by Sylvia True
“We do everything we can to ease the pain on all sides. We write compassionate letters and give a cause of death that will not cause shame or guilt. It is easier to say your child died from pneumonia or encephalitis than from a mental illness.” He returned the letters to the drawer.
Arnold could not sit in this vile man’s office a second longer. No reasons, none, could ever justify what he witnessed tonight.
Staying at Sonnenstein, knowing what he knew, would make him complicit, and that was unacceptable. It was also unacceptable to leave Rigmor in the hands of this monster. He would phone Inga, and together they would make a plan to rescue Rigmor.
Chapter Nineteen
Links
Belmont, Massachusetts 1984
Inga sat at her table making notes on what needed to be done for Christmas. She had ordered little fir trees for the tables, picking out decorations for each. There would be baskets with fruit and nuts and chocolate. She didn’t want to overdo it, but the residents deserved a decorated room and a few indulgences. And although it was awkward, she checked with Holgart to make sure her small touches and donations would be allowed. Perhaps out of guilt for overstepping his bounds when they first met, he was enthusiastic about Inga’s generosity, and typed a letter telling the head doctor that Inga had full authorization to spruce things up.
She glanced across the room to where Cathy read and Mia slept. It was during this time, after lunch, when most patients were in groups or in therapy, and Mia napped, that Inga found she could focus on her tasks. But today she gave her mind a moment to wander. When she was young and visited the University library, new ideas flowed easily. Her mind was curious. Over the years, she’d lost that curiosity, but now, as she sat at McLean, she felt some of it come back, and it excited her. Her old self wasn’t as much returning as it was peeking out from the years of fences and walls and balustrades she had erected.
When she saw Sabine walk down the hall, returning from Lincoln’s, Inga noticed a change, a forcefulness in Sabine’s gait. Sabine headed right to her grandmother’s table without checking on Mia first.
“What is it?” Inga asked, closing her notebook, intrigued at Sabine’s newfound confidence.
Sabine pushed a piece of paper across the table. In front of Inga sat a picture of Rudin. His hair and creased brow were unmistakable. Inga picked up the page, some sort of mimeographed copy of a newspaper article.
“Was this the man you were friends with?” Sabine asked sharply.
As Inga drew her finger down the bridge of Rudin’s nose, the excitement she’d felt a minute ago turned to dread.
“I’m not sure I would have called him a friend. But yes, I knew him quite well.” She didn’t like seeing him. Even so, she found it impossible to look away from the picture.
The date at the top of the page read Tuesday, August 21, 1945. With a shock of white hair, china-blue eyes and tender pink cheeks….I am sure that Prof. Rudin never so much as killed a fly in his 74 years. I am also sure he is one of the most evil men in Germany.
“Where did you get this?” Inga asked, unnerved to see Ernst after all of these years.
“Dr. Lincoln gave it to me.”
Inga raised her eyebrows. “He had this? I recall him saying he had never heard of Rudin.”
Sabine let out an impatient huff. “He hadn’t. But he likes history and I guess he was interested in some of the things you mentioned. So he looked him up. But that’s not the point. The point is that you were friends with this man.”
Inga read a few lines. Rudin will tell you, that as professor of race hygiene, he had to expound various racial laws passed by the Nazis… but that his point of view was always scientific and not political.
“There is nothing in here that seems out of the ordinary,” she said to Sabine. “Ernst was a scientist.” She folded the page in half, not wanting to look at it anymore. The dread moved up her throat.
Sabine grabbed the paper from her. “You didn’t say he was a Nazi.”
“I was uninterested in his political views.” Inga took her handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her forehead. “Tell me, should I get equal amounts of dark and light chocolate?”
Sabine opened the paper. “It says he was a commentator on the sterilization law. And that he would insist he knew nothing of the merciless killings of child and adult inmates at Elfging or Sonnen…something.”
“Sonnenstein,” Inga whispered.
The last time Inga spoke to Rudin was in 1940, when he telephoned her with a question about the Swiss bank she used. He had wanted to transfer his money out of Germany. She gave him the information he sought and then told him that she was no longer interested in psychiatry and had broken all of her ties with people in that field of study, which was the truth. Their views, which she once understood, had become repugnant as she realized that the human soul was forgotten in their quest for eliminating disease.
“Were those places concentration camps?” Sabine asked.
Inga was recalling the garden party Rudin had attended at their home in Frankfurt. She had thought him so distinguished and important.
“Pardon?” she asked Sabine, feeling bewildered by the way time leapt from there to here.
“Were those places—Elf and Sun-something—concentration camps?”
“No, of course not, why say such a thing? They were asylums, good ones. Not so different from McLean. Ernst was a doctor.” She opened her notebook and looked at her lists. “I always think oranges and nuts are good on Christmas.”
Sabine raised her voice. “Did they kill people in mental hospitals?”
“Shush,” Inga said. “This is not something we should talk about in a public place. Especially here. It may be frightening to some.”
“They sterilized people,” Sabine said, shaking her head.
Inga took a deep breath and steadied her voice. If Sabine wanted to learn about this, then Inga would organize her thoughts and teach her granddaughter.
“My dear child, they did it in America first. I am not taking a side, but you must at least be aware of your own country’s history before speaking with such scorn about another. It was everywhere. Germany did not invent eugenics. In fact, in some ways they were behind. There were societies studying these things all around the world.”
“People weren’t sterilized here,” Sabine said.
“But of course they were. I believe, but am not certain, that California took the lead. Many other states had similar laws. I think some still do. Perhaps Lincoln should have explained that to you before giving you this article, which seems to have excited you in a negative way.”
“So you think that this country believed in sterilizing and killing mental patients?”
“There were theories. Ideas. You have heard of natural selection?”
“Of course.”
“Some doctors believed that extending lives that weren’t meant to survive went against the natural law.”
“So you did believe in killing the children in that home near your chalet?” Sabine sounded as if she’d already drawn a firm conclusion.
“I think I made myself clear on that. I hated to see how miserable some of them were.”
“And who determines misery?”
“That is a question that I fear is unanswerable.”
Misery as Inga had come to understand it was rarely objective. She thought of a girl in Arlesheim, a daughter of a friend, who had Down Syndrome. Inga had initially been wary of meeting the child, but in time Inga saw something that sparkled in the girl, a light of pure kindness.
“Did you know anyone who was sterilized?”
There was a hard glare in Sabine’s eyes, and Inga felt too old and too tired to argue about what happened in Nazi Germany.
“I did not know anyone,” she said sternly, closing her notebook.
She thought of the hospital in Hamburg where she had voluntarily chosen to get tubal ligation in 1935. After reading countless papers on heredity and genetics, Inga calculated
she had a fifty percent chance of carrying a recessive gene for mental illness. Inga did not want to give birth knowing the child might inherit a life of pain and suffering.
“I just don’t get how you believed some of these things,” Sabine said. “That Rudin was your friend. I mean, they made you leave, and you seem to subscribe to the Nazi beliefs. How did it make you feel that they said you were an inferior race because you were Jewish?” Sabine glanced at the picture of Rudin.
“I did not think Jews inferior. Ever.”
“But Rudin did.” Sabine tapped her finger on the article. “He says, and I quote, ‘they swindle. They’re dishonest. They’re not creative.’”
Inga pounded a fist on the table. “I am not Rudin. I did not say I believed everything he believed in.”
“It just sounds like if you weren’t Jewish, you might have joined the Nazis.”
Inga had sacrificed her womb for the good of future generations, and here was this impertinent child trying to make her into some coldblooded monster.
“I hated the Nazis.” She placed a hand on her chest and recalled the brown shirts and clicking heels of their boots. “They were greedy. They wanted their fat sausages and more land. They were stupid.” Her eyes stung. “They did not understand culture or modern art. They called some of Klimt’s paintings pornographic. Klimt. Can you believe it? His portrait of Trude Steiner was priceless, and now it is gone. They destroyed the soul of Germany and fed the masses with propaganda of being the master race.” She shook her head. “You have no idea.”
“I’m sorry.” Sabine’s cheeks were red. “I shouldn’t have said that. I know you weren’t a Nazi.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. To even think that you would entertain such thoughts.” But a creaking door had been opened.
“It’s not about that. I guess I just don’t know the history.” “No, you do not.” Inga paused. “I have been thinking that since it is Christmastime, it might be nice for me to visit your mother. You have Cathy, and things seem to be going relatively well.”
“Yes, you should go. But not because of what I said.”
Inga pursed her lips. It wasn’t because of what Sabine said. She had been thinking of Lisbet lately, how she missed her. Yet she couldn’t deny, not entirely, that she felt an inkling of wanting to flee Sabine.
“I am in the States, and it’s important that I also see your mother. But for future reference, I would prefer not to speak about the Nazis.”
“I get it. I’m sorry.”
Inga reached her hand across the table. Sabine gave Inga’s fingers a gentle squeeze, a sign of goodwill.
“I will explain to Cathy what needs to be bought,” Inga said. “I will call the florist and make sure everything is nice on Christmas Day.”
“Omama, you don’t have to do that. And if you want, you can take Cathy to help you. I’m getting driving privileges in a day, so I don’t think we need her anymore. I’m going to pick up our second car. I’ll be able to come and go any time I need to.”
“I have paid her for certain tasks that she will continue to perform. If you don’t need her on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, I am sure she would be happy for the time off.”
Inga booked a plane ticket for the following evening. Tanner volunteered to take her to the airport, which she welcomed. She liked riding in cars, especially with a competent male driver.
Before Inga left, she wrote lists for Cathy and reminded Sabine to sit straight, wear her hair in a bun, and thank people when they held the door. Most of all, she told her granddaughter, spend time holding the baby. Inga hadn’t planned on giving that last piece of advice. It simply came out.
Chapter Twenty
A Mischling (Mixed Breed)
Germany 1935
The August heat refused to lift even after sundown and Inga decided to stay in the drawing room, where it was a few degrees cooler. At nine, the butler knocked on the door.
“Sorry to disturb. There is a phone call for you.”
At this time of night, it could only be Fred.
When Arnold announced himself, Inga felt a faint panic. “What is it?” she asked.
“Not a dire emergency. Nothing to do with Rigmor.”
“Thank God.” But then why was he calling at this hour? She gripped the edge of her chair.
“It’s time to take Rigmor home.”
“The treatment isn’t working?”
“The treatment is coming along.”
“Then what is it?”
“There is not urgency for Rigmor. But…”
“Have you been let go?”
“It has nothing to do with me. Or Rigmor.” He paused. “I am only thinking that because of the times we live in, I find some of the methods used at the hospital, to be blunt—barbaric.”
“What methods?”
“I cannot say over the phone.”
“The purpose of this call seems only to frighten the wits out of me. I will come and see for myself.”
The following morning she hired a driver to take her to Sonnenstein. She did not tell Frieda, Klaus or Fred of her plans. Her intention was to see Rigmor, even if she was sleeping, to make sure she was all right, and then to have a talk with Arnold about his phone call.
She waited in the lobby of Sonnenstein as an orderly went to find Arnold.
“Inga,” he greeted her, surprised. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“I told you I was coming,” she said, looking into his brown eyes, trying to assess if the problem was somehow with him. She stood and picked up her handbag. “First we will go and see Rigmor, and after that we will sit together in the garden and you will explain the reason for the call.”
He led the way to Rigmor’s tower room, where a nurse stood at the window. Rigmor lay on her back, her dark curls falling around her lovely face.
Inga ran to the bed, dropped her handbag on a chair, and kneeled on the floor. “I have missed you so,” she whispered.
Arnold stood behind Inga. “The nurses will wake her soon for lunch. Sometimes she is alert enough to engage in a short conversation.”
“I would like to be the one who wakes her,” Inga said.
The nurse approached the bed, instructed Inga to stand next to Rigmor, and gently pull her to a sitting position. Arnold retrieved a cool washcloth that Inga dabbed on Rigmor’s forehead.
“It’s me, Inga.”
Rigmor’s eyelids quivered.
“I am here,” Inga assured, rubbing her sister’s hand.
Finally her eyes opened. She recognized Inga and smiled.
“It’s so good to see you,” Inga said, feeling a giddy relief.
Rigmor struggled to keep her eyes open. Arnold went to get a glass of water.
“You poor thing, having to sleep all of the time,” Inga said. “But not for much longer. The treatments are almost finished, and I’m sure you will be better than ever.”
Rigmor clenched her hands as she strained to take a breath.
“What is it?” Inga asked.
“Nothing,” Rigmor answered.
Rigmor took a sip of water. “Mother?” she asked Inga.
“She is well.”
Rigmor braced herself again, and Inga glanced at Arnold.
“Stomach pains?” Arnold said.
Rigmor nodded.
“Is it from having your period?” Inga asked.
Rigmor closed her eyes as she breathed through another cramp.
“I know how tired you are, but I think it might help if you sat up a little more,” Inga said. “We could even try a walk. Just around the room. It is the best thing for cramps. To move a bit.”
Rigmor nodded and pushed her hands on the mattress to gain leverage.
“It is too warm in here,” Inga told Arnold. “She shouldn’t have such a thick eiderdown. There must be a lighter one.” When she pulled down the blanket, she noticed the blood. It was indeed a very bad period, Inga thought. Perhaps the sleep treatments caused irregular menstruation.
“Arnold!” Inga said. “What is this?” She pointed at her sister’s stomach.
Arnold shook his head. “A tumor of some sort?”
Was he asking her? Wasn’t he the doctor?
Rigmor folded in pain.
“Get some help,” Inga shouted.
Arnold told the nurse to call for an ambulance.
“Rigmor,” Inga said, caressing her sister’s forehead. “Has the pain been going on for long?”
She shook her head.
Inga glanced up at Arnold. “Was this the reason for your call last night?” she asked, baffled that he wouldn’t have said something then.
“No,” he replied, watching Rigmor. “I had no idea of this.”
Inga looked at Rigmor’s stomach again. “But how could you not notice something was wrong? A slender girl like Rigmor with such a large growth?”
“I have only seen her covered.”
“I don’t understand,” Inga said. “Get some warm facecloths.”
Inga reassured her sister that help was on the way. It seemed ages before the nurse came running back up to tell them the ambulance had arrived.
Arnold carried Rigmor down the stairs. He and Inga rode in the back of the ambulance.
Rigmor was rushed into surgery at the hospital in Dresden. Inga sat next to Arnold, a few meters outside of the operating room.
Inga’s breaths were short and ragged, distressed. “How could you not have noticed?”
“I don’t know.” Arnold raised his hands to his face. “The nurses change her. The bleeding must have started after breakfast.”
“But they didn’t notice the protrusion?”
“They let her toilet herself. And in her long nightgown and robe.” He shook his head. “I know it all sounds impossible. But I swear to you she has been getting excellent care.”
Inga leaned her head back against the wall. “This would never have happened if she were at home.”