The Penalties of Love Read online

  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.

  Chapter Eight

  A Meeting with Kurt Mansell

  We had a cognac and I waited for Kurt to open the conversation. He swallowed hard and looked around before he touched my hand and I knew that whatever he was going to say would be something that had to be said in some sort of secret manner and I leant forward to ensure that I could hear every word of what he would say.

  “I followed you to the house where Joseph lived,” he said, “I am very worried about such houses and there are quite a few. “Life in Germany today is not like it was yesterday”

  Kurt emphasized the word ‘yesterday’ and his eyes grew wide. “There are too many ‘doctors’ in Germany today who would have been laughed out of university when you and I were there.I am stunned at the ‘training’ if you can call it that. To me, as a doctor, life means exactly that Hans... LIFE... and death is something that follows inevitably, but not because man wants to bring it on.”

  I was stunned that Kurt felt the same as I did and to a great extent I felt relieved that I was not standing alone... but what could we do about it?

  Kurt told me about Dachau and what was going on there, simply because Hitler wanted what he called THE FINAL SOLUTION... and that was to cleanse Germany from what Hitler described as filth... meaning the Jewish race and anyone who would not or could not conform to the ideals that Hitler held. Mentally ill and homosexuals were considered to be unacceptable.

  Kurt suggested we could go to Dachau together if I agreed and I readily did so, arranging a day in the following week when it would be considered the duties of a Nazi officer to visit such places and after a second cognac, Kurt and I retired for the night, but I could not sleep for the worries that tormented my body and soul.

  On the day arranged for the visit to Dachau I was very nervous. I was new to these changes that had occurred in the country that I loved, but I had to investigate before I could possibly do anything to eradicate such extremities...

  Kurt and I arrived at the gates of Dachau where it was proclaimed to be a place for renewed life, but the stench as we went inside was abominable. I saw piles of shoes and boots and ladies handbags in one corner and what appeared to be loose men’s clothing in another. I saw smoke coming from the chimney of a large warehouse building and I thought at first this was some sort of warehouse stock that had probably seen it’s day and was too old to resell, but to my horror I found at the other end of the warehouse, there was a pile of human bodies, all burnt and charred so that the smell would have made you vomit. I looked away swiftly to try to concentrate on anyone who was standing ALIVE beside me and I saw two separate queues... one queue of men and boys and the other of women and girls, but what made me look twice was a young man who was sitting on an old wooden tree trunk with another man on his knees beside him. I knew there was some whispering going on between them but there was so much background noise and music that I found it impossible to even imagine what they were talking about, which was the best thing that could have happened, as I discovered when the kneeling man rose up to go away, the other man wore a roman collar and I guessed he had been a priest hearing the confession of the kneeling man. A woman followed on and knelt before the priest, making a sign of the cross and I moved away quietly.

  So it was not Jews alone who were in the Dachau camp. Hitler had a very diverse and unusual taste in his enemies... There were Jews of course and then priests together with homosexuals, but women and children did not escape his hatred either and I wondered if he had ever got married or even had a relationship with a woman... as somewhere in my mind, I felt sure he had a mistress by the name of Eva Braun.

  I looked back at the pile of burnt bodies at the rear door of the warehouse and I looked for Kurt to join me, but he had gone. I knelt down as if to pray and a vision of my lovely wife Anna came to mind. I was so glad she could not see what was in my vision, but I could feel the intensity of her prayers as I looked on. I could hear Anna quoting her gospel to say that Jesus had died to save the souls of so many and yet here I was kneeling by the roasted bodies of some of those children that Jesus had come to save. Had my faith dwindled or was I just insane to see what I did. I could hear Anna’s voice through my tears, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do,” she said and I asked God where He was at that moment. Was he asleep? Was he coming again to fulfil the promise that He would save the world... and through all this, as I cried and cried and cried without stopping, was Hitler standing by laughing and were his associates raising their arms in praise of their Fuhrer Heil Hitler... Heil Hitler, I could hear voices calling again and again for Adolf Hitler.

  The war was progressing but not very satisfactory for the Germans. We had been at war with Great Britain twice... one in 1914-1918 and now from 1939-1945 but what had either of us got from that? Germans married English girls and English men married German girls. Either that or we were all sleeping around... so babies were intercontinental and the world was still at war, where peace could hardly be attributed to the results of war. It was in 1944 that the German Hospital ship, TUBINGEN was blasted off the sea by the British RAF and I was grateful I wasn’t on that ship, but sadly my good friend Kurt Mansell was found dead one morning near the river Rhyne and it was believed that he had been strangled and I began to worry about the possibility that my friendship with Kurt could have been the result of his death, so could I be the next? Perhaps I wasn’t so clever in thinking that I could possi
bly have any effect on the murderous plots that invaded the mind of ‘Mein Fuhrer’

  Nevertheless the deed had been done and I felt that at least Kurt and I had made a little impression on the drastic situation that had scourged Germany. A few days after, when we all thought that there could be an easy end to the war with Hitler’s defeat, I got a command that I was to go with the Troops into Poland and work in one of the hospitals in Krakow which was run by a community of Catholic Nuns where there where several German soldiers isolated with various infirmities, mainly the loss of legs and arms and several stomach operations which had to be delayed during the hold up in our advancements in the war period. I had to remove the limbs of several of the soldiers that were in that hospital, not just legs, but arms too on occasions and although I was commissioned to attend to the German military in that hospital ONLY, I was able to assist with several of the Krakow inhabitants also due to the intervention of an elderly Polish nurse who agreed to assist me in the operating theatre if I would attend to the needs of the natives of Krakow, as it seems that many of the German doctors would not do this and I managed to perform a few operations that were nothing to do with my job as a military doctor. I had done a tonsillectomy twice, once to a young man and then to an elderly woman; an appendix once to a lady who looked terrified when I came to her bed. I tried to establish what was wrong with her but she put her hands in the air and screamed ‘nein, nein’ so I presumed she could not speak German and I spoke to her in English with presumption and she was immediately calmed and I was able to examine her to have a grumbling appendix. Then there was a double hernia once to an elderly man and three circumcisions, to young men who disliked the way they had been born but I was careful to keep this information to myself as I could have been punished for treating civilians from Poland in the army times. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had been drinking cognac for hours after I had finished my work with the troops, but to treat a civilian with surgery was just something that I should never have done, but I am a doctor before anything else... The Polish nurse helped me throughout the operations in the theatre, however it may have been unfortunate that there were nuns working as nurses in the hospital and shortly after I had done the appendix and checked that the patient was alright when she was back in bed, I saw one of the nuns shaking her head when asked about something by her companion nun. I didn’t take much notice as I felt that nuns would be discreet and would probably have approved of my work with humanity... even if they were Polish and not German, after all I was in a Polish hospital, but two days after when I went into the surgical ward to check that my work with the German soldiers was satisfactorily improving, one of the nuns came to the bed where I was examining one of the soldiers. I was bending over the soldier’s leg stump, but as the nun stood beside me, I stood up and asked her if I could help in any way and she pulled her veil down a little over her forehead as if she did not want me to see her.

  “You are a German officer and a doctor?” she enquired and I told her that I was... and she continued by telling me that she had heard me talking in English to one of the patients and I became worried that she must have some connection with the German Authority and I was about to give her some suitable suggestion regarding my behaviour but she put her hand out and waved in the air suggesting she did not want to hear anything I was going to say further.

  “No, No, “she said very swiftly, “I can speak English and I know that you performed an operation on one of the lady’s who works in the Convent kitchen.”

  I understood then that she must have heard me speaking to the lady I operated on, but she did not give me the impression that she was going to inform any hospital authority of my actions. The other nun who stood a little way back in the ward, kept shaking her head, but the first nun ignored her actions and returned talking to me.

  “As you must know I am a Catholic Nun; a Sister of Mercy... I am English and I came here with another Sister from our convent in London to assist in this hospital as there are only five other nuns in the convent and I need a doctor to examine one of my sisters from the convent, but I have been afraid to ask for this attention until I heard you talking English and performing an operation. Can you help us please?

  I was more than surprised that a holy nun should be asking for my help, but I replied to the Sister by saying I would do all I could to help her Sister companion, but INSISTING that, the help I could give them would never be discussed with the Gestapo and she readily agreed

  “May I ask what is wrong with your Sister... and would it be acceptable for me to have your name, please? I asked as I realized how difficult it would be to do anything surgical to anyone unless I first knew what was wrong, and the nun told me that her name was Sister Mary Ursula and the other nun was Sister Mary Agnes and it was Sister Mary Agnes who required the surgical attention.

  “What is the trouble with Sister Mary Agnes? I enquired but Sister Mary Ursula stopped me talking here and told me that the Sisters would be happy to be known simply by their religious names and for me to drop the title, ‘Sister’ which suited me fine and I learnt that it was Agnes who required the surgery.

  “And what is the matter with Agnes?” I asked thinking that perhaps she had a toothache or maybe something wrong with her ear, but the answer I got from Ursula shook me to the core.

  “Agnes has been raped by one of your officers from the Reich,” she replied, “and she is badly bruised and has severe cuts in her... in her private regions.”

  I noticed the hesitancy in the voice when it came to the ‘private regions’ but as she was a nun, I could understand that, however I had to tell Ursula that I would have to examine Agnes and I would want her to be with her Sister when I did that and again she understood.

  We pulled the screens around a bed at the end of the ward and Ursula did what was necessary for me to do the examination and I was shocked to see how very badly bruised and cut that Agnes was. Ursula withdrew some very bad padding that she had used to stem the blood and she put these into a plastic bag that she was carrying and I proceeded to disinfect the wounds and suture the cuts. It took fourteen stitches to repair the wound.

  “I will have to see Agnes again in a few days time, but surely you should have reported this matter to the authorities or to your Reverend Mother,” I said in a rather angry voice, but Ursula put her hand in the air in protest.

  “If I had done anything like you have suggested, both Sister Agnes and I would be imprisoned in a concentration camp as being the INSTIGATORS of this crime. Your officers can do no wrong and our Reverend Mother and the other Sisters in our convent would be imprisoned with us. Please try to understand the dilemma. I only spoke to you for your help because I heard you speaking English to Mrs. Gregory... she is the lady who helps in our kitchen and the lady who needed the operation on her appendix.”

  I understood the problem immediately and suggested that we should all say NOTHING about this matter, for the time being anyway, but in my heart, I knew there was nothing anyone could do about the matter as Ursula was right. THE GESTAPO COULD DO NO WRONG...

  I went to the convent two weeks after I had attended to Sister Agnes to check that she was O.K. and to remove the stitches. I was also very pleased to tell her that she was NOT pregnant... but as I was about to leave the convent, an elderly nun came to meet me at the front door. She smiled and bowed.

  “I am the Reverend Mother here,” she said and her English was perfect. “I am so very grateful for all you have done for us. Could I offer you a glass of whisky?

  I told the good and kind lady that I did not drink whisky and she raised her eyebrows under her coif.

  “Oh I do apologise,” she said as she bowed again, “I thought with you having a Scottish accent you would have come from Scotland and whisky would have been your thing.”

  I smiled again as I was leaving, but another surprise was in store for me when the Reverend Mother, opened the convent door for m
e to leave and quietly announced in a rather proud voice, “I myself was born in Glasgow,” she said as she closed the door and I gathered from that... that perhaps she enjoyed a little tipple herself... on occasions.

  Conclusion

  Anna’s Story

  I hadn’t heard from Hans for more than two years and I was more than worried. Had Hans been enrolled in the British Army, I would have had a telegram by now telling me that he was dead or missing, but nothing came to inform me of anything. Adam and Freya, our lovely children were growing up without a dad and the love of my life had disappeared into the unknown... As I was ruminating, a beautiful lady came across singing on my little radio and my thoughts were interrupted for a moment as I listened to I Vow To Thee My Country... and I started to cry but suddenly there was an interruption in the news to say that the Germans were leaving Poland but that a hospital in Krakow had been blown up.