Lilac Girls

  I had an entire scrapbook devoted to Germany’s successes in Russia. The capture of Kiev. The advance toward Moscow. True, we’d suffered our first major retreat there just miles from the Kremlin due to the early, cold winter and the fact that our soldiers were fighting in light uniforms. But when the Führer asked the German people to send warm clothes to the boys, we had all sent skiing boots, ear protectors, and half a million fur coats! The paper predicted that, with warmer weather coming, developments would progress rapidly in our favor.

  My career at Ravensbrück was progressing rapidly as well. In the summer, Commandant Suhren replaced Koegel, and it was a welcome change. Where Koegel had been corpulent and long-winded, Suhren was trim and concise. He was a charming man who appreciated the hard work I had put into cleaning up the Revier, and we got on well from the start.

  The commandant threw a welcome party for himself at his home, a snug beige stucco place with an A-line roof and forest-green shutters, high on the ridge overlooking the camp. I left my quarters at five minutes until seven that night and climbed the steep steps to the commandant’s residence.

  From that perch, Suhren enjoyed a complete view of the whole camp and surrounding area, including Uckermark, the youth camp, and the Siemens subcamp a few kilometers in the distance. As night fell, I could see lines of Häftlings returning from work to the main camp, and the powerful camp lights came on, illuminating the blocks below. The siren sounded and Häftlings streamed out onto the courtyard for Appell.

  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 Häftlings 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 Häftling.”

  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. “Fräulein 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?

  “Make sure the faces stay covered, Doctor,” Dr. Gebhardt said. “Just a precaution for anonymity. And be aggressive. Jump right in. No need for gentle tissue handling.”

  One after the next, Gerda wheeled the patients in, towels across their faces.

  We worked well into the evening. I was careful not to rush the closing, crafting my square knot sutures, spiky and black, like tracks of barbed wire guarding each incision.

  “I don’t compliment often, Dr. Oberheuser, but you have a gift for surgery that cannot be taught. All you need is practice.”

  Such praise!

  We finished the night with a few sterilizations, a new treatment ordered by Himmler himself. I walked back to my room through the quiet camp and slept soundly thanks to my sleep aid of choice, Luminal, waking only once, to the sounds of Binz and her boyfriend Edmund making love in the bathtub.

  —

  I TOOK MY TIME getting dressed the next morning, knowing the nurses would record patient vitals and Halina would handle the Revier for me, but when I arrived there, things were chaotic. I found a new camp staff nurse sitting in for Halina, and the line of those awaiting medical attention was out the door.

  “Madame Doctor, we have run out of paper bandages,” the nurse said, as she shook a thermometer.

  “Where is Halina?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, Madame Doctor. Wardress Binz told me to sit here.”

  I went to the recovery room to check on my patients from the previous day, and the smell there was terrible. I knew that meant the cultures were doing their jobs, but the charts were untouched, no vitals recorded. One of the patients was already out of bed, hopping on one foot, visiting with the other patients.

  “Please, we need water,” she said. “And more bedpans.”

  I left the room and found Gerda in the hallway enjoying a cigarette.

  “Keep them in bed,” I said. “Movement prevents the infection from taking root.”

  I locked the door and went to locate Binz. After trudging about half the camp, I found her at the Angora rabbit pens, a vast complex of cages heated and kept spotless by the Bible girls. She and one of her subordinates were cooing over a baby rabbit, a white ball of fluff with ears like feather dusters.

  “What is going on in the Revier?” I asked.

  The other Aufseherin slid the rabbit back in the cage and beat a hasty retreat.

  “You come out here without a word of hello?” Binz said. “Someone had to take charge in there.”

  “You have no right—”

  “It could not be helped,” Binz said, folding her arms across her chest.

  “Make some sense, Binz.”

  “You don’t know?”

  It was all I could do not to shout at her. “Where is Halina?”

  “Maybe we should talk about this elsewhere.”

  “What have you done, Binz?”

  “For God’s sake, don’t cry. You don’t want my girls seeing you emotional. I warned you about the Poles, didn’t I? You have no one to blame but yourself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, that makes two of us. Suhren couldn’t believe what that Pole of yours was up to. Let’s just say you’ll be needing a new assistant.”

  1942

  “All the way to the back, and face the front,” said our new elevator operator, Estella.

  In her orthopedic loafers and nylon knee-high stockings, Estella was a far cry from Junior Rockefeller’s ideal elevator attendant. Since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the previous year, America had finally entered the war, causing young men of all walks of life to enlist, including our elevator boy.

  “Any word from Cuddy, Estella?”

  “The U.S. Army does not send me updates, Miss Ferriday. Seems you’ve got big problems in France right now. That’s what Pia says.”

  Estella was right. Once Germany invaded France’s so-called free zone, in November 1942, all of Vichy France had become a puppet state. The French transit camps began sending transports to a complex network of concentration camps throughout Poland and Germany. I was on my third box of red pins.

  “That’s what Pia says?”

  For someone who handled secure information, Pia was playing a bit fast and loose with it.

  Once in the reception area, I took the long way back to my office to avoid Pia’s desk, but she sensed movement, like a black mamba.

  “Roger wants you, Caroline.”

  “Fine,” I said, doubling back. “By the way, Pia…must you share our business with Estella? This is supposed to be secure information—”

  “When I want your opinion, I will ask for it,” Pia said, bringing to mind a sign on the baboon cage at the Paris zoo: CET ANIMAL EN CAS D’ATTAQUE VA SE DEFENDER. This animal, if attacked, will defend itself.

  I hurried to Roger’s office and stopped short, for it looked as if a squall had blown every book and paper in it about. Below his window on the Rockefeller Ice Rink, a line of skaters followed a scrawny Santa on skates. He stopped short, and they fell like dominoes.

  “We have to double our orphan-aid boxes, Roger. I got the new numbers. Over two hundred thousand French children parentless. Hundreds of them with parents lost to the underground.”

  “We need a lot of things, Caroline, but Pearl Harbor changed everything.”

  “I can use some personal funds—”

  “You know the rules. Can you close the door?” he said in a voice that could only be described as tremulous.

  “What is it?” I braced myself against the cool marble of Roger’s fireplace. Please, not Paul.

  “A few things. Do you have much information on Drancy?”

  “Six files full.”

  Drancy, a former housing complex on the outskirts of Paris, had become a clearinghouse of sorts for prisoners from all five French subcamps on their way out of the country. From the few reports I’d read, it was a hellish place, a waiting room for deportation. It was under the control of the French police, but supervised by the Gestapo Office of Jewish Affairs.

  “Why,
Roger? What did you find?”

  Could Paul be in such a place? True, Rena was Jewish, but did that put him at risk? She was a French citizen after all, but even in the supposedly free Vichy zone, anti-Semitism had become the law of the new state, and foreign Jews were rounded up. The spirit of freethinking France had seemed to disappear overnight.

  “Roger, just tell me. Did you find him?”

  “Several transports have left with French prisoners, to camps all over Hitler’s real estate.”

  “Paul?”

  Roger nodded.

  “Oh no, Roger.”

  “A group of French men was taken to Natzweiler-Struthof, Caroline. There is good evidence to suggest Paul may be among them.”

  I pulled a chair from the conference table and sat. The dampness from my palms left two silver handprints on the polished wood and then disappeared. Natzweiler.

  It was terrible news to be sure, but oddly hopeful, for at least he was alive.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “There were only a few men in Paul’s transport processed at Drancy, and they all went to Natzweiler.”

  “In the Vosges Mountains?”

  Natzweiler-Struthof was the only permanent Nazi concentration camp in France, located fifty kilometers southwest of Strasbourg. My mind ran ahead to forced labor and corporal punishment.

  Roger nodded. “Near a little town my grandparents used to visit. Quaint but isolated.” He tossed a manila packet on the table. I sifted through the documents, scanning for anything about Paul’s captors.

  From the Royal Air Force reconnaissance photo, it appeared to be a small camp, only twenty rows of barracks and four other buildings, all wedged into a walled area surrounded by thick, snow-covered forest. So much snow. Was Paul freezing to death while I sat in a warm office? I scanned the photo, looking hard at the groups of prisoners gathered outside, trying to spot Paul among them.

  “Thank you, Roger. I’ll have Pia run a search on it.”

  “No more searches, Caroline. Washington has officially broken off diplomatic relations with France.” Roger pawed through the mess of papers on his desk.