Escape from Myself- A story of guilt and redemption

Chris Valentin

Escape from Myself A story of guilt and redemption

Outskirts Press, Inc. Denver, Colorado

This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. Escape from Myself A story of guilt and redemption All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2008 Chris Valentin V1.0 Cover Photo © 2008 JupiterImages Corporation. All rights reserved - used with permission. This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com ISBN: 978-1-4327-2548-8 Outskirts Press and the ―OP‖ logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

―For my heart could not flee away from my heart, nor could I escape from myself since wherever I ran, I should be following.‖ ―St. Augustine

For Rudolf, whose life was, I hope, not in vain.

There are a number of people I‘d like to thank, both family members and inspirations. First thanks go to Raul Miranda, Oluwa and Sid Ross for providing a welcomed ear to all of my artistic complains. Second, thanks to Stephanie Minier, Melissa Delgado, Alan Maggiacomo, Cynthia Guerrero, and the guys and gals at Year Up for all the fun and frivolity. Lastly, Elie Weisel, French and Saunders, S. Silverman, and Vivian. You all know why.

Contents

Prologue ................................................................... i One .......................................................................... 1 Two ......................................................................... 6 Three ..................................................................... 12 Four ....................................................................... 18 Five ....................................................................... 27 Six ......................................................................... 37 Seven ..................................................................... 45 Eight ...................................................................... 51 Nine ....................................................................... 58 Ten ........................................................................ 64 Eleven ................................................................... 71 Twelve................................................................... 77 Thirteen ................................................................. 83 Fourteen ................................................................ 88 Fifteen ................................................................... 94

Sixteen................................................................. 103 Seventeen ............................................................ 111 Eighteen .............................................................. 116 Nineteen .............................................................. 124 Epilogue .............................................................. 129

PROLOGUE

My studies of the man known as Rudolph von Schluck began around March of 2005, when he allowed his story to be heard for what I assume to be the first time in his life. He was usually tightlipped about his previous affiliation with the Nazi Party, and his activities in those years were a mystery until he decided to come out with his life‘s work. We met for nearly a year in a neighborhood library while he talked and I either voice-recorded his words or wrote them down on paper. At the end of his life, February 9, 2006, he wrote to me that he was deeply apologetic for what he did. His sincerity was not astonishing—his entire life had been an apology to the world he maligned. I hope his life will be a reminder for a world that, in many ways, has not changed so much from his. ~i~

One

I

awoke to a numb pain in my legs and the retching smell of blood. I couldn‘t get up; I couldn‘t breathe, but my senses were aware of my surroundings. I wanted to scream, but as I tried to open my mouth, cold, unfeeling hands began to grasp below my sight. I felt woozy and sick, the smells getting fainter yet more sickening. I knew my leg was damaged somehow, but my memories were overcome with sensations and pain. I shut my eyes and tried to hum, at least to myself, the tune of ―Wagner‘s Rings.‖ But no one, none of my busy assailants, could hear me. I couldn‘t keep my eyes open, and I blinked. Blinking is an unusual ability. A mere action to ~1~

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keep the eye moist, it can sometimes mean so much more, so it took me by no surprise to wake up again, this time in some sort of tent. A tall white-clothed figure stood by me. ―Ah, good morning, sir. I hope you‘ve slept well. You‘ve got quite a bit to tell us. Do you remember the last few days?‖ The figure‘s rapidfire inquisition was oddly emoted, as if bordering helplessly between concern and curiosity. ―No, not a lot, Herr…?‖ ―Ah, I forgot the introduction. I am Doctor Beltzer.‖ No first name, I thought. This was obviously a serious matter. ―Well, doctor, I think you‘ll understand if I am unprepared for questions as to why I am in a place I didn‘t intend to be. I‘m very tired, and I have no idea where I am or what time it is. Now, I was busy with important business when I left, and I must get some rest to press on with it.‖ ―Ah, but doctor, you cannot leave.‖ His concerned curiosity faded into a strict order. ―You must answer as to your whereabouts on the day of the bombing. So sit still and tell me where you were driving off to before your crash!‖ I was beginning to remember the crash. A quick mental photo of my Mercedes wrapped around a tree flashed quickly in my mind. I remembered a bit, but my abrupt questioning left me moody, and I wanted no part of Beltzer‘s demands. ―Well, doctor,‖ I sheepishly replied with false ~2~

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innocence, ―I don‘t have much of a memory now, but if you let me get ahold of my surroundings, I could try to remember.‖ ―Humph!‖ Beltzer grunted. (His first remark without that annoying ―Ah,‖ I realized.) ―Fine, rest in your cot, but stay inside the medic tent. Your legs are in no condition to struggle to run.‖ With that rather ominous tone, he walked away. I knew Beltzer would return for answers, so I turned a little to my left, my legs still aching, to see my surroundings. The tent was crowded with voices, but my view was only of its side wall, so I turned again to see what was opposite me. A doleful soldier lay in a cot nervously moving his fingers. ―Hallo! Sprechen Englisch?‖ ―Umh? Oh, well, yes sir, I do,‖ was his woeful reply. ―Well…‖ A conversation with him would be tough. ―What are you here for? I see nothing wrong.‖ ―That doctor thinks I‘ve got battle fatigue.‖ He pointed to Beltzer meekly, as if he wanted no one to know. I had seen men like him before, whose terrible experiences forced them into solitude. They are broken men, quiet until reminded of their own trauma. ―Oh, well at least you‘ll survive. Remember, if you‘re sent back to the front, face those bastards like a man. With a hundred men like you, we could take the world!‖ ―I suppose you‘re right, sir.‖ ~3~

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My speech did little to boost his bravado, but then again, I wasn‘t sure if I believed it myself. He was obviously a strong man; his body was overmuscled like a wild animal, yet he couldn‘t stop shaking once I mentioned the front. He was terrified of returning, just like the others I had seen in Buchenwald. ―Ah, so you‘ve met Private Reiss? He‘s a good man, isn‘t he? A little stressed out, but I‘ll help him with that.‖ I turned back. It was that damned Beltzer, his face grinning as if he were nearly mad. ―Now, back to you. Why were you out in the woods so late by yourself?‖ More questions. That was all I‘ve heard from him. ―Well, I‘ll tell you. I was out hunting, and I most likely drove off the path within the trees. It was very dark,‖ I said after much thought. ―Hunting? What on Earth could you have possibly been hunting there?‖ He fell into my trap. ―Well,‖ I whispered, ―I was hunting…‖ Then, with a loud scream I yelled ―DUCK!‖ The soldier suddenly sprang awake, frightened by the sound of what he perceived of as a screamed order, and lifted himself off the cot and tried to fumble his way out. Nurses and doctors ran to him to calm his nerves, but he shrugged them off with frenzied blows, tumbling the personnel left and right. The private jumped over patients, hid under cots, and cowered behind boxes while ~4~

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everyone stood with disbelief. Beltzer touched a nerve in me and was now given a more important study. I quietly smiled as I saw him follow the line of white-clothed people to chase the mentally wounded patient. Later that day I was escorted to a car, where I realized some ten days had passed from when I left the camp to when I awoke staring at that rude man. The driver was quiet, the drive excruciatingly dull, but I began to remember. I am Rudolph von Schluck. I am a doctor. I work at a concentration camp in Buchenwald.

~5~

Two

T

he Night of Broken Glass began like almost every day. I opened my private medical office in Mannheim and prepared to see the day‘s collection of dregs and the unsociable. But in the course of the day, I didn‘t see a single patient, which had never happened before. The streets were silent for much of the evening, and the big men of the party—various SA and SS members—who usually parade the town were absent. It was odd; the city was always bustling with activity, and I grew uneasy about what I apparently did not know. Tension rang throughout the office that day. No one even showed up for work. In the day, I spoke to only one guest, the mailman. He gave me the ~6~

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accustomed handful of letters and notices (I had forgotten to pay for the office again, I noted) and used the time to speak. ―So, have you noticed the streets are so quiet?‖ ―You‘ve seen it too, eh? It has me spooked to see everyone take their mail and run inside their houses. I wonder what is going on.‖ I was relieved; at least I wasn‘t alone in my fear. I relaxed a bit with him, even suggested he take a drink inside, but he continued his route in a quick pace. ―Bill, bill, letter from home, bill.‖ I read to myself out loud. Then, right next to a letter from a relative lay a manila envelope with the swastika emblem above the return address. An official document! I tore it open and read the notice. Dear Dr. von Schluck: We have written to notify you that you have been chosen as a physician for the government‘s active program to hold criminals. You are requested to be in Weimar to meet your superior, Mr. Blome by November 21 to receive further instructions. Inside are documented reports from your head office. You are advised to read them carefully to prepare for your new career. The letter was short and surprisingly frank; the reports were what took up most of the envelope. There were a number of notices and warnings on diseases, as well as manuals on operations, but I ~7~

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was too busy packing to read them right away. There would obviously be no business, so I filled two suitcases and bought a ticket to Weimar. I relaxed in the train, never thinking that I would not return. My business would be torn down, I later learned, among hundreds of others in the riots. It became part of the burning buildings and ruined lives of the night von Rath was murdered. Resting on the train, I tried to involve myself with the reports I was sent, but I couldn‘t concentrate. I couldn‘t even sit and enjoy the scenery because I was so terrified of what the officials wanted me for. It was disturbing me how they expected me to pick up whatever I could to move somewhere else. But here I was, on my way to meet the deputy Reich Health leader. I must have been mad to have taken the position, even is it was an order, but I could not, even today, think of it being an option. What else drove me to meet this superior I had never seen for a job I‘d never heard about? I honestly cannot say. If I knew then what I know now, I‘d have washed my hands of the whole thing and avoided the business. The ride to Weimar took a very long time, and for the entire time, questions and thoughts tore away at me. I wanted answers, but none appeared. Either way, I knew I‘d get answers eventually, so I resigned myself to meeting Mr. Blome. I took time to rent a small room in a hotel and dress myself in a well-fitting suit and my long, white doctor‘s coat. I found the federal office on the letter, Blome‘s ~8~

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temporary office, and entered. The walls were in dire need of repair; the paint chipped and the walls leaked, oddly, as it wasn‘t raining. And in a small chair with a little desk in front of it was a small taciturn man reading a file. ―Mr. Blome, I presume?‖ I questioned. ―Are you Dr. von Schluck, or Mr. Hoven?‖ was his quick reply, spoken without looking up from his files. ―I‘m von Schluck, sir. I was told to report here for a new position.‖ ―Oh, Dr. von Schluck!‖ He seemed excited. His arms released the file, and he stood from his chair to salute me. ―I‘ve been waiting for you for days now. What took you so long?‖ I tried to respond, only to be brushed aside by his hands. ―Never mind, you‘re here, so we can get started. As you know, we‘ve been holding prisoners in detention centers throughout Germany. They are a nuisance, but we just cannot kill them yet.‖ He said this in a laugh, but it came out as a sinister giggle, like a child. ―Anyway, we have reports on the prison camps available in Germany, and we‘ve noticed that many need medical facilities. We want you to go and set up business in a camp not too far from here.‖ ―I‘m sorry,‖ I interjected, ―but who is ‗we‘? I see only you.‖ ―Oh, well, whenever I make an order, it comes directly from me and him.‖ He pointed to a photo on his desk of Hitler with some small writing on the ~9~

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bottom. Without haste, he saluted it and waited, as if in anticipation for a reaction. Certainly he wasn‘t expecting that picture to respond! After what seemed like several minutes, he released his stance and handed me the file that he had been reading. I glanced through it without interest, expecting him to say something, anything, about what it is I was to do. But he just returned to his desk and began writing a memo. I had been left waiting long enough, so I opened the door, when he got up and looked at me quizzically. ―What are you doing? Why are you leaving?‖ ―Well isn‘t that all? You gave me the report, so I‘ll just take my leave to read it.‖ He became flustered, almost as if he would cry, and angrily belted out an order. ―No! No one leaves here without my permission. Do you understand? And if you try, I‘ll have you killed! I am your superior, and you leave when I tell you!‖ *** Again I questioned the orders I was given. I could not understand why I had accepted this position without hesitation; I could have rejected his order, but his quick temper kept me in check. Clearly he wasn‘t all there mentally, his childishness and anger seemed out of place among the genuine National Socialists in Germany. I left him, after he directly ordered me to leave, and returned to my hotel room to read his file. Inside ~ 10 ~

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was a small map of the camp with little notes on where I was allowed to go, an identification card to show the guards, and a notice to bring my own supplies. There was also an addition to the file I received in the mail that contained several pages of notes on diseases common to the camp. I was to read about these things and study them thoroughly before I left Weimar. Sure enough, though, when I tried to leave the city, SS guards met me and asked me to turn back ―on orders of the mayor.‖ What kind of man was I dealing with? I spent two days needlessly wasting my time in Weimar before I was allowed to leave. Blome obviously told the guards to watch me to prove his point, but I didn‘t think he‘d keep me from my work. Nevertheless, I stayed and read up on the disorders, mostly back and stomach maladies. Taking careful notes and keeping pace with what I was supposed to do, I made sure I was prepared for what lay ahead. I even bought a new car, a shiny blue Mercedes to drive up to the gates.

~ 11 ~

Three

I

passed the gates and flashed my identification card; a tall, blond Aryan type pointed me to the car park. As soon as I parked the car, making sure to wipe the fender of excess mud and grime, a small middle-aged man passed by carrying a heavy load with a guard behind him. At the mere sight of me he yelped and lost control of the load, causing several small stones to tumble out and make a dent on my Mercedes‘ window and bonnet. The guard screamed furiously at the old imbecile, and I admit it took patience to avoid an argument. As the guard continued to push the gentleman, another guard, freakishly similar to the first two, came up to me and introduced himself. ~ 12 ~

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―You really must enforce yourself on these people. Yell at them; that is the only way to get them to do what you want around here. I suppose you‘re Dr. von Schluck. I‘m Lakai, your guard. I‘ll show you around here, but you must develop some backbone.‖ He laughed a great hollow belly laugh, the type that echoes through a hall, and slapped me forcefully on my back. ―You see, what do you have holding you up? I can‘t tell if you are a man or a snail. Ha!‖ The slap knocked down my handful of files and reports into a heap of confusion and left my glasses on an unusable angle nearing collapse. Surely he could have killed me, I thought, but as I thought out my embarrassing episode, Lakai was already moving forward, pointing rapidly at the buildings and shouting instructions. ―Come now, doctor, don‘t stay in one place. We move quickly here, remember that.‖ We passed the guard‘s quarters and the administrator‘s office. ―Don‘t forget to introduce yourself to Commander Koch. He runs this camp. If you don‘t, he might confuse you for a new inmate!‖ Again he lunged into a broad laugh and attempted to slap me before I veered left to pretend to see a small cluster of barracks. ―Oh, those are the inmates‘ beds.‖ Lakai motioned. ―You don‘t really need to be there. If you see any inmates, they‘ll be in your office. Let me show you.‖ I tried to get a better look, but Lakai quickly ~ 13 ~

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grabbed my arm painfully and escorted me to the ―office.‖ It was a tiny section of an already cramped bungalow with a chair and some small notes on a wooden desk. ―I haven‘t even moved in and I already have work?‖ I asked. ―Yes, the doctors here are always busy. If the inmates don‘t get you, the head office will. And if not them, Koch‘ll keep you on your toes. If you ask me, you can get by just looking like you‘re doing work. That‘s the only time I‘ve ever seen a man left alone around here.‖ Lakai made no point to laugh again, a sign of seriousness etched his face. ―Lakai, how long have you been here?‖ ―Hah, I was one of the first inmates here.‖ Lakai was an inmate? I couldn‘t believe it. He seemed so strong, masculine, and, frankly, German. He looked like the guard on the front gate and the threatening one near my car. How could he be a prisoner? ―I can see you are surprised, doctor. Please understand. Many people here were arrested on superfluous charges. I myself am just like any other man, except for this.‖ He pointed to a small purple triangle sewn onto his shirt. ―I am a Jehovah‘s Witness, so they arrested me. Can you believe such things? I am strong enough to lift an ox, I‘ve done it before, and smart enough to pass Himmler‘s little SS exam, but when it comes down to it, I‘m less than all of these other men around me. You‘ll see that they all work to keep this camp operational, yet by doing so they only hurt themselves. Even they ~ 14 ~

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consider me less than equal. Can you imagine such nonsense? I am less than the prisoners, even in their eyes!‖ At the notice of this large man‘s speech, a smaller guard marched up to him and slapped his back the same way Lakai slapped mine, but with a truncheon, repeatedly. He beat Lakai until blood ran down his back and into his pants, all while screaming at him. ―Lie down, dimwit! Fall!‖ But the towering figure only hunched over and walked away, with the mosquito of a guard following close behind. I went up into the doctor‘s office and took the notes off my desk to read them. Standing nearby were three men, all the same (a key to camp life, I soon learned, is familiarity, as everyone tends to look exactly alike) wearing physician‘s coats and writing in a small notepad. ―Doctor von Schluck? Good day, I‘m Waldemar Hoven, your superior officer. This is, you know, Leonardo Conti, the head of the NSDAB, and here‘s Commander Koch, the head of Buchenwald. We are sort of the welcoming committee here. Herr Conti is, of course, here on business, but he nearly jumped at the opportunity to meet you, eh, Leo?‖ ―Yes, I‘ve heard quite a bit about you, doctor‖ Conti said, ―I‘ve come on business, but I needed to meet the man who wrote the illustrious report on the affect of alcoholism on the body. Such an interesting report, I read it twice. Of course, there is little chance you‘d meet an alcoholic here.‖ ~ 15 ~

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I was too tired and too confused with Lakai‘s words to bear this congregation. ―I wrote that report two years ago! You still remember it? Well, amazing is the only word I can think of for that. Yes, sir, absolutely amazing. Well, I have many reports and memos to read, and there are only twenty-four hours in a day, so I shall be in Weimar if you need me. Good day.‖ I tried to leave, but Koch blocked my way, and in turning I noticed that Hoven and Conti had suddenly moved closer to me, right next to me. Our breath hung helplessly in the air. I thought I might die before anyone said something. ―No, doctor, you stay here.‖ After the interminable silence, Koch‘s voice was nearly booming. ―You stay, feel comfortable, and prepare yourself for patients. Hoven here will guide you until you can handle it yourself.‖ I wanted out, but like with Blome, I was trapped in the face of madness. They all stood waiting for me to move back to my desk, I couldn‘t help but oblige. They all stood above me, confidently smiling like the trainer of a dog when he performs a trick, and relaxed the awkward tension in the room. They all left with their smiles intact, until I followed them, when they all began chatting excitedly about the new doctor. There was still a feeling of slight fear once they left, a sense that things would only get worse before things got better. After writing and reading my notes all afternoon, I thought I‘d try to relax by standing ~ 16 ~

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outside and watching the day unfold into night. As I stood by the door of the office, though, I could see only smoke and dust. The sky didn‘t shine with its beautiful reds, blues, and violets. In their place, a hastily assembled collage of alarming grays and blacks, like an old photograph, hung in the air. There was a smell of burning trash and fecal waste that disturbed the typical fragrance of the woods nearby. What had I become part of in this new world?

~ 17 ~

Four

I

went to bed, exhausted from the business of the day and ready to unwind. It was around one in the morning, typical sleeping hour for me, but everyone else was already off to their barracks. I slept soundly, letting the past hours drift away. I was finally able to relax and enjoy myself for once that day. ―All right, gentlemen, time to get up! Come on, we‘ve got business to do.‖ It was all of four in the morning. ―Come on, rise out of bed, doctor.‖ Someone kept shouting and pushing me, waking me out of my tranquility. As much as I‘d move to avoid his voice, the man (a guard, I presumed) continued to push and shout, ~ 18 ~

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eventually upgrading to shoving and screaming. ―Fine, fine. Let me move on, then,‖ I said groggily. I woke up, got out of bed, and moved to the sink to wash my face and brush my teeth and hair. Every time I moved too slowly, I was daunted by that miserable guard. I finished clothing myself and moved to the familiar face standing over me— Lakai. ―Ah, good day, Lakai. What is this business of waking so damned early?‖ He grunted. ―Everyone wakes at four for roll call. You must get used to it. You will get in trouble if you don‘t, sir.‖ ―I see. So where is the roll call?‖ ―You must meet the other personnel there. I have to meet roll call with the other prisoners.‖ We parted ways again, with me walking slowly to the roll call area and shouting, ―Here!‖ when they called my name. I felt like I was in school again. When all of that was over, I followed the other doctors into the office, which was connected to a large series of operating rooms filled with dirty supplies and equipment. They instructed me to go to my section of the office while they went into the O.R. As soon as they left, a large guard came in with what looked like a small bundle of rags. ―This thing refuses to work on grounds of a stomach ulcer. Check him and send him back if he‘s well.‖ That was a person? I thought. Obviously it needed food and drink, or at least a rest from its ~ 19 ~

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daily workload. After a close examination with the guard present, it was revealed that it did have a peptic ulcer. The ulcer was worsening through the stress and lack of proper food in the camp. ―It needs to eat, sir.‖ The guard groaned loudly, ―Then I will keep it in the hospital until it is better.‖ The guard and his charge were just about to leave when I asked him, ―By the way, what is it exactly? I mean, is it male or female?‖ Both guard and patient looked confused. ―You are a doctor and you can‘t tell? Isn‘t it obvious? Why, it‘s a man! I will prove it.‖ He grabbed the patient and shook him violently up and down. The shreds of clothes daintily fell onto the floor, revealing an almost skeletal frame. A tiny vestige of what should have been attached to a healthy man limped between his legs. After the two left, the guard laughing hysterically, I went to the administrator‘s office to look up that patient‘s records. I was given his file and fell into shock. That thing, that skeleton, had been there for two years and had taken nearly fatal turns because he was overworked. He was only forty-three. I took to writing a journal whenever I was free to keep a record on what was going on in Buchenwald. I never realized, until now, how secretive the camp was. We weren‘t that far from Weimar, but I doubt anyone there knew what was going on. Sometimes workers in the forests surrounding the camp found dead bodies hanging ~ 20 ~

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off tree limbs or shot on the ground, but everyone claimed they were escapees. I refuse to believe that no one wanted to know, but no one really wanted to investigate. The conditions there were deplorable, no matter whom you were, but the people wouldn‘t have noticed at all had it not been for the music coming from the camp. Once in a while, a guard would find a prisoner running around at night. Typically they shot him, but after a while, hearing gunshots night and day was keeping everyone awake, so the system changed; the guards dragged out a plethora of various musician-prisoners to play loud opera tunes to drown out the bullets and screams. Instead of gunshots, we heard Mozart or Wagner, but the effect was equally offensive. The band often played throughout the night until around three, so that the guards could clean the messes before everyone woke up an hour later. Slowly as the first week passed, I got used to the grime and dirt in the camp. The only thing I detested there was the hospital itself. It was made from two barracks, one holding the outpatients, pharmacy, special kitchen, O.R., and a radiation room. The second held the sick wards. Two barracks would have seemed like enough space for the medics, but there was never a day that the hospital wasn‘t overcrowded. After I came in, thousands of Jews were arrested and sent to Buchenwald as penance for von Rath‘s death. Prisoners were employed in the camp to keep them ~ 21 ~

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active and to lessen our own pressures, but even then there were ―camp wars‖; prisoners with green triangles and those with red triangles fought for supremacy among their own. It‘s foolish, of course, to think of being superior to a fellow prisoner there, but we all did it, even the personnel. The guards were all terrified of the doctors because we had the use of poisons and medical supplies that the guards needed. The doctors were equally frightened of the guards because they could drag us out of bed as we slept and shoot us. The entire camp became a war zone with each side keeping away from the others. I grew more comfortable in Buchenwald because the cases we took were usually extreme examples of cases I had seen in the city. Broken arms were set, but to our dismay, the same prisoners would frequently be abused by the guards the same day. Backaches were treated with opiates so that the prisoner could continue to work through it, but as the opiates took effect, the prisoner would still be working, creating ill consequences. Commander Koch and I once spoke about a case in point. ―Von Schluck! What is this nonsense of giving prisoners drugs and sending them to work? It‘s insane! It‘s cutting down on production!‖ ―They had backaches and we couldn‘t exercise the use of surgery, because the cases weren‘t that serious.‖ ―Is that all? Then I‘ll leave a notice with Hoven ~ 22 ~

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and the kapos to ensure that we don‘t have little mistakes like that again!‖ He left, but afterwards, whenever prisoners complained about their backs, the guards beat them with their truncheons until they fell unconscious. Everyone stared and laughed as the prisoner limped to the hospital ward to speak to us, knowing that the prisoner couldn‘t tell us how a backache became a fracture. Even though we all knew what was going on, we were in no position to stop it. As doctors, we must alleviate the problems of man, not proactively halt them. I thought about all of this as the week passed. I remembered the disheveled forty-three year old and the Jews entering the camps in cattle trucks, but my thoughts were silenced by the usual noises of shootings and yelling. The guards marched about capturing any prisoner they could get a hand on and whipping them without rest or remorse. Such savages, I thought. Then there was a problematic affair. For years I‘ve been told there have been plagues of diseases that run rampant throughout a population. A disease would spread and kill until isolation was issued. But isolation at the camp was impossible, so we merely tried to clean out the barracks and assist the prisoners with their symptoms. For two weeks there was an unbearable spread of syphilis, which was spreading from the pink triangle prisoners to the reds and then to the greens. Syphilis requires medicine that we couldn‘t acquire in the camp, so ~ 23 ~

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the disease got out of control. We tried to sequester patients, but the guards demanded that they work, so they‘d stay only for a few hours. Then a most interesting thing happened. Out of these syphilitic patients, most were beaten or even violated by the guards, many of whom deserved to be prisoners themselves. Almost as soon as we let the patients free, guards came in with bouts of syphilis. The camp was nearly shut down because few were available to work, yet when the guards were sick, medicine was provided for us, and the epidemic ended. Nothing. The camp was like an endless void. Time seemed to slow down and speed up at random, as if we were in another place altogether. Trying to sleep was useless, and the hours spent awake were busily wasted with work. But what else could there be? Man was not made to work alone, and surely the guards and personnel were men. I usually spent some time talking about how to assuage these periods of boredom with Lakai and my fellow doctors. Once I was talking with Eisele, the most violent doctor in the medical ward. ―What patients do we have to see today?‖ I asked. He groaned and looked up at me, ―Ach, just one, but I refuse to see him. Some swine who thinks he‘s leaving the camp. He‘s crazy, so I‘ve asked for him to be sent to the sanitarium. You can give him his physical, all right?‖ I walked up into the little sick ward of Barrack A to see an unusually healthy and well-groomed ~ 24 ~

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prisoner looking up at me with a glare of vacancy, as if he were staring at the wall. I carried my clipboard and red pen–the pen used for outpatients– and tried to enter a conversation with him. ―You must be Mr. Macher. How are you feeling? I‘ve heard you have some aspirations of leaving the camp today. Is that why you‘ve worn your best suit?‖ His vacant stare shifted into a type of childish grin, and he smiled and nodded his head. He was moving his leg erratically up and down, shaking his pant leg and creating small wrinkles. Macher was short and stocky, yet well camouflaged by the suit, which matched his pallid shoes and small wire-rim glasses. ―Well then let me correct you on some of your minor points. First of all, you aren‘t leaving here. You don‘t fit the requirements for dismissal, and I doubt you ever will. My records say you are fiftysix. You are by all means a healthy man, and you will work here until your status changes. Second, you aren‘t allowed to wear a suit like that. I don‘t know whose fault it is that is wasn‘t confiscated, but I‘ll take it. Now take it off while I issue you your normal attire.‖ Mr. Macher‘s childish smile quietly faded into a confused stare, a sadder type of the one he came in with. He blinked slowly, trying to understand what I had said to him. Disappointment reddened his face, his glasses tipping as he angled his head to better realize what was going on. I remained serious and ~ 25 ~

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gave him some privacy to strip, giving me time to find a spare uniform. I found one, a bit too big for him, and returned to the room. Macher remained seated, his eyes teary and red. His entire frame seemed darker, a crimson hue spreading around his canvas-like face. Then, as if he were about to explode, the tension on his body relaxed suddenly, and, at the same moment, he leapt off the chair and tackled me. I could barely scream for help, as Macher grabbed my arms and tried to force me to the floor. I shouted again, and Eisele came, holding a loaded syringe. Macher was injected and immediately calmed down while Eisele rolled him over and called a guard to carry him out. The groggy patient got up from the floor and was carried away by the guards, but as he was about to leave, he swiftly lunged at me again, this time with teeth wide apart. His dive led him right to my nose, and he bit the intended target, forcing me to pull back screaming. He was taken out and beaten with sticks and gun butts until his legs gave way, toppling the figure. Eisele stood above me, taking out a small kerchief to wipe a splatter of blood from my nostril. Silly doctor,‖ he said sternly, ―I told you he was crazy.‖

~ 26 ~

Five

A

fter the day of the attack, I grew more suspicious of the normally plaintive prisoners. My bandaged nose healed, and my tests for rabies came back negative, but as that dimwitted captive was being dissected, officially for the Ahnerbe, the racial investigation society, I felt a fear that quickly engulfed me. As I entered the dissection, an unusual sensation came to me, My head felt heavy, my eyes watered and reddened, I blinked to soothe the nerves, and as if I had never done so before, wiped my eyes. A memory stirred in my head, one of the grand days of my youth. I was in the old farmhouse near Bayern, and my father had called me out to check ~ 27 ~

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on a group of chickens that had gotten loose. I looked around their cages and saw that there were tattered feathers strung about, blood marking a trail from the coop to the door. I followed the trail and found the remains of a chicken, its neck broken and its body shredded. Calling my father, I hastily ran to the dead beast and wondered what kind of animal could commit such atrocities. My father came quickly and merely said, ―Wolf,‖ before he walked away. The chicken was never moved, simply replaced. As speedily as the memory came, it faded into oblivion. I opened my eyes, confronting the bright radiance of daylight. The room (I could never explain how) had disappeared. The dull lights of the O.R. were now the warming glows of the sun. Without even noticing it, I looked about and realized I had left the O.R. and was outside a restaurant. What had happened? ―Ah, there you are.‖ A familiar voice came from behind me. I turned around in time to see Eisele reach toward me, his body shaking erratically. ―I cannot believe it. Here you are, the greatest host ever to draw air, and you leave as WaldeckPyrmont is about to get started! Unbelievable.‖ His words were acidic and crude in my ears, as if they were the first exercise in hearing I had committed in a while. ―Was it me, Eisele, or was I just in the hospital working on a cadaver?‖ ―What? A cadaver? That was days ago! Ach, I swear, you and your jokes will be the death of me ~ 28 ~

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someday.‖ His attempt at concern faded into a wry smile. ―Now come on, we have four hours to drink that fool into an early grave!‖ *** As Eisele and I drove up to the camp gates, the thoughts of what had just transpired ran rapidly through the window of my memory. The cold rain hit the car doors with slight dings and the thick fog masked all attempts to see. How appropriate, I thought. A dark and rainy night, and I can‘t see a thing. I‘ve never felt so uncomfortable by myself. That was the first time that I blinked, truly blinked, in my life. This unusual type of activity might draw confusion to some, as it did to me at first, but the process was simple. I would close my eyes, just for a second, and be lunged forward in time. The clocks in the office all seemed to move about at their own pace to me, whizzing by without care for those nearby, who never seemed to notice the difference. As soon as I woke up at five in the morning, I would blink and find myself in the office with the clocks reaching eight. Then it would be time to examine new arrivals at ten, only to blink again and find six hours had passed. A quick dinner at six would lead to more work and another blink, to which I would find myself exhausted in midnight. Only the resulting sleep interrupted the period of work to when I would awaken at five to repeat the process again. Over and over again, in a ~ 29 ~

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continuous pace, until I realized two years had come and gone. But nothing changed! Every day after I woke up, with some exceptions, was like the day before that day, but to my dismay, everything remained as tedious as ever. The only things that changed were the reactions of prisoners as they met me; I evidently made many friends and enemies in the camp while unaware. One prisoner, a gypsy named Christa, seemed especially welcoming. She wore an unusual blend of prisoner‘s uniform and pirated gold bracelets and earrings. She paraded around the camp openly with her illegal contraband, yet no one punished her. I believe the guards were all scared of the gypsies and left the odder of the kind alone. Christa walked slowly and regally, even as she carried heavy stones or mended clothes for other prisoners as a seamstress. Christa passed me while I walked out of the hospital and looked back to say, ―Dear child, do you have any spare bread for a wretched old woman?‖ I looked at her in amazement. ―Either wait until dinner or sell one of your things like everyone else does. You cannot beg or pander to us!‖ She smiled wryly, and without changing her royal tone, remarked, ―I‘ve no need to beg here, dear. But you should be more careful. If ever you should trip and fall, you may not get up.‖ She threw her head back and laughed manically as she walked away. I turned around and saw Lakai standing ~ 30 ~

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quietly in front of me. His face was bruised. I suppose he had received another beating, but a look of fear masked any physical pain he may have felt. ―I‘d watch out if I were you, Meister.‖ His sarcastic use of the title irked me. He continued, ―You‘ve upset her; now she‘ll make you miserable. You know she‘s a gypsy and that she has some evil powers on her side. They say she does much evil late at night.‖ ―Forgive me for saying so, but why hasn‘t she been caught? The guards are always on patrol at night, and she wouldn‘t get away with what you say, with them around.‖ Lakai shrugged and looked away. ―I suppose she puts them to sleep. That is fair, isn‘t it? You all put us to sleep, and she defends us in kind.‖ He shrugged again and walked back into the large factory adjacent to us. I told the authorities what Lakai had said, and the next day, Christa was found hanging from the cedar gallows in the square. The musicians had played Mozart the night before. She was the first thing everyone saw when we were sent to roll call. There were gasps and shrieks, but those who had been hardened to the realities of this place merely looked down at the ground. She was now one of the ―dirt people,‖ those who were never to leave the camp. Although no one was sure whether they would ever leave at all, almost no one mourned those who left like Christa. ~ 31 ~

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The day of Christa‘s hanging was unbearable, not because of the constant image of a dead body in the square, but because of the nonstop looting. The corpse was decorated in her jewelry and clothing, which the inmates quietly stole whenever they passed by. I passed the body constantly to get to the office, each time seeing something take a bit of her and flee into a dark space to inspect it. Sometimes they were people who claimed to be her allies; other times they were mice, but most of the time it was disturbingly difficult to tell the difference. A few days after the hanging, new inmates came in regularly and in huge numbers. Trucks ran by the hour, picking up people or taking the things left here (for surely by now none were really people) to factories or mines. To inspect the workers who left, I had to learn the ―Buchenwald exam,‖ by far the shortest medical examination I‘d ever seen. It consisted of a lice check, a test of strength, and a small blood test to check for disease. Prisoners almost always failed the lice check; some were, in fact, covered with them in thick patches. These unlucky prisoners were usually not used, but sometimes we were paid to let just about anyone in. Often cases like one thirty-one-year-old antisocial who was covered in lice couldn‘t be ignored. I told the prison guard in charge of the transfer that he couldn‘t leave with so many insects on him, but he quietly told me to keep myself busy, handed me a hundred Reich marks, and put the filthy prisoner in the jeep with the rest. ~ 32 ~

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As it was, the lice-covered man was returned to us with a notice to rid him of the parasites or else, but doing so was no easy task. It was hard to find a spot of ground in the camp without lice that would jump on you as you walked. Aversion on my part was strict—I hate the little buggers—so I kept a tidy shower and covered myself from head to toe in medical clothes. But now I risked a rupture in my sterilized bubble in order to ship some degenerate to a coal mine. I couldn‘t do it. My mind raced with the possibilities of diseases he must have carried, but I was equally unable to tell him. Once I received my last warning, this one a direct threat to clean him, I passed him. ―Oh, you there, filthy one! Come here!‖ The man walked over, his head and uniform spotted with small patches of dirt and parasites. ―I am tired of your inability to keep presentable and clean. Look at you! You are covered in lice!‖ My despondency quickly became anger as I inspected his worn clothes. He tried to back away, but my anger and frustration overwhelmed me, and I struck him hard on the side of his chin. He stiffened after getting up, expecting another blow. Instead, I grabbed his ear, the only relatively clean part of him, and maneuvered him toward a wall of a barrack. He was terrified, his eyes watered, and his legs shivered. The only thing preventing him from falling to the floor was my grip on his ears, which moved toward his neck. I had totally lost control. My stranglehold on ~ 33 ~

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him tightened. I gritted my teeth and continued to berate him. ―I am disgusted by your filth! You will clean yourself, or I will bring in a guard who‘ll clean you! Now go to my office and take off your clothes. They have to be boiled to kill your little parasites. Go now!‖ I released him from my clutch and he fell hard to the floor, slumping over and gasping once he landed. As I walked away, he got up, turned to me, and spat. Turning slightly to see what he was doing, I saw the spit/blood mixture fly two yards from the edge of his lip to spatter on the very rim of my shoe. The entire process took about two seconds, but his anguished face and the glob of moisture indicated his intent. ―I tell you to get clean, and what do you do? You spit! Such a filthy habit!‖ He tried to back away slowly, but I immediately ran to him, grabbed his neck, and continued to run to my office. Dragging behind me, the man was limp, no longer the terrified figure he had been before. We entered the office and I set him violently on a chair, ripped off his meager shirt, and called a guard to watch him while I left to go to the showers. I strode onward, and someone passed me and shouted ―Sir, what‘s wrong?‖ I could barely hear him, and my fury blinded me further so that I could only yell, ―I must clean!‖ I came back to my office with a large round metal tub for clothes washing and two small bottles, one of PCE and another of DDT. ~ 34 ~

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―If these don‘t clean you,‖ I whispered as I poured the contents of the bottles together, ―I‘ll kill you myself!‖ Once the bottles were empty and the cretin was stripped further, I pulled him off the chair and dunked him into the tub, spilling a small amount of the liquid to the floor. I gave him a small rag and stood over him. ―Now…clean!‖ The shrunken figure quietly grabbed the rag and slowly passed it over his body, clearly failing his attempt to understand why I was upset. The rag barely touched him, and the mixture rarely dampened the rag. Without thinking, I grabbed the arm that held the rag and shoved it into the water until his knuckles hit the bottom of the tub with a sharp clang. He winced, and when I let go, he quickly scrubbed his chest and legs. Before I left him to his business, I noticed another disgusting sight; his hair was apparently moving! As if fleeing from the fate that awaited them, millions of little lice were on his head, buzzing about and feeding. As if to prove it, he scratched his head, letting small flakes of hair and insects fall into the tub. ―Your head! It‘s not clean!‖ I fell mute with rage. My eyes watered, and I took his hair and slammed his head into the mixture, leaving it there for several seconds to thoroughly wash it. He protested violently, shaking away to evade my tight told, but he quickly relented when he lost consciousness. I left the mess, the tub and its spilled ~ 35 ~

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contents on the floor, and edged over to another room to fetch a mop. When I returned, the room had been filled with the toxic air of the mixture, spinning my head. I took deep breaths to calm down. My breathing became ragged, and I collapsed to the floor.

~ 36 ~

Six

I

awoke in a hospital bed with Eisele and an unknown woman staring at me and checking a chart in front of them. ―Ah, you‘re awake,‖ Eisele whispered. ―Are you okay? When I came to the office I found you on the floor with a terrible mess. What the hell were you doing?‖ I tried to get up, at least to examine myself and find my surroundings. I hadn‘t moved far. I was in the adjacent room from where I was last. The mess was being wiped up by prisoners, and two guards stood beside my small bed protecting me, as if I were some grand monarch. I stared in disbelief and confusion at them, and Eisele caught on quickly. ~ 37 ~

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―Oh, they‘re here for your protection. Do you remember what happened? Word is going around that you were attacked by a prisoner after you tried to bathe him, and then he tried to asphyxiate you with all of this.‖ He pointed to the mess. I finally stood up from the bed and attempted to greet the mysterious figure. She was tall and blond, with tiny ringlets on the side of her head hiding her ears. She was adorned in white, a bleached mannequin with sharp, focused eyes of grey. Eisele‘s speech began to drown out under the beauty of this woman. I slowly blinked into a memory I had kept for years. Children do foolish things, and I was no exception to the rule. When I was only four or five, I used to join my father on long walks from the house to the border between Germany and Switzerland. Our meager farming tractor was left home; our plans required stealth and speed, both of which the vehicles lacked. As we walked, we sometimes sang old imperial tunes of warmongers and victory, but often enough we simply trotted through the small trail until we reached our desired location, an old mill right over what must have been the border. We crept up on the bushes by the building and we finally shouted and ran to it, pushing the worn door aside and barricading ourselves in. Our excitement was met with laughter and jubilation. We had invaded Switzerland and had taken one of its mills as a castle! We held up ~ 38 ~

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banners made for the occasion and planted them, with quite a bit of effort, on the roof of the mill, singing the imperial anthem and waving proudly. Imagine what trouble we could have caused had anyone been there to take us seriously! But alas, no one was ever there. We never struggled for the mill, which was the repeated focus of our attention. My attention… ―Hey! Are you even paying attention?!‖ I was back in the camp with Eisele staring coldly. The woman seemed embarrassed. ―Bitte? I was a bit sick just now, can you repeat that?‖ ―Ach, I swear, you never pay attention! I was saying that this lady will be checking up on us for a while. Imagine, her first day here and you give her something to report about!‖ Eisele threw his arms in the air in a dramatic flair of surrender and went into another room, leaving me with this woman. ―Hullo,‖ she said timidly, ―I am Ms. Warner; I‘ve come from the central office to examine everyone‘s performance here.‖ My head still spun. I tried to grasp her English accent and questionable credentials. What was this ‗central office?‘ I felt like I was in a foolish spy novel, as if I should ask if she was followed, but I caught myself in time. ―Your accent is British, Ja?‖ ―Well…yes, I lived in Britain before the putsch.‖ ―Hmm.‖ I felt smart enough to hear what she wanted, although she could hardly examine my ~ 39 ~

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performance while I lay on a bed. ―Well, your friend Eisele said you could show me around the city. I‘m afraid I‘ve never been to Weimar, and I‘m staying in a hotel there, so it gets a bit hairy.‖ She suddenly looked flustered as she may have noticed her unusual English twang on the word. To make up for it she simply said, ―Sorry, it is a force of habit.‖ ―I know what hairy means in the context, my dear.‖ Another flustered face. ―Of course, I just mean that most of the people here seem a bit put off about my speech.‖ ―Well, most of the people here have no idea where Britain is.‖ She laughed at my joke, relaxing a bit and taking a chair to sit beside me. ―Do you mind?‖ I waved to allow her to sit and smoke, rejecting when she offered one to me. My head was spiraling enough. ―Have you ever been to Britain then?‖ ―As a matter of fact I have, with my father, a long time ago. Before the republic.‖ Before the poverty, before the Allied rape of a beautiful country. I let the word dangle in the air, watching her head nod in understanding. Was it so different now than in the days I hardly remember? ―I‘ve been to London and some island…Right or White…‖ I tried to think of the name, but to no avail. ―Isle of Wight,‖ she pointed out. My intelligence suddenly dipped, and my ego ~ 40 ~

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and pride following briskly. ―Ah, yes, that‘s it. It‘s a lovely country, but a bit hot in the summers.‖ ―You live here and you complain about the English summer? It is sweltering here!‖ I didn‘t even realize she was sweating from the heat. I took my meager handkerchief and wiped her cheek and brow. She sighed in relief and relaxed a bit more, easing her voice and exposing her hidden German accent. ―Thank you, that‘s all I need. But I do hope you feel well soon enough to take me out to see the town. I‘d really enjoy it.‖ ―Of course. I‘m starting to feel better now, so I‘ll get up and continue to work.‖ ―By the way, why exactly are you here?‖ I explained the mess, the lice-covered man, and my inopportune fit of anger as best I remembered it, listening to her gasps of shock and surprise whenever they were necessary. She actually paid close attention to such nonsense that I found myself unable to speak. She seemed as confused as I was, expecting a new sentence and receiving silence. But while I never mind being struck mute, I had no control over it; the stillness was inexplicable and uncomfortable. Blast it, why couldn‘t I open my mouth? ―So that‘s why you‘re here?‖ Of course she‘d have to break the silence. I merely nodded and politely waited for her to get up. The conversation was clearly over. The plans for a night on the town were still up in the air, and my head was throbbing from the mix of illness and embarrassment. Sure enough, she lifted herself off the chair, returned the ~ 41 ~

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blanket, and helped me off the bed and into my shoes. For once I was going to take the initiative with her. ―I can pick you up for that tour tonight, if you‘d like.‖ She stared a bit and finally agreed with an excited, ―Oh, of course, I‘d be delighted!‖ We would meet in the camp car lot at seven sharp. As if to ruin our good spirits, Eisele returned bearing new charts and papers. We immediately became professional. I took the papers and examined them properly while she reverted to her semi-British state of coherence. Eisele allowed her to leave politely and then nearly pushed me over with difficult and intrusive questions about what he‘d apparently missed. His inquiries were, like him, verbose and vulgar. I casually ignored him and worked my way up to the filing cabinet to put away my papers. That evening I dressed in my SS uniform and prepared for the night out with Eisele, again, hovering over me and ignoring his own work. Luckily there was little work to do; the autumn had come in slowly, and disease was shortcoming. It was in waiting for Ms. Warner that I passed by a furious Lakai, his rough manner directed at me. ―What on Earth is the matter with you?‖ he whispered angrily. He was red, with small beads of restraining sweat and tears glossing his forehead and cheeks. ―I haven‘t a clue what you mean. Besides, right ~ 42 ~

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now isn‘t the best time to discuss it, I‘m really quite busy.‖ ―Are you mad?! What did you do to some dirty prisoner? He claims you beat him that you very nearly killed him! Is this true?‖ He? He was still alive when I left him. Unbelievable. I would have to investigate this once I returned from the town. ―That is no matter for you; he just upset me. He was filthy from head to toe, and he showed no respect for what I was trying to do for him. I was supposed to get him clean, and he insulted me by spitting on my boots, so I punished him as per my rights.‖ ―Your rights?‖ Lakai seemed astonished, as if the prospects of rights had eluded him since arriving at camp. ―Haven‘t I taught you anything? You can‘t do that; you aren‘t supposed to be like those imbecile guards. I don‘t know what‘s gotten into you.‖ With that, he turned to walk away. He would have, had I‘d let him. Who was he to judge my actions? It was my duty to clean him, and I worked to do just that. And if he wasn‘t clean after that bath, I‘d just have to give him another until he got the message. After all, wasn‘t it my function to keep everyone in good health no matter what the cost? Lakai, of course, could never understand such things, as he was in the outside looking in. I was in the inside because I was better than Lakai. Superior. As Lakai began to walk away, I grabbed his arm ~ 43 ~

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and pulled him to face me, his face turned with wonder as to who would touch him, and when he finally met me eye to eye, I balled my fist and punched him in the jaw. He fell in shock and crumpled to the ground. ―You cannot tell me what I can do. You are a prisoner here, and I am your better! From now on, you‘ll do what I say and nothing more.‖ The guards near the entrance heard the commotion and ran up to the scene to ask what was wrong. I replied that the prisoner had insulted me, which they took as a cue to sweep him from the floor and collectively carry him out of the camp and into the forest, where few return. I am superior to Lakai, to all the others here. As if my eyes had opened after a long sleep, I tried to examine the fullness of this revelation. I walked into the car lot wondering about the absurdity of this ―superiority‖ until it hit me: it isn‘t absurd at all. Weren‘t all Germans told that we were better than other Europeans; in fact, better than all others? Did we not excel over all religious powers, the Jews, the Catholics and the Jehovah‘s Witnesses alike? Of course! The title of German was almost royal; it was better than any affiliation or race. We were the masters of this world, and we would be for a thousand years. I left with Ms. Warner with all of this knowledge buzzing in my head.

~ 44 ~

Seven

M

s. Warner was just on time when she arrived at the camp gates with an escort. She told me he was simply a guard sent to bring her to camp and protect her from any lowly prisoners. After that explanation, she and I drove off in my car. ―So what do you do in that dreadful camp all day?‖ Ms. Warner asked. ―Eh, I‘m just a doctor there, but it is better than working in the city. And it isn‘t as dreadful as one might imagine at first glance.‖ ―I walk in and the first thing I see is a dead corpse lingering on a gallows, and you say it isn‘t dreadful?‖ ~ 45 ~

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―Like I said, it isn‘t as bad as that first glance.‖ She chuckled a bit, perhaps realizing I was right. We rarely had such open executions when people, especially women, were allowed in. The fact that Christa‘s body had been there for weeks had escaped me. By that time I had learned not to notice it. ―The city is really nice tonight. They have beautiful lights on.‖ Her eyes moistened visibly from the thought of the annual lighting events in Germany. It was a day of celebration―Johann Sebastian Bach had been born 254 years ago that day, and the citizens of Weimar couldn‘t be happier. They all celebrated the figures Hitler venerated for them; August 28 was for Goethe, May 22 for Wagner. Never their deaths, I once noticed; we commemorate only their births. The only death we observe was November 4, that of Mendelssohn. It is ironic that we have bright lights for the birth of a German hero as well as for the death of his Jewish rival. ―The city celebrates today. It is the day for musicians,‖ I remarked. ―Musicians? Is it good for them to have a day to be admired?‖ Her joke was touching. ―Of course, dear lady. Every other day is for the soldier or statesman. Why not one for a musician?‖ Attempting to stifle herself in vain, she laughed. The recent news may have been slow in Buchenwald, but in Weimar, everyone knew of the Czechoslovakian affair and the open road to war ~ 46 ~

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with France. But that day was a celebration, one to drown out the fears of the future by brightening the past in gaudy lights and open displays of affection. ―Oh my, I haven‘t laughed so hard around one person in quite a while.‖ ―I take it the British have no humor on their little island.‖ I said. ―Now don‘t mock Britain‘s ‗little island,‘‖ she said in an effort to sound stern. ―That island is the seat of the mightiest empire in the known world.‖ We looked at each other, then at the pedestrians, and back to one another. As if on cue, we both grinned broadly and laughed at the old propaganda of the days of the Depression. If one ever needed to find humor, it was in the English attempt to seem superior. ―Hah! I learned that one in a little hovel in Liverpool.‖ ―Liverpool, what on Earth is that?‖ She explained the vast quartering of the English isles with their -fords and -shires, none of it making the slightest bit of sense. It was, however, quite a thrill to watch her speak. ―And then there is Lancashire, which has a few divisions but is especially the home of Liverpool. It is a harbor town, I believe.‖ ―Interesting. I never thought the British administration could be so complicated. Why do they need all of these partitions?‖ ―It‘s no different than the German states that exist now,‖ she muttered. ―Perhaps, but at least ours is a historic existence. ~ 47 ~

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The states represent those that have existed for centuries. Bavaria, Wurttemberg, they are former independent states. When was this Lancashire ever independent?‖ ―It wasn‘t; it was a county in what used to be Mercia, I think.‖ ―Mercia? The old Anglo-Saxon kingdom?‖ ―You‘ve heard of that?‖ ―Oh sure,‖ I said, not entirely sure if I had. Experience has taught me to prove what I claim to know or else suffer unruly suspicion. ―Offa the Great, Penda, the Battle of Winwaed. Sure I‘ve heard of it.‖ ―Well, I think you‘re just lucky. You don‘t know what Mercia is, do you?‖ Damn, caught again. ―To be honest, no, not entirely.‖ ―Then you haven‘t the slightest idea what I‘ve been talking about?‖ ―No, but I‘m having a lovely time hearing you talk.‖ She sighed warmly and stretched in the car, spreading herself where she could. ―You‘re very sweet. Not a lot of men are like that here.‖ ―Thank you for the compliment, Ms. Warner.‖ ―Please call me Sophie. Ms. Warner makes me sound like a schoolteacher.‖ ―Of course, Sophie.‖ What a lovely name. The night continued with the two of us talking, visiting the sights, and making conversation with every passerby. No topic was ignored; history, ethics, ~ 48 ~

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business, politics, medicine. No one I knew had ever kept up with such conversations as she did. ―Before I lived in Britain, I traveled quite a bit of the world. I‘d been working in a nursing position in South Africa when I heard of the takeover. I came soon after. At first I was terrified of what could have happened here. This really is my home, no matter where I am.‖ Her pride swelled considerably as she greeted more onlookers. I would never believe she would be so nationalistic. Perhaps then, all of this meant nothing to her. ―Well you‘ve nothing to fear. Germany is doing surprisingly well with Hitler in power. I never thought we would be so well off so soon. Even work in the camp is more than I ever saw during the Depression.‖ ―Things were tough everywhere, I know.‖ I shrugged. ―Things are always tough here. We Germans are a tough people. We get by with what we have. Luckily I was able to find a practice with only a few Jews, so that no one would arrest me should they close it down. Ja, things are better now.‖ ―Everyone in Britain is worried about war over this Czechoslovak affair. Would Hitler even do such a thing?‖ ―I doubt it. Hitler is no fool. He has the politicians on his side. It was stupid of them to have ever tried to separate Austria and Germany. They are like brothers.‖ ~ 49 ~

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Her fears and concerns were real and were not without validity. Everyone was careful not to mention how scared they were, that this unrestrained occupation could become a repeat of the last war. It seems that man spends much of his life in fighting others and the rest is spent on preparing for the next fight. But with Sophie and me basking in the warm glow of the summer lights as the sun disappeared, those cares melted away. That night there was no city or complicated affairs of state, or even camps with prisoners. There were only two people sharing a starry night, like Tristan and Isolde. The night passed all too quickly for the two of us. I left her in her hotel and returned to camp. The festivities, lights, and sounds faded quickly when I left the city limits and climbed up the road to Buchenwald, once again revealing the grey and black campgrounds and barracks. I drove up the main gates and parked in the lot and felt a serene sense of happiness. But could such happiness exist here at all?

~ 50 ~

Eight

I

t was almost a month after that date in town that I saw Sophie again in the camp. She was wearing her usual crisp uniform with a small boxlike hat with no brim. She walked confidently up to me, ignoring the crowd of doctors attempting to raise her attentions. ―Hello, Rudolph,‖ she said emphatically, her voice cheerful and lilting, as she settled some papers on a desk and gave me her hand. The crowd around us mingled, making me nervous and impatient, but I reacted warmly to her touch as she pulled me toward a friendly embrace. ―I‘ve been so busy, but I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed our night in town. It really was ~ 51 ~

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lovely, thank you.‖ ―It was nothing,‖ I muttered, knowing full well that it did, in fact, mean quite a lot to me. ―If ever you need a date, you can call me.‖ ―As a matter of fact, I need one tomorrow night. I am seeing an opera, and I‘d hate to go alone. If you can, would you…‖ ―Say no more, Sophie, I will be there. Meet me at the lot tomorrow at eight.‖ Her cheery face swelled with happiness and a thin veil of red gripped her face. ―Thank you. I‘ll see you then.‖ With confirmation, she took her notes from the table and rejoined the cast she entered with, resuming conversations dropped nearly a minute before. I had wanted to speak to Sophie since the day we returned from Weimar, but I too had been busy. The camp was getting bigger, anticipations about war were more certain, and everyone was preparing for new orders as to what to do in case of overcrowding. The guards were given new orders: prepare the camp for the expected crowd by eliminating some of the remaining prisoners. But guards, typical of the imbeciles who are paid to make people move about, had no way to do so as quickly as they were required. They thought up ingenious games, such as making prisoners fetch caps thrown off their heads from just outside the gates. Of course the guards would shoot, claiming the prisoners were trying to escape, but to no avail. The more prisoners a guard killed, the more were ~ 52 ~

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expected to arrive ―in a month or so.‖ It was always in a month or so; the camp seemed to live entirely in the timeline of a month or so. So far the ―or so‖ had been about five years. Would the new-prisoner swell arrive five years from now or would it, in fact, be in a month? By my count at least thirty-five prisoners were killed by the guards before lusty German eyes were officially thrust toward Poland. The steady wave of prisoners meant not only curing the diseased or infirm but also preparing for the next load and also moving cattle cars of men to factories all over Germany to work. By then, even the employees of the camp were getting ignored by the government. We began receiving the most unusual and, at times, impossible orders. By August of 1939, they wanted us to make the camp less visible. How on earth do you do that? No one knew who we were in the first place, and I doubt anyone in Weimar knew what was going on up in Buchenwald, but just like that, we were suddenly forced to make concessions. No one was allowed out of Buchenwald unless he or she left from a rear exit. Suddenly all newspapers were forbidden from camp. I couldn‘t believe it. They were cutting everyone off from the public with great detail, blocking all possible loopholes for those who couldn‘t pay for them. I doubt anyone expected the sudden rise in corruption that ensued. Everyone suddenly needed the most frivolous things. The day after the ~ 53 ~

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banishment from civilization, Eisele began waking me from sleep periodically to ask for bottles of wine. ―I can‘t help you, Eisele; my wine is in short supply.‖ ―Look, I can help! Give me a bottle or two, and I‘ll give you some of my fresh meats I received from town,‖ Eisele pleaded desperately. ―Meat? What do I need meat for? We have enough in the dining area!‖ ―Perhaps, but for how long?‖ *** Tempers flared and extravagance became the norm. I admit I sold wine myself for some of the perks offered to me. But I needed such perks; I wanted to impress Sophie, and our opera date unnerved me. The night she returned to the lot and awaited my car, I had conflicting emotions about whether I would even be able to see her again. When I walked into the lot and saw her, all thoughts strayed and left me. She was leaning on the passenger‘s door with a blue and white dress, flat and plain except for the tiny indents and accents of her slim waist and legs. A strand of pearls dangled elegantly from her neck, and a small, vibrant, flowered version of her nurse‘s hat was perched high on her head. Beautiful, I thought. ―There you are; I thought you‘d forgotten.‖ She ~ 54 ~

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grabbed and hugged me warmly while I stood dumbfounded on her appearance. ―Let‘s go; we shouldn‘t be late to the opera.‖ Her cheery lilt and graceful gait warmed me. We opened the doors and sped out unseen. ―By the way, what are we seeing?‖ ―Die Zauberflöte. It‘s short but very romantic.‖ Sophie‘s voice lingered as the traffic led us to Weimar and its small opera house. The breeze and soft spoken voices of fellow patrons greeted us after we parked the car and headed toward the entrance. The row of political and military uniforms irked me; a line of Nazi uniforms donned by the men, their wives standing beside them in accompanying dresses. Sophie radiated beauty and stuck out from the herd of fans. The show was short, if only because the police broke in and called a halt to the performance. ―Everyone must leave. The show is being banned by Weimar officials.‖ I couldn‘t believe it. Neither could Sophie, who did not have the good sense to keep it to herself. ―Why on earth would officials ban this? We demand an answer!‖ she ordered the nearest policeman. As if in reply, the entire crowd, police and patron alike, stood silent and stared at her defying orders. ―I refuse to leave until the show is over, or else I will demand my money back!‖ The men in uniforms took the actors to the side of the stage, where they were promptly and visibly arrested. There was no doubt now—the show was ~ 55 ~

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most definitely over. ***

~ 56 ~

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―I cannot believe those Philistines took away the entire cast.‖ Sophie cried angrily as I drove her to her hotel. Her bitterness was evident; this was not the first time it had happened to her. ―At least we saw the first seven minutes, Sophie. That is better than what we may see for a while now. One can only wonder why they‘d do such a thing.‖ Her anger subsided as I spoke, and she replied, ―Ah, I suppose so. Still, it was the best seven minutes I‘d ever seen.‖ She took off her hat and placed it on her lap while she yawned slowly. ―My goodness, that ruckus has made me tired.‖ She edged toward me, lowered her head to my shoulder, and fell asleep. We never received a refund. When she awoke, she was startled to find me beginning to doze off. I parked the car by the hotel, but the night let loose with a great rainstorm, and I was eager to sleep too. I placed my head on my door‘s window. I was barely awake, my eyes closed and my thoughts departing me. The rain hitting the metal car made me even drowsier, and I could barely hear Sophie when she lifted her head off me. ―Oh, Rudolph, you‘re asleep!‖ she said in a hushed tone. ―No matter. I‘m sure today was tiring for you. I only wish you knew how I loved you.‖ Indeed!

~ 57 ~

Nine

W

hen I woke up, I was alone in the car, the rain having just begun to stop. I looked bewildered for a moment, forgetting where I was, when I suddenly remembered Sophie. Wasn‘t she in the car? No, instead of a warm body, a note was tacked on the seat. ―Rudolph,‖ the note began, ―I had a wonderful time despite the interruption. I left you asleep and am in my hotel room across the street. I hope you won‘t mind if I ask you up for a drink, since we‘ve yet to have dinner.‖ My stomach grumbled noisily; I hadn‘t eaten dinner or lunch because of my schedule. I opened the door and a tiny raindrop from a nearby tree fell ~ 58 ~

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on my nose, waking me from the last of my sleep. I went to the front desk and asked what room she was in and quietly knocked on her door. The hinges clicked and she came out still immaculately dressed. ―Come on in. Did you sleep long?‖ Sophie asked as she picked up two small glasses and poured some wine. ―I don‘t know. We parked at around nine-thirty, I think. What time is it now?‖ ―Just under midnight. I left only thirty minutes ago. Come order something from room service; I‘ve been waiting for you to come in to eat.‖ We woke up the office to order some light dinner, for her a small plate of chicken and pasta, and for me a larger dish of pasta primavera with peanut sauce and beef dumplings. Despite the slight chill of the room and the cloudy sky, we ate in peace and quiet, taking time to see each other, as if for the first time. Her window had a view of a small park and a restaurant, both empty. We ate and stared, an uncomfortable combination, until we were almost finished. ―That was delicious. I‘m glad we woke the front desk. I was starved.‖ She left the small serving table in her room and fetched two cigarettes. ―Would you like one?‖ ―Yes, thanks.‖ I took the cigarette and pulled out my small lighter, a gift from my father years before I would be allowed to smoke. Its golden sides glinted in the light of the room. The glimmer caught her eye. ―What a beautiful ~ 59 ~

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lighter! Where did you get it?‖ ―It was a gift. I‘ve grown very fond of it. I think my father bought it in Vienna, or maybe Luneburg.‖ She lit her cigarette and inhaled, forcing the dull end of the cigarette to turn a fiery red. She sighed, releasing a small waft of smoke from her lips. I followed suit, relaxing a bit and enjoying the comforts of her room. Beside the bed was a small table, completely bare save a copy of The Art of Photography. I picked it up, glanced at the cover, and noticed the pages and their fine wrinkles and dog-ear marks. ―I never knew you were a photographer. I‘ve always been a bit interested in art, you know. When did you start?‖ She looked at me with weary eyes, ―Just a few months ago. I enjoy it, it‘s very relaxing. You know, we‘ve known each other for a while. I must say I feel… I don‘t know, safe with you.‖ She looked at me sullenly with tearing eyes. Like a wounded animal, she crawled up the bed toward me and gently planted an inviting kiss on my cheek. *** I had a dream that night. It was of a memory I had of my youth at home. I was sitting quietly by the fireplace staring at the jumping flames when the door creaked open and two little boys sneaked toward me with a small wad of white snow. Too ~ 60 ~

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busy to notice the activity behind me, I fell to surprise at the sudden chill of the snow hitting my back. Those bastard brothers of mine! They threw a snowball at me in the house! I was still in shock when they opened the many small windows of the room, letting in a blistering breeze of the winter from outside. Laughing and enjoying themselves at my expense, the boys ran about me, confusing me further. I felt I would cry, but our parents opened the door and saw us. Everyone stopped; the boys fell silent, and I stopped tearing up as Father gathered the boys out of the room and Mother quietly held me toward the fire to melt the snow. ―Whenever you need to be warmed up,‖ she always said, ―I‘ll be there to bring you close to the fire.‖ I awoke again from a calm slumber hours later. My hand automatically reached for the watch I keep by my nightstand; instead, it hit a soft mass of flesh that hummed with life once I disturbed it. Sophie had just woken up as well, I supposed, relieved to know where I was and what had happened. I spent the night with her, and I wanted to do it again and again, as long as I could. She turned to face me, her cheeks still flushed and warm, and I knew she felt the same. Euphoria hit me like a train before a sudden panic struck me. The brightly lit hands of her oldstyle table clock shown 6:45. Wasn‘t I to wake ~ 61 ~

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moments before at camp? As if through telepathy, she sensed my anxiety and reacted by gathering our clothes and preparing to dress. The moment of love had passed; both of us were in genuine fear. We looked at each other while we dressed, sneaking glances as if we‘d never see each other again. Our fleeting looks of guilt and pleasure exposed the truth: if we were caught being late to camp with no excuse, we would face punishment. We didn‘t care. Each brief glimpse gave us enough happiness to survive anything, even camp‘s chastisements. We finally ran to my car and sped off to the front gates, sweating for fear yet savoring the rush of adrenaline. The guards ignored us when we passed by. Her usual retinue of doctors met us after we drove in and greeted her as she opened the car door. ―We must have another date sometime, Rudolph. I really enjoyed myself.‖ She left to talk to her guests, now joined by an irate Eisele, when she suddenly stopped, turned to me, and gave me a passionate kiss. The crowd gasped. She turned to my ear. ―We really must do that again. And soon!‖ Her smile brightened and she returned to her group. ―Well, what nonsense was that about? What went on in that little date of yours exactly?‖ Eisele was a bunch of nerves as he waited in vain for a reply. ―What have you done with the typhus sample we received yesterday?‖ My calm attention to business was false and failing. He paid no ~ 62 ~

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awareness to it, continuing to ask questions. ―Don‘t get medical on me. What happened?‖ ―I will be medical. I can‘t help it, I‘m a doctor.‖ The idea was straining; I had been so busy as a surgeon, psychoanalyst, and everything else with a degree that I hardly paid attention to my role as doctor. ―I simply examined her and declared her of good health.‖ Eisele gasped loudly with a crude laugh, ―You mean you slept with her. Hah! This is good, really. I never thought I‘d see the day! All this time, I thought you‘d gotten too cold to do it, but you sure as hell showed me, eh?‖ I was cold. I was cold and ignorant and blind to the pain of those around me. I had forgotten to see that, after all this time, Christa‘s dangling body was still on display. There was hardly a figure left; the meat had rotted away, exposing cruel bleached bones. It was shocking to see maggots and flies gathering at whatever was left, small pieces of cloth still hanging upon her head. My God, I thought, is this what I’ve been living in? Eisele could probably see my disgust. What was more alarming was his reply: a look of total confusion. ―What‘s wrong? You look like you just woke up.‖ ―I‘m afraid I did.‖

~ 63 ~

Ten

I

drove home and refused to go to work for the day. I wouldn‘t until I could get things changed somehow, so that things wouldn‘t be so hard on the prisoners. I sat on the bed and closed my eyes, trying to understand everything that we‘d done at camp, yet all I could see were the indifferent eyes of the inmates. They were all nameless faces to me, most I‘d seen only once or twice in my entire time there, but their eyes punished me. Each one felt my guilt and expressed it with simple stillness. I was terrified, but my eyes remained closed, unable to grasp the subconscious message. Finally I woke up, an hour having passed since I last saw my room. The phone was ringing ~ 64 ~

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irritatingly, yet it was a relief to be up. I slowly lifted the earpiece and waited for the voice on the other line. ―Rudolph, what the hell do you think you‘re doing at home? You haven‘t signed in at camp. Get here now!‖ The voice was the camp administrator, Koch. ―I-I can‘t come in, I don‘t feel well.‖ ―I couldn‘t care less how you feel. You‘re the doctor; take some pills! Get here now; we have a lot of patients for you.‖ The line went mute. I hung up the phone and looked at my mirror to check my clothes. My shirt was ruffled and unkempt, my suit wrinkled and worn—I looked like a gypsy. I smoothed out whatever small creases I could and walked toward the door with my car keys in my hand. All I could remember was the interview I had with Mr. Blome before I entered camp. ―No one leaves here without my permission. Do you understand? If you try, I‘ll have you killed. I am your superior, and you leave when I tell you!‖ He meant it, every word of it. I couldn‘t get a break from what was happening and just trying to get a day off almost eradicated me. I walked calmly to the car and drove back to camp, realizing that I‘d have to change my view, in order to survive. The nameless faces of camp would have to stay nameless. It would be best if they remained so; the nameless could be ignored. I spent the day working on the patients that ~ 65 ~

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lined up at the door of the doctor‘s offices. I examined the crowd, mostly typhus cases. I couldn‘t help letting my mind wander to the guards attacking another unfortunate prisoner. I wondered how they lived with what they did. Perhaps they don’t even care; perhaps they’ve blinded themselves like I did with Christa’s corpse. Or maybe they enjoy it, reveling in the act of hurting those who can’t defend themselves. I reported the cases in my logbook to make sure we avoided an epidemic. On a small column I wrote the disease, and in the adjoining row I jotted down the numbers of patients with signs of typhus. That was what the nameless were—numbers. The logbook was sent to the administrator‘s office to be cleared while I sat on my chair and waited for another patient. Suddenly, a guard came in with a howl of pain. He met me with hurt in his eyes, a small string of blood on the floor indicating where he came from. ―Doctor, I need assistance! My gun misfired when I tried to shoot an escaping scum.‖ Tears were streaming down his eyes, and he still found a way to call the prisoner scum. ―Let me see the wound.‖ He opened his jacket and lifted his arm, revealing a small, deep cut of flesh. He yelped when I examined the injury, making sure it was not infected. It wasn‘t dirty, but it was serious. I hesitated a bit to see where to put the gauze, and he looked at me. ―What is wrong doctor? Do you need ~ 66 ~

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payment?‖ That was the typical way the doctors worked here—nothing gets done without greasing our wheels. He understood this and took out a small note from his uniform pocket. ―Here, this should be enough, yes?‖ Finding the gauze, I grabbed the cotton with one hand, the note in another, and skillfully opened the note without dropping the line of gauze. The crinkled letter was a pass to town. I nonchalantly put the notice in my pocket, the guard sighing with relief that I had accepted his gift. His arm was wrapped and he was instructed to avoid heavy fire, or else he would worsen the wound. Pleased that he was fine, the guard grunted some sort of reply and left the office, gun in hand. Sophie walked in. ―Hello, dear.‖ She sighed. ―What went on here?‖ She peered down and shuttered at the sight of the soldier‘s trail of blood. ―Nothing. Some clumsy soldier had a misfire with his gun and shot himself. He‘s fine now.‖ ―Well, at least he‘s good now. You didn‘t use any of the gauze, did you?‖ ―Of course I did. The wound was deep. I had to check for infection because of all the dirt there, and you know we have typhus here.‖ ―Well, don‘t use so much. I just received a notice that all medical supplies will be unavailable from the main offices. We‘re stuck with what we have here for a few days.‖ I was stunned. Why would the main office do this? It hit me: They want us to look like we don‘t ~ 67 ~

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exist, and things that don‘t exist don‘t get medical supplies delivered to them every week. Now we were forced to wait for essentials, and while waiting, we received the big crowd of new prisoners. *** The prisoners came in vans and trucks so quickly that no one had time to even identify them properly. At first we received a truck of thirty or so people, all huddled together, but then, before we could even sign them in and examine them, another truck came in with sixty. We had been prepared for housing these new prisoners, but without even the promise of new supplies, we were on very thin ground. Worse yet, almost every new prisoner had some degenerative disease from being in filthy enclosures prior to their delivery. Of the first sixty, forty-nine had typhus, which could spread to the healthier inmates quickly. I informed Eisele and Commander Koch about the danger, but received no reply. Within hours all guards got orders from the medical board to eliminate any sick prisoners brought by the new migration. The next truck came in with almost ninety people; I was the only physician able to see them, and I examined only twenty-five healthy prisoners. I left the office at nine-thirty in the evening when I noticed the large bundle of clothes, gold, and hair. Each collection had a small notice ~ 68 ~

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attached, designating where it would go. The clothes were to be burnt for heat, gold sent to the bank in Weimar, and hair was to be examined for lice and shipped off to Berlin. A crowd of guards saw me near the piles and came in with their own contributions. ―What is in Berlin? Why would they send hair there?‖ I asked them. ―Berlin has a pillow factory, the best in Germany. They‘ll clean it and use it for pillows. Wonderful, isn‘t it, Herr Doctor? What great use of cheap material. We‘ll save thousands on cotton alone.‖ The guard stood back, admiring the growing collections, especially the gold, as his attendants left to gather more. ―What I wouldn‘t give to have a second with that gold! Such a shame that these filthy cretins have it all. You see, Hitler really was right.‖ The guard walked away, still mumbling to himself. Hair to be used as pillows? Examining the gold further, I noticed small indents of gold fillings and false teeth. The clothes too were sometimes lined with fanciful threads and ornaments too expensive in the outside world. These were Jewish properties, I thought. Behind the piles, more guards were placing large rags in a ditch. What abominable madness was this? Bodies were strewn in heaps, one on top of another. The nameless again reared their heads, misshapen as they were. I was disgusted but surprisingly cool, mentioning to the guardian of that foul tomb to take ~ 69 ~

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care not to breathe any poisons from the bodies. I had lost my will to care; the beasts had finally won.

~ 70 ~

Eleven

I

was lost in a sea of despair, but like a drowning swimmer, I would soon find a lifesaver to rescue me. That night after work I went back to Sophie‘s hotel room. She had finished work hours before, and when I entered, I was not surprised to find her in casual attire of blue and white. Her hair bounced as she let me in, her warm lips greeting me from the chill outside. We chatted quietly about our day, the subject of death never occurring. She then passed me a newspaper, a folded treasure I was previously not allowed to touch. ―Read this; you wouldn‘t believe it in a million years!‖ ~ 71 ~

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I glanced at the front page. A large heading spelled out ―Krieg!‖ in black ink. War. I admit I didn‘t expect to blink at the word, but my memory was clear in directing me to 1917. The Great War was an eye-opener for everyone in Germany. The rich became poor, the poor became soldiers, and the soldiers became corpses. My family was spared because we had sold off whatever was valuable before the war began, but before we had that money, we suffered three weeks of absolute poverty. We didn‘t eat because we had no plates; our fine china had been bought. Our clothes were forced to tatter and rip without mending. I was only twelve, and I couldn‘t understand why we had gone so low. Ever since then I denounced war, if only because of the poverty it heralds. Now war loomed again. ―Rudolph, are you all right? You had a bit of a glossy stare. Are you sick?‖ ―No, my dear, I‘m fine. I just can‘t believe this is happening. When did they announce this?‖ ―A few days ago. The paper is a bit old, but I was afraid to show you. What will happen to us? To me? Do they think I am still a British citizen?‖ She gasped at a terrible thought. ―Do they think I‘m a spy?‖ She hung to me tightly, tears welling from her eyes. ―What can I do?‖ ―You will stay here, Sophie. They will not arrest ~ 72 ~

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you. You are a citizen; you just have to go to the federal hall and fill out the forms. Do not worry; no one will come for you.‖ My bravado fooled her. She released her grip and wiped her face, gathering her composure and relaxing. ―Thank you for that.‖ She walked to her bed, slowly pulling back her bedspread and linens to go to sleep. ―I think I‘ll lie down a bit before we go, but please stay.‖ She covered herself and opened the sheet on the other side of her bed, signaling me to join her. Funny how one needs so few words to say the most intimate of things. *** I was still awake when Sophie lifted her head in a panic. ―Rudolph! Are you there?‖ she yelled as she groped the bed for a sign of life. ―I am right here! What is wrong? A bad nightmare?‖ ―It was terrible. I saw the whole city in flames, and I couldn‘t leave the hotel. I kept shouting for you. Where were you off to in my dream?‖ ―I was off attempting to rescue you, of course!‖ I pointed casually to the door and grinned, ―That door was all that was stopping me, but you know, if you had just waited a second longer, I would have broken it down.‖ She sighed in relief and put her head on my ~ 73 ~

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shoulder, lifting herself off the bed a bit because of our disproportioned height. ―I do think you‘re right. Maybe if I had concentrated a bit, I would have heard you struggling for me. You would have saved me from the fire.‖ ―My dear, the war can‘t touch us. If you want, we‘ll leave Germany for a while. I can say I want a vacation.‖ ―No. I want to stay. You know, I was born when the big boost for Germany came about. My father was there to see the very beginning of the German Empire. We left when the empire collapsed, and look! I return, and Germany gets half of central Europe to begin again. It is only fair that I should stay and see history repeat.‖ ―Then I will stay too. If you want, you can stay with me. My apartment is small, but it can be very safe.‖ ―But I can‘t stay with a man. My father would have a fit. He‘d be furious if he found out.‖ ―Would it help if I married you? He wouldn‘t have any fits at all, then.‖ Her surprise mirrored mine. The offer was on the table; she had little choice but to accept, and it was over in a quick trip to the city hall. On September 9, Germany invaded Poland. On September 13, I married Sophie Warner. Sophie and I moved into our apartment, my former residence. Some couches were moved, a great table bought for our meals, and life went on with one more person in an ever-tighter area. The ~ 74 ~

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apartment suffered a bit―it was hardly the size of Sophie‘s hotel room―and was usually quite empty, but every day there were flowers on the table‘s small glass vase, our first wedding gift. I took time off work for our marriage and returned a week later to the camp. Eisele was busy with large reports and notices that had been streaming into the office for days, or at least that was his claim. The office was a mess of paper headed by the Ministry of Health. These were casually tossed aside, though; the real work was in the papers marked ―Under the Orders of the German Wehrmacht.‖ We had become used to those announcements by then, and they were mostly reports on diseases that soldiers typically suffered. But now, as I read it, they were asking for more work on our part; a list of syndromes was headed by a few lines of print. ―What is all this?‖ I asked Eisele. He looked up from his papers but continued scribbling down notes. ―That? That is the worst load of work we‘ve ever received! Those goons want us to cure all of these things. How, I ask you? It‘s impossible.‖ He groaned in dissatisfaction and anger, stopped to wring his hands, and said smugly, ―but I‘ll have a great time finding out. Look, look what they‘ve added here at the end! Clever little men, these politicians.‖ He pointed and jumped at the thought of little well-dressed men while I slowly read the finer print. ~ 75 ~

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―Use all methods and available sources to aid in your duty to assist the military of the German people.‖ Everything happened so quickly afterwards, and after all was said and done, most complained they never saw it coming. But really! What sources did we have? We were a camp hospital in dire need of tools, even the basic instruments to keep people alive. Even after reading the note I had to look around to see what we had available for such studies. My face was etched with confusion, and Eisele quickly caught my expression and pointed to a line of prisoners walking by. Eisele asked with a giddy smile, ―Don‘t you see? Each and every one of these pathetic little urchins is a new subject for us to test on. Imagine it, an unlimited supply of experimental subjects!‖ He was laughing wildly, cheering to only himself. ―Just think about it; maybe this won‘t be impossible at all. I dare think if they can keep the bodies coming, we can surely find a cure somehow.‖ I couldn‘t tell what sort of magnificent boast that was, but my comrade danced around the office, and I found myself wondering again just what I had entered into.

~ 76 ~

Twelve

W

ith that bit of notice, everything changed. Now there was no excuse for overcrowding. We received hundreds a day and were forced to divide them among the laborers and the medics. While we needed healthy prisoners, we were still forced to give them all to factories that needed laborers. A quick bribery ring ensued among the doctors and the commanders who oversaw where the prisoners went. We all became privy to the trade of human lives in exchange for wine and free passes. We were given a quota of men to use in experiments, seventy per month. In the first month, I was given a simple task: neuter the inmates to see ~ 77 ~

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whether they could reproduce without sexual organs. Essentially I was in charge of attempting to make the first test-tube baby. I took the seventy men without grumbling and escorted them into a makeshift lab, a building made quickly by the prisoners themselves. The men sat on small chairs I had provided, and at command, they all effortlessly stripped and took their physicals to see if they were healthy enough. The process was completely flawed. Of the first seventy, thirty-five tested positive for some disease that disqualified them. The other half was led into a cut-off section of the lab where the tools were kept. The tools were the simplest of things the doctors could afford, because we had to buy them from the government. We had numerous small knives, a scalpel, tongs, and small amounts of medication. Holding the knives, I kindly explained what I was about to do to the subjects, like a teacher in a lecture. It was no use; most didn‘t know German, and others were dumb to the effects of what I was about to do. After the explanation, I called in an assistant, usually another prisoner, to hold down the subject while I examined, anesthetized, and cut off the genitals. The process was painful for all; the assistant was attacked by the subject while I was kicked mercilessly and the others looked on. After the region was removed, different processes were undertaken for each subject. Some were cauterized while they bled, creating terrible wounds and scars. ~ 78 ~

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A few were given an intake of salts that are originally used to stimulate the stomach. The salts were applied manually to the affected area while the victim bled. The salts could not defy gravity, and I was often forced to push the salt into the area without thought of what exactly I was pushing. One subject complained of bladder pains later that day and died a few hours afterwards. At the autopsy we found that the muscles of his entire underside, most of his rectum, and even his large intestine had been infected by the salts. Nothing in the project to acquire samples for the test-tube baby worked. Of the organs harvested, none survived, because they were not preserved properly. The organs withered to a quarter of their size because we could not afford enough preserving fluid, so the remaining extremity was thrown out. The victims also began to wither; it was realized too late that the blood would not clot as it should have when the genitals were removed. That night I wrote a small report to chronicle the experiment as ordered. Half the subjects died, but I clearly was not to blame, because I did what I was ordered. Meeting Sophie after that day was terrible; I waited with hesitation when she came out of our kitchen with dinner and began to talk. ―How was your day? How are things at work?‖ I had forgotten that she was still enjoying her vacation. ―Things are dreadful. We‘re all working on some foolish project of some sort. I spent the entire ~ 79 ~

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day removing genitals, but they died out before I left. Utter nonsense! I have no idea what I‘m supposed to be doing.‖ ―What a strange thing to be doing.‖ She left it at that and got up quickly. ―Oh, I mustn‘t forget! Look at this lovely frame I received from my mother. Isn‘t it nice?‖ The frame was coral blue cracked glass with small golden edges. ―I love it. We can put it by the table when we don‘t have flowers.‖ Nothing more was said of the work I was doing at camp, and when she came to work a week later, nothing was said at all during dinner. We had lost our right to speak. The next day was abuzz with discussions at work. Everyone had failed in their attempts to do the impossible, and they all now blamed the government. All the employees held a meeting to discuss what should be done about the experiments. ―Listen, we need to demand better equipment. It‘s foolish to think we can do all of this work with what we have in stock,‖ Eisele shouted. The room was a fury of voices rising and falling as each particular person tried to be heard. It was irritating. These men were all adults, yet they were unable to keep any sort of control. I grabbed a book from the desk where I was sitting and slammed it repeatedly on the side of the desk, forcing everyone to keep quiet and focus. ―Everyone shut up! We don‘t need equipment. What is the point of that? Are any of us surgeons or scientists? Of course not! We can‘t do any of this; it isn‘t our duty to make the ~ 80 ~

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SS look good by giving them cures we can‘t find. This is all stupid.‖ No one said a word, but they all agreed in silence. Not one of us was a surgeon. The most experience we‘d had was in offering referrals, and few of us had ever professionally used the tools we were supposed to. The entire thing was madness, but as everyone looked on in silence, the day‘s reports arrived and we were given new assignments. Mine was the only one not changed. I admit I dedicated myself to finding a way to preserve the spermatozoa effortlessly to create a test-tube baby, but it wouldn‘t work with adults; the men were all dying before I could find eggs to fertilize with the sperm. In my report I sent a notice that the experiment was useless when done on grown men, stating that the body had already matured enough to require the genitals. The next day I received a reply. No one ever told the doctors, or at least me, where our reports were sent. There was some grand idea that they were sent to the office of the SS or the Gestapo where they had health agents. Or perhaps it was to the military, which was, after all, the people who sent us to do this work. In any case, whoever received it replied faster than ever before. The message sent was simple: if the project won‘t work on adults, use children. That day I ordered guards to gather twenty boys under the age of twelve for me to study. I was astonished by the number; some sixty-eight children ~ 81 ~

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waited for me in my office, already stripped and given their alcohol scrubbing. They were so patient and nervous that the process was frighteningly easy. While I explained what was to be done and why, just as I had with their older predecessors, they actually listened and asked questions. Most of them spoke German and boldly asked me their questions. Many did not and asked the boy next to them. They were arranged by age, and I quietly assured them they should be proud of their place in medical history. They were, in spite of everything, contributing to science. It was easier to do what had to be done when they believed such things, but it was easier still when I believed them too.

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his time, no one died. After filing a report that stated that all of the genitals were quickly put into jars with preserving fluid, I went home and went to bed, not even bothering to eat. Eating was now uncomfortable to me. It was silent and eerie. Besides, there was too much on my mind. I found no nourishment in food, but much in the experiment I now delved into. I wanted to find the answer to whether a baby could be made externally from the body, a lofty goal, but one I committed myself to. The children all suffered because of my desire to create a being from nowhere. They were all marked once their castration was complete, and their medical profiles ~ 83 ~

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were followed to the letter; they received better treatment than all others, and as the project was still secret, many adults wanted to join. As a result, we made concessions, and the men were allowed to bargain their wives for the use of their uterus. The men all volunteered the body parts of women without their consent for a daily pay of fifty pfennig. The process was put on hold until I could find a way to painlessly insert the sperm. Home was unbearable. Sophie worked in silence and kept to herself at home in much the same way. The vase and the coral-blue frame were both tended to with delicacy, but no picture hung inside the frame; no flowers bloomed within the vase. The work was all I wanted to do. The issues of safety and painlessness were soon removed in favor of speedy efficiency. Bodies were broken, medical surgeries were conducted to put them back together, and the bodies were quickly broken again. By the tenth day, we were all given deadlines, and I was forced to further remove compassion and awareness to meet them. The women all survived, most greatly disfigured, but when I sent notice of it in my reports, I was told that it was best that they be disfigured after the experiments, to prevent them from having children at all. After a month, the process of preserving and inserting sperm was complete. The women were injected with many vials of sperm owned by children who hadn‘t even passed puberty. The day after the insertion, more boys were ~ 84 ~

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gathered, this time between thirteen and eighteen. I had to see if younger bodies meant healthier sperm. Most of the elder victims suffered genetic or venereal diseases, so a point had to be made to use the youths. None of the women became pregnant. Of the sixty, twenty died. In my haste to solve my given experiment, many vials of sperm were injected at the same time—sperm from several boys raced to fertilize a woman‘s single egg. The process was a failure, and the boys were released from my control, only to be supplanted by their older contemporaries. Many of the older boys now being used were in the middle of puberty; the distress of failure was replaced by the excitement of hope. The process was done again and again without haste. Variables were taken into regard; some of the sperm vials were charged with electrical surges from small generators to stimulate them. Surgeries were performed and ovaries were removed and dissected for further study. The experiments were exhausting. Each day lingered and reeked of failure. The process was performed and re-performed ad nauseam until an eventual milestone was reached, but no such landmark was met. Every trial led to premature birth or no birth at all. After three months, the project was finally given to another doctor, and I received my new orders. Reading the file on typhus and my new quest for a cure, I already missed my previous assignment. The women, children, and ~ 85 ~

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various samples were sent to a lab near Bremen, never to be seen again. The typhus epidemic months back encouraged me to find a cure. The reports had stated that I could use only forty patients for study, and I was forced to bribe the various guards in charge of labor to keep several well-managed men. The search landed me thirty-seven, not nearly enough. It was while dining in a small café that the answer came to me. Everyone was desperate for human bodies to use as guinea pigs. Once, Eisele came toward me, from seemingly nowhere, with a large trash bag. ―Look at this; look in here!‖ he shouted to me and briskly ran to me. He opened the bag by its edges and peered inside with me. It was difficult to see, but within the black bag were numerous limbs. The arms and legs were intertwined and broken, and many were still bloody from their removal. ―Disgusting! Where on earth did you get such things? These aren‘t appropriate samples for testing.‖ His giddy behavior annoyed me. ―I got them right from the source, so to speak. Very easy, really, I was having trouble finding new subjects, when it hit me: I don‘t really need the whole person, do I? The next thing I knew, I was cutting apart these arms from everywhere for the experiments.‖ ―I can‘t believe you; that cannot possibly be legal, can it?‖ ―Who cares?‖ He shrugged. ―I‘m doing my part ~ 86 ~

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for the war. So long as I find the cure for whatever they want, I will do whatever I want.‖ I wasn‘t sure what his experiment was, but his eagerness to remove arms from helpless men scared me. From then on he could be seen casually walking by prisoners and unsuspectingly grabbing them, dragging them to his office, and releasing them sans appendage. Cost effective as it was, it was horrible to hear. Home life served to be a weak façade of what it once was. Vacations were taken in silence, and we both began to feel a bit lost, yet somehow, after a year of marriage, we conceived a child. I was told, and we revived our passion for life. The child would renew our emotions, our desire to live! We joyously prepared our home for another denizen, buying clothes and feathering a nest. Life began to seem bearable again. Meeting Sophie at night was warm. With these renewed feelings, though, came a renewed loathing for what I was doing. I hated myself, and I above all else wanted to stop working. But destiny would not be so denied.

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lost the baby.‖ Sophie sobbed as she tightly gripped the telephone receiver, as if it could substitute for a child. ―What? I‘ll be there in a moment,‖ I replied, at a loss for words. How could she have lost the child for which we had prepared only three months? I was terrified of going home, of seeing her in our living room. Sure enough, I entered and found her on the floor by the couch. I helped her up and led her to the chair by the table with our small frame. A photo of our vacation to the Rhineland the previous month stared back at me. We had been so happy then, I had to avert my gaze, and she caught it. Our eyes met, perhaps for the first time since our ~ 88 ~

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marriage. ―I want a divorce.‖ I wasn‘t entirely sure who said it, and to this day, I‘m still questioning it, but I wouldn‘t be surprised if it was me. ―Okay, let‘s get our things in order here, and we‘ll find someone to handle the papers.‖ I left her to find the number for my attorney, her grip on me tightening until it reluctantly released. I strode into the bedroom and closed the door. Perhaps I slammed it, or otherwise the moment imbued the frame with energy. As I left the room, the picture tilted and fell face down on the table. A small crack of glass broke the silence of the house, but the silence returned until I left to return to work. With no home to live for, all thoughts left me. I wanted to run, but I couldn‘t move my feet. All I could hear was the utter silence of the house, the crack of glass, and maybe sobbing. I drove up to the gates of the camp and parked the car. ―What‘s wrong? You look beat,‖ Eisele cried out when I walked near him in the lot. ―I‘m not sure I haven‘t been beaten. I‘m getting a divorce and I‘ve lost the baby.‖ Eisele leaned closer, whispering to avoid a scene. ―What happened? I thought you had everything taken care of.‖ ―No, I hadn‘t any control. No control at all. It‘s all been a terrible mess.‖ I returned to my office, papers scattered wildly on the floor and desk. My memory rushed to my ~ 89 ~

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first entrance there, papers similarly tossed about. I gathered them in a neat pile and gently planted them on the top of a filing cabinet, chuckling a bit to myself. I found myself thinking aloud. ―So much time has passed and yet the place still looks the same.‖ It did look the same; it was all a terrible mess. I sighed a little, tossed my head onto the desk, and I napped. I had a dream when I closed my eyes. I was in a whirlwind of sand and dirt, floating up with the strong breeze. I couldn‘t see anything but grains of debris in the air but I felt (if one can feel such things in a dream) that I was headed toward a town. What would happen if this tornado entered the city? What wreckage could it cause? In fearing and panicking, I somehow left the wind, falling hard to the ground. To my astonishment, the cyclone shrank smaller and smaller when it entered the city limits. It was a mere cool breeze once it reached the first houses. ―Get up! Sleeping, eh?‖ I awoke to find a barrage of guards standing over me with Commander Koch‘s face square in the middle. He had the look of fury. ―What are you doing asleep? Get up!‖ he repeated loudly. I got up and saluted him, apologizing for resting my eyes. He took me aside and mumbled something. ―Listen, you must be on your best behavior. Officials are coming to see how efficient we are, and I don‘t want to look like a weakling.‖ Ironic that people tend not to look like what they really ~ 90 ~

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are. I knew no amount of proper behavior would make Koch look any better, but I saluted anyway to get him away. With his entourage he left me and went out the door. I returned to the filing cabinet with the jumbled papers and re-sorted them. The files, I noticed immediately, were of the experiments previously undertaken. Heading each paper was a huge redstamped ―Failure.‖ Had I really tried so hard for such dismal results? This typhus cure would be different, I thought. I‘d find an answer or else. A package, some vials of Rickettsia prowazekii I had ordered, lay beside the notes. With the vials of the disease, the millions of homegrown lice, and the hundreds of inmates, I would surely find my cure. I had several inmates brought to me to have checked for lice and received many more examples than I expected. Each inmate had the parasites, so I had the bugs removed one by one and put in small Petri dishes in the hopes that they would copulate. I fed them human blood from the original hosts, and the lice grew until they were able to be injected with the contents of the vials. With the injections, the lice now had typhus, and since I continued to feed them from prisoners, the prisoners developed it as well. No care was taken for the inmates who were donating blood―after all, I could cure them eventually, couldn‘t I? But after the injections had taken place and the lice were properly grown, I stumbled onto my first roadblock; what to do next. The lice ~ 91 ~

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couldn‘t survive for long, and the typhus-infected inmates were forced into sequestering for so long before their use would be valid. I decided to monitor the lice and humans together to see how the typhus affected both in a small lab. The lab work took many days, with the lice dying before the infected people. The project was renewed. This time the lice would be infected and killed to see how the bacteria affected the body. The trial was completed in a week. During all of this heavy work, I made certain not to return home. Sophie called me only once to notify me that the papers for divorce had come in. I returned home that night, signed them, and went quietly back to work. ―Why are you leaving so soon?‖ ―I have to return to the camp. I have found a wonderful route for the cure for typhus. I think it can be accomplished within a year.‖ Her face became blank and then became unusually happy. ―Really? A cure? Amazing. I never thought I‘d live to see the day when we‘d find a cure for typhus. I can‘t believe it, how‘d you do it?‖ I stood dumbfounded at her renewed interest, explaining the situation of the lice and the vials injected into them. She sat in wonder, listening to every word with careful attention. ―Wait,‖ she interrupted. ―If you injected the lice with typhus, then spread it to people, why not try an in utero cure? Try using fetuses of typhus-infected ~ 92 ~

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victims and see if the virus lasts longer than the life of the victim.‖ ―Of course!‖ Her idea was startlingly clever. Tests for yellow fever were conducted in the same way until it was deemed too strong for a fetus. The disease could be made passive through the child‘s natural immunities. My excitement matched hers, and we both stood up and congratulated each other. Therein lay the path to the cure! ―You must come to work with me. I need your input for this fetal attempt. Should we use humans or work with animal fetuses first?‖ ―Animals would be best. A human fetus would die much too soon.‖ ―Brilliant! Let‘s go,‖ I shouted as I grabbed her arm and headed toward the car. We drove into the camp talking endlessly about how to direct this project adequately. Science saved our marriage. We ripped the signed papers and we reunited our attention to each other. What would we do once the war was over? How long would they keep us in that camp?

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he lice project was halted in favor of an in utero approach. We used pregnant pigs and chickens to determine whether the bacterial strain would survive from mother to child. By infecting the subject, we of course infected anything it touched, and by leaving the specimens at camp, we actually endangered everyone. Two weeks after the project started, two pigs were somehow released from their pens and scampered throughout the camp until caught by some guards. The next day, almost every one of those guards became sick, showing signs of typhus. We made them rest, slowly cured them, and learned our lesson. For most of the period of these projects, my ~ 94 ~

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attention to the ills of the camp were somewhat dimmed. I rarely treated guards or prisoners, and when I did it was usually because I was bribed. Our goods were no longer being shipped to the camp properly, so everyone used a barter system for better treatment that mostly relied on the inmates surrendering whatever they managed to hide. Whenever I an inmate came into my office, the conversation always began with, ―What have you in your pockets today?‖ Chocolates, gold, even paper were becoming more valuable to us. We were desperate people, but I was busy with typhus, so I no longer really saw it. Days were busy with research. Nights were for the city. Sophie and I ventured out every night like we did before we were married. But the city became desperate too. The operas were closed and the artists were in hiding. It was 1941 and the nation looked altered. All the two of us could do was sit on the hood of the car and watch the city from the steep hills surrounding it. Lights flashed on and then quickly shut off while cars bustled by in clogging motions through thin streets. As vigorous as the city was, it was devoid of content or action. The city was dying; its bright opera lights were flickering and the colorful houses all melding into various shades of grey. ―Is this the lost generation?‖ Sophie pondered loudly, breaking a silence that had encroached upon us since we parked. ―Are we lost?‖ ―I don‘t know. I just don‘t know anymore. What ~ 95 ~

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should we have expected in war?‖ ―Not this. Everything is gone.‖ ―The least they could have done was remove the opera house instead of just shutting it down completely.‖ ―And the noises! What happened to the noises we used to hear in town? No one laughs anymore.‖ ―The people are lost and in search of an answer. Whatever that is, it isn‘t Hitler anymore.‖ ―What do we do?‖ ―Survive as best we can.‖ The silence returned and we continued staring deeply into the cityscape as night transformed into dawn. *** The typhus experiment did not last long. We failed again, except now our records were marked and sent to the SS head office. Our new assignment was given three days later; we were to castrate a group of Spaniards who were captured. Our mission was not veiled or elaborate. We took fifteen men and removed their reproductive organs with haste. The Spaniards were hot-blooded things, though; they did not take it lying down. A few actually rebelled, some struck us, and one nearly stabbed me. He was detained so I could punish him. Hours after the attack, I had finished the rest of the men and entered the small new barrack made for physical punishments. The small, no-longer-proud ~ 96 ~

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figure of the Spaniard was tied quietly to a chair. ―What is your name?‖ ―Emmanuel. Emmanuel Martinez.‖ ―You are not going to live long here. You know that, Emmanuel? I will not allow it. You could have seriously injured me. Do you even care? You know, I am just a small town physician. I‘m not one of those frightfully dumb guards who escorted you here. Do you understand?‖ He remained silent, nodding his head in affirmation. ―Well, I just want you to understand how I feel about what you were doing. I have a family, you know. What would happen to my wife if your attack had succeeded in its aim? ―I do not know.‖ ―We can‘t have a society that allows people to stab others when they reject medical procedures. That would be a society of chaos, wouldn‘t it? And thank goodness we don‘t live in such a world, eh? Well…‖ I stopped to chuckle to myself. ―I bet you won‘t be so thankful, because, as I said, you surely will not survive here. In fact, I can guarantee you won‘t survive to see another twenty-four hours. A pity, then. I wonder what your wife will do.‖ ―Will you bore me to death? Is that how you criminals do it?‖ ―Oh, is that your Spanish bravado I‘m seeing? Amazing, but hardly effective. No, I will not bore you. That doesn‘t really work, you know. But what I will do is very efficient. You see, beside the fact ~ 97 ~

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that you tried to kill me, you interrupted my work on your little friends. I had to pass right by you to make up time.‖ I took out my cleaned scalpel and wiped it on a sheet of alcohol. ―Now stay very still; this will not be a second.‖ From the vantage point I had, I could easy relish his suddenly miserable appearance and tears. The operation was a success, but I purposely left him without bandaging. ―Now that wasn‘t so hard, eh? You see, now you look like all your other friends.‖ I circled the chair while he grunted and moaned in pain. ―But we aren‘t over yet. No, we have only made up for my lost time. We still need to punish you, so I‘ll just leave that wound untreated, and you can come with me.‖ I dragged his chair and pulled him out of the barrack and into the cold. I took him right to the middle of the roll-call square and put a guard to watch that he stayed there without getting hurt. I went home and left him there. The thermometer had dipped to twelve degrees when I left. When I returned to work, Emmanuel was still there, the sole guard nearly asleep. ―Wake up! Your guarding duties are over. You can go to bed.‖ The weak sentinel lifted himself with effort and shuffled to his barrack. I stood over the shrunken Emmanuel, shivering in his chair. ―Guten Tag, Emmanuel! I see you haven‘t slept. Get ready; you are in for a treat.‖ The entire contents of the camp awoke for roll call and began ~ 98 ~

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filing into the open area. An immediate hesitation followed. The prisoners were well aware of what was going to happen; they‘d seen it many times already. ―Dear Emmanuel, now that everyone is here, tell them what you did yesterday. Tell them why you are here.‖ The fragile figure remained silent, no longer able to resist his punishment. ―This man tried to attack a doctor, and look at where he is now. The man is freezing! He‘s been out here all night. Guards, heat him up!‖ Five guards walked up, lit two matches each, and carefully avoiding the cold and wind, set the chair on fire. ―Now sit there and think about what you did,‖ I muttered, grabbing an unlit wooden match and a tin of gasoline. Nearing the small fire, I took the match, lit it, and slowly balanced the strand of wood on his hair. His face simply stared straight into the audience that gasped in fear. He held still in spirit and in body. Having finally completed the balance of the match, I stepped several paces to my right and then threw the contents of the tin on the chair. An immediate swath of flame rose below Emmanuel and his eyes darted from side to side. ―Please!‖ he screamed finally. ―Why won‘t any of you help me? Don‘t do this! I have a family.‖ The crowd was shaken with the break in silence, his fear feeding their own. Terrified, they stood motionless, not knowing what to do. ―Madre de Dios!‖ ~ 99 ~

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His screams were muffled by the crackle of fire, now rising twenty feet off the ground. Still tied to the chair, he struggled to free himself, but going nowhere, decided at last to take what was given to him. The crowd watched it all. It wasn‘t until hours later that the fire ended. After monitoring the entire process, a few guards and I cleaned out the remaining scraps of dirt and charred debris. I ordered that it all be dumped in the trash. There were still some parts of Emmanuel clearly visible, and as I began to leave the scene, I noticed the remains of his middle finger pointing straight at me. ―Filthy Spanish slime!‖ I breathed quietly, walking away to wash my hands. *** The entire camp was still struck with the fear after the day‘s events. No one could forget the reeking stench, the screams, and the sight of the man‘s desperation. The next day it became official: any crime against the doctors would be punishable by imprisonment in a metal box not much bigger than me sitting down. The box was obviously meant to deter more violence; instead it fueled it. Any angry employee could take his frustrations out on a lowly individual trapped in a small enclosure. Coming home that day—and every day afterwards—was a chore. I loved seeing Sophie, though, and our love had returned with our ~ 100 ~

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continued work. I realized I had never seen her work before now. Our time together was so precious now we were terrified that something else would take that away. We met almost every night to gaze at the stars and talk on the hill as we had on days before. ―What are we going to do after this war?‖ she asked one night. ―I don‘t know. I guess I‘ll return to Mannheim and start all over.‖ ―If you‘re going to start over, why do it in Germany? I mean, can there be anything left after the war?‖ ―I don‘t have any answers for you; I‘m sorry. I can say only that whatever will be, will be.‖ ―I don‘t think that is comforting enough.‖ She sighed. ―What will happen to the two of us if we don‘t win the war? Will we be criminals for what we are doing?‖ I scoffed indignantly. ―Of course not! What we are doing is for science. Would they call those who cure polio criminals if they have to test on humans? We are doing a benefit for the world. If anything, they‘ll arrest the soldiers and politicians; those are the troublemakers. But one doctor from Mannheim? Impossible.‖ There was more of that irreparable tension in the air, the type that settled after 1939 and never left. The silence—tension‘s greatest ally—held a tight grip over the entire hillside. The stars were dimmer and fewer as the sun rose. There was no sleep that ~ 101 ~

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night, and from then on, nights used to sleep would be few and far between. It was hard to sleep with the silence, and it was harder when the silence was broken and tears could be heard. We were no longer a proud Germany—in fact, we were defeated before the fact. Days became months as the cities grew apprehensive and we wondered when it would all end. Science can only mean so much to the world; would a victor judge the defeated guilty for what I had done? Tormenting thoughts and fears of capture were everywhere, and my only rest was in work. But the work bred strains in a horrid cycle that followed me often. These were the nights in Weimar and Germany in the months that followed 1941.

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ork went on casually. I woke up from daydreaming and realized it was New Year‘s Eve 1942. Where the year went, I cannot say. I must have dreamed through those months. I think everyone dreamed them away in futility. Our concerted efforts to end typhus ended in late 1942. We were given a new experiment, that of testing the ability to rejoin torn limbs. Twelve prisoners were chosen to have their fingers removed, one by one, until a proper reattachment method was found. Twelve prisoners and 120 fingers later, we were forced to yield. Fingers, we were told, were not quite as necessary as arms, so our twelve lab animals were devoid of those extremities. ~ 103 ~

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The process was unique. Previous experiments allowed me to try my hand at genetics, surgery, therapy, and execution. Now I was given a chance to sew. The wife and I shared several nights at home, quietly listening to the radio and sewing like two elderly women in the park. We‘d laugh and poke fun at the news of the day, generally talking as if we weren‘t sewing together fingers from bodiless arms. ―You know, this is the first time we‘ve really enjoyed doing something I like to do since the last time we went to the theater,‖ Sophie mentioned one night. We had a small chuckle between us; the moment went sweet, then quickly soured as we went back to our task. Work the next day was full of noise. A book, it seems, was confiscated from a prisoner. Who among us would think a small hardcover manuscript would make such trouble? More than trouble, it actually instilled fear—it was a book no man would touch. The guards fumbled with it, and prisoners who saw the display of twelve armed soldiers creating a complex attack formation to lift a book off the ground must have died of laughter. In the end, the book was trampled and torn, but still on the floor, for the rest of the day. By chance, I crossed it while I was about to leave work and decided to try my hand at carrying the book away with me. After all, I thought, the book must be some kind of supernaturally heavy book for no one to want to touch it. ~ 104 ~

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Carefully and with great effort I kneeled down and peered at the book. Its ratty pages were lined with footprints and tears, and the front cover was hidden with dirt. Finding great resolve I braced myself to lift a boulder, grabbed the book with high energy, and pulled with all my strength, forcing me to fall backwards to the hard earth. I had braced for a boulder and picked up a few reams of lightweight paper! I looked around in fear, wondering if anyone had seen me. After a few minutes of being on the ground, I began to look rather silly, so I got up, walked briskly to the car, and drove home, all the while eyeing the book and wiping the smudged cover. It was The Principle of Relativity by Albert Einstein. There are certain advanced things that people cannot grasp with their meager knowledge of science. I was puzzled as to why this book caused such a stir and what exactly relativity was. I knew of Einstein (who hadn‘t heard of Einstein?) but I was flummoxed as to what he meant with such great words and mighty phrases. I found myself humbled by a Jew, this genius who was banned from all German knowledge. I was suddenly like the guards, confused and utterly blind. I cautiously took to reading the tome; secretly I held it every night and read from its pages. That first night was amazing. I was dumbstruck by the simple equation the book revolved around. E=mc2 was the simplest thing on paper, but I, for ~ 105 ~

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the life of me, could not figure it out. The next day I went to work and casually tried to discuss it. All attempts fell on deaf ears, but after work, a patient gave me a small business card with an address and a phone number. ―Trust me. I know what you‘re talking about. I‘ve seen that equation before. This man will help you explain it.‖ Puzzled but determined, I quickly finished work and went to the address, which turned out to be a small bookstore. I peered inside. I found many men in clean overcoats or business suits, talking and eating small pastries. My nerves were shot; I entered the store and nearly fell over at the sound of a bell attached to the door. ―May I help you, sir?‖ ―Yes,‖ I said, gathering myself. ―I was told to come here. I have a question regarding a book I read. I need to understand physics.‖ ―Physics, eh? Not terribly difficult. Let me bring you to our expert on the matter.‖ The attendant left the register and led me through the open front of the shop into a cramped part lined with shelves of books of all sizes. The air reeked of old literature, and I found myself looking about at the myriad titles while my aid walked solemnly through without a word. Suddenly he grabbed me and made a harsh right turn. ―I must ask. Who sent you?‖ His cheerful voice turned to harsh stone and he looked me over. I stammered the name of my contact and revealed my position with the book. He ~ 106 ~

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gazed suspiciously, then relented and continued walking. What strange nonsense was this? Finally we came to another open section of the store. Chairs and small tables lined the walls and a group of people were sitting in the center of the room, talking and writing. ―Excuse me, Anya, but there is a man who wants to speak to you.‖ A tall, raven-haired woman stood up and walked to us. ―Now tell her what you told me,‖ the attendant whispered. I spoke, trying to say exactly what I had before. She listened quietly. After a number of fumbles and repetitions, I finished, and she took a breath. ―Interesting. Well, I am Anya Pavlovich, and I am a bit of an expert on the subject of the physics you‘re reading about. I studied with Einstein. If you‘d like, you can sit in our meeting. We were just discussing his works. As you know, his work is banned here, so I‘ll have to ask for a strict vow of silence on the matter. As far as we‘re all concerned, you came to search for a book on opera.‖ We walked to the group, where I was introduced with a false name. As Erich Romostein, I was seated, and a blazingly fast discussion took place right before my eyes. I caught little, understood less, and found myself in quiet confusion. Words of all sorts were repeated with vigor and emotion; atoms, radiation, and energy were all a bit above my scope. ~ 107 ~

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When the main conversation died down, I got up and spoke to Anya. ―Madam, I have no idea what you just discussed. It was too fast and full of unusual ideas. Perhaps you can explain it to me yourself. What does any of what you said have to do with E=mc2? Together we went to the corner of the room and sat on chairs with a table between us. ―You see, E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of sound, which is multiplied by itself. So energy is equal to the mass of an object multiplied by the speed of sound squared. This means a lot because it hints that energy and mass are the same, and one could become the other. But because the speed of sound is so fast, even the smallest atom could become a big amount of energy. This energy, it is theorized, can be used like electricity. Likewise, there are some who think the violent conversion of mass into energy can be used as a weapon. As of today, we don‘t really know what‘s what on this matter because it is rather new.‖ ―What does radiation have to do with that?‖ ―Well, usually when you want to turn mass into energy, it is best to use something that is not stable. Things like uranium are unstable, but they are radioactive, which is bad in large doses. So we can‘t experiment with it.‖ ―I see. You certainly know a bit, but how? This is all so confusing to me.‖ ―What do you do for a living?‖ ―I was a doctor in Mannheim. I still am, with ~ 108 ~

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some minor differences. Why?‖ ―I never understood the medical field, even though I used to want to be a doctor. The body is complex, compared to physics. When I found all of this, I decided to work on it, and soon I went to Leiden University, where I met Mr. Einstein.‖ I glanced at my watch and noticed how late it was. ―I‘d best be off. Is it possible to be able to return here? Your employee made it rather hard.‖ ―Oh that‘s not my employee. I just stay here making lectures. But I‘ll warn him that you‘re coming back. Just remember, you are Erich Ramonstein.‖ ―Romostein,‖ I corrected. ―Yeah, Romostein. Just the same, don‘t tell anyone about this. It wouldn‘t be good for any of us.‖ ―Certainly. No need to worry.‖ Leaving the table and walking through an aisle of books, I eventually found the door and drove off to the house. All of this new information settled in my brain, interesting me to no end. The drive home was full of repetitions of what I was told and trying to relate them to what I heard in the meeting. Once I arrived home, I found Sophie crying in the dining room, hunched over a chair by the table, her head resting by the vase. ―What is wrong?‖ ―I think I‘m pregnant again. I‘m pregnant and scared.‖ I was shocked. All this time I actually forgot ~ 109 ~

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that she could get pregnant again. I comforted her and relieved her with lavish words. ―You‘ve no need to be scared. We will take tremendous care of you. The two of us can get through this, and we‘ll have that baby. Besides, I think I know what made you lose the baby last time. It has something to do with the radiation back in the office. I think it made the baby under develop. From now until the birth, you‘ll stay here and I‘ll cover for you.‖ ―Really? Radiation? How?‖ I explained a bit of what Anya told me about how radiation is bad in large doses, then proceeded to count off the multitude of experiments we did using radiation. She took it all in as quietly as I did, and then asked where I got this new information. ―In a bookstore near the flower shop. Speaking of, did you get these today? They‘re beautiful.‖ She was not fooled by my attempt to divert the conversation. ―Yes, I got them today to cheer me up. But what about this bookstore? It sounds odd that they would have anything on that. Only the Jews do work with that kind of science.‖ I gave some details on the subject and on Anya, revealing very little. With a huff and wanting to end the ceaseless questioning, I went to bed after comforting her again, but my mind was aching; thoughts of physics and babies rolled back and forth and gave me a headache, which I tired to sleep through.

~ 110 ~

Seventeen

O

ur son was born on January 13, 1944. We named him Aloysius Heinrich von Schluck, using the names of Sophie‘s father Heinrich and my father Aloysius. The boy was quite large for his age, and I take no hesitation in saying that Sophie and I loved him terribly. Avoiding the office worked wonders for Sophie; she grew strong and became a healthy weight after years of being underweight. While she was pregnant, I would meet with Anya and learn physics in exchange for teaching her medicine. The two of us became good friends, and Anya became the first person to see Aloysius when we brought him home. When Aloysius was a few months old, Anya ~ 111 ~

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disappeared. The bookstore was closed down. Someone had broken the silence, and everyone was rounded up and arrested. We all feared the worst, expecting the police or Gestapo to invade our home, but nothing happened. Instead I went to work and came home. A few days after this sudden revelation, I spotted Anya in the camp, wearing the red triangle of the anarchist. After waiting for her to go through processing, I volunteered to give her an exam so I could speak to her. ―What the hell is this?‖ I whispered to her. ―Why are you here?‖ ―They arrested all of us except for a few who got away. So this is what you meant by being a doctor. No, I understand. The government is crazy if it won‘t let a few scientists do their business. I don‘t know what I can do here. You have to help me. All these guards look like they want me.‖ ―Don‘t worry; I‘ll protect you. Maybe I can find a way to get you out of here.‖ The exam was something of a class in hygiene as other prisoners watched to see perhaps the cleanest person in their lives. I was apprehensive about her being here amid the filth, but after I finished her exam, she picked up her prison clothes and dressed with unusual flare, trying hard to create a strong collar from the neckline of the shirt. Perhaps she didn‘t need my help after all. I came home and told Sophie the news. She stood there totally unconcerned. Finally after my ~ 112 ~

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long speech, she got up and put Aloysius to bed. She returned minutes later. ―Yes, I know she‘s in Buchenwald. I put her there. Why else do you think everyone but you was arrested? I don‘t like you near that woman alone, so I called the police and told them what she was doing. She was wanted, you know.‖ I was flabbergasted. How could she do such a thing? It was so unlike her, as if the baby helped bring about some new identity. I was furious, and I drove back to the camp to try to fix the mess. I ran through the gates and searched madly for Anya, and when I did find her amid the crowd of prisoners preparing for work, I grabbed her and took her to a shadowy corner to explain what had happened. ―Why would she do such a thing?‖ Anya cried, a clear sense of betrayal exposing itself through her fury. ―I don‘t know...she is acting odd because of the baby, I think. But I‘ll find a way out for you. You just stay and keep out of trouble. If any guards argue with you, come to me.‖ ―Thank you so much,‖ Anya cried as she burst into tears, ―I‘ve been so afraid.‖ Her fear was much like Sophie‘s, terrified of today, tomorrow, forever. I held her close, and in our embrace, we lost ourselves amid the solitude of the moment. When next we awoke, the sun struck our eyes, a glimmer of light bouncing from a nearby window. She was still beside me, stirring slowly as she rose and realized where she was. It was as if she had ~ 113 ~

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been there forever. ―My God, what have we done? We must get dressed. They‘ll kill me if they find me here with you!‖ She cried, her tears rolling down her cheeks and creating a small pool. ―You mustn‘t cry now; we must get dressed,‖ I replied hastily. ―Yes, all right,‖ she muttered as she dressed herself. Just as we settled down, roll call was being issued, so I rushed her along to her part of the camp while I sped toward mine. The entire day I wondered what caused me to one again ruin my marriage. After work I went home and found Sophie with the baby reading a book on the Russian czars. ―You know,‖ she said with a suspicious smile, ―these czars had people spying for them all the time. What a brilliant plan, eh?‖ She went back to her book, her smile now a grin. Did she know? I felt a chill in my back at the prospect of it. We fell asleep after carefully attending to Aloysius and eating very little. After Anya‘s and my first encounter, I rarely bumped into her, although I made sure to try to find a way to break her out. It wasn‘t easy. She had an established reputation for being smart, which was a greater crime there than anywhere. No one would take bribes to hide her, so I hid her in a small shack near the stables. I have no idea how she survived under such filthy conditions. The shack was a container for a wiry collection of pipes that carried ~ 114 ~

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water for cleaning the stable. Every day the pipes broke twice, once when the water was entering the stable (as somewhat clean water) and again when it was leaving the stable (carrying feces and hay). I checked on her to see if she was okay, only to find her covered with shit and debris. Home was much the same. Aloysius kept us happy, but Sophie‘s and my love was once again gone. The child made us work together, whereas we probably would have divorced, and we learned to tolerate each other. Soon I found out that Sophie was seeing another man, a guard in Buchenwald. I couldn‘t have cared less. By August I was seeing other women. I didn‘t love the women I was with. The war had ruined everything. I was terribly alone in my house until I finally broke Anya out.

~ 115 ~

Eighteen

R

eleasing Anya from camp was not easy. A previous attempt at a breakout a few days earlier caused a massive shutdown of many liberties for prisoners and employees. No one, not even the higher officials, was safe from a sudden search of all belongings. The guards were not alone. The dogs, a staple of the camp, had been forced to starvation so that any smell of flesh drove them mad. They sniffed cars and trucks while the sentries examined every pocket, sleeve, and corner of the men who passed in and out of the gates. Even wire telecommunication was examined. Private lives were no longer such, and escape seemed impossible. ~ 116 ~

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There were ways out, though. Guards are human, and humans are not infallible. They got dogs to check cars, I noticed, except on one occasion: the entry or dismissal of various food items in and out of the camp. Ravenous dogs would never be allowed to inspect meats, and the guards never bothered to. Therein lay my route to redemption for Anya. In the middle of the night, I wandered into the small outpost for the dairy and meat trucks, stole a uniform, and prepared to enter the truck. I was faced with a conundrum; I‘d never driven a truck before in my life. Where were the gears? My plan was quickly blowing apart with my own ignorance, so I took time to head to the refrigerated end of the truck to think. Suddenly the vehicle jostled and moved. I reached the window to view the driver‘s side of the truck and found an employee pushing buttons and pulling levers, all of which led to the truck moving toward the gate. How could I act? Quickly I jumped over the partition separating me from the front of the truck and grabbed the hapless driver. Pulling him down and covering his mouth, I beat him repeatedly until he finally collapsed from trauma and shock. Once he was out of action, I stopped the truck and swiftly hid him in the back amid the frozen meats. I continued onward, driving the truck with nerves of jelly, past the gate. Once I was out of sight and in the middle of nowhere, I parked the truck and debated what to do ~ 117 ~

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with the driver. He was an inherent threat to my plans to release Anya; if freed, he could cause further security issues. I had to prevent him from talking about what happened or identifying me. I looked about in the inside of the truck to see what I had available. There were knives, flashlights, and long rods, one next to the other, lined up on one side. I had no other choice: the man was a menace, so I took the rod and prepared to take a long swing at his head. Just as I was about to attack, I noticed a device hiding behind some meat that I had not noticed before. Of course! The meats were always fresh because of the special gun farmers used to kill the cattle. I clutched the trigger and tried to aim. Just as I was moving the gun, the guard woke up, lifting his gaze abruptly and shaking his head in a daze. In a panic, I shot him, the blood of the driver spraying wildly onto the ruined cattle nearby. There was little left but his body, which I took care to dispose of by burying him in a small ditch on the side of the road. No drivers passed us when I lifted his massive frame and carried him to his new resting place, thinking only of how to return and drive off again, Anya in tow. I drove the truck back to camp and hurriedly returned it to its post. The blood on the cows had frozen onto the meat. The stolen uniform I had put on was covered in a thick layer of blood and sputum. I couldn‘t think about what I had done, it would simply have to wait until I freed Anya. Initially I was terrified of my actions, my brutish ~ 118 ~

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manner, and the filth I was entrenched in. It covered my hands and dripped off my fingers, creating small pools of liquid on the floor and on my pants. The stuff went through the fabric, soaking my thighs, feet, and chest. I was drowning in a sea of blood, and I wanted to do nothing but scream. Still, I found Anya and pulled her to the back of the truck. ―I‘ve found a way out of here; stay inside and don‘t make a sound!‖ ―My god, what happened to you!?‖ ―Nothing; I got into a little mess in the back. It‘s a meat truck, so be careful not to slide on anything.‖ She stepped inside cautiously. ―Oh, this is disgusting,‖ she muttered quietly. ―It‘s enough to put me off meat forever.‖ ―Quiet!‖ I warned. Guards were passing by on their patrol, and my nerves were weak already. Once she was inside, I drove again, reached the gate, and flashed the identification from inside a pocket of the stolen uniform; I covered the photo with my thumb to avoid detection. I was allowed to pass, and after reaching the gates, I swiftly drove on, avoiding all main roads down to Weimar. Parking at last on the side of the road not so different from the one I buried the driver in an hour before, I opened the back of the truck and released a weary Anya. ―I‘m free,‖ she whispered. She was. She was a freer person than I. I took her home and found the house totally devoid of life. Sophie had gone. She clearly took Aloysius. I could do nothing. ~ 119 ~

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Nothing for now. I had freed Anya, but I still couldn‘t get a divorce. Anya fretted with me about where Sophie had gone with my child. We searched all of Weimar and found nothing. The police tried to do what they could for me, but without a divorce, my relationship with Anya was purely common law. It was unfortunate, but we were stuck. In December, Sophie came back. She brought Aloysius and came to the house, knocking on my door. Instead of her radiant smile, I was greeted with a lost, dazed expression. Her hair had frizzled, and her appearance was weak and disheveled. ―I suppose you know why I‘m here,‖ Sophie muttered as she held Aloysius close to her. I reached for my son. ―You‘re here to give him back to me.‖ She held tight and avoided my grasp. ―No, I want a divorce. I cannot stay with you. And it‘s not right for him.‖ She peeked through the doorway and locked eyes with Anya. ―So she‘s here too? Good; she can be a witness.‖ She juggled Aloysius in her arms to retrieve the divorce papers from her coat pocket. I glanced at them and noticed many streaking tearstains. ―You left this empty,‖ I told her, ―What was the cause of the divorce?‖ ―Hitler, I suppose,‖ she expressed softly. ―Funny, without him, we‘d never have met.‖ ―Perhaps that would have been better. Maybe we‘d be happier if we didn‘t know each other at ~ 120 ~

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all.‖ Her eyes were still on Anya, and when they finally moved to me, they began to tear. She sighed and brushed the tears aside. ―What was the cause of this divorce? I‘ve asked myself that question ever since I left. For the life of me, I don‘t know. But isn‘t it necessary?‖ ―Not at all. We‘ve done this before, remember?‖ ―Ah, yes; those were happier times than now. Still, then we stayed and brought a child into the world. Isn‘t that cruel of us? I don‘t want to be responsible for what can happen if we ignore this divorce and get back together.‖ I signed the papers and again tried to hold Aloysius. Sophie relented, passing him to me as I had hoped. ―I‘ve missed you more than words can say,‖ I whispered to him. Anya stood up and attempted to touch the boy. Suddenly a hand rose up and held Anya‘s in a tight grip, preventing Anya from moving. It was Sophie. ―Don‘t,‖ she said sternly. ―It‘s not right. He isn‘t yours.‖ ―He will be soon enough,‖ I muttered. Sophie accepted defeat and released Anya‘s hand. ―Where are you staying? Perhaps we can talk.‖ ―I‘m staying at the hotel nearby; you know the one.‖ Of course! The hotel of our first date. ―Fine; we‘ll talk when we can. I must go now.‖ I abruptly shut the door and noticed her image in the keyhole. After several seconds, she left. I took Aloysius and sighed loudly. ―I can‘t believe that was the woman you ~ 121 ~

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married, but at least you‘re divorced now. I guess some wars end sooner than others.‖ I remained quiet, staring at my son, all through Anya‘s bitter words. After some time of silence Anya spoke again. ―Did you really love her?‖ ―Love,‖ I replied hastily, ―is a fool‘s emotion. Hand me the telephone, will you? I must call someone.‖ ―What are you going to do?‖ she asked as she passed the receiver to me. I ignored her, dialed the all-too-familiar number, and waited for the voice on the other line. ―Police, how may I help you?‖ ―Give me the man in charge,‖ I said. ―I have a criminal to collect.‖ *** Sophie was arrested hours after returning to her hotel room. Per my orders, she was labeled a communist and was carted off to Bergen-Belsen. She was forced to labor as a prisoner, not as an employee. I prepared for work the day after, and Anya stood in mock attention. ―I‘ll watch little Alloy for you while you‘re away. Without the bookstore, I find myself without a thing to do.‖ ―Alloy?‖ I questioned. ―Cute. And thank you, I appreciate it. But Alloy? Isn‘t that an unusual nickname for him?‖ ~ 122 ~

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―Listen,‖ she said firmly, ―without the bookstore, I can‘t teach science. I have to occupy myself somehow. Besides, I think he likes it.‖ She played with his toes, causing great bursts of laughter and applause from the three of us. I went back to work with the thought of a new family taking shape in my house. We all celebrated the New Year—1945—as the great year of change. It promised a wealth of happiness.

~ 123 ~

Nineteen

O

n April 8, 1945, the Allies invaded and captured Buchenwald. The previous months were full of apprehension; many doctors were forced to stay overnight to clean out or send reams of documents to the RSHA headquarters in Berlin, only to receive replies demanding the pages be burned and shredded. All our work for the previous six years had been in vain. Employees disappeared left and right. Everyone knew the allies would soon be upon us, particularly the Russians, so people fled or surrendered to any nearby Americans. After a day of work, I drove home and asked Anya what we should do. It wasn‘t until March 13th when I finally got the nerve to ask ~ 124 ~

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what we had all been thinking. ―I don‘t know how long it will take for someone to find us. They might even kill me for what I‘ve done in the name of science. What should we do?‖ I asked. Anya stared out the window in plaintive contemplation. ―There was a time, not so long ago, when I was in danger for my contribution to science. Staying here nearly killed me. I say we should go.‖ ―Where?‖ More thoughts in silence. She tossed her head, altering her vision between the window and Aloysius. ―I don‘t know,‖ she mumbled. ―Out of Europe, I suppose. Maybe America?‖ I stepped close to Anya and absorbed the sights of the window pane. I could see what she saw, what caused her uneasiness. The air was thick with fear, the sky covered with the macabre mix of clouds and smoke, ammunition, and fire. The war was coming closer. ―Pack up,‖ I shouted excitedly, running into the bedroom. ―We‘re leaving.‖ We set the day to leave at March 28. We decided that if we couldn‘t leave together, one of us would leave with Aloysius. By March 17, we were all packed to go, but my duties in the camp prevented us from taking off sooner. After several days of cleaning and burning incriminating documents, I prepared my car one last time, took my notes and personal information, and lastly, took a small ~ 125 ~

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handgun that had been confiscated from a prisoner. I drove down the rocky, uneven road out of camp and back to civilization. Out of nowhere, a large blast rocked my car, and everything became frightfully still. I tried not to lose consciousness, but in my delirium I noticed that my papers were actually above my head. The ground was up and the doors were upside down. No, I was upside down! The car had spun over and flipped. I collapsed and drifted to sleep, the sounds of nature blending with the echo of the attack. I awoke to a numb pain in my legs and the retching smell of blood. I was unaware of where I was. My eyes were shut. When I opened my eyes, I came to in the dirty medical tent with Doctor Beltzer beside me. After my attempt to avoid him by using Reiss, I planned to leave, only to see Beltzer return with a guard by each shoulder. ―Ah, doctor, I see you‘re awake. I hope you care to be more sociable now than before, now that I have some company.‖ Each soldier grunted in affirmation, as if to prove he did exist. My apprehension grew. ―I suppose my hunting story failed to impress you.‖ Beltzer laughed in a mocking, buck-toothed way. ―Not in the least, no.‖ ―Well, I tried.‖ ―So I see. Perhaps you can try the truth. If not for my benefit, then for yours. What were you doing ~ 126 ~

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out so late?‖ ―I… I was preparing to leave Germany,‖ I said exhaustedly. Lying did not help; perhaps sympathy could. ―I have a son. He can‘t be here when the Americans come here.‖ ―I completely understand,‖ he vowed seriously. ―You should have told me sooner; I could have helped you get out of here.‖ ―Helped me?‖ ―Oh, of course. Himmler is running everyone out of the country. It is safer than getting caught by all these Russians. People are running around like headless chickens. I myself was going to leave for Ankara, for my contact. Where‘s your contact?‖ I brightened at hearing him and then lied again. ―Vienna. Baldur von Schirach has left the door open for me.‖ ―Vienna? Vienna is closed down You‘ll get nowhere there. No, I insist you use my contact. They‘ll send you to Turkey, and from there you can wind up anywhere. And everything is secret; the Gestapo made sure of that.‖ I eyed the guards. ―Are they keeping the secret?‖ Beltzer laughed as if we were the best of friends. ―Ah, these old boys were here to kill you for your suspicious behavior. There is a lot of talk, you know, of people trying to kill Hitler. It just makes everyone a suspect.‖ He smiled and chuckled to himself. ―Okay, boys, you can go.‖ The men clicked their heels and went their separate ways. ―I ~ 127 ~

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apologize for believing you an enemy,‖ Beltzer said solemnly, ignoring the departure of the guards. ―Now let us be off. Where is your son?‖ ―He is with my girlfriend…‖ then it hit me. ―Wait. How long was I out?‖ ―A while. Artillery fire hit near the scene of the accident. You suffered some damage to your head and legs. You‘ve been out about a week. Why?‖ I ignored his question and tried desperately to remember when I had left. I couldn‘t do it. I couldn‘t even remember the day. ―What day is it now?‖ I asked hurriedly. ―The twenty-ninth. What is wrong?‖ The twenty-ninth. Anya and Aloysius were already gone. We had planned our leave in such haste, only God knew where they were. ―Nothing,‖ I mumbled to myself. ―Let‘s go.‖

~ 128 ~

Epilogue

Journal Entry February 3, 2006 ―So you just left them there?‖ ―What more could I do? They were gone. It hurt, of course, and I never stopped looking for them.‖ ―Where did Doctor Beltzer leave you? Did you go to Turkey?‖ ―Oh, yes. The trip was hard. For one, we couldn‘t take a plane, and also, we had to use disguises to blend in with the crowd. We all knew that there would be allies searching for escapees. It wasn‘t until around 1949 that we heard that Jews, mostly from the Israeli government, were trying to catch us. After they put prices on our heads, everyone became a bounty hunter.‖ ~ 129 ~

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I listened to the man I had slowly grown to respect speak about his long trip to a foreign land, and I kept close watch on the voice recorder and on my written notes. Every word he said was caught on tape for review. When he first began telling me the story of his strange, interesting life, his only request was that I keep track of what he said. Writing a book was Rudolph‘s idea, not mine. He continued to say how he soon left Ankara and hopped around the world until he reached Ottawa, Canada, so that he could be closer to America. His voice trembled with emotion; it was, in fact, a rare display. He spent all these decades searching for his son and common-law wife. His hunt forced him to move to New York City, where he kept a close eye on new leads for what he wanted. But he too was wanted; he was sure the Israeli police would want him arrested. When talking about those who would do anything to kill him, he became we, the single person representing an entire generation of criminals whose acts were legitimized by their nation, and the thought that another, opposing nation would hunt him like wolves terrified him. He had a right to be scared—the Mossad are still notorious for its intrepid investigations, kidnappings, trials, and executions. He ran away and returned to New York whenever he could and gained the trust of a few neighbors to take care of his house while he went on ―business trips.‖ I was one of the few he learned to ~ 130 ~

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trust; now I am the sole inheritor of his stories. I am the keeper of his secrets and personal trials. When I first interviewed him, I believed he was a penitent monster. His acts often bordered on deranged, and I wanted to understand how the figure he cast years before became the hunched man of today. Later on, I began to understand that he was neither a monster nor some misinterpreted angel. He was human, and little else. He made horrendous mistakes and paid dearly for them every time he tried to sleep. ―Did you sleep last night?‖ I asked. ―Only an hour or two. You know I haven‘t been sleeping even as well as I was before. When we started this, I slept four hours; now I average about ninety minutes. Even with sleeping pills, I manage only two hours.‖ ―I apologize. I must make it hard for you to sleep, dredging up memories like this.‖ ―No, it is the fact of my life. I gave too many the deep sleep, so now I can‘t sleep myself. It is karma; I‘ve been reading about it. What you give really is what you get.‖ ―A hundred years old and still learning lessons.‖ Rudolph laughed at this and pretended to cough to death, a play on his accelerated aging. ―A hundred yeas old and still sharp as ever!‖ he decreed proudly. His age was the only thing he had left to be smug about. He was old, but he wasn‘t terribly infirm or weak. He would be the perfect Aryan elder if there were still a Reich to recognize ~ 131 ~

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him. We both laughed; him at his age, me of mine. The two of us together were of two extremes of age, but we didn‘t care to notice the looks of the nearby passersby. I had decided to ignore the typical formal ritual of taking notes in the local library—it was too noisy and full of annoying children and those who act similarly. The stillness of the trees and the chirping of the birds were far more acceptable. Here, I recorded this, my last entry. ―I loved hearing the story, but others may not be so enthusiastic. What do you hope to achieve out of having this book done?‖ ―That is why it must be done when I am dead. This story is a noose around my neck; I can‘t have it published while I‘m alive to feel the knot tighten. But what I will achieve?‖ He thought and struggled for words. ―I don‘t really know. Is there a way to apologize without being killed? If so, I‘ll do it. I know I can‘t do it with my health and sleeping problems. If I could write the book myself, I would. But I trust the way you‘ll do it.‖ His reassurance came late, and I wondered if he had purposely left anything out. My fears were not misguided. Several times in the interviews he stopped, forgot where he was, and blamed his unique ―blinking‖ skill. I wondered, what was that? Was it a real psychological issue or just a way to get out of talking? After this interview, I had a doctor look at audio and written records of the conversations. His ~ 132 ~

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analysis: a fugue caused by Rudolph‘s guilt. I would have never realized that the man was fooling himself into forgetting the truth, and if what he remembered was as bad as it is written, I fear what he has already forgotten, what no one will ever know. I asked my subject, ―What do you think of people who may not want to read the book? In other words, why now?‖ More deliberation. ―Because I am afraid. Not for myself; I am getting to an age where few material things bother me. But I see this world changing. Society is moving in another violent direction. I see all of this anti-Arab nonsense in the news. I hear it in little conversations in the streets. We are in desperate times. They can start rounding up Muslims like we did to the Jews.‖ As if to strengthen his statement, a discarded newspaper opened and revealed its contents—seven arrested and interned in the military prison in Cuba. The day before, it was news of torture camps in Eastern Europe. The headline exposed the truth. He looked at it briefly and motioned his concern. I took notice of a feeling of inferiority. Perhaps it was a sense of weakness in Rudolph; perhaps it was déjà vu. ―You see, back in my day, you couldn‘t trust the paper, even if what it said was what you knew as the truth. Hitler owned the paper, and he and his accomplices controlled the media. I wonder if that is what is happening now. Maybe we are given bits ~ 133 ~

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of the truth so we can easily believe lies.‖ His voice faded into the background of nature, and I knew he was again remembering something from long before. A tear strolled down his cheek; he closed his eyes and didn‘t bother to wipe it away. ―I must do this because I know there are many others who have survived—the Nazis, I mean—who won‘t say anything. They act like you and me, ingratiate themselves in South America, Canada, and Europe still, but they hide away because they know what they did was wrong. I understand what I did, but I know I can‘t hide under the excuse of medical science. That was a fault that cost me a chance to testify against the doctors in Nuremburg. ―I wanted to give this interview for years, but I couldn‘t. Something stopped me. It just didn‘t feel right to discuss my side so late after the fact. People already have a determined idea of a Nazi, and they won‘t back down from thinking we‘re all inhuman. You know, I wanted to make an apology in the seventies. I wanted to publicly apologize to Elie Weisel or Simon Weisenthal. At the very least the president of Israel.‖ I was intrigued. ―What happened? Why didn‘t you do it?‖ He admitted without remorse, ―It was too late to make it better.‖ End of Interview

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