Heritage

by Judy Nunn

  He’d felt threatened to start with and he had kept to himself, rarely working at the hospital, being selective with his patients, mingling very little, and had wondered whether perhaps he should leave the area. But the prospect of once again being on the run like a common criminal had angered him. Why should he run? He’d made a home for himself here and he liked it in Cooma. Besides, the surgery he’d undergone in Buenos Aires had made him unrecognisable as the man he’d once been. And in Cooma he blended with the potpourri of nationalities far more than he would elsewhere in Australia where foreigners were regarded with suspicion at worst and fascination at least.

  His reasoning had proved correct. The very European element that he’d initially feared had become his protection, and he defied them now, every single one of them. When he saw a face in the street which he thought vaguely familiar, as he occasionally did, he no longer felt threatened. Those who were not looking, he thought, tended not to see. And why would they look anyway? What would they wish to see? They didn’t want reminders of their nightmares – they wanted a new life. It was ironic, he thought, that of all the places he could have chosen to hide, here was where he was safest.

  The door opened and a tantalising aroma wafted in from the kitchen.

  ‘Dinner in one hour, Doctor?’ the housekeeper asked.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Hodgeman.’ He sniffed the air appreciatively. ‘A stew. Lamb shanks, I take it?’ They were his absolute favourite – the one Australian specialty of hers he’d insisted she keep on the menu.

  ‘Yes, sir. And a sherry trifle for sweets.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  As she closed the door behind her, he returned to his thoughts. The boy was a wild card, to be sure, but he was the least threat of all. Even if Pietro were to regain his memory, he would not recognise him. The boy was a freak coincidence, nothing more. Pietro had no links with the death camps. The boy and his family had merely been in the avenue of his escape. Most opportunely, as it had turned out.

  He drained the glass and crossed to the dresser. How extraordinary that Lucky had proved such a catalyst, he thought, pouring himself another Scotch. His friendship with the man had always been risky and perhaps he should have exercised more caution – Lucky was a Jew, with friends who were possibly Jewish. But he’d taken care never to socialise publicly with the man, to always keep their relationship within the confines of his home, forgiving Lucky the accident of his birth in exchange for the stimulation of his mind and his expertise at chess. And now Lucky, the one person to whom he had opened his home, had brought the boy back into his life. And he’d brought her too. Or at least the memory of her. Most extraordinary.

  Lucky had told him several years ago that his wife had died at Auschwitz, and he’d wondered briefly whether he might have known the woman; the thought had been dangerously amusing. He’d made the appropriate sympathetic comments and the subject had not been mentioned again. He’d never thought for one moment that the woman might be Ruth.

  He downed half the Scotch in two swift gulps – he’d been drinking more heavily of late. He had thought that he’d eradicated Ruth from his mind, but clearly he hadn’t. Just one glimpse of her and his obsession had returned. Since the night he’d seen the photograph, he hadn’t stopped thinking about her. And as she had flooded his mind daily, she had brought with her the past.

  Klaus Henkel was born to serve in the Waffen SS, the elite fighting arm of the Schutzstaffel. The Waffen SS comprised the most fanatical adherents to the Führer’s divine purpose – the preservation and protection of the German race – and its members were instructed to flout the rules of war: their motto, ‘Give death and take death’, was a licence to commit atrocities. Young Klaus Henkel couldn’t have been better qualified, both to serve the cause and to employ the methods of the Waffen SS: he fervently believed in Aryan superiority and he enjoyed the licence to kill.

  While serving, he found himself happily reunited with his good friend Beppo, and just as they had competed during their early university days, so they competed in the field of battle. In accordance with the motto of the Waffen SS, Klaus and Beppo gave death ruthlessly and risked it with a careless courage. Both were wounded in the course of their respective duties and were unable to return to combat. Klaus was bayoneted in the back and his lung punctured, an injury which he was assured would leave him with no permanent damage, but his recovery would take some time. Deskbound during his recuperation, he was frustrated in his desire to return to the front.

  Both Klaus and Beppo were decorated for their conduct in battle. While stationed on the Ukrainian front, Beppo was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class, then, following his second campaign, the Iron Cross First Class. Klaus received the Iron Cross Second Class following his service deep behind Soviet lines, and both men received the Black Badge for the Wounded and the Medal for the Care of the German People.

  It pleased Klaus that his life so paralleled that of his good friend Beppo, a man two years his senior, and the common zeal with which they had embraced the party during their student days in Munich remained their bond throughout their service.

  Born and raised in the North Rhine near the Dutch border, the only child of middle-class parents – his father German and his mother Italian – Klaus Werner Henkel had been a highly intelligent child. From an early age, he’d spoken fluent German, Italian and Dutch, his precocity encouraged by his socialite mother who’d enjoyed showing off her ‘child prodigy’, as she’d called him. His father, Gustav, a doctor, had been a remote figure in his early life, leaving the rearing of his son to the wife upon whom he doted, and Klaus had rarely mingled with children his own age. His cosseted upbringing, however, had caused problems when he’d first attended school. Accustomed as he was to the company of adults, he had considered himself superior to his peers, and as a result he’d suffered at the hands of bullies. It had been then that Gustav had taken over his son’s education. A hard man and a strict disciplinarian, he had instilled in the boy the desire for perfection in all areas, from the playing fields to the classroom.

  ‘Be the strongest and the best at whatever you do, Klaus,’ he’d said. ‘When you are the strongest and the best, no-one can bully you.’

  In his drive to earn the approval of his previously distant father, Klaus had been a diligent student, outshining his classmates both athletically and academically.

  Gustav’s advice had proved correct: Klaus had no longer been bothered by bullies, but his success had not earned him the popularity he expected. The others were in awe of him – they feared him, and Klaus had discovered that he liked it that way. He enjoyed instilling fear, it gave him a sense of power. He was different from the others.

  In 1930, shortly before his eighteenth birthday, he had passed his Abitur with outstanding honours and had been awarded a scholarship to study medicine, majoring in psychology, at the University of Munich. It was there that he’d met his good friend and fellow student, Josef ‘Beppo’ Mengele who, at that time, was studying philosophy prior to turning his sights towards medical science. And it was there, in Munich, the capital of Bavaria and the heart of the growing National Socialist Movement, that the two had become inspired by the political revolutionary, Adolf Hitler. Intoxicated by Hitler’s frenzied speeches and his visions of a new German Empire populated by a German super-race, the two young students, Henkel and Mengele, had joined the nationalistic organisation known as Stahlhelm, or Steel Helmets, and had cemented their common devotion to the cause of the future Führer of Nazi Germany.

  Following his active service with the Waffen SS, Klaus lost touch with Beppo as he impatiently bided his time until he was deemed fit enough to return to battle. Then he received a proposal that changed his mind altogether. Notification arrived from the Race and Resettlement Office in Berlin that, at the request of his friend and mentor Captain Josef Mengele, a position was on offer. Klaus informed them he was delighted to accept.

  It was early 1942 and a new policy, Endlösung, had been introduced. ‘Th
e Final Solution’ had been formalised in Berlin by the upper echelons of the Nazi hierarchy: the plan to construct vast concentration camps across Europe. These camps, Klaus was informed, would hold untold opportunities for dedicated Nazis committed to the cause.

  Within a year of his posting to Berlin, Klaus was asked by his friend Beppo to join him as his assistant on a new assignment and, in May of 1943, Doctors Josef Mengele and Klaus Henkel, in their respective ranks of Captain and Lieutenant, departed for the Nazi concentration camp at Oswiecim, recently renamed Auschwitz, in Poland.

  The death factory that was Auschwitz-Birkenau offered unlimited medical opportunities to Mengele, whose mission was to perform research on human genetics. His goal was to unlock the secrets of genetic engineering, and to devise methods of eradicating inferior gene strands from the human population as a means of creating a Germanic super-race.

  Klaus, as Beppo’s assistant, found the work inspiring, but his own interest lay in the opportunity for psychological study which had never before been available to medical science. Here at Auschwitz, human beings replaced guinea pigs and rats and monkeys, and the frustrating, futile experiments previously performed upon animals now resulted in conclusive evidence. For the first time, Klaus was able to examine the human threshold of pain, marvelling at how it varied so vastly from subject to subject. He could observe the effects of torture and learn to pinpoint the fine line where the majority would succumb to madness. Interestingly, the findings were not finite – there was always the subject whose mind seemed capable of retaining its sanity until death finally claimed it. And, above all, he could observe on a daily basis the varying survival instincts of those existing in conditions of such deprivation it was difficult to comprehend both their ability and their will to live. The human mind was a source of inestimable wonder to Klaus Henkel.

  Of equal satisfaction to him was the efficiency of the entire exercise. To be cleansing Germany of its racial impurities while also advancing medical science on all levels was in his opinion an extremely tidy and effective arrangement.

  Surrounded by double rows of electrified fences, the vast complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau was the size of a small city. In the concentration and labour camp of Auschwitz were endless rows of wooden barracks, each of which housed up to a thousand inmates, hundreds of thousands in all, and in the adjoining extermination camp of Birkenau were the gas chambers and the huge furnaces whose chimneys relentlessly belched smoke. The railway line divided the camps, and trains arrived daily through the towering entrance arch into the confines of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The selection procedure was simple: the new arrivals were herded from the cattle trucks and up the wooden ramp to where Josef Mengele, who had personally undertaken the task of selection, would indicate Birkenau to the right or Auschwitz to the left. Between seventy to ninety percent of new arrivals were directed to the right, where they would be ordered to strip in preparation for their de-lousing shower – the shower in actuality a gas chamber. It was an uncomplicated and economical process, and one which Mengele enjoyed.

  Klaus embraced his new life at Auschwitz, although it was some time before he could acclimatise himself to the rancid stench that suffused the place. He never did quite manage to get it out of his nostrils. It got into his clothes too, and into the very pores of his skin. But it was a small price to pay, when all was said and done. He was serving his Führer and ensuring the future of a superior Germany – he could learn to live with an unpleasant smell. Besides, his officer’s quarters were excellent, and there was the companionship of his good friend Beppo.

  He was thankful for the stimulation of Beppo’s company and their mutual interests, for he had little in common with the other Nazi soldiers. Most seemed to be louts with no breeding or, worse still, men with no stomach for the job at hand. Klaus had serious doubts about the commitment of some who made a habit of getting drunk or taking drugs when rostered on train-arrival duties. The selection process and its accompanying culling of babies and infants obviously upset them. Klaus himself did not altogether approve of Mengele’s summary execution of children so immediately upon arrival; it was messy, he thought. If mothers were lulled into a sense of security, it would be far more orderly in the long run. However, orders were orders, and he had his eye on those soldiers who didn’t have the stomach for their duty – some would certainly have to go.

  Of course there was the other extreme: the thugs who liked to show off, bashing unnecessarily, shooting indiscriminately. It was not an efficient way to go about things – it caused panic. When applying oneself to a task, Klaus thought, there was no need to show off.

  It was an area of criticism which, strangely enough, he applied also to Beppo. In Klaus’s opinion, Beppo had a tendency to strut his self-importance during the selection process. Standing at the head of the ramp in his shiny boots and his immaculate black uniform, buckles and badges gleaming, Beppo was clearly intent upon creating an image. White-gloved and brandishing his riding crop like a conductor’s baton, he would whistle while he directed the traffic. And he would always wear his medals. Klaus, who was invariably present during the selection process, never wore his, and he found it rather ostentatious of Beppo to do so.

  But then Beppo had always been vain, he reminded himself. Even in their university days Beppo had been obsessed with clothes and appearances. They’d joked about it.

  ‘Clothes do not make the man, Beppo,’ he would say.

  ‘Nor does the body, Klaus.’ Beppo’s response was always lightning fast and his laugh triumphant. ‘You are far more vain than I.’

  It had been true, Klaus had to admit. He hadn’t seen it as vanity at the time, but perhaps Beppo had been right. He was proud of his body and he kept it honed to perfection. His body was his temple. Well, if that was vanity, he thought, then so be it – his body served him well.

  They’d both been attractive to women. Beppo, the slim, dapper young man, tawny-skinned and with the dark eyes of a Latin film star, and Klaus, the Aryan with his sandy hair, blue eyes and athlete’s body.

  Beppo’s charm had usually won out with the women, and Klaus had always given in with good grace; he had no desire to compete with his friend over something so trivial. Women meant nothing more to him than sex, and he’d been willing to relinquish any claim and move on to the next – there was always another waiting.

  There had been one time, however, which he remembered clearly. The time when he had felt a particularly strong lust for a girl and had decided that she was not Beppo’s, but his. He had told Beppo so.

  ‘She is mine tonight,’ he’d said. ‘You can have her tomorrow.’

  And Beppo had acquiesced without a word. From that day on, both had recognised a slight shift in the balance of power. Beppo, as Klaus’s senior in years and rank, had always been the leader, but when it came to direct confrontation it was Klaus who was the stronger.

  Klaus supposed now that he should forgive Beppo the medals which he wore during the selection process. It was simple vanity. Besides, he no longer had the right to judge a man for his vanity: he himself had been disguising the prematurely grey streaks in his hair with henna for the past two years, although he would never have admitted it to Beppo.

  He couldn’t help feeling critical, however, of other traits in his friend which were manifesting themselves at Auschwitz. Beppo’s mood swings and sudden fits of temper were non-productive and unprofessional, in Klaus’s opinion. In fact they bordered on indulgent. Beppo’s power over life and death had gone to his head, he’d become self-indulgent. Particularly in his sexual degradation of the women, which was a pity, Klaus thought, for in degrading the women, Beppo degraded himself.

  Mengele had insisted from the outset that the women spared for their good looks and possible use as prostitutes be stripped nude and paraded before him. One or two other doctors would be present to perform physical examinations for any signs of sexual disease, but Mengele would delight in degrading the women far more than was necessary. One by one he would ask them
intimate details about their sexual lives, and Klaus found his friend’s lewd enjoyment of their humiliation unsettling. Most of the women were Jewish and, in private, Beppo always referred to them as ‘dirty whores’, yet it was clear that he found them in some way desirable. Such behaviour provided a surprising insight into Beppo’s character, Klaus thought. How could a man like Josef Mengele find the humiliation of such women sexually titillating? The women were Jews.

  Klaus did not voice his disapproval, nor did he allow it to affect his friendship with Beppo. He couldn’t afford to. Beppo was too important to him, both as his friend and his senior officer. Nothing must upset the delicate balance which existed between them.

  Then the woman arrived.

  Klaus noticed her the moment she was herded from the cattle truck along with the rest. She stood out among the horde, fair-haired and patrician and, even in her fear, very beautiful. The dogs were snarling, the soldiers were yelling, and many of the new arrivals were screaming in terror. But the woman was silent. She took the child from the man standing beside her and made her way up the ramp with the others, the man supporting her, although she held herself proudly. She was a woman of breeding, Klaus thought – she didn’t look Jewish; she looked Aryan. So did her husband. But then, Jews came in all guises, he told himself as he dragged his eyes from her to survey the rest of the scene from where he stood near Mengele at the top of the ramp. That was the problem: Jews were too smart for their own good.

  But his eyes kept returning to the woman as she and her husband reached the point where the crowd was split into two queues, Mengele quietly whistling and directing with his riding crop to the right or the left. The woman’s husband tried to stay with her, but he was cudgelled and dragged to the queue on the left, and Klaus kept watching her as she drew nearer in the line that comprised the old and infirm and women with babies and infants. It was a pity that such beauty had to go to the gas chamber. He saw her place her infant on the ground and edge the child behind her, the little girl clinging to her skirt. Little good it would do either of them, he thought. Closer and closer she came, and he couldn’t drag his eyes away from her.