The Haigerloch Project

It was a girl. Eighteen? Or a woman. Forty-eight? It was impossible to tell….

She was wearing a flimsy robe. When she saw the strangers enter, she shrank into the corner of her bed against the wall, drawing her legs up, her hollow, dark eyes fixed on them with maniacal dread. Every inch of visible flesh was inflamed, festering with weeping sores. An infected eruption on one cheek was oozing pus. The hair on her scalp had come out in great tufts; her eyebrows and lashes were reduced to a few strands. She drew her cracked lips back in a snarl of terror, exposing bleeding, ulcerous gums. Then she moaned: a soft, mewing sound of abject fear.

Dirk and Sig stood transfixed.

“My — God!” Sig whispered. His flesh crawled. “Oh — my dear God…”

“Do you recognize it, Herr Scientist?” Himmelmann asked. “Does it look familiar to you? The effects of atomic radiation?”

Sig wrenched his eyes from the cowering girl. He stared at Himmelmann.

“She—she was at — Haigerloch?” he asked in a stunned whisper. “There was — an accident?”

The corners of Himmelmann's mouth drew down. “Accident?” he said bitterly. “Not exactly. What you see is the work of our Nazi science. The result of a laboratory experiment. One dosage of gamma rays. Fourteen hundred Roentgen. With a dosage of beta rays thrown in for good measure.”

“Dear — God!”

Sig turned back to the trembling girl on the bed. He was once again aware of the others in the room. And the smell. The pungent-sweet odor of decaying flesh. It burned his nostrils.

He heard Oskar's voice from far away.

“Her name is Wanda. She is a Polish Jew.” His voice was dead. “She — she was part of a medical experiment carried out under the Applied War Research program. An experimental program spawned by the Section R experiments at Dachau Concentration Camp. The chief, Dr. Sigmund Rascher, used the camp inmates for his — purposes. Wanda is—”

Suddenly Gisela interrupted.

“No, Onkel Oskar! If they must know — let me tell them. Let them know the full story.” She stepped close to the cowering girl on the bed, reached out and touched her reassuringly. Then she faced the men, her eyes boring into Dirk's and Sig's. “You will wish to know, will you not,” she said bitterly, “so you may judge? Very well. You shall know. Everything Otto learned and told to me.” There was a sudden catch in her voice She glared at the two, her eyes unnaturally bright. For a brief moment she clamped her teeth together tightly.

“Dr. Rascher — and Nini, his wife. So pretty. I have seen pictures of her. In the Illustrierte.” She spoke rapidly, defiantly. “They may be no longer. But their spirit — and their work at Dachau — goes on…. The low-pressure chambers that were meant to test how much an unprotected human being could stand flying at high altitudes. They may no longer be used for experimentation — but as execution chambers. But then the human guinea pigs were subjected to an ever-increasing vacuum until they screamed and tore their hair out to relieve the excruciating pressure in their heads; until they beat the walls, lacerated and ripped their own flesh with their nails; shrieked until their lungs burst. Now such experiments are no longer needed. Only executions. Exterminations. In a manner to amuse and distract the SS guards…”

She stopped. She gave a small sob. Tears glistened in her eyes.

“For Wanda — for Wanda all that might have been a blessing,” she whispered.

“Gisela. Liebchen,” Oskar said gently, with deep concern. “You do not have to—”

“Yes, Onkel Oskar,” the girl flared at him. “Yes! I do! They must know why Otto and you are willing to — to—” She glanced at Wanda. “Are willing to betray your own…”

Oskar sighed. He looked down. Gisela glared at Dirk and Sig, her face flushed.

“I will tell you about Wanda,” she said. “I will tell you how she came to be — like this…. She is seventeen. And she will die now. Today. The day after—”

Sig started. He glanced at the girl still crouched in terror on the bed. He scowled at Gisela. She met his gaze.