With a flush of anger and embarrassment, Stern unfastened the trousers of the SD uniform and let them down a little.
“Light the candle,” said the confident voice.
In the uncertain light of the candle flame Stern saw five women wearing striped gray shifts. Sallow faces, dull eyes, hair cropped almost to the skulls. Beyond them others waited, watchful in the darkness.
“Come closer,” said one of the women. She was young, with a dark thatch of hair and onyx eyes.
He obeyed.
The dark-haired woman crept forward with the candle and crouched in front of him. “He speaks the truth,” she said. “He is circumcised.”
Several women gasped. Stern pulled up his pants. When the woman before him straightened up, he peered deep into her eyes. She seemed younger than the other women. Healthier, too. When he looked down, he saw not only skin over her bones, but also feminine contours.
“I am Rachel Jansen,” she said. “You must be mad.”
McConnell had been reading Anna’s diary for an hour. He did not want to go on, but he could not stop. He felt numb. Even now, he could not quite accept it. The nurse’s diary described nothing less than the systematic perversion of a renowned national medical community into the utter negation of everything medical science had sought to achieve since the time of Hippocrates.
He had expected some horror stories. For months rumor had been rife in England about the brutality of the Nazi detention camps. But Anna’s diary had little to do with brutality. Brutality was a universal flaw in the human character, commonplace in every society. This diary described atrocities committed on another scale altogether. Even outright murder seemed banal in the face of what he had read in the last hour. One of the most alarming passages had had its effect because of who was involved, as much as what was done.
1-6-43 Dr. Brandt returned from a trip to Auschwitz Main Camp in Silesia. All afternoon he complained to Rauch and Schmidt how the Reich’s money is being wasted there. He said Dr. Clauberg has allowed his professional standards to fall deplorably, that Clauberg’s experiments with mass sterilization border on quackery.
McConnell knew well the name Clauberg. But could Anna’s diary really implicate the physician who had developed the standard test for progesterone action? A test that still carried his name? If the diary could be believed, it could.
Clauberg has apparently taken to “castrating” both men and women by means of massive doses of X-rays. Brandt claims the inefficiency of this method is obvious to anyone with even rudimentary experience of gamma rays and their effects. To prove his point, Brandt requested a male prisoner, which Hauptscharfuhrer Sturm promptly provided (17-year-old Russian POW). After the prisoner had been forcibly restrained by SS troops, Brandt pro- ceeded to perform a vasectomy, to show his proteges how rapidly the procedure could be executed by a skilled surgeon. He accomplished the procedure in four minutes. A discussion of female sterilization followed, in which Brandt again claimed surgery as the most efficient method. He said Clauberg will never regain his prewar eminence. Brandt plans to sterilize six women tomorrow morning to prove his point, before scheduled test of Sarin IV aerosol compound . . .
The shock of this entry had lasted only until McConnell reached the first detailed description of one of Klaus Brandt’s “research projects.” This passage alone was enough to damn the Nazi state for all eternity.
6-8-43 Eight days ago, Brandt purposely infected four boys and four girls with rapidly fulminating Group I meningococcus bacteria (by the droplet infection method, droplets being obtained from live carriers held prisoner in the isolation room). Greta Muller and I were instructed to rotate 12-hour shifts in the experimental ward until the study had run its course. This is my first opportunity to record what happened.
Our functions were to (a) record the onset of symptoms (b) take blood samples and white counts when indicated (c) administer sulfadiazine (and also Dr. Brandt’s own formulation) to the separate patient groups at the proper intervals (d) administer fluids to prevent dehydration (e) chart the progress of each patient until recovery or death. The youngest patient was six months old (female) the oldest five years (male). The average age was three and one half years.
On the fourth day after infection, meningococcus was recovered from the blood of all patients. Most had characteristic rashes at this time. Brandt ordered oral administration of sulfadiazine to two patients, simultaneously giving his secret preparation to two others. The remaining four patients (including the female infant) he designated as controls.
The control group quickly exhibited symptoms of the septicemic stage of the disease: irregular fever, hypersensitivity, rapid pulse and respiration. Most curled up in the characteristic position and cried out when disturbed. All four developed serious rashes, three of these hemorrhagic. White counts of all controls hovered between 16,500 and 17,500.
First fatality in the control group (four-year-old female) caused by overwhelming septicemic infection. 80% of body covered by hemorrhagic rash. Routine postmortem by Dr. Rauch.
Infant control quickly exhibited bulging of the fontanelles due to massive infection. Experienced convulsions, low pulse rate and respiration. Death occurred six days after initial infection.
The two patients given sulfadiazine showed marked improvement within 48 hours. Those given Brandt’s preparation were slower to improve. The controls quickly progressed into the next stage of the disease. The bacteria disappeared from their bloodstreams and localized in the meninges. Patients experienced vomiting and the familiar bursting headache caused by increased pressure of the cerebrospinal fluid. Also constipation, urine retention, and stiffness of neck muscles due to nerve root involvement. Two of the smaller children’s spines and necks drew backward into the characteristic “bow.” None could flex his chin.
Third fatality in control group (three-year-old male) died in agony on Greta’s shift. I had managed to feed him some aspirin that morning, nothing else. Brandt’s postmortem revealed cause of death to be internal hydrocephalus. Ventricles of the brain were dilated, and the brain convolutions flattened by the pressure of a thick, purulent fluid. Also optic nerve involvement: patient was blind in one eye at time of death. Purulent exudate extended all the way into the spinal canal.
Throughout the course of the experiment, Brandt performed several spinal punctures to examine cerebrospinal fluid. He was infuriated by the slowness of his own preparation compared to that of sulfadiazine. The children were terrified of these spinal punctures, and had to be restrained by Ariel Weitz and SS men. On day six Brandt resorted to direct injection of his preparation into the spine of one child. This leads me to believe that his secret preparation is unrelated to the sulfonamides, as local therapy is not required when using those. Brandt plans to duplicate this entire experiment in one week, using a different preparation. Also, one box of polyvalent antimeningococcus horse serum arrived yesterday. . . .
McConnell looked up from the diary. He realized then that he was in a kind of shock. There were at least a dozen separate entries recording similar experiments on children, and references to nearly fifty more performed by Brandt and his assistant physicians — all accurate down to the last medical detail. But what horrified him most was that these experiments had no valid medical reason behind them. It was known that meningitis could be cured by sulfadiazine. Was Klaus Brandt torturing children merely to try and find some new pharmacological agent with which to enrich himself after the war?
McConnell closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips to his temples. How could Anna Kaas record such things without apparent emotion? He had searched for some sense of guilt or revulsion in the record, but after the first few entries all references to her own perspective virtually ceased. Then he realized — or rather hoped he had realized — what she was up to. The German nurse was acting as a sort of verbal camera — recording what she saw in the manner that courts of law would demand evidence of a witness. Injecting emotion into her record would only cloud the issue after the war.
But still, he thought, to realize that she had stood by while these atrocities were committed — and in fact had participated in them — was difficult to grasp. He longed for some expression of anguish or plea for forgiveness, however insufficient or inarticulate, from the vulnerable soul that lies at the core of every human being. But as yet he had not found it.
He was certain of one thing: if he got out of Germany alive, the nurse’s diary was going with him.
Jonas Stern sat in stunned silence in a corner of the Jewish Women’s Block. More than forty women
