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night.blind: 01.5.1: 09 January 2005: Daniel
McVey.
26th September
1942
The train came to a shuddering and terrifying halt as bright
sunlight burned its way through the gaps in the wooden slats
of the tightly packed boxcar and momentarily blinded Tesia Moryl
as she held her husband, Jedrus, and two sons, Andnej and Tanek,
tightly and despairingly, paralysed with fear. Fear of
the dreaded unknown, of not knowing where they were being taken,
of not knowing what was to happen to her twin angels, now over
four years old, and the unborn child she carried within her,
just three months from its birth.
She’d heard the rumours of death camps back home in Warsaw,
in the ghetto.
Tesia had slowly seen most of her friends, family and neighbours
be taken away day after day for over twelve months now and never
return.
She had heard of the trains taking them to places called Treblinka,
Lublin and Majdanek, Otwock and Falenica, Dachau and Auschwitz.
And this morning it was their turn, and no matter how far her
fathers’ reputation and respect reached throughout her community,
and of Jedrus’ good record whilst working in the Warsaw Order
Police, nothing and no one was getting in the way of SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer
Hitzfeld and his SS "Labor Requisition" squad from completing
their daily quota of bodies for "Resettlement" to where the
Labor camps and factories now stood near the prewar German-Polish
border in Eastern Upper Silesia.
The Moryls knew that today was their day to board the train
that had come through Warsaw daily for the last thirteen weeks;
their name sat proudly and unflinchingly at the top of Hitzfelds’
meticulously typed list. And so, at 7am that bright bitter
Polish morning, Tesia and her family gathered some belongings,
even dressing smartly, for they still had a glimmer of optimism
that everything would be okay, and that they were merely being
moved to a new house in a new town so she and Jedrus could work
for their German conquerors in a mill or factory, or even on
a farm working the land, as they were being told by the officers
who came to escort them from their bleak, creaking, ghetto tenement
on Leszno Street.
And now they were on their way, herded like cattle into boxcars
on the back of a Nazi army freight train, no windows, no air,
no light, and no hope.
What little hope the Moryl family had prior to their transportation
from the Ghetto was all but extinguished over the next three
days.
Scarring days of hunger, of thirst, of terrible bodily pain
and anguish, of deafening screaming and wailing, of mourning
those that were dying on the very journey itself, the stench
of the same dead bodies they had to travel with, and the putrid
smell of vomit and excrement that washed over them like a plague
of locusts cleansing the earth. The very old and very
young suffered the most, since time began they have and forever
they will
remain the most vulnerable of this earth's creatures.
But on this bright Autumn afternoon, all those that were on
that train were now vulnerable to evils they could not begin
to comprehend, and so the doors of the boxcars were thrown open,
and evil had found its quarry for the day.
Jedrus jumped from the train first, falling straight to his
knees as the almost fresh air hit the back of his throat, causing
him to vomit. However, he regained his composure and strength
once he lay his eyes upon the rows of black uniforms and guns
pointing at him, his loved ones, and his countrymen.
All hell broke loose, soldiers marching into the crowds, dragging
people off the trains, hurrying people along with the butts
of their rifles, German voices cracking as they yelled…
"Schneller!! Schneller!! Schneller!!"…
For one heart-stopping moment, Jedrus lost sight of his darling
Tesia and his young boys, but he caught sight of Tesia's flowing
blond locks and fought his way upstream through the crowd as
a salmon returning home to spawn would, and threw his arms around
his terrified, whimpering family.
“Its okay, Tess, I’ve got you now, and the boys. We’ll
be fine, trust me. This must be a big mistake, and we'll
all be back on the train in no time, to go where we’re supposed
to go…”
And then they were ripped apart, two big Aryan boys throwing
Tesia and the boys to one side and ordering Jedrus to line up
for inspection by the camp doctor, men one side, women and children
the other.
“Raus!! Raus!! Line up for inspection, you bastards!!”
yelled a proud son of the master race.
A mere sixty seconds later and Andnej and Tanek saw their father
for the last time, led away en masse with all other males aged
14 and over for his "cleansing" and his new life, or what
was left of it, working in the SS Workshops and armament industries
in Auschwitz’ Camp Number 1.
Jedrus Moryl turned to see his beloved family for what was to
be the very last time, smiled, and returned marching in line,
head held high, only to see the wrought iron inscription above
the gates he was about to walk through - "Arbeit Macht Frei."
Then the moment came that Tesia had feared above all others,
separation from her babies. The call went out that all
pregnant women were to move over to the other side of the disembarking
area for special care and cleansing. Screams rang out
as child upon child begged not to be separated, and some weren’t,
for the mothers were given a choice, you can leave your children
behind, or take them with you. Some of the older women
grouped away from the pregnant mothers shouted and begged for
the mothers to let their young ones go and come with them, for
they knew what "special care" and "cleansing" meant in this
place, had seen the Nazi propaganda and its treatment of the
Jewish race for what seemed like forever now. They knew
that if the Nazis had a ranking system of "viable" life, then
a pregnant Jewish mother would be at the bottom of that satanic
hierarchy. And they were right, the first people executed
each day were the pregnant women, and their children, if they
chose to bring them along, too. No cleansing, no selection,
no forced Labor, and a lot of the time, "Camp Accountancy Requirements"
permitting, they were not permitted a humane death, if there
were such a thing. No, most of the time, pregnant women
and the children their choiceless choices forced to take along
with them, were thrown straight into the ovens of Auschwitz
Camp Number 1.
Disguising her pregnancy was not an option for Tesia; she was
just over six months pregnant, and with being slight of frame
and height, trying to trick these fiends would only lead to
more hardship for her boys. No, she would have to let
them go and trust in her God that the two brightest stars her
life had ever known would shine on through and beyond this madness.
“Momma?”
“Yes, Andi, my love?”
“Don’t leave us alone. Don’t let go of us.”
“I have to, my love. Don’t worry, I’ll be back for you
and your brother. Everything’s going to be alright, just
like your father said it would be… See, just go along
with Mrs Dziekanowski. She’ll look after you two for now…
until you’re in your new home… until I come back later.”
But she wouldn’t come back; she knew that with every last ounce
of strength left in her that it was all over. Broken crossed
darkness had cast shadow over her life, broken all her dreams,
and was about to extinguish the very force of her life.
“Momma! Momma! Momma! Momma!” Andnej and Tanek both screamed,
but there was no time for prolonged heartbreak and goodbye;
SS-Rottenführer Riedle saw to that, bringing the butt of
his Model 34 Machine Gun down viciously into Tesia's shoulder,
shattering her right scapulae instantly, causing her to drop
Tanek from her grasp as she fell winded to the mud-laden earth
beneath her feet.
Dorota Dziekanowski and her sister Czeslawa instantly moved
to the boys, pulling them from their fallen mother, out of harm
from the rain of blows Riedle began to deliver to Tesia Moryl,
breaking what was left of her soul.
“Rottenführer Riedle! Stop that immediately, and
return to your duty! Move these women along as quickly
and as peacefully as you possibly can, and that is an order!”
bellowed SS-UnterScharfuehrer Karl Muller, who was second in
command in his platoon, and whose orders were to oversee the
disembarkation process and ensure swiftness in its operation.
Riedle’s abuse of the prisoners was not helping him with his
orders, causing him to witness more of this danse macabre, and
reinforcing the growing hatred of the man he had just ordered
to stop beating his prisoner, but to take her as quickly as
possible to her death in the crematorium.
Andnej and Tanek were dragged kicking and screaming from their
mother's battered, bleeding body and pulled through the crowd
of women and children, away from the horrors they had just witnessed.
Tesia was helped to her feet and carried by two other doomed
mothers-to-be and led away under armed guard from SS-Rottenführer
Riedle and his dozen or so SS-Sturmmann, the foot soldiers of
the Nazi SS, the Storm Troopers.
Tesia Moryl was never allowed the luxury of one last look at
her sons like Jedrus Moryl had; she was rendered unconscious
by the last of Riedles’ blows, and, luckily for her, she never
regained her senses or her consciousness.
For Andnej and Tanek Moryl, their true horror was about to begin.
A Nazi army Medical ambulance, green with a red cross on the
side, pulled up and over the rail tracks and into the railhead
disembarkation area in front of the wailing mass of what was
left of the passengers of "Warsaw Resettlement Train No.4538.17,"
and came to a steady stop at the head of columns of women and
children left behind, yet to be allocated a position in this
Labor camp.
A clean, handsome, though slight man, dark hair meticulously
kept in place, well dressed in his dark green tunic, SS cap
tilted rebelliously to one side, got up and out of the passenger
side of the Jeep and stood silently.
With his thumbs on his pistols, and a face of hollow eyes, infernal
grin and deathly pallor, his "Death Mask," he began to inspect
what was left of the day's quarry.
Usually, it was his job to sort the prisoners, death to the
left, life to the right, but this early afternoon he had been
preoccupied with watching his wife pack her belongings and return
to Berlin. But this was the part of the process he would
never miss, not even if his only son was drowning in front of
his very eyes, he was not going to miss the only part of the
day he felt alive, when there was an excitement in his eyes,
and a beat in his heart.
This was the part of the day that Doctor Josef Mengele got to
trawl through the child prisoners of Auschwitz and find himself
the most sought after of material for his research, Identical
Twins. Of the 800 or so remaining children that had not
yet been sent to the factories or to the crematorium, there
was only one set of identical twins, Andnej and Tanek Moryl.
My, how the Doctor clapped his hands and smiled when he lay
his once empty eyes on the two children clinging to Dorota Dziekanowski,
for it had been over two weeks since the Doctor had received
a fresh set of twins.
“My, my, what do we have here?” he said tenderly to the boys
as he bent down on one knee surveying the shivering, frightened
four-year-olds in front of him. He put his hand around
Andnejs’ wrist and pulled him gently, yet forcibly, to himself.
At first, Andnej rejected the approach, but one glance from
the Doctor to Dorota, a glance in which his Death Mask shot
back on for one menacing second, and Dorota soothed the boy's
fears by encouraging him, “Go on, Andi. It's okay, this
is a doctor, and he’s going to look after you and your brother.”
Andnej took his brother's hand, and even though he was the younger
of the boys by twenty-four minutes, he was the most forward
mentally, the most caring, and the most paternal. From
that second onwards, Andnej Moryl, a four-year-old boy from
Warsaw, assumed all emotional care and responsibility for his
older brother.
The crowd of women and children parted hurriedly and in silence
as the boys were led, hand in hand, by the Doctor from the disembarkation
area and into the back of his personal Jeep and driven off to
their new quarters in a dormitory on the first floor of Block
10, in Camp Number 1. Not for the first time that day,
and not for the last time in their lives, Andnej and Tanek Moryl
looked out of the Jeep and back at the two crying, smiling,
Dziekanowski sisters.
Sisters who had fleetingly been their guardians in this cruel
world, both of whom would never again lay eyes on the two little
boys from the upstairs quarters in Leszno Street, when they
used to watch them playing in the rubble and the rain, but it
would be a long time, a good few years in fact, until Andnej
and Tanek stopped watching them.
night.blind: 01.5.2:
17 January 2005: Daniel McVey.
Andnej and Tanek's new home was a piece of wood two and a half
feet wide, six feet long, covered in straw, with a sack for a
blanket, no pillow, and six other young orphaned children for
company.
Because the boys were the smallest, SS-UnterScharfuehrer Karl
Muller put them on the bottom bunk of a three-level bunk bed
and asked the oldest child of the bunk to look after them, as
he always did with the new young prisoners, only this time,
he made a special point of promising the eldest boy a treat
if he looked after these two boys more than anyone else.
This was borne from one thing, guilt. Guilt for allowing
their mother to be killed by the hand of one of his own "men,"
and the haunted look he could see in the eyes of Andnej, the
same look had seen in the eyes of Tesia Moryl just before she
lost consciousness.
The first floor of Block 10 was shared with another 430 or so
children; the numbers varied from day to day, but invariably,
they went down in the evening, and up the next afternoon.
There was a row of nine three-tiered bunk beds against one wall,
a dividing walkway of about three feet in width, and another
row of bunks against the opposite wall, each with three tiers,
and each tier with eight children huddled together, silent and
hungry. The wall Andnej and Tanek's bunk was against had
no windows, well, it did, but they were boarded up so the children
could not look out and see what happened in the courtyard between
Block 10 and Block 11, where the "Death Wall" stood.
It didn’t take long for the boys to be taken to meet their new
Uncle Mengele; in fact, it was the very next morning that they
were taken from their bed by Karl Muller and three soldiers,
and, along with the only other set of remaining twins, who had
been at Auschwitz since the beginning of the month, they were
led out of Block 10 and across to the special pathology lab
ran so "efficiently" by Mengele and his colleagues. The
building next door was the crematorium.
Some twelve hours later, the boys were returned to their bunk.
The other set of twins, Alina and Bohgana, did not. For
twelve hours, the boys had been examined and measured, prodded
and poked, and actually, at one point, which shocked Karl Muller
and everything he’d come to know about this place to the core,
they were given some toffee sweets by Dr. Mengele, who knew
he’d gotten carried away with his previous batch of twins, and
killed them all but one set, the Dudek twins, Alina and Bohgana.
Well, this time, he was going to be more careful, more productive
and more efficient. In other words, he wasn’t going to
kill them easily, at least not until a new batch came in, which,
after all, may only be tomorrow. No, for the time being,
Andnej and Tanek Moryl would not be subject to any surgical
or otherwise physically intrusive surgery. Dr Mengele
wanted to fan the flames of not only his latest obsession, but
of the Nazis and the very Fuhrer himself. He wanted to
experiment with the power of the human mind, to be the first
to unlock its potential for the greater good of The Third Reich,
The Fuhrer, and for himself. He wanted to see how far
he could push the limits of mental endurance, to see what kept
the body alive once the spirit was broken, soul destroyed, and
hope vanquished. He already thought of himself as God;
now he wanted Gods’ secrets.
The next morning, Muller again took the boys from their bunk.
They never needed to be woken; they stayed awake shivering from
cold and fear. Fear of the nightmares their young mind
had thrown at them on their first night in Block 10. No,
they were awake and ready to go see Uncle Mengele when Muller
and his troops entered the dormitory. But on that second
visit to the Laboratory, they only saw one person, Professor
Carl Clauberg. Clauberg was a strange looking person not
only to the boys but everyone who had the misfortune to meet
him. Short and rotund, with an almost bald pate and narrow
piercing eyes whose disconcerting look was accentuated by the
standard army issue spectacles he wore. No one ever saw
him outside of his everyday working clothes, a Surgeon's overall.
Again he measured and examined, took sample upon sample, and
photographed every possible angle of the boys. And, as
was common practice with Carl Clauberg and his sessions with
the inmates of Block 10, they were naked and bare the whole
time. After three hours or so of this, the boys were taken
further back into the laboratory building, where there was a
room with twelve hospital beds, six on either side. The
beds were neither upright nor prone, but at an angle of 60 degrees
or so from the floor, facing the beds on the opposite side of
the room. They were all empty.
Andnej was put in the bed on the left, Tanek opposite him on
the right. Both the boys were strapped in, restrained by the
ankles, wrists, chest, neck and forehead. They never took
their eyes off each other for one second. There was pretty
much nothing else left for them to hold onto but each other.
Clauberg came in with an SS Medical orderly and proceeded to
set up two sets of drips, each drip bag containing the same
milky white substance. Clauberg also began preparing syringes,
24 of them, two sets of twelve syringes, one for each boy.
This was Professor Carl Clauberg's speciality, injections, and
the various substances he was instructed by Mengele to use in
the Laboratory. To his resentment, Mengele kept Clauberg
at arm's length from his "children," and so was only brought
in to advise and administer these special injections when Mengele
so requested. Clauberg's main purpose for being at Auschwitz
was to experiment with and find a productive, efficient solution
to the mass sterilization of Jewish women. It was Heinrich
Himmler, SS-Reichsfuhrer, head of the Gestapo and the Waffen-SS
himself, who had personally invited Clauberg to Auschwitz and
gave him free reign in his research into mass sterilization.
An invite and an affirmation which he abused every single day
during his time at Auschwitz, but he had personal sponsorship
from the Head of the organization he was working for, which
meant he could do anything and everything his heart desired;
the only line he never dared cross was Mengele and his "children."
The boys were each injected four times, each with the same substance,
but of different dosages. Andnej received twice the dosage
of whatever was administered to Tanek and would for the next
three months or so. An hour later, a second set of four
Injections was administered to the twins, and finally, same
substances, only twice the dosage. Again, exactly an hour
passed and the orderly gave Andnej his final four injections
of the day, while Clauberg repeated the procedure with Tanek.
Neither of the boys flinched, winced or moved a muscle or batted
an eyelid during this routine, and never would for the rest
of their time with Professor Clauberg. Once the final
set of injections were given, the orderly and Clauberg took
the left arm of one of the boys and fixed an intravenous drip
to their veins, which delivered the substance at the exact rate
specified by Dr. Mengele himself.
The Drips were attached to the beds, fresh new blankets were
thrown over the boys, and they were wheeled out of the Lab by
two SS orderlies to the opposite end of the Lab from the swinging
wooden doors through which they entered and into a dark, narrow
hallway, twenty feet in length. Some ten feet down on
the left of this hallway there was a door, stenciled simply
with the words "Isolierung Einheit Ein," Isolation Unit One.
Opposite this door was another, Isolation Unit Two. Andnej
was wheeled first down to IE1, and Tanek was wheeled into IE2.
Each room was twenty feet long by fifteen feet wide, and would
be Andnej and Tanek's homes for the next five months.
Apart from the boys themselves, the rooms were completely bare,
no windows, red brick walls blackened by pitch, and one light
bulb that was never turned off. Clauberg walked slowly
down the hallway, stopped outside the doors IE1 and IE2, slowly
and deliberately looked at the boys in turn, looked down at
his pocket watch, then looked up and through Karl Muller, and
muttered a few barely audible words.
“Close the doors… Lock them in.”
Muller did as he was told, but took three seconds longer than
he should have, allowing the boys one last, longing look at
each other before the doors were closed and locked, cutting
them off from all they had left to hold onto. Josef Mengele's
first Psychological Isolation Endurance experiment on identical
twins had begun.
01.5.3: 23 January 2005:
Daniel McVey.
* * *
It was another six days until the doors to the two Isolation
Units were opened. Six days of mental and physical anguish
for the four-year-old twins from Warsaw. Six days without
water, food, or heat, other than what their own shivering bodies
generated. Six days in which they never slept, barely
blinked an eyelid. Six days of their fragile young minds
working overtime with thoughts they couldn’t help thinking,
thoughts they couldn’t comprehend. Sweat dripping from
every pore, their heart beat never dropping below 160 beats
per minute. Which was exactly what Doctor Josef Mengele
wanted.
Karl Muller took a set of keys from his dark green SS tunic,
found the key he wanted, and opened the door to IE1 and almost
burst into tears at what he saw. Andnej Moryl was a physical
and mental wreck. A bloodied, bruised quivering wreck.
Muller likened it to a scene he remembered from childhood whilst
hunting with his father of a rabbit caught in a trap.
Sweat poured from every part of his body, the blanket given
to him thrown off from the violence of the shaking some thirty
hours before, blood seeped from underneath the restraints on
his wrists and ankles, as well as from his forehead. His
eyes were blinded from the blood trickling into them from the
wounds the head restraint gave him convulsing and wailing in
a tongue that Karl Muller all too readily comprehended, Polish.
He knew the Polish language for one reason, and one reason alone:
his Grandmother had taught him it as a child. Karl Muller, UnterScharfuehrer
of the SS detachment at Auschwitz Labor Camp KZ for Jews, Poles,
Soviet POWs and East European Gypsies was of Polish descent.
The few words he could discern above the crying and wailing
were “Momma” and “Stop.” If he had been alone, Muller
would have tried calming the child with words of comfort in
his own language, but he wasn’t, and he valued the secrecy of
his real heritage above all else in this world. It was
the secret that kept him alive when he needed it, and was keeping
him alive still.
Dr. Mengele followed closely behind Muller and his guard, along
with the SS orderly who had helped administer the medicines
to the twins some six days earlier.
The Doctor went straight to Andnej's side, replaced the blanket
that had been thrown to the floor, and mopped Andnej's furrowed,
sweating, bloody brow with his own handkerchief, soothing the
boy's wailing as if he were his own child.
“Now now young man, no need to be afraid, no need to cry anymore,
Uncle Josef is here, I’ll look after you,” Mengele whispered
to the boy as he undid the restraints first on his wrists, then
chest, ankles and finally the leather straps restraining Andnej's
head.
Mengele was very careful and precise in doing this, not wanting
to damage his subject further. Andnej collapsed in a heap at
the foot of the bed, and after a few minutes, the wailing and
screaming had given way to whimpering. Muller leaned forward
with a water canister only to be physically restrained by Mengele,
who drew his sidearm and ordered Muller to withdraw from the
bed, and took the canister from Muller's hand.
“I’ll be the judge of who lives and dies in this camp, Sergeant
Muller, not you”
Mengele then leaned forward, took the boy in his arms, and carefully
poured water over his cracked lips into his parched mouth.
“Disconnect the IV drip, Private Basler. Please be careful
not to bruise the skin,” Mengele instructed the orderly.
“Yes, sir,” replied SS Medical Orderly, Private Mario Basler.
“Sergeant Muller, wrap the subject up and take him to be cleaned
in my private laboratory. The orderly there will know
what to do.”
“Yes, Captain.”
As one of the senior SS officers at the camp, and with the good
standing he had earned from his superiors, Dr Mengele was permitted
his own private quarters in the grounds of the camp. Until
a few days earlier he had shared these quarters, a two-storey
five-roomed brick house that stood some way from the prisoners'
quarters, just to the left of the main SS Barracks and behind
the Garrison Commanders own quarters, with his wife Irene.
Josef Mengele and Irene Schoenbein had been married in July
1939 but were separated within five weeks as war broke out on
the Eastern front, and Mengele was sent to the Ukraine to fight
the Soviets. When Mengele was transferred from the eastern
front to the Waffen SS Medical Corps, he was based in Berlin
at the headquarters of the Race and Resettlement Office, where
he and Irene first lived together as man and wife. Only
a few months passed and Mengele was again transferred, this
transfer, his last transfer, was to Auschwitz KZ. After
a brief settling-in period, Mengele sent word to Berlin for
Irene to join him, which she did without question. Within
six months she was back in Berlin, alone. She never gave
Mengele a reason for leaving; he didn’t ask for one. He
didn’t need to. Within a day of her leaving, he had his
house emptied of her belongings, and, with the exception of
his own sleeping quarters, had much of the house converted into
his own personal Laboratory. A small upstairs bedroom
was fitted with a double-tiered bunk bed, small sink and equipped
with basic medical apparatus. The window was removed and
replaced with bricks. All this had been done in just two
days. Dr. Josef Mengele was not one to give time to such
trivial things as separation and regret. With his wife
gone, he could now immerse himself completely without remorse
or interference into his work, his passion. His need to
leave a lasting legacy for the world, for The Third Reich, for
The Fuehrer and, of more import, for himself.
“My Captain?”
“Yes, Sergeant?”
“You want me to do the same with the other boy, Tanek?”
“Ah yes. Subject Two… You see, Muller, in a detailed precise
scientific experiment such as this, in order to measure the
results effectively, identical test subjects need to be treated
differently, given, shall we say, discordant stimuli and conditioning…
Being from a non-academic background, you obviously do
not understand this simple premise,” replied Mengele condescendingly.
“Sergeant Muller, take Subject One to my Lab as instructed,
and oversee my orderly while she cleanses and clothes the boy.
Once this is done, assist the orderly further by taking the
boy to the specially-prepared bunk quarters upstairs, and fix
the restraints so that he cannot move… Please ensure that
no illumination can enter the room… Then return here to
assist us in preparing subject two for the next stage of his
conditioning.”
“You mean you're not freeing him like the other boy?”
Mengele laughed the vilest of laughs… "You seem to be
forgetting your place in this establishment, Karl… but I will
let it go just this once. There are times that my forgiveness
and compassion know no bounds, Sergeant, and there are times
that that boundary is crossed, I urge you to refrain from pushing
any further… for your sake, my friend.”
“Yes, Captain, I understand… I shall be back as soon as
possible.” Muller felt his insides burning with incandescent
rage as he forced those words out of his mouth, but he had to,
so he did.
“Good. Hurry along now; I wouldn’t want you to miss the
show, Karl. Sparks are going to fly.”
Karl Muller did as he was told, and, with the help of his Guard,
carried Andnej to the Doctor's private quarters.
Meanwhile, Dr Mengele called for Prof. Clauberg and entered
IE2 with two more SS medical orderlies. The first orderly
was carrying five pieces of what, when constructed, was to be
a metal cage, four feet wide, three feet in height. The
second orderly was pushing a six-wheeled hospital style steel
trolley upon which rested menacingly a picana electrica "shock"
machine complete with four sockets, two of which had a "Wand"
connected to them, the other two with crocodile clips at the
end. A small glass of water with a handful of daisies
stood at the other end of the trolley.
“Professor Clauberg?”
“Yes Captain Mengele?”
“Let us begin the next phase of subject Two's conditioning,
and introduce the spirit of Zerodieth into his young un-pure
life.”
“Of course, my Captain… As you wish.”
In the coming twenty-eight months or so, no cost was to prove
too great, no damage too severe, no suffering too harsh, nor
no life worth sparing in the pursuit of Aryan-Genetic perfection
throughout the remaining time Doctor Josef Mengele spent as
a Medical Officer at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
* * *
01.5.4: 29 January 2005:
Daniel McVey.
=======================================================================
SECRET!
Dr. J. MENGELE
SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer
Auschwitz-Birkenau,
17 July 1943
To the Reichsfuehrer
SS and Chief of the German Police
Mr. Heinrich Himmler
Berlin SW 11 Prinz
Albrecht Str. 8
SECRET!
Dear Reichsfuehrer!
Enclosed I present
to you in condensed form an interim summary of the magnificent
results of the experiments made in Isolating identical twins
and measuring the endurance of their mental powers through said
experiments. I refer you to my previous communications
regarding this new programme of scientific experimentation and
the methods and principals we outlined and agreed upon during
your most gracious visit to the camp here at Auschwitz-Birkenau
late last summer, 1942.
Right now I am
attempting to prove through experiments on Identical Twin human
beings that it is possible, under the correct conditions and
with the appropriate distribution of medicines and stimuli,
to expand the power of the human mind beyond the capacity at
which it is presently, through placing exaggerated stress and
provocation upon the Subjects' physical self, inducing the mind
to take extended control and responsibility of the Subjects'
innate need for survival and bring closer to reality and success
your most ambitious project, Lebersborn.
The Garrison Physician,
SS-Standortarzt Eduard Wirths, uninitiated of course,
doubted very much that that would be possible and said that
I would have to prove it first by fifty different experiments!
My first four sets of twin Subjects did not survive the initial
wave of surgical conditioning, and the next three sets did not
survive due to typhoid. However, none of this mattered
because I have made the breakthrough for which we have been
striving for so long. Indeed, mein supreme Reichsfuehrer,
I suspect that the Subjects I have made such great progress
with are not of Polish/Jewish descent, but are actual Bloodliners
who have fallen under the greater project's radar and are ready
to fulfill their destiny as the chosen ones for the greater
glory of the Third Reich.
My twin Subjects
are male and thought to be over five years old. They answer
to the names of Andnej and Tanek Moryl. Is it possible
for further research to be undertaken by our people in Warsaw
in order to determine the exact origin of their biological heritage?
They arrived at the camp on 26 September 42 and were immediately
put under my supervision and guidance. Experimentation
on the Subjects proceeded the very next day. I shall be
as brief as I humanly can, Mein Reichsfuehrer, in detailing
the various procedures we have carried out on the Subjects,
and I will display the experiments’ progress on a monthly basis.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXPERIMENT
– ISOLATION ENDURANCE/NEUROPSCYCHOLOGICAL ENHANCEMENT
SUBJECTS
– (1) ANDNEJ MORYL - (2) TANEK MORYL
COMMENCEMENT
DATE – 27/09/42 END DATE
– 15/07/43 (ONGOING)
|
DATE
|
COMMENTS |
|
OCT’
42
|
Subjects
were given over to preparatory conditioning for readiness
in entering the programme. Medicines designed to
keep the Subjects awake and lucid for prolonged periods
were given with immediate results. Initial Mental,
Neuro-Physiological and Psychic Testing were carried out
in order to give us a base-point by which to measure the
Subjects' progress. Therapy by electricity was introduced
to Subject 2, and preliminary periods of sleep deprivation
and isolation were undertaken. |
|
NOV’
42
|
Subjects
were submitted to periods of enforced isolation whilst
being administered various medicines to create prolonged
states of sleep deprivation. Subject 2 was chosen
as the measure by which Subject 1’s mental progression
could be measured. Therefore all measures of medicines,
drugs, mental conditioning, etc. were halved for Subject
2, but we compensated for this by doubling the amount
of physical stimuli he received. |
|
DEC’
42
|
Advanced
and extensive techniques to condition the Subjects using
trauma, repetition and reinforcement therapies were begun,
with the aim of creating dissociation within the Subjects.
Sleep deprivation and Isolation therapy was also continued
during this period, with the Subjects now able to be kept
awake and alone for up to nine consecutive days.
As expected, Subject 1 is coping with the process of conditioning
more readily than Subject 2. Physical Conditioning
of Subject 2 is reaching an advanced stage, and it is
simply amazing how far a human mind and body can be pushed.
Truly amazing. |
|
JAN’
43
|
Subjects
placed under extended periods of hypnosis and given the
drug Mescaline in order to produce within the mind of
the Subjects a lucid dream state whilst sleeping and a
feeling of unreality whilst awake, mentally removing them
from their surroundings. During this "sleeping"
state, both Subjects were again administered Electric
therapy, and the first phase of our "Psychic Driving"
theory was undertaken. Our experimentation with
mescaline is escalating, Herr Himmler, and it is of my
most powerful belief that it can indeed be used as a successful
weapon of war against not only the Jewish race, but the
Allies themselves. |
|
FEB’
43
|
Due to the
outbreak of Typhoid in the camp, I decided to abandon
all experimentation for the foreseeable future.
The Subjects had also undergone four months of intense
conditioning, and it was agreed with Professor Clauberg
that a period of calm and solitude for the Subjects would
help prepare them for Phase 2 of the psychic driving and
accentuate the trauma bonding phase of experimentation
that is to come by allowing the Subjects precious time
together before separating them further. For the
last week of February, Subject 2 was given over to the
Kapos in Barracks 21D for further conditioning and trauma
stimuli, thus enhancing the disassociation within the
Subject. |
|
MAR’
43
|
Full scientific
experimentation was continued unabated, doubling our efforts
in bonding the Subjects to ourselves, the experimenters,
making them fear yet love all our behaviour towards them.
Phase 2 of the psychic driving was undertaken, and the
early disassociation I diagnosed in Subject 2 is now blossoming
into mid-level schizophrenia. I believe that the
subject has now taken to answering only to the name of
Uncle Josef whilst being conditioned, but reverts to his
original personality of Tanek for the periods in between
conditioning and experimentation. He truly believes
that I am going to "live inside of him" and will always
be "watching over him." The power of a quietly spoken
word when coupled with an Iron Fist, Mein Reichsfuehrer,
is truly frightening. |
|
APR’
43
|
- |
|
MAY
43
|
High levels
of distress and stress are being displayed by the two
subjects whilst being kept in Isolation. Subject
1 has been kept in my special laboratory some 700 metres
from Subject 2, and it’s not only as if he feels every
electric shock, every blow to the body, every bite, punch
and traumatic scene Subject 2 is administered, but it’s
as if he actually sees it! I feel that we have forcibly
developed and nurtured a Psychic pathway between the two
subjects, and my mind is astounded by the practical military
applications that this pathway could offer our Armies
and empower our Third Reich to triumph! If we could
develop these powers in adult subjects who were loyal
to the Third Reich and train them in Military and Espionage
skills, our power would be tremendous indeed. There
would be no need for reconnaissance aircraft, spy balloons,
decoding machines or elite teams of spies to infiltrate
the enemy's operations. We would simply need two
subjects, one behind enemy lines, maybe even at enemy
command headquarters, and the other "Twin" would be stationed
in Berlin, simply relaying all the information that he
or she could see through the other subject's eyes!
We have broken through, Herr Himmler. This is our time. |
|
JUN’
43
|
Come the
second week of June, I decided that it was time to properly
and scientifically test the progress of our two Subjects,
and did so immediately, without pause. It was my
proposal to separate the Subjects further in order to
test the distance of their new found "sight." At
first, we positioned Subject 1 a measured Kilometre from
Isolation Unit 2, which took him to the edge of the forest,
west of Birkenau Camp 2. Temporary Barracks were
erected and the Subject was kept there under observation
and almost total isolation for five days. The findings
were exactly as they were while he was being kept in my
Laboratory. I then instructed the camp engineers
to erect further temporary camps for radii of 2km, 5 km,
8 km, 10 km, 15 km and finally 25 km in a straight line
from IE2. Unfortunately the subjects ability to
"see" his twin became somewhat diminished the further
from each other they became. No matter how much
physical pressure and stimuli was applied to Subject 2
during this time, Subject 1 barely registered a connection
past 5 kilometres. This may seem like a setback, Mein
Reichsfuehrer, but we have come a long way in just ten
months with these subjects. Given time, I believe
there is no limit to their power. |
|
JUL'
43
|
Vigorous
testing of the Subjects' mental and psychic abilities
continued from previous month, with the same results and
findings as previously reported. It is planned for the
conditioning and experimentation to continue unabated
with Subjects 1 and 2, and to see how powerful their abilities
to "View" each other from distance can become. |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Reichsfuehrer,
I have not observed any serious physical abnormalities or grave
side effects from this extremely stressful experimentation;
the human mind is indeed as powerful as we have suspected.
Also, I have only been able to perform limited further experimentation
on more Subjects, my dear Reichsfuehrer, as Subjects have been
very limited, and hence precious, through the bitter winter
months, and right now the camp is closed on account of typhoid,
and I am not allowed therefore to bring the subjects to these
experiments into the SS-Special Pathology Laboratory.
(I have been vaccinated several times and continue myself to
make the tests within the camp in spite of the typhoid in the
camp.) Also, no Subjects have survived the actual conditioning
processes as well as our two ace Subjects, Mein Reichsfuehrer,
which in itself demonstrates their extraordinary abilities.
It would be best if I declined the offer of transfer to the
Waffen-SS in Berlin in order for me to carry on with the research
here and expand on the breakthroughs I have made these last
ten months.
My supreme Reichsfuehrer,
may I also be permitted to add that the procurement of medico-psychological
appliances is proving so difficult in the location of Auschwitz-Birkenau
that the continued conduct of these vital experiments is seriously
endangered. If the necessary appliances and resources
cannot be procured, it will be very much more difficult to build
up the Institute for Functional Research in Military Science
within the framework of the Ancestral Heritage Organization,
our beloved Ahnenerbe.
I hope sincerely,
highly esteemed Reichsfuehrer, that, in spite of the immense
burden of work you carry, you are in the pink of health.
With my heartiest wishes, I am with Heil Hitler your gratefully
devoted.
(Signed).
Dr. Mengele
Auschwitz-Birkenau,
17 February 1943
[Handwritten notation]
Dr. Mengele to D. Reuter
SECRET!
=======================================================================
01.5.5: 19 February 2005:
Daniel McVey.
7th February 1944
Andnej Moryl began falling…a sense of falling...drifting
away…all physical feeling, pain was ebbing...giving way
to something…better…something brighter…...a bright shimmering
sunlight…hazy mist…heat breaking through…the heat…the intense
burning heat…burnt lips…taste of salt…sea salt…golden sand…trickling
through trembling fingers…peeling forearms...old mans
arms…arms that weren’t…and a scene that wasn’t…today…this time…this
place…the sight was a long way from where Andnej now lay…a light
year away…the scene was fading, like old photograph…colours
merged…and then…
“Josef! Josef! Uncle Josef, come quick! Look!
A starfish! A starfish!”
and then clarity…perfect vision…senses attuned…clarity found…20/20.
“My god, Andreas, this beach is full of wonder, my boy,
and you bring me one starfish!”
“My god, indeed, Josef. You know my boy finds something
amazing every day we come down to this beach. Every single
day. The wonder of a child's mind.”
“The wonder, indeed, Wolfram. Be careful not to let
that wonder roam free, for you never know where it may take
you,” Josef Mengele, a very old Josef Mengele replied, with
more than a hint of warning and a stoneload of regret in his
tone.
Wolfram Bossert took Josef Mengele by the arm and helped
him down the shallow sanded steps to the public beach at Beritoga,
where the Bosserts had lived at their rented beach house for
half a decade now, and where "Uncle" Josef had come to visit
for the last few days.
“Lets follow, eh, Josef, follow where the children take
us. I promise that even in this heat, they won’t get far”
“Ok, ok, Wolfram. That outcrop of rocks there, breaking
into the ocean just ahead, that’s as far as I can go… for today.”
And so they followed, the two old tired and "retired" Nazis,
co-composer and member of the orchestra of human destruction
and desecration, followed a young boy across and through this
paradoxical scene of paradise, their thoughts their own, their
direction foundering.
The two men reached the outcrop and sat on the smoothest,
oldest rock nearest to the ocean and watched the boy play.
The beach was quiet, almost deserted. Mengele lay down
on the rock and slept, but not for long. He was startled
to wake by a feeling, a vision almost, that he was being watched.
These feelings had grown over the preceding few months of his
visit to Beritoga, and had put them down to depression and the
lasting side effects of the stroke he’d suffered a few years
previous. Now he knew that wasn’t the case; these were
nightmares, and for the first time in his life, he was scared.
Scared not by what, but who he saw in his "vision." Andnej
Moryl. The shadowy figure of his mind's wanderings had
taken a form, a human form, and there was no mistaking who this
was, no forgetting the boy's eyes, no forgetting anything
about that boy. He rose from the rock and sat upright.
“Wolfram, my friend, I'm tired, so very tired.”
“You’re getting old, Josef. We all are!”
“Over there is my country,” Mengele continued, not really
listening to his companion, not really talking to him, either.
He pointed to the east, out across the deep azure expanse of
the Atlantic Ocean, “I would like to spend the last days of
my life in my native town of Gunzburg, somewhere at the top
of a mountain, in a little house, and to write the history of
my native town.”
“You know you cannot return, Josef. This is your life
now, and your home is here in Brazil.”
“I know, Wolfram… I know. But just once…
I need to cool down; I need to bathe in the ocean, let the ancient
sea-salts… cleanse me… and all I am.”
Mengele rose from the large smooth rock his weary bloated
body had been anchored to for an hour and a half, removed the
towel from around his neck, and walked off to where the gentle
Southern Atlantic swell lapped the golden sands of Beritoga
Beach.
“Ok, Josef, I’ll be following you in soon, two old friends
living the good life and swimming in the ocean!” Mengele
didn’t hear his friend and sponsor's last words to him; his
mind was elsewhere, a long dark tunnel, and at the end of it
was… nothing.
The cold of the Atlantic rushing around his feet and ankles
woke him from his daydream, or day-nightmare he had taken
to calling the episodes of nothingness he had been experiencing
over the last few months. “This nothingness,” he had once
remarked obtusely to his half-deaf housekeeper in broken Spanish,
“will be my final test.” And free from his nothingness,
Josef Mengele ventured forth into the cooling ocean water and
began to wade, knee height, then up to the waist, and finally
chest height, for he dared go no deeper; the cold rattled him
and shuddered him into reality. The reality of his loneliness,
his emptiness, his nothing-ness. For thirty four
years he had run, escaped, hidden, killed, cheated, lied and
lost.
Lost his wife, his only son, his importance.
It had been a long long time since he had felt importance, since
he had felt the affirmation of stature bear down upon him and
lift him higher than his meagre genetic status ever could.
His selfish bride and pathetic offspring he could cope with
losing, didn’t think twice about leaving, but it was the loss
of rank and power that had left him bereft, empty. He
had been reduced to a lowly Army medical orderly to aid his
escape, a farmhand, a slum landlord, and lately, through no
hole in his own ill-begotten finances, an emotional beggar.
Looking up, he could see Andreas, with Wolfram digging castles
in the wet sand just a few feet beyond the point where the shallow
blue met the deep brown gold, and felt a twinge, a shade of
colour drop from his palette. Then everything stopped;
the swimmers swam in slow motion, his friends on the shore stood
still, his feet stopped treading water, his hearing failed,
the world fell silent. And under the waves he fell; there
was no pain, just a sudden freezing, of life, of him.
Darkness came, and so did Andnej Moryl. Smiling his six-year-old
smile, wearing his red/white striped camp uniform and floating
angelically over the now stricken, sinking body of Josef Mengele.
“Andi! Help me!
“Andi! Help me!
“Andi! Help me!” Mengele screamed silently in the
dark of his final exit, his last escape.
Andnej held his arm out and waved goodbye.
Suddenly, everything speeded up, but in reverse, Andnej
lived again through the last 2 hours, but in a split second,
and he began falling again…
“Andi! Andi! Wake up! Wake up! Tell
me, what did you see? What did you see, boy?”
“I saw... I saw you, Uncle Mengele… I saw…
I killed…”
“What? Come on boy, don’t talk non-- You saw what…”
the last word tailed off into the ether; it was a question he
didn’t need to ask… He didn’t need to hear the rest.
“I watched you die…”
01.5.6: 23 February 2005:
Daniel McVey.
22nd October 1944
The
afternoon sun was waning over Ryczow as a convoy of two German
Army jeeps, one ambulance and one supply truck made its way
north through the village, across the small stone bridge that
joined the two halves of the hamlet and onto a 150-metre long
clearing in the dense woods that ran along the railway line
that ran from Oswiecim railyard in the west to the city of Krakow
in the east. Already at the clearing were two large medical
tents surrounded and guarded by five pairs of heavily armed
SS-Sturmmann, one "Panther" tank and two temporary watchtowers
some 25 feet high, armed with .88 Machine guns. Dr Josef
Mengele exited the first jeep, straightened his tunic, and walked
swiftly to the tent. Two fellow Auschwitz Camp doctors,
Dr Klein and Dr Koenig, alighted and followed him from the second
jeep.
Ryczow
was a small village some 25 kilometres east of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
concentration camp, and it lay some 300 metres or so south of
the Krakow-Oswiecim railroad. The village itself was of
no military or scientific concern to the Waffen SS or German
Army, it just happened to lie exactly 25 km down the railroad
from the camp. Ryczow25, as the makeshift camp was known,
was to be the fourth and last stop (Zator15, Wlosenica10, and
simply D.O.Camp5 for the first station) in Dr Mengeles’ “Distance
Observation Experiment 14.3.D,” an experiment designed to follow
on from previous failed attempts in establishing and then maintaining
a psychic connection between two subjects over an extended distance.
The two subjects that were being used as part of this experiment
were the Moryl twins, Andnej and Tanek.
As with
all previous experiments using the boys, Tanek was kept behind
in Isolierung Einheit Zwei, IE2, for conditioning and stimuli,
while Andnej was the subject whose "performance" and response
was measured and observed in great detail by Mengele and his
cohorts. Andnej was moved from one camp to the next, from
5km to 10, 15 and now finally 25. It was originally intended
for the experiment to be completed in just three days, but had
in fact taken over a day for Mengele to be satisfied with Andnejs’
"Connection" at D.O.Camp5, a further two days for him to be
satisfied with the results at Wlosenica10, and then four whole
days to be happy with what he observed at Zator15. They
had already been at Ryczow25 for five and a half days.
“Do
you think we will achieve our desired results today, Captain?”
inquired Dr. Fritz Klein of his superior and commanding medical
officer, Dr Mengele.
“Yes
I do, Doctor. In fact, I have no doubt whatsoever that
today will be a magnificent day for the Third Reich. Two
years of patience and hard work will pay off for us today, Fritz…
I know it.”
“But
Cap--”
“Fritz,
if you do not share my optimism, then maybe you can return to
your post in the chemical factory delousing the scum we have
working there!” snapped Mengele furiously, putting his subordinate
firmly in his place. The one thing Josef Mengele valued
above all in his staff, above even loyalty, was a blind faith
and devotion in whatever they were involved with at the time.
No matter how obtuse his hypotheses were or how cruel and macabre
the experiment was, he demanded unswerving diligence and faith
in him as their commanding officer, their leader, their God.
“Now,
let’s see how our young subject is recovering, shall we?”
The makeshift medical tent that housed Andnej was some 60ft
long by 30ft wide, and was split into two halves, a makeshift
barracks in one half and an "Observation Room" as the other,
complete with full field hospital and surgical equipment.
Andnej was kept in the observation room, strapped prone to a
hospital bed in the centre of the room and restrained, as always,
by his ankles, wrists, chest, neck, and forehead. An IV
drip was attached to a vein in his left arm; two more were attached
to his right. Two medical orderlies sat on his right,
one on his left, and Sergeant Karl Muller sat to the rear, purposely
behind Andnej, out of the light. To the northwest corner
of the room, left of the entrance under the "window" of the
tent sat SS Private Oliver Nowotny and his field radio unit.
In the northeast corner, a picana electrica machine, as yet
unused.
Back
at the camp itself, Tanek Moryl sat naked and frozen in the
dead centre of a four-by-three-foot metal cage. There
to keep him company for the duration of the experiment were
SS-Oberaufseherin Irma Grese, the camp's highest-ranked female,
a doctor known only as Thilon, two orderlies from Mengele's
personal staff, and SS-Private Mario Basler, who stood guard
to the right of the entrance to Isolation Unit Two. A
radio unit had been added the previous week. In a cage
next to Tanek's sat two black howler monkeys.
Klein
and Mengele entered the tent, greeted the others briefly, and
took their seats between Andnej and the radio operator.
“Private
Nowotny, Dr Klein will be communicating to D.O. 2 today.
Stand by to assist him in the operation of the radio, should
he need it.”
“Yes,
Captain.”
The
previous five days at Ryczow25 had followed the pattern of the
other stations in the experiment, and the experiment was as
basic as it was effective. Conditioning of Tanek would
begin, and then there would be a wait, sometimes a long one,
for Andnej to respond and begin displaying symptoms of Tanek's
conditioning. Once the connection was made between the
two, it did not easily stay. The psychic bond could and
did easily break, and no matter how many different combinations
of drugs and dosages Mengele instructed the doctors to administer,
he simply could not solve this problem. He never once
for a minute questioned whether or not his subjects did or didn’t
need the barbaric concoction of medicines he ordered for them;
he assumed he was the one granting them the power to free their
minds and use their "latent Aryan gifts," as he called them.
That morning alone, the connection had been established and
lost eight different times. None lasted longer than six
minutes, which was short of Mengele's own stipulated minimum
time for a connection of thirty minutes. Once they hit
thirty minutes and then repeated for another thirty minutes,
he gave the all clear and approval to move to the next level
of the experiment. He had ordered a break in the experiment
at around 1pm that afternoon, after both Andnej and Tanek had
simultaneously passed out, Tanek from the anguish and pain of
the level of conditioning he was being abused with, and Andnej
from being forced to remotely witness such abuse and pain being
brought down on his brother. Mengele immediately returned
to IE2 and gave explicit instructions that once connection was
made, under no circumstance was subject 2, Tanek, to be conditioned
further. Once connection was broken, conditioning was
to resume post haste. By the time he returned to Ryczow25,
both boys were awake.
“D.O.
Team 2, do you copy, over?” inquired Dr. Klein.
“Loud
and clear, D.O. One, over,” replied Thilon, in a voice that
lacked any resonance of tone or personality.
“D.O.2,
you are to proceed immediately with conditioning subject 2,
Level 3 only, repeat, level 3 only, over.”
“Understood,
over.”
During
the course of the previous two years of experimentation and
conditioning of his subjects, Mengele had devised a “Level of
Conditioning” chart in order for him and his associates to gain
some sort of control and consistency over the experiments they
were carrying out. It simply ran from Level 1 to Level
7 in severity, Level 1 being the tamest of stimuli, verbal and
mental assault, emotional degradation, nothing physical, through
levels 2 and 3, which involved, at first, mild beatings, then
firmer beatings with sticks, whips and belts. Level 4
and above, which started with mild electric shock treatment,
ran the full gamut of horrors that one human being could possibly
inflict on another, including electric current being applied
directly to the subject via a wand or sponge. No part
of the anatomy was safe. Levels 5 and 6 involved all kinds
of abuse: mental, physical, and often sexual. Rape and
depraved acts of sexual abuse of subjects by the Kapos and even
the camp Sonderkommandos was encouraged by Mengele and his team;
this reinforced their practice of psychic driving, of trauma,
repetition and reinforcement, making the subjects more amenable
and malleable for experimentation. Most of all, it emphasised
the trauma bonding between Mengele and his subjects, for there
would be nothing they would not do for "Uncle Mengele" once
he "rescued" them from the hell that was the Kapos barracks
or Isolation Units. Level 7 was an abomination of evil,
nothing more and nothing less. Once a subject was submitted
to Level 7 conditioning, death was certain. No one had
survived Level 7 conditioning at Auschwitz.
“D.O.2,
how is subject 2’s physical condition, over?”
“Subject
2 is still awake and lucid, Doctor, over.”
“Klein,
instruct them to go to Level 4, please.”
“Yes,
Captain.”
It had
been over forty-five minutes since the latest attempt at connection
had begun, yet Andnej had registered absolutely nothing; not
a flicker of emotion came from his bed.
“D.O.2,
you are instructed to proceed immediately to Level 4 conditioning,
over.”
“Copy
that D.O.1. Proceeding to Level 4 now, over.”
Almost
immediately, Andnej Moryl began whimpering and writhing in his
bed.
“Ah,
gentlemen, the dance begins!” remarked Mengele with joy.
There
had been a thousand and more times over the two years since
Mengele's arrival at Auschwitz that Karl Muller struggled to
keep his sidearm holstered, emotions intact and restrained himself
from blowing a hole in Mengele's psychotic unholy head, and
this time was no different. Bottom lip bitten ‘til bleeding,
fists clenched and toes curled, his mind far far away in that
special place he kept for himself at times like this, a vision
of home, with his wife and child, sunshine and roses in the
garden, the smell of freshly baked bread coming from the kitchen,
the smile of his nine-year-old boy, Tobias. Today was
one of those days; this was one of those moments. No human,
no child should go through what those poor souls had to endure,
day after day, month after month. But there was nothing
to gain but heartache and loss from rocking the boat and getting
himself shot, leaving his family to ruin and destitution once
the war was over, which, hopefully, would not be far away.
The Allies had finally broken the back of the German military
machine that very week. Athens had been recaptured by
the British and the Greeks, the United States had just landed
in the Philippines in the Pacific theatre of operations, Belgrade
had been liberated, Aachen had become the first German city
to fall that very week, and more importantly to Karl Muller
and everybody stationed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Soviet Army
had made their first inroads into East Prussia. The Red
Army was on its way. As long as news and rumour of this
advance held true, for every poor and broken soul that remained
at AZ and its factories, hope remained.
Andnej
seized, writhing and mumbling, and then fell silent.
“D.O.1,
come in. Subject 2 is showing severe signs of distress
at Level 4 conditioning, over.”
“Fritz,
instruct my team to continue to Level 5 conditioning.
The connection has yet again been lost. Level 5 please
only!”
“D.O.2,
come in, over… D.O.2, come in, over.”
“This
is D.O.2… Subject 2 is stabilising. We have seized
conditioning.”
“D.O.2,
you are instructed to proceed to Level 5 conditioning over,
Level 5 only, over.”
“But
Captain Mengele… The boy cannot take much more…
The experiment will fail if we--”
“Thilon!”
Mengele seized the controller from Klein's hand. “You
are relieved from your duty, Doctor!” Klein yelped in
pain as Mengele knocked him from the radio operators chair with
such force that he caught his temple on the corner of the table
upon which the radio unit sat, knocking him from his senses
briefly and opening a small wound.
“SS-Oberaufseherin
Grese is now in control of the experiment in IE2. Private
Basler! Remove Doctor Thilon and escort him to confinement
in his barracks until I return. Immediately!” Mengele
was raging, fuming to the point of insanity. How dare
one of his team question the direction of one of his experiments!
Only God himself or one of his purported miracles would save
Doctor Thilon from Court Martial. Insubordination and
dereliction of duty were crimes the Waffen-SS dealt with swiftly
and irrevocably. Firing squad within days would be that
man's fate.
“And
I shall be there to watch it,” Mengele thought to himself, salaciously.
“Senior
Supervisor Grese, do you have control of the Unit? Over.”
“Yes,
my Captain, I do, over.”
“Good…
Klein, assume your post.”
Klein
pulled himself up from the floor with the aid of one of the
orderlies and stumbled over to his chair.
“Shouldn’t
I get this wound tended to, Captain?”
“Wound?
Wound! If you think that’s a wound, Klein, I think maybe
you should be transferred to the Eastern front and deal with
the real wounds our SS brothers are suffering in Prussia this
very moment!” a now rabid Mengele retorted.
“Yyy...
Yes, Captain, at wa wha wha once, Captain,” stammered Klein
with such timidity that he never breathed out of turn again
as long as Josef Mengele was on the same continent.
“D D
D.O2…Do you copy, over?”
“D.O.2
copies loud and clear and ready to continue experiment, over,”
responded Irma Grese with excitement and willfulness in her
voice. She was always, always eager to please a Commanding
Officer in the SS, and especially keen to please someone who
was looked upon so favourably by the upper echelons of German
High Command and Der Fuhrer himself, notwithstanding the fact
that Mengele was one of her many lovers at the camp, male or
female, SS or prisoner; Irma Greses’ appetite knew no bounds.
Neither did her appetite for sadistic behaviour, or love thereof.
“D.O.2,
please proceed to Level 5 conditioning for subject 2, over.”
“Copy
that, over.”
And
so the dance did indeed begin again. Tanek's conditioning
and physical abuse was taken to a new level, and Andnej was
forced to witness such hurt and pain.
The
connection between the two brothers was soon re-forged, and
as per previous experiments, Andnej began relating to Mengele
what he saw in IE2 through Tanek's eyes. A series of symbols
were held up in front of Tanek on a lectern, Zener card symbols,
devised by Dr. Karl Zener, an American Professor of Parapsychology
at Duke University, North Carolina in the mid-1930’s (whose
research, along with many others around the globe, was jumped
upon and exploited by the occult-mad elite of the Third Reich)
to determine psychic ability. Mengele's hypothesis was
a simple one, that whatever Subject 2 was allowed to see, Subject
1 would "see" also, no matter the physical distance between
them. The cards were twenty-five in number and imprinted
with differing patterns, five each of circle, star, cross, square
and wavy lines. The cards were shuffled and then turned
over one by one while Subject 1, Andnej, tried to guess the
order they would appear in. Though in this case, no one
suspected Andnej was guessing. He never failed to score
below 25 out of 25 each time the deck was run. This was
how Mengele measured his response. He allowed two seconds
per card, with a ten-second overrun allowed for "psychic interference,"
as he called it. That’s one minute per run of cards, and
thirty runs of cards per the thirty minute session he deemed
appropriate and effective enough for long distance military
viewing purposes. As long as the connection held, Andnej
never disappointed his Uncle Mengele.
The connection was holding. Andnej shook and mumbled,
whimpered and whispered. He writhed and buckled and began
recounting the symbols he "saw" above himself.
“Circle."
“Circle."
“Cros...”
“Lines.”
“Square.”
“Squar…”
“Star.”
“Lines.”
“St..”
“Circ…”
Ad infinitum,
until Mengele was satisfied with the result. They got
to the 18th run of cards, the 18th minute of the connection,
when Irma Greses’ voice crackled through the dimly-lit tent.
“Captain,
do you copy? Do you copy? Over.”
Andnej
had ceased all movement, no shaking, no writhing, eyes wide
open, mouth repeating over and over.
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Ignore
her, Klein; this is the longest we have got so far.”
“Yes,
Captain.”
Nineteen,
then twenty minutes passed.
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
Andnej repeated over and over.
“Captain?
My captain, this is D.O.2. Do you copy, over?!?!?”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Blast
it, Klein! Give me the Radio! Tell that imbecile
to change the card!”
“D.O.2,
this is D.O.1… You are instructed to change the card immediately.
Do you copy, over?”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“D.O.2,
this is D.O.1. You are--”
“We
copy you, D.O.1. Where have you been? Subject 2
passed out and collapsed some time ago! Experiment is
over! I repeat, experiment is over!”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Nonsense!”
Again, Mengele ripped the microphone from Klein.
“Grese,
this is Captain Mengele. The experiment is not over.
Subject 1 is lucid and is in a state of connection with Subject
2. Proceed as planned with the experiment! Over.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“And
change that blasted card! Over!”
“But
Captain! Subject 2 is unconscious. I repeat, unconscious,
over!”
“Grese,
this is your final warning!” bellowed Captain Josef Mengele,
now standing and fuming as Krakatoa must have the split second
before it had blown itself from existence forever the century
before.
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Resume
the experiment, change the card, and grasp the realisation that
you will soon be burning with the rest of your prisoners in
the crematoria if you do not drop this behaviour! Over!”
And
silence. The only voice to be heard was Andnej Moryl's,
repeating over and over:
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Grese!”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Captain,
Subject 2 is now heading for the infirmary, over.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Impossible!
Impossible! What card is showing on the stand? What
card is showing, I ask!?!?”
“What,
Captain? What did you say?”
“Goddamn
you to hell, Grese! What symbol is showing on the lectern
above Subject 2’s cage!?!?”
“Circle,
sir, a circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
Mengele
sat, calm and controlled for the first time in what seemed like
hours, but in reality, was only minutes. He loosened the
top of his tunic, removed his hat, mopped his brow and took
the deepest breath he ever swallowed. He composed himself,
absorbed all that had just occurred, and sprung to life, in
complete control of his emotions once again.
“Supervisor
Grese, please follow my instructions carefully, over.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Circle.”
“Yes,
Captain, of course, over.”
“Please
change the card symbol overlooking the cage of Subject 2.
Do not tell me what the replacement card is, over.”
“Yes,
sir… I have changed the card, over.”
“Star.”
“Star.”
“Star.”
“Star,”
Andnej Moryl repeated over and over.
“What
symbol is displayed now, over?”
“Star,
sir, over.”
“Could
you repeat that please, Supervisor Grese, over?”
“Star.”
“Star.”
“Star,”
Andnej kept repeating.
“The
symbol on the card on the lectern Captain is a Star, over.”
Silence
fell.
“Star.”
“Star.”
“Star.”
“What
does this mean, Captain?” Dr. Klein was the first to break
the silence.
“I’m
not so sure, Doctor. Right now, as of this moment, I believe
we have been looking at this from the wrong angle.”
“Star.”
“Star.”
“Star.”
“Supervisor
Grese, could you change the card one more time, please, over?”
“Yes,
sir... The card has now been changed, over.”
“Can
you confirm the whereabouts of Subject 2 please, Supervisor
Grese?”
A pause,
while Private Basler hurriedly rushed to find out where Tanek
Moryl had been taken.
“He
is in the infirmary, Captain. I repeat, he is in the infirmary.”
“Cross.”
“Cross.”
“Cross.”
“Thank
you, Irma… And what symbol is displayed now? Over.”
“A Cross,
Captain. I repeat a Cross is now displayed, over.”
“Cross.”
“Cross.”
“Cross.”
“Supervisor
Grese, could you please remove the card and leave the lectern
empty, over?”
“Lectern
empty, Captain, over.”
“…”
Silence
fell in the tent. Only the gentle breeze of the Polish
evening brushing the side of the tent could be heard.
Mengele retired to his chair, exhausted and amazed by what had
just occurred.
“I’ve
done it… I’ve done it… I’ve done it… I’ve
done it!” he repeated to himself over and over. The realisation
and importance of what the experiment had just shown was beginning
to dawn on Dr. Mengele. It was simple. There did
not need to be a psychic connection between two subjects at
all. The power was there for the subject to "connect"
with a target, no matter where that target was! All he
had to do was unlock that power, that long distance psychic
sight, and hey presto, a spy was born! Mengele rose and
began pacing around the observation room, then outside around
the tent, collecting his thoughts, smoking a cigarette.
The other members of D.O.1 knew better than to disturb him while
he was collecting his thoughts in that manner. Five minutes
passed before Mengele returned to his seat next to the radio.
“Supervisor
Grese, are you there? Over.”
“Yes,
Captain, we are all here, over.”
“Good,
good.” Mengele paused for a second, his mind flooding
with ideas and hypotheses. "Grese, is there a book in
the room, a book of any sort? Over.”
“Yes,
Captain, I have my copy of--”
“Stop!
Stop! Do not tell me what it is! Please open the
book to a random page and begin reading. Please ensure
that the radio unit is switched off, over.”
“Understood,
sir, over.”
“Reestablish
contact with us in exactly 10 minutes, please, over.”
“Yes,
sir, over.”
The
crackling sound of atmospheric interference had ceased; Grese
had switched off the radio in IE2. Mengele moved over
to Andnej and began whispering to him, gently and paternally.
“Andi,
my boy, it's Uncle Mengele. Do you hear me?”
“…”
“Andi,
listen to me. Andi, can you see a woman in the room?
Can you see the woman?”
“She
hurt Tanek, Uncle… She hurt Tanek,” Andnej responded,
who by now was in an almost trance like state, staring up at
the ceiling of the tent, eyes peeled both wide open.
“I know
Andi, I know. I need you to help me one more time.
I need you to tell me what she’s doing. Is she still hurting
Tanek?”
“No…
Tanek's gone, Uncle… Tanek's gone.”
“Okay,
boy. Tanek is being looked after now, Andi, in the hospital,
the hospital for the soldiers. I promise he will be safe,
understand, Andi?”
“I understand,
Uncle.”
“Good,
good. Now tell me, what is that terrible woman doing now,
boy?
“She’s…
she’s sitting down... near the door… next to the cage with monkeys,
Uncle.”
“I want
you to concentrate all your power on that woman, Andi, the woman
who hurt your brother. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes,
Uncle Mengele… Yes.”
“Now
tell me, what is she doing in the chair?”
“I…
I… I think she’s reading, Uncle. Yes, she is reading from
a book.”
“Good,
good. Andi, my boy, you are doing fantastically well.
When you are finished, I will take you back to my quarters where
I have a large box of candy for us to share. Would you
like that?”
“Yes,
Uncle, I would… Can Tanek come, too?”
“Of
course he can, Andi. Of course he can,” he lied.
He didn’t even know if Tanek was still alive. He knew
Irma Grese and her love of pain and her salacious appetite for
administering it very well indeed. If the she had used
the monkeys, well, there was no question. Tanek Moryl
would indeed be dead.
“Now
Andi, I want you to really, really concentrate hard and
tell me what she is saying. Tell me what she is saying,
boy.”
Andnej
didn’t have to concentrate at all; the words just spilled out,
taking everyone in the room by complete surprise. Not
least of all Mengele, to whom the thought and excitement of
a subject being able to see over extended distances was enough
in itself, but for that subject to be able to hear what
was happening at the remote location, well, the possibilities
were indeed endless.
“…useful
also for later years. The young girl must become acquainted
with her sweetheart. If the beauty of the body were not
completely forced into the background today through our stupid
manner of dressing, it would not be possible for thousands of
our girls to be led astray by Jewish mongrels, with their repulsive
crooked waddle. It is also in the interests of the nation
that those who have a beautiful physique should be brought into
the foreground, so that they might encourage the development
of a beautiful bodily form among the people in general.
Military training is excluded among us today, and therewith
the only institution which in peace-times at least partly made
up for the lack of physical training in our education.
Therefore what I have suggested is all the more necessary in
our time. The success of our old--”
Mengele
jumped to his feet. “I’ve done it! I’ve done it!
Nowotny, patch a call through to High Command immediately.
I’m going to Berlin this very evening!”
“--girl
preferred the soldier to one who was not a soldier. The
People's State must not confine its control of physical training
to the official school period, but it must demand that, after
leaving school and while the adolescent body is still developing,
the boy continues this training. For on such proper physical
development success in after-life largely depends. It
is stupid to think that the right of the State to supervise
the education of its young citizens suddenly comes to an end
the moment they leave school and recommences only with military
service. This right is a duty, and as such it must continue
uninterruptedly. The present State, which--"
Mengele
moved over to Andnej, loosening the straps around his head and
chest.
“It’s
okay now, boy. You can stop listening; stop talking now.
You have been magnificent, my boy, you truly have. Come
on, let's go eat some candy together.”
“--People's
State will have to consider the physical training of the youth
after the school period just as much a public duty as their
intellectual training; and this training will have to be carried
out through public institutions. Its general lines can
be a preparation for subsequent service in the army. And
then it will no longer be the task of the army to teach the
young recruit the most elementary drill regulations. In
fact, the army will no longer--”
“Hey!
Hey, Andi! Andi! You can stop now!”
Mengele
slapped the boy firmly across his cheek with his leather glove
and took a sponge of cold water and doused his face with the
intention of rousing him from the almost hypnotic trance he
seemed to be in. Andnej broke off his recounting of Irma
Greses’ reading and slumped into Mengele's arms.
“Nurse…
Doctor… Clean the boy up, feed, water, clothe him and
prepare him for transportation back to the camp.”
“Yes,
sir” replied Klein and the orderly simultaneously.
“Uncle
Mengele… Uncle Mengele, can we see Tanek now?”
“Not
just yet, Andi, not just yet.”
“What
was I saying... I saw that woman… heard her… What
was she saying, Uncle?”
“She
was reading a book, Andi my boy, a book all of us must read
if we are to fulfill our potential.”
“A book
by who, Uncle? Who?”
“By
our Fuhrer. of course. Herr Hitler.”
“Oh…
Okay, Uncle…”
“Don’t
worry, boy, you will soon learn more about our most supreme
leader.”
“How,
Uncle?”
“Why
Andnej my boy, you’ll be meeting him tomorrow… We leave
for the fatherland immediately… We’re going to Berlin.”
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