by Jana Petken
“I know you, you’ll find a way. You always do, my old friend.”
The roads leading north from the city were blocked with traffic, and for two hours Max and Romek were stuck or travelling no more than one or two hundred yards per hour. It was late afternoon, but the grey sky and a downpour made it seem darker than usual for that time of day. Romek had turned off into a side street where he made better progress, but even that route was short-lived when the French military turned them back onto the main road.
Max had very little time to reach the airfield, regularly used as a hub by the diplomatic corps from all over Europe. The aircraft wouldn’t wait for more than thirty minutes after its scheduled take-off time, but he’d anticipated a bit of chaos on the roads and had left the apartment with plenty of time to spare.
Max gave Romek a desultory handshake; an unusually cold goodbye. It was all he could muster, all he had in him. The man was his friend, yet he was the unwitting victor in a battle for love.
“Take care, Max,” Romek shouted above the sound of the aircraft’s engines.
Max waved then turned to board the plane.
On board the Armstrong Whitworth Atalanta, Max used his business cover to introduce himself to the other passengers. This diplomatic flight, one of the last to leave Paris, carried a group of people facing the prospect of being in the skies over an embattled country. They had all heard about the shambles in the Dunkirk area, and the reports of German dominance in the air were terrifying to even the most courageous of men.
Max closed his eyes, not to sleep, but to avoid getting into conversation with one of the embassy wives who was convinced they were going to get shot at. The aircraft was flying in a westerly direction to avoid the turbulent skies over Dunkirk to the east, but she insisted they’d be caught by a stray bomb and would drown in the water beneath them. Once the whimpering woman had calmed down, Max opened his eyes and peered out of the window.
They’d finally broken land and were crossing the English Channel in the direction of Southampton. Beneath him was only darkness, no twinkling lights from boats and ships attempting to ferry the allies back to England, for the rescues would be done in blackout conditions. But they were down there, braving German air attacks as the full-scale retreat rushed at speed towards friendly ports. He wasn’t a religious man or one to ask God for favours, but as he cupped the sides of his face and pressed his nose against the window pane, he prayed for the hundreds of thousands of men in the water, fleeing from Germany’s leviathan army.
Part Two
Mankind’s biggest failure is its inability to learn from the mistakes of the past, and its silence in the face of atrocities committed against those without a voice.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Paul Vogel
Berlin, June 1940
For three months, Paul had watched trucks arriving in the hospital complex. They had not parked outside the main building to offload food, medical supplies, or people, but instead, had gone to the old Görden Prison situated on the same plot of land as the hospital. Once, he had attempted to follow the vehicles but had been stopped by recently arrived SS soldiers who now guarded that area day and night. He had casually asked other doctors if they knew what the trucks were carrying but had only received shrugs and terse comments in response.
Still working in the basement with the Jewish children, he had also noticed that every few days, ten or more children disappeared at the same time. He wasn’t sure if they’d been transferred elsewhere, or given lethal injections one after the other. If the latter was the case, it meant that the killings were escalating at an alarming rate.
He was frustrated by unanswered questions. In the Doctor’s recreation room, no one spoke about anything other than their families and Hitler’s great victories in France, Belgium, and Holland. He assumed that the staff members were either afraid of being caught sharing secrets they shouldn’t know about, or that they didn’t want to tell anyone what they knew because they were complicit in the programme.
The word complicit was ever present in Paul’s mind. He was just as bad as the doctors who were killing his patients, for he accepted every death, neither saying or doing anything to stop them. He’d witnessed three doctors being arrested in the last month. They’d refused to follow the directives of the so-called experts in Berlin who gave the orders to kill on the basis of the evaluation documents only.
Every morning, he told himself that there was nothing he could do about the situation. He was following Hitler’s orders using his mother’s precarious circumstance as an excuse for staying in the job, but even the motivation to keep her and his father safe was wearing thin.
Hans Rudolph continued to stare out of the window while he sipped his coffee. He was fully aware that Paul had entered the room but had not yet acknowledged him. Paul sat patiently in the visitor’s chair, wondering why he’d been summoned. Rudolph’s presence at Brandenburg was a rarity nowadays. The director was frequently absent, and distant even when he was in the hospital. He often gave orders to his staff via his secretary, Fraulein Göring – Paul wondered if she was related to Hermann Göring. One day he might pluck up the courage to ask her.
“Good morning, Vogel.” Rudolph swivelled his chair to face the room. “You will report to the prison complex this morning to begin your training under Hauptsturmführer Leitner. It’s time you got involved in stage two of the programme.”
Paul felt the hair on the back of his neck bristle. “What am I to get involved in, sir? Does it have to do with the trucks I’ve seen lately or the children that have gone missing?”
“Vogel, Vogel. As usual, your questions pre-empt the answers already on the tip of my tongue. Be patient. You’ll be given instructions on where to go and what to do by the SS soldiers at the old prison. Do exactly what they say without question until Hauptsturmführer Leitner arrives, and be respectful to the captain. He’s no fonder of your incessant questions than I am.”
“Is he to be my tutor from now on?”
“Yes, as he has been since your arrival at Brandenburg.”
Paul, unable to hide his dislike of the SS doctor said, “I ask a lot of questions, Herr Rudolph because I am here to learn, and as my tutor, Hauptsturmführer Leitner should know that. And while he’s on my mind, why is it that he never treats patients? I’ve never seen him give as much as a pill to anyone.”
“You need to know when to shut up,” Rudolph barked. “Are you ready to listen?”
Paul blinked. “Yes … yes, of course … Herr Direktor.”
Rudolph picked up his pen, waving it at Paul in dismissal before he could say another word. “When you finish your shift with him, you will write a report on what you have witnessed and how you feel about the exercise. I want it on my desk by this evening. Now, get out.”
Paul walked towards the old barn he’d only ever seen from a distance. He’d always assumed that it was an abattoir because the chimney, located at one corner of the roof, frequently puffed out smoke accompanied by the smell of burning animal flesh.
“Where do I go now?” he asked the SS guard at the gate, positioned a hundred feet from the barn. Paul noted that the soldier was no more than eighteen years old with an unusually stern expression on his young face, and he was reminded of Wilmot’s dark looks.
“You’ll need to find the Scharführer, he’s in charge of the barn,” said the soldier, pointing ahead, leaving Paul to walk the rest of the way alone.
Five trucks were already parked at the back of the red brick building. Paul, as directed, asked another soldier where he could find the Scharführer and was escorted to a man ticking off the names of men, women, and children who were struggling off the back of one of the trucks.
“I am Doctor Vogel. I was told to report to you. Where have these patients come from?”
“I’ll be with you in a moment, Doctor. Stay where you are until I call for you.”
Paul noted that everyone was shuffled into specific groups depending on gender and age
. All of them were either mentally or physically handicapped, and about ten SS soldiers were assisting the weakest of the patients to walk. Some of the Jewish children he’d been caring for in the basement were being led from the trucks by several doctors and nurses. The most severely disabled were in wheelchairs while others struggled to walk even though their arms were being supported by their escorts. It struck Paul that were it not for their disabilities, they might have looked like a group of schoolchildren going on an outing. Bright smiles and excitement lit up their gaunt little faces, and giggles of delight and expectation put a bounce in the steps of those who could walk by themselves.
Some of the children spotted Paul, and waved to him, shouting, “Doctor Paul!”
He waved back, an encouraging smile on his face. They seemed to think they were going somewhere nice, but if that were the case they knew more than he did.
Instead of following the children, he examined the barn. His eyes followed the line of the dark, brick walls up to the roof and chimney at the far end. He’d only ever viewed the building through the trees from the back window of his sleeping quarters, but now he saw it as a sinister, ominous place; nothing at all to do with his erstwhile impression of an abattoir: a place for the slaughter of animals.
Curious and contrary to the soldier’s instructions, he strolled to the barn’s entrance and peeked inside. At their first meeting, Rudolph had informed him that Görden Prison was full of convicts who had been sentenced to death by the infamous Sondergerichte, the People’s Courts. He had also mentioned the barn, which had once been an execution chamber furnished with guillotine and gallows. Now, it was a shower room used as therapy for patients. Paul had been surprised to hear that, for he’d recalled the driver who’d brought him from the station saying that the prison had been closed for years.
The inside of the barn was only about three by five metres in size, and bare, nothing but empty space apart from wooden benches running along its four walls. Showerheads and pipes crisscrossing the ceiling looked newly installed giving veracity to Rudolph’s insistence that it was indeed a shower room. In the centre of the room, he slowly turned a circle, memorising its layout in detail. Then he crossed to a narrow glass window and peeped through it into an anteroom beyond. The terror of age-old acts of torture seemed to be imprinted in the walls, but visions of more recent deaths also invaded his mind. He gulped, and headed to the entrance, desperate to get out of the barn’s oppressive atmosphere, but also worried that the soldier with the clipboard would be looking for him.
Outside, where the trucks were being unloaded, Paul watched with mounting concern as the male patients were led away by SS guards to the main cell block inside the prison only fifty metres away. The women and children from the hospital, however, were being led to the barn’s entrance where a soldier was writing consecutive numbers on their foreheads.
The doctors and nurses who’d brought the sick from the hospital were already sauntering casually back towards the prison gate, leaving the vulnerable children in the hands of soldiers. Did they know what was going to happen in that barn? Paul wondered. He didn’t, but the sense of dread he’d been feeling since he first arrived was getting stronger. Where was Hauptsturmführer Leitner when he needed answers to his questions?
Frustrated, he approached the man in charge. “I’ve had enough of this standing around, Scharführer. I demand to know why these ill patients have been brought here when they should be in their beds? Not one of them will go inside that barn until you tell me what is going to happen to them. Not one.”
The Scharführer, a short, skinny man with sunken cheeks, harrumphed. “Doctor, come with me.” He led the way to the barn’s entrance, his over-casual smile showing ugly, yellow teeth far too big for his pinched mouth.
Outside the barn he shouted to the bemused women and children. “It’s time to take off all your clothes now. You’re going to take a lovely shower. You’ll all feel better afterwards. It’ll be fun!”
He then smacked the clipboard with the patients’ files and copies of forms signed by experts in the Berlin offices, into Paul’s arms. “Here, Doctor, give the patients a cursory examination. Check their names against these forms. You will make the final decision based on the reports and your personal impressions. Don’t take too long, just go through the motions, make them feel comfortable with their surroundings.”
Overcome by panic, the forms waving manically in Paul’s hands, he screeched, “I can’t examine the patients and hold these at the same time. I’m not in charge here. This is Hauptsturmführer Leitner’s job.”
“I don’t see any other doctor here, do you?” The Scharführer, peering deliberately about, scoffed at Paul’s horrified expression, then stomped away to one of the trucks where he leant against it and lit a cigarette.
Paul glared at the Scharführer as he handed the patients’ records to the soldier standing next to him, keeping only the one-page evaluation forms for reference. He stared down at the paperwork. The code for death leered up at him, and in that instant all uncertainty vanished, replaced by the horrendous clarity of what was about to occur. “No! I’m not doing this … I didn’t become a doctor to get involved in what you’re doing here … whatever it is.”
The soldier laughed. “They’re just going to have a shower, doctor. What your problem?”
Paul stared at the man, fighting to control his urge to punch him in his laughing face. This was a mass execution, and the SS soldiers thought him stupid enough to be manipulated into carrying it out. “Shower, or no shower, I am not getting mixed up in this lunacy. I will not do it. Get someone else to do your dirty work, I’ve had enough of this place.”
With one last contemptuous look, Paul threw the evaluation papers on the ground and strode towards the gate, uncaring if he was shot in the back. The soldiers in front of him blocked his path, but he no longer gave a damn. He heard the Scharführer shouting at him to return to his duties immediately, but he continued towards the gate to freedom until he felt the hammer blow on his skull, and everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Paul woke up and felt himself being dragged through the muddy grass. The soldiers dropped him at the Scharführer’s feet. He glared up at the gaunt face with yellow teeth as he tried to stand, still defiant and angrier than he’d ever been at any time in his life.
Dazed by the blow, he staggered to his feet, his hand massaging his injured skull. At last upright, he spotted someone else in a white coat walking towards him. It was Leitner. Things were about to go from bad to worse.
Leitner eyed Paul’s mud-stained white coat, his stethoscope hanging by one earpiece from his pocket. “Doctor Vogel, why are you covered in mud? What’s the matter with you?”
Paul opened his mouth to explain, then wisely shut it.
“Never mind. You will observe me this morning.” Leitner continued. “When your training is complete, you will be carrying out the procedure by yourself, so I expect you to ask questions as we go along.”
“I can’t help you. I’m wounded,” Paul muttered, indicating the back of his head.
Leitner told Paul to turn around. He felt the lump and said, “Wounded? That’s a joke. It’s not bleeding. You’re fine.”
Paul followed Leitner reluctantly towards the barn, throwing daggers at the Scharführer as he passed. In retaliation, the soldier sniggered raising his hand to his skull with a pained expression.
Enraged, Paul walked meekly behind his Hauptsturmführer. He’d seen enough. He was out, finished with it all, regardless of the consequences to himself and his family. His mother should have left Germany, and he shouldn’t have to kill innocent people because of her decision to remain with his father. He wished to God he’d found the courage to tell Rudolph and Leitner where to shove their hospital sooner.
Out of earshot of the patients, he said, “Hauptsturmführer, I don’t know how, but I know you’re going to kill these women and children, and I refuse to take part in whatever sick executions
you’re planning. Arrest me, lock me up, fucking shoot me if you want but I won’t lift another finger to help you.”
For the first time since they’d met, Paul saw Leitner hesitate.
“Vogel, I’d think twice before you say no to me again,” said Leitner. “Do you know … have you any idea what this disobedience could mean for you … for your whole family?”
“Yes. I have a very good idea, and still I’m saying, no.”
Leitner let out an exasperated sigh. “Very well, your feelings are noted, but it changes nothing. You will stay here this morning and carry out your duty. I’ll deal with your insubordination later. Is that understood?”
“I’m not in the SS or the army. I’m a medically qualified doctor,” said Paul, his voice hoarse. “I take instructions from the director of the hospital, not from people in military uniforms. You and your men are not Gods. Is that understood?”
Leitner’s smirk was even more terrifying than his tone. “Doctor Vogel,” he said, sarcasm dripping from his lips. “Eighteen of the twenty patients present will enter the barn and you will assist me, or you will be added to their number.”
Paul flinched.
“Do you understand me?”
Resolved not to help physically, Paul gave a brief nod. He refused to hold the patients still as a soldier went along the line to photograph them before they went inside the building. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets when Leitner ordered him to carry the last child in the line. He shook his head when a notebook and pen were thrust at him, refusing to take a note of the procedure. Not one word would he say and not one act would he perform.
Once inside the barn again, Paul saw it more clearly. Its interior, separated from the external brick by thick concrete walls, had not one but two anterooms closed off from the main area by steel doors. Once the selected patients were assembled, Leitner and Paul went into one of the side rooms. The tiny space had a glass panel separating it from the chamber, plus a wide door at the back that appeared to lead directly outside. Through the small window, no wider than the width of the men’s faces, Paul observed patients sitting on benches. Others, who were standing, looked up expectantly at the shower heads, giggling with their hands out, palms upwards, as though playfully waiting to catch the water when it fell.
