“How are they screened?” I ask.
“Screened?”
“Do they have a history of illness, mental or physical? Have they agreed to this? Standard questions prior to surgery.”
The doctor looks at me over his glasses.
“They are prisoners.” He waits for my reaction, of which I show none, then turns away, expecting me to follow. I feel unclear about this response and offended by such an offhand explanation, yet I remain convinced that more information will come to hand once I am assigned a patient.
He takes me to a surgery and leaves me to familiarize myself with the items I find there. Inside are shelves filled with tools and instruments. There are variously labeled chemicals but only a few bottles of morphine and sulfonamide. There is a bed covered by a linen sheet that looks used: crumpled, with light and dark stains of undeterminable origin. At the end of the bed sits a colposcope to photograph the womb—another tool to understand the science of women, to diagnose diseases, and to capture the effects of medicines and treatment.
Moans come from a room nearby. The hallways are strangely empty of doctors, and some of the windows are boarded up. I trace the sound to a woman strapped to a narrow bed in another surgery. She is unsupervised, naked under the light sheet that covers her. Her body is so thin I can see the outline of her bones beneath the sheet. The women in the ghetto were thin, their rations small, but the size of her is confronting. When I ask her what is wrong, she replies in what I perceive as Hungarian. Judging by the arm she clutches across her stomach, I can see she is in much pain. I check her chart, which says that she was given a small amount of pain medicine the previous day and a solution identified only by a number—which I do not recognize—an hour prior to that. She is shivering, and her head is hot with fever. I look in the adjoining rooms but do not find any doctor, so I return to my allotted surgery to retrieve some medicine for pain and find more blankets to cover her. Back with the patient, I pass her a cup of water along with the tablets.
“What are you doing?” says Dr. Kohler, who enters the room.
“This woman is very sick.”
He walks over and takes the aspirin from her hands.
“You cannot interfere with the testing!”
“But she is clearly in some discomfort.”
“These subjects must not be touched,” he says impatiently. “We are measuring their responses to certain chemicals.”
“Exactly what chemicals? Dr. Kohler, you have yet to explain the procedures here.”
He ushers me from the room. I look back at the woman, whose eyes are partially open, watching us. I wonder if she understands any of our conversation.
“You must come with me, and we will have a little talk, yes?”
We walk down the hall to a communal room where we interrupt several doctors who appear to be taking a break.
“Please . . .” he says, his arm held out to direct me to sit at a table with the others.
Another female prisoner, Aryan in appearance, serves us each some coffee.
Kohler tells me that the prisoners brought to these rooms are available exclusively for our trials, but that pain medicines, anesthetic, and sulfonamides must be used conservatively, if at all. I am told that these drugs are used mostly for SS and general German military patients, and with the war not progressing as fast as had been hoped—it is the first time I have heard someone say this out loud—we need to be careful with the use of medicines.
“But pain relief is a large part of the healing process,” I say. “If they are not coping mentally, then how will they help their own bodies recover? I would have thought that this would help achieve positive results for your trials.”
“The way in which they cope with pain is not the issue we are testing. These particular tests are purely from an anatomical aspect, not a holistic one.”
The irritations and doubts that surfaced briefly in the ghetto loiter once more in the corners of my mind. I picture Lena beside me, asking questions. This is work? Advancement? This is personal . . . Yes. Yes. No, I answer her. The quality of treatments conducted under someone like Dr. Wirths must not be questioned.
The other doctors return to conversing about their patients. It seems that they require more “subjects” to test, and it seems there is a shortage of pregnant women. All the participants—I have yet to learn if they are willing or not—receive extra food.
I am then taken on a tour of other rooms, on a different floor. Two prisoners almost naked, a man and a woman, appear burned, the skin on their stomachs blistered and raw. I learn that this type of sterilization is radiation therapy. I can hear whimpering in the distance, and when I question Kohler, he says, too casually, that he doesn’t know the particular source; there are several other tests being performed at present, and I will no doubt come across these at a later stage.
Tomorrow I will begin my own work. I will be assigned a female for sterilization. Kohler has given me a list of chemicals to use in the trial: silver nitrate and new compounds that shrink the size of the ovaries, until they eventually dry up. This is meant as an alternative to surgery, which has sometimes led to complications. I tell the doctor in charge that I have not heard of this particular practice being effective, that I have only heard of its success in theory. Niggles. Doubts. Lena. Elsi.
“Silver nitrate is not yet qualified, and there is little evidence to suggest that this and other chemicals like it are safe for the woman during these procedures,” I say.
“It is why we are here, Dr. Gerhardt,” says Dr. Kohler. “Silver nitrate is only one compound, and there are several others that you have seen on the list. We are developing a solution that could alter the practices of sterilization and pregnancy termination. It is now a matter of eliminating options until we find the most effective solution, the most effective method.”
“And the effectiveness so far?” I ask.
He pauses, his lips forming a straight line for a smile. I cannot tell if he is pleased or irritated by the question.
“You should be aware that our work here has barely begun, and the procedures in need of refinement. Our intravenous method has led to some complications, but I am confident that intrauterine will prove the fastest once we have completed our trials.”
“It sounds very promising,” I say, though I am not sure if I sound sincere. Primitive is perhaps the word I want to use for a procedure that I once read had been abandoned decades ago.
“One day, Dr. Gerhardt, we will be able to perform hundreds, perhaps thousands, of sterilizations a day.”
He has called out to another doctor he has seen in the hallway and ended our conversation before I have a chance to ask him in what circumstances such numbers would be necessary. A guard collects me then to escort me back to the block where I am being housed.
Tonight I dine with several other SS men and women. We are fed roast beef with onions and beans. I am offered some rum, but I decline. Then we are served small cheesecakes with cream and oranges. There is so much to eat that I do not finish it all.
That night I sleep well. There is some commotion during the night that disturbs and rouses me briefly, but I am too exhausted to investigate the sounds.
I wake early the next morning with renewed vigor. I am looking forward to meeting my patients. First, I wish to discuss with them their genetic histories and learn of their previous environments. They may be prisoners, but it is important to understand their mental states and hereditary factors before we perform the testing, to enable us to determine their suitability for such and apply certain methods accordingly. The psychology of what we do is equally important as the physical methods applied. I will have to disagree with Kohler on that point. I am in charge of my patients. My work will make a difference to women’s choices. Anatomical methods are only half a treatment.
Dr. Kohler greets me coolly. He says that we must go immediately to our first patient. I cannot say he is an amiable man, not warm like Dr. Marquering, who accompanied me in the dining area o
n my second day. Dr. Kohler has a face that is too small for his large, balding, misshapen head, coned at the top back of his skull and wide and fleshy near his chin. Disorganized, I would say if I had to describe his looks: his features and body parts not arranged in any considered order.
A woman is waiting in the surgery I have been assigned, brought here in the early hours. A nurse and a female guard—who I am told has no medical qualifications—stand nearby. The new patient lies on her back on the surgical bed, her legs apart in stirrups.
“What is this woman here for?” I ask Dr. Kohler.
“She is pregnant, and we will be applying a solution to abort the fetus.”
“She does not want the baby?”
“She wanted larger portions of food.”
The woman is emaciated. Her hospital gown lies flat across her middle, as if there is no body beneath it but rather something shapeless—something that does not suggest the presence of a woman here. Her legs and bony knees protrude like some garish, skeletal display, and I think of a butterfly that has been pinned onto a board.
I struggle for words at first. This is not the procedure I would follow. There are a number of steps that must be taken before placing a woman in such a vulnerable position.
“Has the patient been explained the procedure?” I ask.
“Of course not!” snaps Kohler. “That is completely unnecessary.”
“Dr. Kohler,” I say, which comes out in a stutter, confused. I am rarely flustered. Many will attest to this.
“Call me Karl.”
“Can I speak to you?”
“Yes.”
“Outside.”
“We can talk here. It doesn’t matter.”
I lower my voice and see that the patient is watching me, though I cannot tell whether she is fearful or in pain.
“I must talk to my patient before any procedure. It is a matter of course.”
“Willem,” he says, squeezing my shoulder, condescending in this effusive familiarity. “This is Auschwitz.”
He is suggesting that this name alone gives the treatment legitimacy. That he is free to instruct me as he wishes. I wonder then if I should use my father’s name to remind him that I have certain influence here, that I am best to decide how the procedures will take place. To someone older, and as experienced as Karl Kohler, I will perhaps come across as a spoiled child.
“You must learn and watch,” says Kohler. “This is a prison camp.”
I turn to the patient, who watches our conversation intently, although it is doubtful she has understood any of it.
“Can you please tell me your full name?”
She stares at me blankly.
“What is your name?” says the guard aggressively in what sounds like Polish.
“Wira,” she says.
“Wira, my name is Dr. Gerhardt. Are you aware what is happening to you?”
She does not answer. She does not understand the German language.
“Dr. Gerhardt.” Kohler’s warm familiarity is suddenly gone. “It is unnecessary to question her. Her name and other details are written on the chart here.”
I ignore him. “Wira, do you agree to have your baby aborted?”
She averts her eyes perhaps because of my tone. Her eyes dart toward Kohler—for support or out of fear or in the hope of interpretation.
“I believe you are frightening her,” Kohler says, and for some reason the female attendant finds this amusing.
“I would like some time alone with her, please, and could you find an interpreter, another prisoner?” I want the guard gone.
Kohler ignores me, and the nurse passes him some fluid in a bottle.
“A woman must be absolutely certain she doesn’t want the baby,” I say.
Kohler abruptly puts down the bottle, leans into me, and hisses in my ear. “Come with me, please.”
He leads me into an office down the hall and shuts the door behind us. On the desk is a picture of a woman and two grown boys that I presume are his family. In the background is a large gabled house.
“I’m afraid that you have been misled into thinking this a private practice,” he says. “Here, we do not treat our prisoners as well as our officers. All prisoners here have forfeited certain rights. Yet we are generous and offer food. That woman will likely end up dead from her pregnancy. The baby will steal valuable nutrients that she needs for herself. As for the baby, if it ever did see the light of day, it might only be for a matter of minutes while it is transported to the gas chamber.”
I stand there as if fixed to the floor. These are things that I have listened to in group conversations, things that may or may not have been rumors, that I assumed had been exaggerated by the speakers, the boasters, the mockers. To hear this firsthand—to be here, to know for certain—stabs sharply at something deep inside me, some place vulnerable, where regret and shame reside, that until this moment had been protected by an impenetrable cordon.
“All she cares about is food,” Kohler tells me. “Do you understand? For now, she will be living in this block and receiving extra food. If you take that away, she will go back to the block where she will live on half a bowl of watery soup and a small piece of bread. What would you have me do? Send her back to more uncertain misery? Or can we continue with our work and make progress for women in the future?”
He looks around the room as he speaks, shifting from foot to foot several times, and I am reminded of an organism beneath a microscope that is so concerned with its own survival it is unaware it is being observed.
“Although you will be mainly focusing on sterilization methods, there are other things done here, like tests to check for cancerous growths. Make the most of the opportunities we have.”
His redeeming quality is that he is calm in nature, but he fails to see the truth of what he does. I nod to agree, not because I do, but because my concerns seem unsalvageable. I must endure.
“Today you are merely here to observe.”
I follow him back to the surgery, my head hung slightly lower: a student after caning or, Lena might say, a dog with his tail between his legs.
Two guards are now in the room and stand on either side of the woman. Kohler retrieves a large syringe from a medical tray, and the nurse passes him a vial of liquid.
“Which solution are you using here?” I ask.
“You can read the breakdown of the compound on the patient’s chart,” he says, as the nurse passes it to me. “We hope not only that the dose kills the fetus but that she finds it difficult to get pregnant again.”
“How many weeks pregnant is she?”
No one answers me. The woman’s eyes are wide. There is heightened fear there that wasn’t there before.
“She was pregnant when she arrived several weeks ago.”
“Does her husband know?” I ask.
“He is dead.”
I am being led to believe that she does not care what she is doing. That the hunger has taken much of her rational thought. I think, sadly, that it is a blessing her husband is dead. That he is not aware she did not fight harder for the life of their child. Yet the fear in her eyes gives way to doubt.
“You are certain she knows the consequences of this testing?”
Kohler ignores my question.
The two guards put pressure on the woman’s shoulders. She has not moved, and I think perhaps such force is unnecessary.
A narrow tube is inserted between the legs of the woman and through to her uterus, and Kohler begins to inject a brown-colored liquid. The woman eyes the intrusion suspiciously and then moves in discomfort. To stop her from wriggling, one of the guards and the nurse hold her down firmly on the table. The patient is now completely immobile and too weak to resist. I step toward her, but the way is blocked. There are too many people in the room.
Kohler withdraws the tube, but the guard and nurse do not release their patient.
“Please,” she says in broken German. “Not my baby.”
I take a step
back, aware suddenly that I am part of a deception. This woman was not aware of the consequences, or perhaps any protest she previously made was ignored.
She begins screaming in pain, and Kohler shoves a cloth in her mouth. After several seconds, the guards and nurse step away from the surgery table, and the woman draws her knees up toward her chest to alleviate the pain. Outrage consumes me.
“This is inhumane! We have to give her something for the pain.”
I take a vial of Novocain from my own medical bag and draw up the contents into a syringe, then thrust my way past a guard and inject it into the patient’s arm before Kohler realizes what I have done. The sheets below her are suddenly thick with blood.
Kohler’s face is as dark as mine, but I do not care. I push roughly past him and storm from the surgery and the medical barracks to head back toward my accommodations. My breakfast is burning a hole in my esophagus. In my shock, I do not at first notice a group of prisoners being led in a straight line between two of the buildings. This world inside the camp is suddenly so far removed from the outside. I do not look up; my fury threatens to rupture every cell within my body. I was told that I would be in charge of my own procedures, yet here I am reduced to follow, like sheep, into practices I find hard to accept.
“Willem!”
I turn to see the group of men in their pajamas, shoeless, trouser bottoms torn and filthy. They look identical: thin, long-faced, shaven heads. I cannot distinguish one from the next, nor the person who has called to me. A man steps forward.
“Remember me?”
I don’t at first, but then comes a faint memory.
“From school!” says the man.
A boy—a runner, an academic, a mathematician. Someone who beat my own marks.
“Omar?” I say.
Omar is a man driven to something beyond impoverishment, but joy illuminates his ashen face. Recognition is perhaps a rare experience here, and for someone to remember him as he was before—to acknowledge the man within the frail shell—gives him this moment of pleasure.
“Yes,” he says, and I step toward him, eager to shake his hand.
Broken Angels Page 14
