The angel of auschwitz, p.12
The Angel of Auschwitz, page 12
The room’s tiled floor reflected the overhead lamps in pale, scattered glimmers. Metal tables lined the walls and instruments lay arranged with unnatural precision. In the far corner there was two small beds. The sheets were thin; the blankets folded flat.
The twins lay on the beds. They could not have been older than seven. A boy and a girl whose limbs were too thin and their faces too hollow. Their eyes, too large for their faces, followed Gisella with a mixture of fear and resignation.
Mengele stood beside them, his posture relaxed, his hands clasped behind his back. He turned toward her, his expression calm and clinical. “Doctor Perl,” he said. “Examine them.”
She nodded once.
He gestured to his assistant, who moved aside to give her room.
Gisella approached the children slowly. She had learned long ago how to move without startling those already afraid. She knelt between their beds and placed two fingers lightly on the boy’s wrist. His pulse fluttered beneath her touch, uneven and weak. As she moved her hand up his arm, her fingers felt raised bumps from repeated injections beneath the skin. She did not look at Mengele, instead she concentrated on controlling her breath as the realisation that.
She lifted her eyes to the girl whose gaze held hers. A quiet plea lived there. A knowledge beyond her years. Gisella lifted the girl’s hand. The skin felt too thin, stretched over bone. She pressed lightly along the forearm and the girl winced. The movement was small, almost imperceptible. Gisella lowered the hand gently.
Behind her, Mengele spoke, “They have developed infections. I want to know the extent.” His voice held no threat and that made it terrifying.
Gisella stood and reached for the stethoscope on the nearby tray. The metal felt cold against her fingers. She examined the boy first, listening to his chest. A faint crackle echoed through the stethoscope. She moved the instrument again. The same sound. Infection deep in the lungs.
She kept her voice level. “They need rest. Warmth. Fluids if possible.”
A slight lift of Mengele’s brow. “You know the procedure.”
Yes, she knew the procedure. She knew what happened when twins became too weak. They were discarded and replaced. Her fingers tightened around the stethoscope.
The door opened behind her. Aron stepped into the ward carrying a metal basin. His face was pale and his breath left a faint cloud as he crossed the room. He placed the basin beside her and gave the smallest glance toward the twins.
Their eyes met for the briefest moment. His gaze held questions. Worry. Determination. All expressed without a single word.
Mengele spoke to him. “Assist her.”
Aron nodded.
Together they worked in silence. Gisella checked the children’s temperatures. Aron boiled water at the small stove in the corner, the flame weak and unsteady. He brought back a cup filled with warm water and the girl sipped it. The boy refused at first until Gisella touched the cup lightly to his lip.
Aron recorded the temperature readings. His handwriting was small and neat. He waited for her signal before writing the next line.
She shook her head once. Barely a movement.
He omitted the detail.
Mengele watched them both. Gisella felt the weight of his gaze on her. When the examination ended, he stepped forward. “I expect a full written account by this evening.”
“Yes,” she said.
Mengele left the ward without another word. His assistant followed.
When the door closed, Aron exhaled.
Gisella looked at the twins. Their small bodies sank into the thin mattress and she drew the blankets higher over them.
Aron stepped closer. “They have been used in experiments,” he whispered. “Repeatedly.”
She nodded.
“We have to try to keep them alive.”
Gisella looked at the twins: their fragile stillness, their small fingers curled slightly in sleep. She felt a sickness rise within her as the realization of what the children had endured dawned on her.
“We do what we can,” she said.
He nodded once, the gesture small and final.
The corridor outside the twins’ ward felt colder when Gisella stepped into it. The lamp above flickered faintly, casting uneven shadows along the tiled floor. Aron closed the door behind them with quiet care. His hands lingered on the handle for a moment, as though steadying himself.
They walked in silence, the soft echo of their footsteps carrying beneath the lamp light. The cold seeped through the thin soles of their shoes.
Near the turn in the corridor, Aron slowed. “They will not survive any more experimentation,” he said quietly.
Gisella paused beside him. The distant hum of machinery vibrated faintly through the walls. Somewhere deeper in the building, a metal tray clattered.
“They are too weak,” she said.
Aron nodded. “He will come back for them. Soon.”
She felt a tightening in her chest. “We alter the chart,” she said.
His eyes lifted toward hers. The unspoken question hung between them. It was not whether they should do it. It was how.
“We remove the signs,” she said. “We hide the fever. We change the progression.”
“The infection,” he said. “We mark it as resolving.”
“Yes.”
He looked down the corridor in both directions. When no one approached, he lowered his voice further. “You cannot do this alone.”
“I know.”
“We must move quickly. Before he reviews the charts tonight.”
The thought of returning to that ward made her breath catch, though her face showed nothing.
“I will come to Block Ten after last rounds,” Aron said. “Bring the files. We burn what we must.”
Footsteps echoed faintly from the far end of the hall. Aron stepped back, posture straightening. A guard walked past them without slowing, his boots clicking sharply against the tiles. When he vanished around the corner, Aron looked at Gisella again.
“After last rounds,” he whispered.
She nodded.
He returned to the surgical block, his figure growing smaller with each step until the dim light swallowed him.
Gisella walked back to the infirmary.
Block Ten felt warmer, though not by much. Several women coughed. A feverish child whimpered softly beneath blankets. Hannah looked up as Gisella entered, her eyes widening at the sight of Gisella’s face, which must have carried the tightness of the day’s horrors.
“You saw what they are doing to the children,” Hannah whispered.
Gisella placed her hand briefly on the woman’s shoulder in acknowledgement. “Prepare warm water,” she said. “And clean cloths.”
Hannah nodded and moved quickly toward the corner kettle.
Hours passed in a slow, heavy rhythm. Gisella tended to fever after fever, wound after wound. The cough of pneumonia lingered in the air. The stove crackled weakly, offering too little heat. Outside, the winter dusk thickened until the windows held only shadows.
At last, when the ward had quieted and only the faint hum of distant machinery remained, Gisella moved to the small wooden table in the corner.
The twins’ charts lay hidden beneath a stack of blankets. She lifted the top one and drew out the files. The paper felt cool against her skin. The handwriting inside belonged to Mengele’s assistant: precise, detached, every line recorded with clinical confidence.
She opened the boy’s chart first and her throat tightened.
A section listed observations she had seen with her own eyes:
Raised temperature
Irregular pulse
Reaction to stimuli noted as diminished
Markings along the forearm, origin unspecified
She closed the file and steadied her breath then opened the girl’s chart. Similar notes. The same cold precision. She looked toward the door. No footsteps approached. The barrack had fallen into a kind of exhausted stillness. Only the faint rustle of blankets whispered through the room.
She began to work.
A dip of her pen in ink. A steady movement of her hand. She crossed out nothing. That would draw attention. Instead she wrote new entries beneath the old:
Temperature declined
Pulse stabilising
Improved response to stimuli
Possible misidentification of markings
The deception was delicate. Too bold, and it would expose her. Too subtle, and it would save no one.
She kept her expression blank even when her hand trembled. Her ribs ached from the cold. Her pulse beat too fast. Still, she wrote.
Hannah approached once. When she saw the charts, she did not speak. She placed a scrap of bread beside Gisella’s hand and returned to the beds.
Gisella let out a long breath. Her fingers curled around the edge of the table and she remained still for a moment, letting the weight of the act settle into her bones.
A faint whistle sounded outside. Three short notes: a signal.
Gisella wrapped the altered charts in a cloth and slipped out of the ward. The air outside bit sharply at her cheeks and snow glistened in thin patches along the frozen ground. She walked toward the shadowed edge of the building.
Aron emerged from behind the woodpile, his coat drawn tight. He held a small lantern, its flame shielded by his hand. He gestured toward the farthest corner of the storage room behind Block Ten. They slipped inside.
The space was narrow, smelling of cold wood and damp rope. Only the faint light from Aron’s lantern illuminated the room. He reached for the charts.
“Let me see,” he whispered.
She handed them over. His eyes moved quickly across the pages. When he reached the end, he looked up at her. “This could still kill them. If they are deemed well enough, the experiments will continue. I think we have to hide them. That will bide us some time and the twins can regain some strength,” he said.
“And that could kill us,” she replied.
He lowered his gaze for a moment, then nodded. “That is always the risk,” he said.
A sharp sound echoed outside. A door closing. Boots crunching snow.
They froze.
Aron extinguished the lantern with a quick movement. Darkness swallowed them completely. Gisella heard her own heartbeat, steady but too fast.
The footsteps passed and silence returned.
Aron relit the lantern, using only the faintest flame. His hands were steady. Hers were not. He lifted the charts. “We cannot return these,” he said.
“No. You are right, we can’t,” she whispered.
He looked down at the floorboards. “Here.”
Together, they pried up a loose plank. The wood creaked softly. Beneath it, darkness. A hollow space. She crouched and placed the charts inside. Aron added a scrap of cloth over them.
He pressed the plank back into place with slow, deliberate pressure.
Gisella placed her palm against the cool wood, feeling the hidden papers beneath. Her breath trembled. In that moment, she understood fully. She was no longer only surviving; she was sabotaging.
She stood slowly. Aron watched her with quiet understanding. Neither spoke. The lantern flame guttered.
When Gisella stepped back into the night air the cold struck her face. Beneath the floorboards of the storage room, the twins’ fate shifted.
Gisella returned to Block Ten with her arms folded tightly against the cold. Frost clung to the edges of the window panes. Inside, the women lay in uneasy sleep, their faces grey in the weak light that slipped through the cracks.
She moved quietly between the bunks, listening for changes in breathing. She adjusted a blanket, tilted a head, checked a pulse. Her body carried the memory of the concealed documents like a new weight, invisible yet heavy.
When she finally lay down on her own narrow bunk, she stared at the beams above her, counting the knots in the wood. Outside, the machinery of the camp rumbled faintly , a constant, distant grinding.
Beneath the floorboards in the storage room, the twins’ charts lay hidden.
The next day passed in a blur of exhaustion and routine. Roll call, hunger, the same thin liquid for breakfast. The same cold settling into Gisella’s bones. She worked in the infirmary until her fingers burned from too much washing in cold water. Hannah handed her cloths, passed her tools, supported a shoulder when her bruised ribs protested.
By late afternoon, a runner arrived from the surgical block. “Doctor Perl,” he said, his voice flat. “You are required.”
Her chest tightened.
She followed him through the frozen yard. Snow crunched underfoot and the sky hung low and grey, pressing down on the chimneys and the wires. The surgical block rose ahead of them, stark and clean against the dirt.
She entered the twins’ ward.
The boy and girl lay where she had left them. The boy’s cheeks were still pale, but his breathing looked steadier. The girl watched her approach with those same large eyes, alert yet tired.
Mengele stood near the foot of their beds. His face held no expression of familiarity, as though this were the first time he had seen them.
“Doctor,” he said. “Update me on their condition.”
Gisella moved between the beds. She touched the boy’s wrist. His pulse was still weak, but regular. She listened to his chest. The crackle remained, but softer. She did not let relief reach her face.
She checked the girl in the same way. Fever lingered, but not as fiercely as before. The girl’s gaze followed her every movement.
Gisella straightened and stepped back. “They are improving,” she said. “The fever is retreating. Their breathing is clearer.”
Mengele looked at her for a long moment. Then he turned to his assistant. “Fetch their charts,” he said.
The assistant walked toward the central office.
Gisella’s heartbeat increased. There would be no charts to fetch. Only absence.
Minutes stretched.
The assistant returned, empty handed.
He cleared his throat. “The files are not in the cabinet, sir.”
“Not,” Mengele repeated softly.
The assistant swallowed. “No, sir.”
Mengele regarded him with a calm gaze. “Then you will find them,” he said.
The assistant hurried out again.
Gisella kept her face neutral. Her hands rested at her sides. The twins watched her carefully, as if aware that something fragile moved around them.
After some time, the assistant returned once more.
“They are gone,” he said. His voice sounded smaller.
Mengele did not raise his voice. “Then they have been misplaced through incompetence. You will reconstruct them from memory and your notes. I expect them by tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turned his gaze back to Gisella.
“You will provide additional observations,” he said.
She nodded. “Of course.”
He looked at the twins for a final moment. Something passed through his eyes. Calculation. Interest. Then he turned away.
“We will not proceed until the records are restored,” he said. “There will be time.”
Time. A word that meant something very different in this place.
He left the ward. His footsteps echoed in the corridor until they faded. The assistant followed, clutching his notebook as though it might shield him.
Silence settled over the room.
Gisella moved closer to the twins. She adjusted their blankets. The boy’s hand reached for the edge of her sleeve. His fingers barely brushed the fabric. The contact felt like a question. She did not answer it aloud.
She removed her hand gently and walked toward the small washbasin in the corner. The water inside had a thin film of ice. She broke it carefully and washed her hands, fingers numb beneath the surface.
Later, when she left the ward, she found Aron waiting near the end of the corridor, his back to the wall, his posture casual enough to look routine.
“Well?” he asked quietly.
“They could not find the charts,” she said.
His eyes flickered with a brief light. “And.”
“He ordered them reconstructed,” she replied. “From memory. It will take some time to complete.”
He exhaled, a breath that carried both weariness and relief.
“Time is something,” he said.
They walked together toward the outer door. A guard watched them pass but said nothing.
Near the exit, Aron paused. “There is something else,” he said softly. “I have begun passing messages. Small reports. Names. Numbers. To the resistance outside.”
“How?”
“Through the fence. There are men who still have contact. At the far edge of the compound. During work details.”
Risk hung heavy in the air between them.
“You must be careful,” she said.
He gave a faint, humourless smile. “There is no careful way to do this. Only a way.”
She did not smile. “You will be caught.”
His gaze held hers. “Perhaps. But if no one carries word beyond these wires, then everything that happens here vanishes with us.”
“What do you tell them?” she asked.
“As much as I can,” he said. “When I can. Numbers. Transports. The existence of the experiments.” He paused. “And the names of those still alive,” he added quietly.
She understood then. The twins. The women she treated. The men he tried to keep breathing. They were not only souls trapped in this place. They were also facts being carried out, one fragment at a time, like smuggled light. The thought made her chest ache.
“Do not include me,” she said.
His brow lifted. “Why?”
“If I die, it will not matter,” she said. “If I live, it is because I have work to do here.”
His gaze did not waver. “You matter.”
The words entered her like a brief flare of heat. She did not let them show on her face. “You must be careful,” she repeated.
