We were doing a test run of the new ovens. Two towering chimneys rising from the new Krema sent smoke and fire into the sky. The view of the lake was impressive, the gray water stretching to the shore beyond, to the clusters of brick homes and the church steeple of quaint Fürstenberg. A bank of gray clouds gathered on the horizon.
I stepped to the doorway with several fellow members of the camp staff, and Elfriede Suhren, the commandant’s slender, blond-haired wife, waved us in. Unlike her predecessor, Anna Koegel, who shouted at the prisoner hairdressers in the camp beauty salon, Elfriede was a gentle woman, whose chief duty appeared to be rounding up their four children much as a farmer wrangles geese.
I walked through the house, past an old man dressed in a Tyrolean jacket and cap who sat at a piano playing German folk songs and into a small library where Suhren stood in the corner, enjoying beer and cigars with Fritz and Dr. Rosenthal. Hunting trophies cluttered the walls: Deer heads. Taxidermied fish. A Russian boar. Suhren’s bookshelf held a vast collection of Hummel figurines, though curiously, only the boy Hummels.
The men were too engrossed in their favorite topic to notice me at first. They were discussing the brothel Suhren was sending Ravensbrück H?ftlings to at Mauthausen and the details of how the lucky winners would be sterilized before leaving. Fritz caught my eye and winced for my benefit.
Suhren and Rosenthal drifted away and I joined Fritz under the gaping mouth of the decapitated Russian boar, a fake pink tongue lolling out of its mouth.
Things had been going well with Fritz and me. We’d seen a movie together at the camp cinema above the garage complex: Stukas, a sentimental story about a German pilot who is cured of his depression by listening to Wagner. Fritz squirmed in his seat throughout the film, saying it was all ridiculous, but it was nice to enjoy an evening together. And Fritz had given me a potted hyacinth. It sat on my desk perfuming the air. How smart he was to choose a potted plant over cut flowers, which died so quickly.
“Suhren has a lovely home,” I said.
Fritz sipped his beer. “Unless you like your animals with a pulse.”
A dog yapped from the kitchen, a small one from the sound of it. The worst kind. At least large breeds had a purpose—to guard against intruders or hunt for food.
We walked to the kitchen, which was clean and modern, with sleek oak cabinets and the latest lighting. Guests helped themselves to cherry-red punch from the cut glass punch bowl on the kitchen table.
“Do you think Gebhardt will send Himmler updates on the sulfonamide trials?” I asked. “Mention our names?”
Fritz held the kitchen door for me as we walked into the dining room. “That’s of no concern to me. I’m leaving.”
I stopped short, a little light-headed. How could Fritz just leave? He was one of my few allies. Leave me with Binz and Winkelmann?
“Why so suddenly? Maybe think about…”
Fritz finished his beer and placed the empty stein on a glass box containing a stuffed frightened partridge, frozen in midflight.
“I’ve had enough of Gebhardt, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Stress affects us all differently—”
“You don’t know half of what’s going on at Hohenlychen. Arm transplant yesterday. Half of Berlin was there at his spa to watch it all, arm courtesy of some poor Gypsy H?ftling.”
Gebhardt was not only a Gruppenführer in the SS and Generalleutnant in the Waffen-SS, personal physician to Reichsführer-SS Himmler, and Chief Surgeon of the Staff of the Reich Physician SS—he was also chief of staff at Hohenlychen, the sprawling spa-hospital fourteen kilometers from the camp.
“Why was I not invited?”
“Count your blessings, Herta. It’s a sideshow. Now, with this sulfa project…”
“At least you get to operate.”
Fritz felt the stubble of his beard. “It’s disgusting, doing that to healthy women. It stinks in those recovery rooms.”
“They keep asking for more morphine.”
“So give them more morphine,” Fritz said. “It won’t change the results. The whole thing is inhumane.”
“Gebhardt says to keep pain meds to a minimum. Why the change of heart about sacrificing prisoners all of a sudden?”
“I’m tired of it, Herta. The suffering—”
“We have no other option.”
“There are other options, Herta. If we stop operating on them, they’ll stop suffering. Gebhardt just uses us to do his dirty work. Don’t you see?”
“It can’t be helped, Fritz.” How could he let sentimentality interfere with his judgment? The operations were for the greater good of Germany.
“Well, I’ll be gone. They need surgeons at the front to stitch up our boys who are dying in a war we can’t win.”
“How can you say that? Such a defeatist—”
Fritz pulled me closer. “Before I go I want to tell you: Be careful with your new nurse.”
“Halina?”
“I’ve heard things—”
“Men are such gossips. What’s being said?”
“I don’t…”
“Tell me.”
“They say there’s something going on with you two.”
“That’s the most—”
“Something not in keeping with the Führer’s wishes.”
Suhren and Dr. Gebhardt pushed through the crowd and stepped closer to us, all smiles, Suhren tall and trim, redheaded Gebhardt more compact.
Commandant Suhren shook my hand. “Fr?ulein Oberheuser, I have some good news for you.”
Why did he not address me as doctor?
“I’m happy to say one of my first duties will be to bestow a great honor on you.”
Gebhardt stepped closer. “Not just any honor. You’ve been recommended for the War Merit Cross.”
The War Merit Cross? Mutti would have a nervous collapse if I brought that home—the silver cross on a ribbon of red and black. The award was created by the Führer himself. I would be among Hitler’s chosen few who’d received this honor. Adolf Eichmann and Albert Speer to name just two. Was it for my participation in the sulfa experiments?
I turned to share my excitement with Fritz.
It wasn’t until then that I realized he’d gone.
—
I WAS THE FIRST DOCTOR in the OR the next morning, ready for my first day assisting in a new round of sulfonamide operations. I stepped to the sink to scrub up. I removed Halina’s ring, the one I’d taken from the files in the Effektenkammer, where prisoner property was stored, and secreted it in my pocket. No need for Dr. Gebhardt to see such a fine ring on my finger, since camp guidelines forbade the wearing of any conspicuous jewelry. I would give the ring back to Halina one day. Such a pretty diamond. If I hadn’t rescued it, there was no telling where it might have ended up. On the finger of Elfriede Suhren, no doubt.
Nurse Gerda had the patients prepped and sedated. Nurse Marschall had done an adequate job compiling the lists of patients for the experiments. Each lay, covered by a blanket, on a separate gurney. I checked the surgical instruments, opened a box of Evipan vials, and set it on the tray.
We had prepared objects to insert into the wounds to simulate battlefront injuries. Rusty nails, wood and glass splinters, gravel, and a mix of garden soil and a bacterial culture of Clostridium tetani. Each patient would have a different infectant introduced into her wound. Dr. Gebhardt arrived from Hohenlychen Sanatorium by private car that morning.
“Glad you are in early, Dr. Oberheuser. Dr. Fischer is not able to join us.”
“Is he ill, Doctor?”
Gebhardt removed his jacket. “Transferred.”
I tried not to let my disappointment show. Fritz really gone?
“If I may ask, where, Doctor?”
“The Tenth SS Division as chief surgeon of a medical company assigned to the Tenth Panzer Regiment on the western front,” Dr. Gebhardt said, his face flushed. “Apparently thinks he can be of more use there…”
How could Fritz leave without a goodbye?
“I understand, Dr. Gebhardt. By the way, prisoner-nurse Gerda Quernheim is on today as well.”
“Good. I have been very impressed with your attention to detail,” Dr. Gebhardt said. “Would you like to take the lead today?”
“Operate, Doctor?”
“Why not? You’d like the practice?”
“Yes, thank you, Doctor,” I said.
Was this really happening?