around on my heels. A young guy in a baseball hat gives me the once over and looks disappointed. I ignore him and wait on the scholarly, misinformed gentleman. The kid holds out his hand. “I’m XXXXX . I’m the author. My assistant and I will be interviewing you.” “Oh fuck-sake,” I thought.

I sit opposite XXXXX and his assistant, a slightly depressed lady with an English Lit degree from NYU. Turns out this guy has a three-book deal from a great publishing house. “I am a German-American-Jew. I am a Nazi war crime perpetrator interviewer. I’ve been researching this book for ten years. I need  help finishing it by the deadline.”

“Those Nazi guys must be old by now? Do they show any signs of guilt?” I ask.

“No siree, they do not. Of course not. Where would the fun be in that?

“So what do you know about the Holocaust?” the assistant asks me.

“Where the fuck do I start?” I think.

“You do know what the Shoah is don’t you?” he chips in. “Yes, the systematic elimination of Jewish people, homosexuals, Romanov travellers, people with disabilities, etc etc etc.” I think, but I mumble something barely sensible. By now I am beat.

“What exactly did your History masters degree involve?”

“You two twats go get a history degree then come ask me that question,” I think, but I smile nervously.

“Show him,” XXXX says to the girl. She opens a leather-bound, typed memoir on the desk in front of me. XXXX stands up and points at the page. “You speak German. Read me some of this.” My German is strictly O-level but  my accent is excellent. I read the introduction to the book  in crisp comic strip Bavarian. (The book purported to be the war memoirs of a posh German officer, with a name like Von Schrauberlockerberg. It waswritten in a style similar  to Harry Flashman’s.) I gave up after  half a paragraph and looked at the kid to tell me what it all meant. He looked at me with disappointment and detached attraction. “Don’t ask me. I don’t speak no German. But hearing them words spoken in an English accent sure lends them a whole new meaning. ” A moment later XXXX left the room. He may have gone to the bathroom to play with himself, or to his bedroom to play ‘Tour of Duty’ on the computer with surfer-dude assistant, but I never saw him again.

The girl and I chatted for a while then I made my way home. Part of me was dejected. Part of me humiliated. But mostly I was confused. It took me a couple of days to get over it. If the memorabilia on display wasn’t rented from Universal Costume and Props department and I am not on Youtube, then XXXX has spent a lot of money amassing his collection. My guess is  there is tens of thousands of dollars of creepy military junk in that house. But is any of it actually real? The market for Nazi stuff is big enough to keep counterfeiters and con artists busy and wealthy. Just how gullible might XXXX be? And what is the provenance of the Von Poshmeister memoir he is basing his research on? Why isn’t it already part of a greater historical archive? Was he willingly ripped off?

Who is this XXXX anyway? Possibly he’s  a Youtube  practical joker. But more likely he genuinely has a publishing deal. Is he a revisionist? Probably not consciously. Does he have a balanced perspective of his subject matter? Clearly not. Does he have an accurate understanding of his subject matter? No, he can’t even read a word of  his main source material.

My guess is  he’s a rich boy and gets off on the power and horror of a terrible time in History. Rigor, clarity, accuracy are some of the skills I learned in my  History degree. And they are needed fi you want to construct a responsible  historical publication. Until that interview I hadn’t realized how important those lessons are.

One item from the display  haunts me more than the others. It is the baby blue electric guitar with the feather boa strap. Baby blue was Gorings favorite color. He also like to wear make up and ladies clothes and dance around drunk. Could that  actually been Gorings Fender? Does XXXX like to dance?

…god knows who I’m gonna trawl up with this blog.