As Dr. Mengele glides toward us, he smiles. Almost every day it’s the same smile, one we might see from a loving neighbor or relative—not from a man who has taken far too many children away from their parents with nothing but promises that our situation is good, better than the alternative. We don’t know of any alternative.
He dons a wicker basket this morning, filled with hard candies. As he walks down the rows of us lined up, he tosses handfuls into the air for us to catch. The older children seem to be luckier at catching the candies than the smaller ones, so most of us share. Some of the younger children who have gotten the knack of catching the falling sweets refer to Dr. Mengele as Uncle Pepi. He told them it was all right to call him that—a term of endearment, one I don’t believe belongs to a man like this. He makes my skin itch when he walks by, and my pulse thumps within my ears. I wonder if the others believe the smile he wears or the kindness of bringing us candy.
I save half of the candy I collect, saving it for a starving child I might happen upon during the day.
As of yesterday, all twins have a set schedule. Nora and I can stay together, and I pray it stays this way. From the time we finish our bread with jam for breakfast, Kapo laboring assistants direct everyone where to go. For us, it’s a well-lit examination room where we endure a physical inspection from head to toe. One of Dr. Mengele’s assistants takes notes on each measurement. The discomfort as we disrobe before standing on display for hours is demoralizing and humiliating. Various doctors, nurses, or people dressed for the part come and go throughout our time here. Each seems to analyze us for a different spectrum of data relating to measurements, which they then compare between Nora and me. We are essentially standing beneath a microscope with as little say as an insignificant molecule under observation.
Next, we face a round of blood work. I hate needles, and the thought of blood makes my stomach turn inside out. Nora cares less about it, but only because she’s had to face more doctor’s visits over the years as Mama tried to find reasons for her untreatable stutter. Being twins, one might think we’d have all the same ailments, but that hasn’t been the case. Aside from her stutter, she breaks out into rashes if she eats certain nuts, and I don’t. She rarely comes down with high fevers whenever sick, but I do. Along with her speech impediment, I’ve always felt like she got the worse half of the twin deal. I tell her she’s the stronger one of us two. That must be why she goes through more than me.
The room we are in resembles an empty classroom with a chalkboard on one wall and two rows of chairs. The setting doesn’t feel appropriate for medical work.
We fill the chairs along with other sets of twins and just as the last pair takes a seat, a group of German nurses parade in with medical trays on wheels. Their stony faces never break. It’s impossible to know what they’re thinking—if they want to be here or despise every second that they are fulfilling their duties. I’m not sure who would volunteer to be at a place like this, surrounded by so much inhumanity.
One nurse—I believe she is a nurse—tends to Nora and me. She doesn’t speak a word while binding a torn piece of white fabric around the top of my right arm, then another on the left. They have left me sitting like this for so long, the blood inside me pools in my shoulder and a numbing sensation takes over my hands and fingertips. The nurse does the same to Nora, but Nora watches every moment of the process as if intrigued by what the needle is doing as it pricks her skin.
The sight of the needles doesn’t bother her like they do me, so I choose to close my eyes. The prick against my vein stings, but the sensation doesn’t last long. As the needle remains still in my right arm, dizzying thoughts stir in my head, and a physical weakness sets in. My head becomes heavier, and a cold sweat covers my entire body. I fight the urge to collapse, knowing my head will fall backward and this flimsy chair would more than likely go over with me.
Before the phlebotomist removes the needle from my arm, another sharp poke, this time to my left arm, shocks me. An injection feels different from a needle pulling blood from a vein. Four more times, one after another, another poke in the same spot on the same arm takes me by surprise. “What is in the injection?” I ask, my voice meek. The evidence of feeling faint won’t go unseen.
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” the nurse says. It’s the first she’s spoken since jabbing me six times in total. Poor Nora is avoiding the sight in my direction. I’m glad she wasn’t watching what they just put into my body. She might fight them off and we’ve seen what happens if one of Mengele’s twins puts up a struggle. They’re taken away and never brought back again, leaving the other worthless twin here.
It seems I’m one of the first to be through with the process, giving me a moment to glance around the room to see a pattern of green hues among pale complexions.
Quiet groans and whimpers echo against the walls. The nurses don’t appear to have a gentle touch, nor do they care about bedside manners.
“I don’t want anything put into my body. I must know what is in that injection,” a woman from the other side of the room demands. She’s one of the older sets of twins in this group. They might be in their twenties if I had to make a guess. She’s pulling her arm away from the nurse, who appears to be patient for the time being. “You could inject a deadly disease into us for all we know. We deserve an answer.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” her nurse says.
“Then you will put nothing into my body,” the young woman fights back.
“You’re making a poor decision,” the nurse says, her words monotonous, lacking empathy.
Their conversation grows silent and all I can do is wonder what is happening or about to happen. While I strain to focus on the other side of the room, a dank, metallic odor burns my nose. I wonder if it’s the smell of blood. I never thought blood had a particular scent, but I can’t think of what else it could be, and there is certainly a lot of fresh blood filling bags in this room.
A moment doesn’t pass before other assistants struggle to sedate the woman. Two men in striped pajamas arrive in the room and scoop her up, carrying her out like she’s a bag of rubbish. The woman’s body is limp and weighs heavily on the men. Her twin sister cups her hand across her mouth, and her eyes widen with horror as tears fall. I can’t help but wonder who she might be angrier at—her sister for not complying, or the medical assistants for leaving us without a choice of what happens to our bodies.
By the time the woman is out of sight, Nora appears to be through with her blood work and injections. With subtlety, I glance over at her, imagining we are thinking the same thoughts. Her lips press together tightly and crinkle at the seam. She’s hiding her fear from me, but not doing it so well.
EIGHT
NORA
BOUGIVAL, FRANCE, SEPTEMBER 1946
As a child, I dreaded the weekends. They were long days with little to do aside from sit around and “take it easy” as Mama would say. After a busy week with school, housework, and Papa working, everyone needed some time to take a breath or two. Neither Arina nor I ever liked to sit still, so we would keep ourselves occupied. We had this plan to build an elaborate tree house with scrap wood we had been collecting. There was one oak tree settled in the very back corner of our yard. Each branch was parallel to another on the opposite side. It was almost perfectly symmetrical, which is rare to see, but it made us believe the tree was a secret hideaway for us—one we could camp out in and host tea parties with our friends. We only accumulated enough wood to set the flooring into place, and now I wonder how the tree house would have turned out if we hadn’t left our home. I could still climb if the rest hadn’t happened. That much, I know for sure.