In this chap­ter, we are intro­duced to Arpad Kovacs, the guard who relieves Andor Gut­man each night at six. Arpad is char­ac­ter­ized as a live­ly and flam­boy­ant indi­vid­ual with a pen­chant for boast­ing. Upon start­ing his shift, he asks to see Gut­man’s writ­ing, eager­ly prais­ing it with­out actu­al­ly read­ing it, pro­ject­ing con­fi­dence and cheer­ful­ness as he walks up and down the cor­ri­dor.

He uses a metaphor to crit­i­cize those who do not resist the Nazis, refer­ring to them as “bri­quets” – a term sig­ni­fy­ing indi­vid­u­als mold­ed by con­ve­nience and com­pla­cen­cy, much like coal dust bricks. Arpad empha­sizes that, unlike these “bri­quets,” he took active steps to sur­vive the Holo­caust by obtain­ing false papers and join­ing the Hun­gar­i­an S.S. This choice fuels his dis­dain for pas­siv­i­ty and his belief in the neces­si­ty of self-preser­va­tion.

Their con­ver­sa­tion shifts to Gut­man’s role as a Nazi radio pro­pa­gan­dist. Gut­man shares a tran­script of one of his broad­casts, only for Arpad to dis­miss its poten­cy, claim­ing it is lack­ing in con­vic­tion. Arpad is sur­prised to find that the broad­casts weren’t as incen­di­ary or influ­en­tial as he expect­ed, assert­ing that they lacked the dra­ma and impact he would have aimed for if he held Gut­man’s role.

Recall­ing his S.S. expe­ri­ences, Arpad boasts about his tenure, claim­ing no one sus­pect­ed his Jew­ish her­itage due to his Aryan looks and loy­al­ty. His pride con­tin­ues as he shares that his unit was tasked with uncov­er­ing poten­tial leaks with­in the S.S. regard­ing their plans for the Jew­ish pop­u­la­tion. Ulti­mate­ly, he boasts of their suc­cess, report­ing that four­teen S.S. men were exe­cut­ed based on his unit’s rec­om­men­da­tions, earn­ing praise from Eich­mann him­self.

As the con­ver­sa­tion con­cludes, there’s a bit­ter under­tone as Arpad reflects on not rec­og­niz­ing Eich­man­n’s sig­nif­i­cance at the time, lament­ing that if he had, he would have tak­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to kill him. This chap­ter explores themes of iden­ti­ty, sur­vival, com­plic­i­ty, and the spec­trum of moral choic­es made dur­ing dire cir­cum­stances.