Chapter Seven

Letters from Germany

It was early in 1939 and the news on our little wireless set was becoming more dangerous with hints and chatters about a war. I was weary to think that any of the prisoners who were in the Home with me, would be young enough to go into another war and what was this all about if not to kill as many young men and woman as you could. Living seemed only to wait for death. There was NO PEACE... Life would have gone on so happily until Germany started to become a restless Germany again... Hitler had turned out to be quite a fanatic but he had a powerful way of attracting the crowds and Eric wrote to me telling me that the Germany I had left was very different to the Germany in which he lived with mother and he emphasized that mother had been taken very ill and refused to go into hospital as so many of her elderly friends who had gone into hospital, NEVER CAME OUT AGAIN. Eric also told me that I would not recognise mother if I could see her now. She was in her seventies but looked like a woman of ninety. Her hair was white and her eyesight was failing and it was then that I thought that perhaps I had not done the right thing staying in Scotland when I did, but letters from Eric were distracting and sometimes even frightening. In one letter he told me that mother was afraid to leave the house as several of our neighbours had been arrested from their homes and taken into prisons. Eric told me that soldiers in Nazi uniforms who were called THE GESTAPO were going around with swastikas on their shoulders and arresting Jews from their homes and from the shops they owned. The last letter I got from Eric gave me a real fright as he said that he would have to go into a prison for Jews and take mother with him and stay with her in the prison which was called a concentration camp and that any letter I sent him to the address where I was born and broughup as a child would be no use and the letter would be returned as address unknown.

All these thoughts in my mind disturbed me but I did not want to share them with Anna or the children and especially as things seemed to be going very well for Anna and her mother and they had been round to our house for dinner on several occasions and we had been invited back to theirs for the same.

The children were going to school now and Anna had been to see the Hospital Matron hoping that she might be able to return to the hospital as a nursing sister, whereas I was moving from hospital to hospital as a doctor and giving lessons to students, apart from using my practice at the local town hall which was being used as an A&E centre.

We bought another little wireless radio from a local shop and listened to the news daily as the last little set we had seemed to have given up on us, probably because the electricity in the place was so bad, but we waited until the children had gone to bed and some of the disturbing news was that Down Syndrome children and mentally ill people in Germany were being treated like animals where they were considered to be unable to exercise any function in their community. Doctors were being told to treat the brains of these unfortunate people and remove any part or all of the brain if they found the patients were not using their brains properly.

People were talking in Inverness, suggesting that another war was inevitable and Winston Churchill was telling people to be ready if such should happen.

I was in total confusion and feeling somewhat guilty that I was not a doctor in Germany as I would never have agreed to the treatment that was served out to these unfortunate Downs Syndrome children. What would have happened to young Oliver who died with jaundice if he had been born in Germany? The thought terrified me and although Anna listened to the news with me, I hoped that she didn’t accept it in the same mind as I did. It seemed that Adolf Hitler wanted to rule the world and God help anyone or any nation (If he considered that humans had a God) that would oppose him. It was true what Eric had said... Germany had changed and had become a nation of lunatics, but sadly these lunatics would be in control of the country for a very long time and everyone in that country would have to suffer.

I decided I would have to have a good talk to Anna and even the children if I had any idea of returning to Germany with hopes that I could do something for my mother and improve SOME of the conditions there amongst the many people who were reported as suffering unnecessarily and I took the opportunity of walking young Adam to school whilst Anna took Freya. I saw her look at me twice as she always took the children to school herself, but I made the excuse this was “man to man talk” and she accepted that excuse with a smile. I tried to explain to Adam that I may have to go to Germany on some doctor’s business and I think he took this seriously as he knew I was often late in coming home when I was on medical duty. On the way home from school, I gave Anna the same excuse, but she wasn’t so accepting of the situation and stopped me before we got home.

“This is something to do with this war we may be having with Germany, isn’t it?” she said and I told her about the information I had received from Eric and the fears I had that many young and old German people would suffer a fate worse than death under the existing regime and she seemed to understand.

“Darling,” she said as she clasped my hand. “Do please be careful and now that my mother is so fond and caring for Adam and Freya, we could go together to Germany and

I know you are a doctor and a damned good one, if you will pardon the expression, but Germany is a very big place and you will only be able to help a very small number of people, if you can help at all. I understand that Hitler has an army of Nazis who will stop at nothing to do his will and you know what that will is, don’t you?”

I knew Anna was talking sense, but as a doctor and a native of Germany which was the country that I loved, I knew I would have to do something, even it was ever so small, to assist with the problem as much as I could and most of all, not forgetting my deep love for Anna, I felt a terrible pang of neglect when I came to thinking about my own mother... My father had been dead for several years and apart from Eric, my mother had no-one near her to see if she was well or otherwise It was in this moment of my thoughts that Adam came rushing up towards as crying. He had cut his knee in the football field and we had to take him back home and in the time we spent together with this concern, Anna and I discussed the journey to Germany in more detail.

“If you truly think you have to go, darling, couldn’t the children and I go with you,” said Anna, but this was the last thing I would have considered and explained to her that such a move would be far too dangerous in every way. The best place for her was in Inverness with the children who had already started their schooling and besides, it was women and children like our family, who were being persecuted in Germany, but Anna reminded me that she was not a Jew and that she was a Christian,

“But you are my wife, Anna and I am a Jew... that would be enough to put you in prison, or worse.” We argued over and over again about the situation, but after Anna had dressed Adam’s knee, we decided the best thing was to sleep on the matter after we had dinner that evening.

The news the following morning informed us that Ukranians were being murdered in Lviv and polish prisoners were being murdered in Katyn. It seemed that Hitler had invaded Poland and was heading for France where it was anticipated that his next move would be Great Britain.

It was at that moment I decided I would have to go back to Germany as any assistance, even so little as I was able to offer was very much better than nothing and certainly very much better than waiting for the famous Hitler to invade us in Britain and Anna began to realize the dangers and reluctantly agreed with my suggestion, but we decided to say nothing to the children, except to tell them I was going away with some work to do with the fact that I was a doctor and everyone seemed settled on that score, but HOW TO GET INTO GERMANY? That was the big question and seemed the most difficult thing to do. Good intentions are alright, but reality is another question, however, I spoke to an RAF pilot in one of the hospitals I had to visit and he explained how difficult this task would be. DIFFICULT, but not impossible and he told me of a pilot who flew out every night, simply to view the prospects of any signs of invasion and this pilot agreed to fly over Italy and parts of Germany where he could drop me BY PARACHUTE into some part of Germany, but he could not tell me exactly where in Germany he would drop me, so I had to take this chance and as I knew Germany very well, it wasn’t so difficult. The parachute jump was going to be the most difficult, but I was willing to try..

Four days later, about 2 in the morning, I went off and by 3.29 I was in Germany.

I made my way into Munich and stayed at an hotel on the first night hoping to visit my own mother’s house the following morning before I could do anything else, but the following morning I went in the Governments office and told the authorities there of my plan, but withholding that I had been a POW in Scotland for the past twenty years. I gave the impression that I was a fervent follower of the Fuhrer and that as I was a professional doctor, I wanted to help in any way to bring Germany back to what it had been in the past... A country of glory.

Within three weeks I was conscripted into the Nazi Army and wore a swastika on my arm. It was expected that I should know how to salute with a ZEIG HEIL and I managed that too, with as much sincerity as I could muster. The visit to my mother’s house had to be postponed because of so many things that came up. It seemed that the German Army needed a doctor badly, however it was a few weeks before I was able to attend to anyone who would have been offensive to the ‘FATHERLAND’ but one afternoon just as I was about to leave the hospital, I was called to attend to a man who seemed to be having fits as he was throwing himself around everywhere and swearing in very rich German indeed. The nurses steadied him and he was slung onto a stretcher before I was able to examine him and I found that he truly was epileptic and yet another doctor in the room sniffed as he told me to get rid of him and I was confused as to what he meant.

“He’s a pain in the arse is that one,” this other doctor said ,”That’s Joseph. We all know him in here and he’ll fool around like that to get some attention and something to eat and then he’ll be back again next week with the same caper. Put the bastard down. He’s no use to anyone.”

I could not believe what I had heard... this man Joseph whatever his other name was, suffered from epliepsy; a minor deficiency in many people and yet that other doctor walked away with a cigarette in his hand and touched one of the nurses on the bum. The patient looked terrified as he scuffled away and I followed him as he went, but he looked at me in fear.

“Don’t touch me please,” he said, “I don’t want to die. Leave me alone please,” but I put my hand up in the air and told him to calm down and that I knew what was wrong with him, nevertheless he continued to pull himself away from my touch and told me again that he was alright but that he didn’t want to die.. In my perplexity, I decided to follow this man when he left the hospital and he lived in a house only a few miles away. I saw him go into the house through the door and I rang the bell after he had gone in. He immediately came back to the door but when he saw it was me he slammed the door again and ran inside screaming again, “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die” and I banged on the door again only to be met by another man, who asked me to go away as he looked out into the street to ensure that I was on my own.

“There is nothing wrong with your friend, “I shouted, “I am a doctor and I know,” but as the second man was about to close the door again, he came out slowly into the street and told me that everyone in that house was WELL and I asked him why he should emphasise that as I could see nothing seriously wrong with the man I had examined for epilepsy and in that second I realized then that the patient who had epilepsy had looked into my face as if he was seeing a ghost,

“There are fourteen of us in this house,” said the second man, “some with epilepsy, bypola or some type of mental illness, but we want to be able to live. We don’t want to die. Please go away.”

It was when he said that I thought again about what that other doctor at the hospital had said and then I realized that these fourteen people had gathered in this house as they understood they would be put into prison before being sent to a concentration camp to die, because the Nazis had no time for anyone who was not in perfect health.

When I returned to the hospital, I spoke again to the doctor who told me to ‘put the bastard down as he was no use to anyone,” and he sneered again, telling me that he could see I was a new doctor in the hospital, but that I would learn in time that the Dictator made no mistakes in how he was governing our country, so I should have a stiff beer or two and follow the common rules.

I went back to the barracks where I was billeted with the other German officers and wondered if there were any more addresses near the hospital where people shut themselves in with a fear that they would be murdered for having a normal deficiency that would stigmatize them from any other normal citizen in the town..

The following morning, I decided that I would visit my old home in the Karl Yarres Straasa as it seemed to me that many of the houses in the district where I was born looked exactly like the home where Joseph lived and before I set out, Iwent through the hospital records where patient’s names and addresses were shown for what illness they had, but I saw none that were in any way lacking for any minor illness or deficiency in the brain. Joseph’s name did not appear anywhere, but it may have been too late to concern myself in that way, as that afternoon I was transferred to the military wing where I was commissioned as an officer and was in charge of all medical matters with the armed forces and I noticed that nearly all the doctors who worked with me as military captains had the same idea about ‘extermination’ which worried and surprised me and I made my way to Karl Yarres Straasa and slowly looked carefully at all the houses in the street, but I was stunned when I came to 43, the number of the house where I was born... and there was no house there at all. The last house numbered was 35 and all I could see at what should have been 43 was a pile of old rubble and some burnt out pieces of wood. The house had obviously been burnt down and I wondered immediately what had happened to my mother.

I immediately returned to the hospital and was introduced to several nurses who looked anything but efficient as there was a lot of loud music in the background and some of the nurses were cavorting around in what looked like a waltz... and then another young Doctor came into our unit and I was pleased to remember that he had been in training with me at the Stuttgart university. He recognised me immediately with a broad smile and then suddenly his face changed as his hand slipped away from mine where I thought we had formed a friendship. I spoke calling his name, but he looked away as if he had made a mistake and had never met me before and that I could not understand

“Kurt,... Kurt Mansell. Don’t you recognise me? I am Hans Knust. We were in university together,” I called out but as he was about to walk away, he swayed for a moment and then turned to face me again.

“Yes, I remember you Hans,” he said very slowly as if he had just remembered, “but today’s Germany is not the same as when we were in university. I thought you would have realized that.”

I thought then that Kurt would have thought about life in Germany as the other doctors who wore the military uniform with the swastika on the arm, but there was a hesitancy in his movements that I could not fully understand until I asked him if he had many patients who were in any way mentally ill, either because of shock from being in the war or in any other way and he looked at me strangely for a few moments.

“Why are so interested in any kind of mental instability, Hans? Have you specialized in some way with the mentally insane? he asked and I asked him if he knew of Joseph, where to my surprise he knew immediately which Joseph I was talking about, without even mentioning a surname of this man and asked me if we could have a chat later on that evening...

Later that evening I sat in the army canteen and waited for Kurt to arrive, but as he strolled in through the door, I saw he was with a few other military officers of the Reich and they all wore the swastika.

I was about to leave the canteen as I felt he would be unable to talk freely with so many other officers beside him but he turned to me and surprisingly excused himself from the company of the other officers with a Nazi salute and turned to me, saying my name allowed and how he wanted to have a little chat if I was available.

I understood that most likely he had been waylaid by those other officers when he was coming into the canteen, but I was pleased at any cost to be able to have a conversation with him and he did with a very different voice to what he had used before when I had first met him.