by Sylvia True
“The train journey?” her mother asked.
“Fine,” Inga whispered. “Where is Lisbet?”
“Sleeping upstairs.”
“That is good,” Inga said, more to herself than Frieda.
“So then?” She was not a stupid woman. Surely she’d surmised that things with Rigmor had gone terribly wrong. “Was she not well enough to travel?”
The sun’s heat bore down. Inga kicked a few pebbles.
Frieda turned and walked inside the house, giving Inga an opening to climb the steps. She stood at threshold and watched her mother take out an umbrella.
“It won’t rain today.” Inga set her suitcase carefully on the floor.
“One never knows about the rain.” Frieda brushed her hand along the umbrella, a distracted movement.
“Mother,” Inga began. “Where are you going?”
“To Germany.” Frieda took a black overcoat from the closet. She wrapped a long silk scarf around her neck, and pulled on a pair of leather gloves. The warm day certainly did not call for such protection.
Frieda pointed the umbrella, gave it a small joggle, instructing Inga to step aside, which she did. Yet Frieda did not move forward. Instead she placed the metal tip of the umbrella on the burnt red ceramic tiles and shifted her weight. She was not walking out, and Inga understood then that her mother knew, at least somewhere in her brain, but the information had not yet seeped into her heart.
“I will be in the dining room.” Inga walked the short distance from the foyer to the glass door. She sat at the round mahogany table with the white linen tablecloth. She folded her hands together and glanced at the miniature oil painting of Rigmor that sat on the desk.
Frieda finally joined, coat and gloves still on, umbrella in hand.
Inga picked at the skin around her thumbnail. “She got an infection from the operation,” Inga mumbled and glanced up.
Frieda clutched her umbrella. “How many times did I tell you she shouldn’t have the surgery? Why did it have to be done?”
Of course Frieda knew why. She was aware of the laws.
“Mother,” Inga said, so softly she could barely hear herself.
Frieda shook her head, not ready yet for the news.
“She didn’t respond well to the sulfa drugs.” Inga could feel the thread growing thinner. “We tried.”
Frieda looked away. She needed time.
Inga needed time. If only they could reverse the clock. Never have to face the moment that stood so cruelly in front of them.
“She died,” Inga whispered.
The words hung in the air, as if they were too far away to be heard, and at the same time so loud that the result was a sort of deafness. Inga’s throat constricted. Her head, her lungs, her mouth, everything felt completely dry, as if all of the water, the life had been drained out, and only dust remained.
The sound that came from Frieda was an inhuman wail. She fell to the floor dragging the tablecloth with her.
Inga gripped her knees, unable to move, unable to help her mother, unable to pick up the tablecloth that lay haphazardly across Frieda’s legs.
“It cannot be.” Frieda pounded her fist on the carpet.
“Mother,” Inga said, wishing Frieda would get up, that they could find a way grieve together, that Frieda could understand how hard Inga had tried.
But Frieda stayed on the floor and turned her head just enough to look at Inga. “Out,” she screamed, and pointed to the door.
In the foyer, Inga picked up her suitcase and left.
* * *
For weeks after Rigmor’s death, Arnold’s thoughts were incoherent. He lived in a haze and felt as if his blood had turned to tar.
Slowly, fragments of the night returned—morphine shots, Rigmor’s marbled skin, the metal bowl next to the bed, Inga begging him to do more. As the memories began to coalesce, he was overcome by his total and complete inadequacy.
In October of 1939, Hitler signed a euthanasia decree.
The life of a person, who because of incurable mental illness requires permanent institutionalization and is not able to sustain an independent existence, may be prematurely terminated by medical measures in a painless and covert manner.
The autumn foliage burst into vibrant reds and oranges.
Bohm called Arnold to his office, almost certainly for the purpose of dismissing him.
When Arnold entered, Bohm stayed seated behind his desk. “I am sorry for your loss. I have been told you have suffered.” A cloud of cigar smoke hovered above his head.
Arnold nodded and remained standing. “I will pack my things and be on my way.”
Bohm picked up his cigar and took a long, languid pull. “That is not necessary, unless you already have another position.”
“I do not.”
“I might have something that interests you.”
Arnold highly doubted that was the case, but he inclined his head showing that he was willing to listen.
Bohm pulled out a large piece of paper. “We have been chosen by the T4 committee to be one of the euthanasia centers.” He nudged up his round spectacles and spread the paper on his desk. “The front buildings will be redesigned, as you can see in this drawing. We will still house patients and some refugees in the back buildings. In that way we are a little different than some of the other centers. Special, I like to think.”
“I am not interested,” Arnold said.
Bohm held up a hand. “Give me a moment. I understand you are sensitive. In some ways that is a very admirable quality for a psychiatrist.” He looked as if he was having a debate with himself. “In other ways it might be a hindrance. But that is neither here nor there. I would not task you with anything traumatic. Your position would be mainly clerical. We need a doctor to provide the correct diagnosis of death.”
“Will you have a similar gas chamber to the one at Brandenburg?” Arnold asked.
“I think ours will be nicer.” Bohm placed a finger on the diagram. “Building Two will hold the main facility. There will also be a crematorium there with two stationary ovens.”
Arnold’s room would be two floors above the chamber. His mouth went dry. “So why do you need a doctor to provide diagnoses if the patients are to be gassed?”
“I cannot tell how much sarcasm is in that question.” Bohm folded the paper. “We are in the position to help families. They will receive compassionate letters with a realistic diagnosis of how their loved one died. For example, we do not want to make the mistake of saying a patient died from acute appendicitis when he or she had already in fact had an appendectomy.”
“What you are offering me then is a job in which I would make up lies of how a patient died.”
“If that is how you want to look at it, then yes, that is what I am offering. But I am also offering you a place in history. What we are doing in these centers has not been done before. It has been discussed among psychiatrists and eugenicists for years, but no one has been able to move forward with it. No one has had the courage.” Bohm sat squarely in his brown leather chair.
Arnold listened as Bohm detailed Gekrat bus transport. Sonnenstein would receive patients from institutions in Saxony, Thuringia, and the Prussian province of Silesia. As soon as the patient arrived, a letter would be sent to the family notifying them of the patient’s safe admittance and good health. In actuality, the patient would die within twenty-four hours—a fact that the family needn’t know. Then, after about ten days, a death notice would be sent to the family home. Arnold would be given an alias. His name on the forms would be Dr. Bader.
Bohm handed Arnold a sample letter.
We are so sorry to inform you that your daughter NAME OF PATIENT, who was moved to our institution on SAMPLE DATE, died suddenly and unexpectedly of pneumonia on SAMPLE DATE. Medical intervention was unfortunately not possible.
We offer heartfelt condolences for your loss and beg you to find comfort in the thought that your daughter was released from a severe and incurable illness.
She died in peace, without pain.
On orders of the police we had to cremate the body immediately to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, which during the war pose a threat to the institution.
Arnold placed the letter face down on the desk. As he stared into Bohm’s eyes, he wanted to spit at this wretched man. But instead of allowing his anger to consume him, he gathered the energy, wound it into a tight coil and decided to dedicate himself to a new purpose.
Arnold agreed to take the position in order to secretly gather information. Once he had what he needed, he would write to newspapers all over the world. He would be killed for treason, of course, an idea that he found strangely liberating.
Three weeks into the work, he had lost twenty-six pounds. His hair was thinning, and he found himself blinking constantly, as if his eyes wanted to close themselves to this madness.
One morning, he carried his clipboard into the exam room where a young girl sat on the table. She shivered. He took off his white coat and placed it over her shoulders.
“Danke.” She wrapped the coat around her and felt inside the pockets, curious.
He glanced at his clipboard. Elsa Winkler. Diagnosis: Feeblemindedness.
“Your name is Elsa,” he said. “That is very pretty.”
She smiled, and he continued to read.
At age fourteen, Elsa performed at an age level of six on the Binet-Simon intelligence test, indicating a lag of eight years.
During the testing, her general knowledge was not commensurate with her age. She was unable to state her date of birth or the date of the testing. Her verbal expressive ability was primitive and frequently ungrammatical. In arithmetic, she could only perform operations in the first two basic forms of calculation with numbers from one to ten. Her performance in technical areas was equally poor. She had difficulty understanding the technique of braiding, and could work only with assistance.
We see no sign of any vocational interest or any degree of improvement.
“Would you like a sweet?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He opened the tin he kept in the cabinet and handed Elsa a chocolate.
She grinned and hid it behind her back.
“But you must eat it,” he said.
“I am saving it for after dinner.”
“There will be many more after dinner,” Arnold said. “Enjoy this one now.”
She placed it in her mouth. Her light hair fell over her shoulders as her feet swung, banging the exam table.
Arnold did not think he could bear this work any longer. His hands trembled as he checked Elsa’s breathing and heart.
When it was time for her to get down, he held her hand and told her to keep the white coat.
A nurse took Elsa into the hallway where she waited with a group of female patients. In less than an hour they would all be dead.
After Arnold filled out the form stating the cause of Elsa’s death to be encephalitis, he went to his room, and slid under the covers, fully dressed. He didn’t even take off his shoes.
For two days, he hid. Only when Nurse Adalet came to inform him that the Reich was looking for doctors to tend to German soldiers in Nazi-occupied France, did Arnold stir. At first he was sure the news from Adalet was a dream, but she led him to an office off of the main lobby where he signed papers and volunteered to leave Sonnenstein. Once in France, he knew he would never set foot on German soil again.
Arnold stayed in France for a month, tending wounds, and sitting with young men who would not make it home to see their families again.
One afternoon, a small crew of soldiers talked about heading to Norway. Arnold found the commandant and told him he had a sister in Oslo who was ill. He was allowed to join the cadre.
In Oslo, he took a ferry to London. He brushed up on his English, and a few weeks later took a boat to New York.
He found a small apartment at the edge of the city, and sent letters to the New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Daily News, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He made sure all of his contact information and his credentials were available. He guessed that in a few days, he would be receiving phone calls from reporters.
No calls came.
He sent the information to the Los Angeles Times, New York Herald, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post, and Dallas Morning News. Again, he received no response. But he did not stop. Finally, he received letters from The Des Moines Tribune and the Courier in Louisville. The editors thanked him for sending along his disturbing, but rather unbelievable, report. Without corroborating documentation, they wrote, they could not print his accounts.
He saw no alternative other than to march into the newsroom of the New York Times and speak directly to an editor. A secretary pointed him to a room with crowded young journalists clacking at typewriters.
A young reporter named Thomas shook Arnold’s hand. “How may I help?” he asked.
Arnold explained that he had recently arrived from Germany, where he witnessed ghastly horrors. Thomas nodded, asking Arnold to sit.
“It is hard to know where to begin,” Arnold said.
“Wherever you feel comfortable.”
Arnold told Thomas that he was a doctor who had watched the Nazis act on their theories of a superior race.
“They are murdering mental patients,” Arnold said, as Thomas took notes.
“Patients are weighed, photographed and given a number before disinfection.” Arnold pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow.
“Disinfection?” Thomas asked.
“That is what the Nazis have termed euthanasia.”
“Go on,” Thomas said.
“About twenty patients at a time entered the gas chamber. The staff made sure the door and ventilation shafts were properly sealed. Then the gas valve was left open for about ten minutes. Usually most patients were unconscious after five minutes.”
“And people do not know of this?” He sounded incredulous.
“People have some ideas perhaps. The residents in the town complain of the stench from the castle. They see the billows of smoke. The children run behind the buses that deliver the patients. They call them the murder boxes.”
“But there has been nothing written of this?” Thomas stopped jotting.
“The Nazis are doing everything they can to hide what is happening.”
“You seem like a good man,” Thomas said, and sighed. “But I must tell you, this sounds a bit…well, rather implausible.”
Arnold stood. “I am not fabricating this.” His back was damp with sweat. “They often had to disentangle the corpses before putting them on a clay grill—a baking pan.” He shook a fist in the air. “A baking pan,” he shouted.
Two other reporters stood and moved toward Arnold and Thomas. Arnold turned to the older of the two men. “They call it mercy killing, but it is anything but. They are killing any people who are unfit for work, people they claim are unworthy of life.”
The elder man approached and firmly gripped Arnold’s arm. “You are making people nervous,” he whispered.
Arnold tried to shake off the man’s hold. “Don’t you see,” he began. “This is just the beginning. They will soon expand their gas chambers to the concentration camps. They will kill in large numbers. You must believe me.”
“Calm down, man.”
“I cannot be calm. No one should be calm. Not when innocent people are being killed.” He was out of breath. Sweat trickled into his eyes, but he could not stop. “The Germans are profiting from these murders. The stokers extract gold teeth which are collected in a paper carton. I have seen those cartons. That’s just a small part. All of the people and agencies who pay for the patient’s upkeep, they pay until the day of death, which is postdated. They are raking in millions.”
“Come,” the man said, and led Arnold to a private office. “My name is Richard. Let me take your name and address. I will make calls to some friends of mine who are psychiatrists and then get in touch with you.”
Arnold slumped
onto a chair. He hadn’t realized how exhausted he was, how frustrating it had been to get someone to listen. Finally though, here was a man willing to take action. “Thank you,” he said, feeling as if he might cry, out of gratitude and relief. Carrying this burden alone had been too much.
“How long have you been in the States?” Richard asked.
“Only a few weeks. I was a doctor in Germany. A psychiatrist. I worked for one of the most evil men in Germany. I tell you, they have no feeling left. It was not long ago that I sent a young girl to her death. And for what? Because she couldn’t do her math as quickly as she should?” He shook his head. “All I could do was give her a chocolate.”
Richard pulled up a chair and sat across from Arnold. “It will be good for you to talk to someone in your profession.”
Arnold wasn’t quite sure what Richard meant. “Yes, I will talk to other doctors, if that’s what you think I should do. But I also think it needs to be written about in the papers.”
“I think it will help for you to talk about these things with a doctor who will be there just for you.”
“Me?” Arnold felt confused.
“Yes, you seem very nervous and upset. Your pants are swimming on you. And it looks as if you might not have slept or eaten in weeks.”
“Of course I haven’t slept,” Arnold barked. “I am exhausted beyond belief. But I have no intention to stop until people hear what I have to say.”
“A good psychiatrist will certainly listen.”
Richard wasn’t going to call people to corroborate Arnold’s story. He wanted to find Arnold a psychiatrist. In another situation the irony might have been laughable.
Arnold stood. “One day you will understand what a disservice you did by not listening.”
He visited smaller papers. Some journalists would hear him out, but no one believed him. A month later, when he was nearly out of money, he accepted a job as a waiter at an Italian restaurant. Sill he didn’t give up. He couldn’t. What had he lived for—what had Rigmor died for—if not to expose these devils?