The Chosen Ones by Steve Sem-Sandberg Read Free Book Online Page A

family was split up again. They decided that Mrs Leonie Ziegler (née Dobrosch) had enough on her hands with her two youngest. The authorities looked for a new foster family for the eldest, Laura, who was almost fifteen and needed to prepare for her Pflichtjahr , when she had to go away and learn how to do practical tasks in the house and on the land. A place in a children’s home on Bastiengasse in Währing was found for Helmut.Adrian was sent to Spiegelgrund, which had just been designated a specialist clinic for children with severe psychiatric or neurological conditions, but which also served as a reform school for boys and girls with disciplinary problems. Spiegelgrund was the place of last resort, the end of the road for those thought effectively irredeemable. He didn’t know all that at time, of course. When he was registered on that January day in 1941, the form recorded all measurable facts about him in neat typescript:
    Height: 135 cm
    Body weight: 34 kg
    Skull type: Flattened; somewhat deformed; ‘Gypsy type’
    Ears: Semitic curvature but shapely; close to skull
    Hair colour: Dark
    Overall pigmentation: Dark
    Doctor Gross had made just a few entries under ‘Other characteristics’: R. shoulder blade protruding slightly; feet smell badly; L. shin, an approx. 30cm long scratch. The form has three photographs attached, two from sideways on and one from in front. The photos show an eleven-year-old boy who looks perfectly healthy. His shoulders are raised a little and his half-open mouth and scared eyes complete the picture of a child who surely could harm no one.
    1 The hooked cross in a white field / On a fiery red background / Offers freely and openly to the whole world / The joyful message / That everyone who treasures this emblem / Is truly German in soul, mind and origin / And not only a camp-follower.

II
A Healer of Souls Needs No Eyes

     
     
    My name is Anna Katschenka. I have worked as a nurse for twenty-two years. My service at Spiegelgrund began in 1941. Doctor Jekelius was the institution’s acting medical director at the time. I believe Doctor Türk had taken up her post there by then. Later, Doctor Illing took over the directorship. If I remember correctly, this change took place in July 1942. Between 1923 and 1934, I was a member of the Social Democratic Party and, subsequently, of the Austrian Patriotic Front. Since the post-war regime changes, I have not taken any further interest in politics. I have never belonged to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) or any of its organisations. In June 1929, I married the medical student Siegfried Hauslich. Our marriage was dissolved on grounds of incompatible differences of personality and interpersonal antipathy. My ex-husband was a Jew. I met Doctor Jekelius for the first time after my dismissal from service in Lainz, when I was referred to him for treatment of my recurring depressed moods. His treatment was successful and I came to trust the doctor wholeheartedly, which is why I applied for a nursing post in his clinic. A few days after starting work on the wards, Doctor Jekelius called me into his clinical office. He reminded me of my professional oath and promise of confidentiality, and emphasised that I must not, under any circumstances, disclose any details of individual cases treated in the hospital, nor was I to ask unnecessary questions. He put it to me that I had by then seen with my own eyes the miserable state of the children when they arrived at the clinic and observed that some of them were incurable. He then went on to explain  to me how the clinic managed the children afflicted by such conditions. I remained very attached to Doctor Jekelius after his recruitment to the Wehrmacht in January 1942. I wrote to him when he was on active service and visited him several times. There was no romantic relationship between us at any time. Doctor Jekelius was a National Socialist and I never was. Personally, I have never cared for