Chapter 6

In November, a month after Theresa became pregnant with her second child in Zurich, news spread in Europe of both the Krakow and Warsaw ghettos being sealed off, which was a familiar tactic now, to isolate the people who lived there, all Jews, and kill them en masse while they were trapped in the ghettos. There were twenty thousand Jews confined to the Krakow Ghetto, and four hundred thousand in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was the Nazis' hope to wipe out over a million Jews between the two cities, an incredible number of men, women, and children to annihilate, trapped with no escape, and doomed to die.

Hearing about it, Sophia's heart ached for all of them, but especially the children, for whom they could do absolutely nothing, sitting in Berlin. They discussed it at a meeting she attended with Claus. He had been on a long mission somewhere in Europe, which he said had been successful. All she knew was that it involved getting a group of children in France to safety, and he had been working with the French Resistance, which had become very active ever since the German occupation in France.

She had been on a few short missions herself recently, one which took her to Wiesbaden, the other to Munich, but she couldn't travel long distances and stay away from the convent for long. It was the only thing Mother Regina had asked her to be careful about, and she accomplished each mission in a day, came back to the convent the same night, and explained her absence as a double shift at the hospital, which no one questioned. Only Mother Regina knew her secret, which protected them all as well.

The war news was distressing when Germany bombed Coventry, England. Hitler was determined to occupy England, whatever it took to do it. The nuns added the English bombing victims to their prayers at Vespers that evening, which the Nazis would have taken a dim view of, but which seemed direly necessary to them, and Mother Regina agreed.

A few days later, Thomas Alexander, Sophia's father, had an unexpected visit. Colonel Gerhard Schmitt of the SS came to see him representing the Reich Health Ministry. He was charming at first, and praised Thomas for the high caliber and standard of his work, which Thomas knew was only a graceful introduction to whatever it was he wanted.

"I believe that one of our very illustrious generals, a patient of yours in fact, paid you a visit some time ago about the Führer's Aktion T4 program. He is particularly interested in that project, and it is a great honor for him to ask you to help him implement it. I'm sure you're sensitive to the compliment he has paid you, and your hospital setting is ideal for it. In fact, my mother-in-law had surgery here two years ago, for her gall bladder. You accomplished it very successfully, and she raved about the care she received here, particularly by you. Our whole family is indebted to you.

"And now we would like your assistance to support the Führer in this venture. You can of course carry out his request at our centers where we handle ordinary cases, but for the more important ones, your hospital will be most suitable." He flashed an evil smile as he explained to Thomas what he wanted, and Thomas felt his heart race as he listened. He remembered perfectly the general's visit, and what the Aktion T4 plan was. It was wholesale murder in the form of "euthanasia"—"mercy killings"—"for the good of the Fatherland." However they explained it to him, or dressed it up, Thomas knew that he was not going to do it for them, under any circumstances. What he couldn't figure out was how he was going to deliver that message in a palatable way they would accept without considering it an act of treason on his part. He listened to Colonel Schmitt explain to him what a simple thing it would be, and how much it would please the Führer.

In the end, there was nothing he could do except decline, as simply and as honestly as he could.

"I understand that the Führer feels this is an important program, but I took an oath when I became a doctor, and this goes counter to everything I promised and believe, and how I've practiced medicine for more than thirty years."

"Would you defy the Führer's orders?" Colonel Schmitt asked with a look of astonishment. He had little beady eyes that made Thomas nervous, and he clearly expected a response.

"If I understand you correctly, Colonel, this is not an order, it's a request, and it is something I simply can't do, for the Führer, or even for a patient. I've had patients who've begged me to euthanize them. I'm a man of principle, and I respect the oath I took. I just can't do what you suggest."

"Is that your final answer?" the colonel said harshly, and stood up abruptly in Thomas's office.

"I'm afraid it is," Thomas said calmly and firmly. "It has to be. I can't euthanize children because they have a defect, or someone because they don't agree with our current policies, or are Jewish, or an old person whose sight or hearing is failing, or even if they have dementia. Would you want someone to euthanize your mother-in-law because her gall bladder was malfunctioning?"

"If she was a traitor to the Reich, I would. Those who don't represent our race in its absolute ideal form need to be eliminated. They don't belong here."

"We all belong here, Colonel. I'm not a religious man, but I have a profound respect for human life. I have dedicated my entire career to preserving and protecting those lives. I can't turn my back on that now."

"I was giving you another chance," the colonel said, glaring at Thomas. "The general was very angry that you denied him when he asked you."

"I'm sorry. Euthanasia is something I simply cannot do." The more Thomas said it, the more he believed it. What they wanted him to do was an abomination, an outrage, a crime against humanity. He would rather give up practicing medicine than euthanize one man, woman, or child certainly, who had nothing or very little wrong with them, and didn't deserve it. Even if someone was terminally ill and suffering he couldn't do it. In that case, he would make them as comfortable as he could, as he always had, not kill them. They wanted to turn him into a murderer, and he stood up and looked the colonel in the eye.

"I'm sorry, Colonel," he said, and the colonel turned on his heel, marched out of Thomas's office without a word, and slammed the door behind him. Thomas wasn't even afraid of the reaction this time, as he had been the first time. It was the only answer he could give them. There was no other choice in his mind.

The response was swift this time. After the colonel's visit, Thomas continued seeing his patients as usual—lawyers, bankers, a member of the Reichstag, the Republic's legislature, a well-known socialite, and two of his patients' children. He didn't mention the visit to anyone, or what had transpired in the meeting. The whole idea disgusted and horrified him.

Two days later, a car with four members of the Gestapo arrived, and two SS officers in a separate car. They had sent the highest-ranking officers to arrest him. They strode into his office while he was at his desk.

"Do you still refuse to follow the directives of Aktion T4?" the senior officer asked him, standing in the middle of the room. "And refuse to obey the Führer's orders?"

"I do refuse," Thomas said calmly, feeling as though there was a film happening in front of him and not real life. "The directive violates the oath I have taken as a physician and would force me to take actions that I cannot perform as a doctor."

"Take him," the Kommandant said to two soldiers who had appeared in the room. "You're under arrest," he said to Thomas before he stormed out of the room, as the two soldiers grabbed Thomas roughly, dragged him across the room, and pushed him down the stairs, where he fell into the hands of more soldiers waiting for him. He was still wearing his white doctor's coat. They tore it off him, threw it on the floor, and trampled it as they dragged him out, as horrified nurses and orderlies watched.

"You're not a doctor anymore," one of the officers said. "Your license has been revoked, by order of the Führer. You are a traitor to the Reich, and a disgrace to the Fatherland." As he said it, Thomas wondered if they were going to euthanize him. But whatever they did to him, he still knew that his refusal to kill innocent people for them was right.

They pushed him roughly into one of the police cars waiting outside, and all of the cars sped off within minutes. The nurses huddled inside the hospital, wondering what to do now. There was no one to direct them. At six o'clock a truck full of soldiers and two SS officers arrived. They walked up to the reception desk, and the senior officer spoke to them coldly.

"The hospital is now closed. Release your patients immediately."

"What should we do with them?" one of the nurses asked, looking frightened. They had been worried about Dr. Alexander all day and wondered what crime he had committed. The patients knew nothing about it and had been told that the doctor had important meetings and would be back tomorrow, which they hoped would be the case. Now it was clear that wouldn't happen. It wasn't a misunderstanding he could clear up. The soldiers unrolled posters that said CLOSED in bold letters, and taped them to the doors and the fa?ade of the building.

"Send the patients home," one of the officers answered the nurse's question.

"Some of them are too ill to be moved, and had surgery too recently," another nurse explained. They had come down from other floors when word spread of what was happening.

"Then call ambulances and send them to other hospitals," the second officer said more humanely. "You have an hour to get everyone out." The receptionists at the front desk got busy immediately calling for ambulances and calling hospitals, while nurses and orderlies rushed to the upper floors to prepare the patients. Some of them called their families and within minutes, their relatives started to arrive. Those who were able to walked out or were taken in wheelchairs. The patients who were too ill to move easily were lying on gurneys in the hallways, with blankets over them and their belongings in suitcases next to them. Their relatives came as quickly as they could. The hospital had been emptied of patients in under two hours, as the soldiers told them to hurry and get out of the building.

One of the patients asked an officer if Dr. Alexander was Jewish. It was the only explanation for what had happened, and how quickly they were forced to leave.

"No, he's a traitor to the Reich, to a criminal degree," he said in a strong voice that everyone could hear. No one said a word after that, and all the patients were gone finally, as the nurses cried at what had happened.

"Now the rest of you go too, and don't come back here. Take your belongings. You worked for a criminal. If you come back here, you'll be arrested for consorting with criminals." They scurried to get their things then. There were nearly fifty of them, including cleaning and clerical staff, though most of them were nurses in starched white uniforms, or blue ones with white aprons and white caps and black shoes.

They left the building in a mass exodus, glancing over their shoulders at the soldiers and officers who stood watching them go. They were all unemployed now and they had no idea what had happened to Dr. Alexander. They wondered if Sophia had been arrested too, by association, because she was his daughter. They walked away from the hospital to catch their buses. Some of the nurses had their husbands pick them up, and said they'd explain it later. It had been a wonderful place to work. The soldiers locked the doors behind them. They had their orders. There had been some discussion about whether to remove the equipment, but in the end the decision was not to.

They searched the house adjacent to the hospital, where they knew the doctor lived, and removed some sculptures and paintings, and then returned to the hospital to follow their orders. Another truck full of soldiers arrived, and a brigade of firefighters. Then the soldiers went through the hospital floor by floor, smashing everything with axes, throwing instruments on the floor, turning over beds. Machinery was hacked beyond use or recognition. If Thomas Alexander returned to his hospital, there would be nothing useful left or in working condition. When every floor had been vandalized, they set fire to it, and left the building. The firefighters kept careful watch to make sure the fire didn't spread to neighboring houses, but there was considerable space around with the gardens. Then they went to Thomas's home and repeated the process. His house was smaller than the hospital, so it didn't take as long. The two buildings created an enormous fire, which lit up the sky in bright orange with clouds of smoke rising. Once everything was burning, the soldiers and officers left, and the firefighters remained to control the blaze if necessary. People had come out into the street to watch the two buildings burn, and the firefighters shouted at them to go back to their homes. People were shocked that no one was trying to put out the fire. It didn't dawn on them at first that it had been set intentionally.

The fires had been set by eight-thirty, and by nine o'clock the blaze lit up the neighborhood and you could feel the heat at a great distance, although it was a cold November night.

The nuns were about to go upstairs for the night after their evening prayers, when one of them looked out the window and saw the flames leaping toward the orange sky, shooting sparks and black smoke billowing above the fire.

"Oh how terrible, there's a fire in the neighborhood. It looks like a bad one." The others came to see what she had noticed, and they gasped when they saw it. Sophia was one of the last to get close to the window and guessed instantly the direction that the fire came from. Without asking permission, she bolted from the building and took off at a dead run. She was there within minutes, her worst fears confirmed. Her father's hospital was being burned to the ground, and their home next to it.

"Oh my God," she said as she stood next to the firefighters. "What happened to the patients? Did they get everyone out?"

"They left two or three hours ago," one of the firefighters answered her, as they stood and watched the buildings burn.

"And the doctor? The staff?" They looked at her strangely. "Why aren't you putting the fire out?" No one answered.

"There's no one in the building," one of them finally said, not wanting to be rude to her since she was a nun. "You should go home, Sister, there are a lot of sparks flying. You don't want your habit to catch fire. You should go back to the convent." He knew there was one just down the street. The other nuns had started walking toward the burning hospital by then, curious, confused, worried, and Mother Regina was among them.

"What happened to the doctor? This was a private hospital," Sophia asked the firefighter closest to her.

"He was arrested this morning," he said in a flat voice, and Sophia felt like she was going to faint for a minute, as Mother Regina arrived next to her and put an arm around her.

"Let's go home, Sister," she said to Sophia quietly. "It's dangerous here," she said, holding her tight, and Sophia understood her. It was why the firefighters weren't fighting the blaze. Mother Regina had guessed what had happened when she saw them, and she led Sophia away. Sophia didn't resist her, and the other nuns followed. Sophia cast a glance at the house she had grown up in, that her mother had decorated so beautifully, and which had been a warm home for all of them. It was nothing but a flaming skeleton now. There was nothing left of it, and the hospital was still burning white hot as they all walked back to the convent in silence.

Mother Regina led her into her office so the others wouldn't hear them. She sat Sophia on a chair, handed her a glass of water, and closed the door, and then sat down at her desk to talk to her. Sophia was staring at her blindly, in shock at what had just happened.

"They were letting the house burn, Mother, and the hospital."

"I know. I saw that." The Mother Superior could guess that they had set the fire, or someone had.

"They said my father was arrested this morning. How do I find out where he is and what happened?"

"I'm not sure. I'll try to find out tomorrow. It could be dangerous to ask. I'll see if Father Weiss knows someone. Do you know if your father was involved in any dissident activities?"

"No," Sophia said, dabbing at her eyes, from the smoke and the emotion. She felt overwhelmed and the Superior could see it. "He wasn't interested in politics, just medicine and patients." Mother Regina didn't ask if they were Jewish, she was sure they weren't. But something very serious had happened to cause such a violent reaction. The firefighters had clearly been told to let the fire burn until the building was reduced to ashes. But more importantly, Sophia needed to know what had happened to her father, and if she was in danger now too. They needed information.

"Don't go to your meeting next time," she warned Sophia, "until we know what happened." Sophia nodded, and a little while later, Mother Regina walked her upstairs and put her to bed in her tiny cell with the narrow bed and the thin mattress. You could smell smoke in the air now, and they could see from the windows that the fire was still burning brightly.

After prayers the next morning, Mother Regina called Father Weiss, who said mass for them, and asked him if he could find out what happened. He wasn't sure he could, but he promised to try, as discreetly as possible.

He called back at noon. All the other nuns were at their jobs, and Sophia was alone in the convent with Mother Superior. She had called in sick at St. Joseph's and stayed at the convent to wait for news.

Father Weiss told them what he had learned. He called a sergeant he knew and had gone to school with. The sergeant told him the doctor in question had been arrested for treason. He had refused a direct order from the Führer, which was usually punishable by death. He didn't know if it would be in this case. Father Weiss said that the sergeant believed the police still had Dr. Alexander, and he had heard they might be sending him to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp just outside Berlin, and eventually relocated to Dachau, near Munich, or directly to Dachau in the next few days, after interrogation by the police had been completed. That usually meant torture. Father Weiss didn't add that detail, but Mother Regina could figure it out for herself. The priest added that the doctor must have made the High Command furious for someone of his stature to be so harshly punished, particularly since the Reich needed doctors, as so many Jewish doctors had been forbidden to practice and sent to concentration camps. It was all he knew, but sending Thomas Alexander to a camp was a certainty. The only question was which one. And Mother Regina was grateful to know that Sophia's father was alive.

Both camps he mentioned had a reputation for harsh treatment and a shockingly high mortality rate. The priest mentioned that Dachau had an infirmary staffed by inmates, and since he was a doctor, it seemed more likely they'd send him there. Dissidents of the Nazi regime were frequently sent to Dachau, and there were said to be close to twenty thousand prisoners housed in thirty-two barracks. It was the first camp that had been opened. Prisoners were sent there for forced labor, and there was a crematorium. Whichever camp he was sent to, it was easy to deduce that Thomas would be facing hard times and would be lucky to survive.

Mother Regina delivered the news as gently and simply as she could, and Sophia cried as she listened, trying to guess what cataclysmic event had resulted in such a violent reaction. It was hard to imagine. Her father had been loved and admired by all, even the High Command of the Reich, but clearly he had been given an order that he had refused to comply with, and she felt sure it had been something that he considered a crime against humanity. Although he hated the Reich, he was never an obvious dissenter, and many of the highest officers of the Reich were his patients. Now he was being sent to a concentration camp for hard labor. She just prayed that he'd survive it. There was nothing she could do now except pray for him.

She spent the rest of the day in her cell, praying and thinking about him. He was a good man and didn't deserve what was happening to him. She couldn't imagine her life without him and was afraid she would never see him again.

When Thomas arrived at the police station, after he was dragged from his office, he was taken directly to the head of the SS in Berlin, and the Director of the Health Ministry was there waiting for him. Thomas Alexander's refusal to cooperate with the Aktion T4 program had gone straight to the top. There was no hiding from it now. They didn't attempt to convince him this time, they reminded him that it was a direct order from the Führer and asked him if he was willing to comply or defy the Führer. They reminded him that a refusal was punishable by death. It was a frightening reminder but it didn't change his mind. He was willing to go to his grave to protect the oath he had taken as a doctor, and he was not going to start murdering people to satisfy the Führer or anyone else. He was quiet and polite, and respectful, but also firm and clear. He was then led out of the room, and taken to a cell where four police officers beat him senseless and kicked him mercilessly with their boots. Then he was left in the dark for many hours while he drifted in and out of consciousness. He tried to keep track of how long he was there but every time he passed out, he had no idea how long it had taken him to wake up again, and his grandfather's gold watch, which he wore daily, was gone.

He thought it had been two days when he regained consciousness and was fully awake. There were no windows in his cell, and they had left him in darkness, so he had no idea what time of day it was. They hadn't fed him since he'd been there, but he wasn't hungry. His whole face was caked with dried blood, his lips were parched and cracked. His lower lip had split from one of the blows. He could tell that he had several broken ribs, he wasn't sure how many. He thought maybe four, which made it hard to breathe, and one eye was swollen shut. He took a careful inventory in the dark, and wondered what they were going to do now, possibly kill him, but strangely he wasn't afraid. He knew his response to them had been right. The only one he was worried about was Sophia. He didn't know if they would take revenge on her as well. He hoped not, and was grateful that she was no longer working with him and was living at the convent. In the end, that had been providential and might save her. It was too late for him to be saved now. He backed into a corner, and leaned against the wall, waiting to hear his fate at their hands, whether a firing squad or another beating.

It seemed like he had sat there for a long time when they opened the door, and shone a light in his eyes, which blinded him. "Stand up!" a male voice shouted at him. It took him several minutes to comply with the broken ribs. Finally he stood, but couldn't see beyond the light to who was shouting at him, or how many there were. "Move!" the voice shouted again, and Thomas wasn't sure in what direction but walked toward the light. Several hands grabbed him at once and shoved him, and he stumbled, and gasped from the pain in his ribs. He was pushed through a door into a brightly lit hallway, and his one good eye adjusted as he squinted, and followed two police officers, with two more behind him. He followed them through a maze of hallways, and down a flight of stairs into a garage. Police cars were lined up, and he was pushed into one of them. They hadn't bothered to handcuff him, as he wasn't an escape risk. They knew who he was, and he wouldn't get far if he tried. And he was in no condition to run, thanks to them.

He watched the city slide by, wondering where he was going and if he would ever see Berlin again. Or how much longer he'd be alive. Maybe they were taking him to one of the killing centers for Aktion T4 where they administered the lethal injections. He almost didn't care, except for Sophia. He didn't want to leave her alone in the dark world that Germany had become.

They drove just out of the city to an industrial freight station. There were freight cars lined up and waiting on the tracks. Thomas guessed that they were sending him to a concentration camp, he didn't know which one, and it didn't matter. They told him to get out of the car. He had no coat on and it was freezing, and to make matters worse, it started to snow.

A handful of soldiers walked over to them, carrying machine guns, and looked Thomas over with disgust.

"We have another passenger for you," one of the police officers said, "for the first-class carriage," and the soldier laughed.

"It's already full, but we'll find him a seat."

"When do you leave?"

"Tomorrow night. We have some stops to make on the way. We'll get there by morning." The police officers handed him a large envelope with Thomas's papers in it, and one of the soldiers slid open the door of the freight car and pushed Thomas with his gun. "Get in!" he told him roughly, which made his broken ribs shriek with pain again. Thomas gritted his teeth and did as he was told, and saw that there were two or three dozen men already crowded into the freight car. Some were wearing suits, and one was wearing a naval uniform of some kind. There were three priests. They didn't look like criminals, but they looked battered and tired. Thomas slid along the wall of the car, as the wind whipped in around them, and then let himself down into a sitting position. He couldn't have stood for much longer. And once the door closed again, some of the men talked to him. They were mostly professionals, some lawyers, a judge, two doctors. They had all defied Nazi regulations in some way and committed crimes against the state. It explained the police officer's comment about the first-class carriage, not so they could be treated better than the others, but perhaps because they had some designated use for them when they arrived at their destination. It was only an educated guess, and maybe a hope for survival.

"Do you know where we're going?" Thomas asked one of them after they had exchanged information for a few minutes.

"No, but I'm guessing Dachau. I heard the soldiers talking about traveling south. They have an infirmary there, with inmates as the doctors, so maybe they'll keep you alive," the man said to him. There was no food on the train, and Thomas could no longer remember the last time he'd eaten. There was a slop bucket full of excrement in a corner. The stench was strong, of bodies and fear and the slop bucket.

"How long have you been here?" Thomas asked them.

"Four days." Thomas nodded, and curled up in the cold, warmed by the bodies pressed next to him in the crowded car, and eventually fell asleep. He woke up in the dark to the sounds of hundreds of feet on gravel, men calling out, soldiers shouting, doors opening on the other freight cars, and Thomas realized that they were filling all the cars with men being deported to the concentration camps. There was grunting and calling and shouts of pain as the soldiers pressed them in, filling each car well past maximum capacity so the men could hardly breathe. Their car filled with enemies of the state from various professions really was a first-class carriage compared to what the others were enduring. Thomas could hear them moaning, and some crying out in despair, as the soldiers continued to fill the train through the night and the next day. And then finally at dusk, the day after he got there, the train started to move toward their destination. They still didn't know where they were going and wouldn't until they got there. They had been given no food or water. They were just cattle now, men whom the Reich treated like animals, and would slaughter if they wanted to. They were nothing now, and no one. Some of them had been respected, successful men, but they were just cargo now, on the train to hell.