His Majesty's Hope(24)

“Are you working this shift now?” one of the other nurses asked. “Do you have your papers?”

“In my bag,” Elise lied, thinking quickly. From the back of the bus, a boy began to wail.

“I’m Brigitta Graff,” the young woman told her. “We can deal with that later; for now, just help me.” Wafting through the bus was the unmistakable odor of urine. Several other children began to cry.

“What can I do to help?” Elise asked.

Together, they looked at the children in their seats, about fifteen in all. Some were drooling, some were moaning, some were waving their limbs spastically. There were children with Down syndrome, neurological diseases, and malformations of all kinds. Some sat quietly and appeared as any other child, but Elise recognized them—they were blind, deaf, or epileptic. And some were mischlinge—mixed Jewish and Aryan, but classified as Jewish according to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.

Elise began gathering up damp cloths and fresh clothes for the wailing boy, who’d wet himself and was sobbing. She felt a stab of irritation at Brigitta, who seemed slow to help.

“I’d say just let it go,” said Brigitta to Elise, “but it’s a long drive to Hadamar.”

“ ‘Let it go’? Why on earth would you ever do that?”

“As soon as they get there, they’ll be taking a shower.”

Still, Elise felt that was no reason for the boy to have to sit in soiled clothes. She made her way to the back of the bus. The wailing child was about four, with sandy hair and freckles across his nose. Elise recognized him from Charité. He was deaf.

She tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention, and he looked up at her. “It’s all right, Friedrich,” she said, enunciating her words carefully so that he could read her lips. “It could happen to anyone.” She smiled, a reassuring smile. “Look, we have clean clothes for you to wear.”

She helped him change out of his wet trousers and underthings and into hospital-issued pajama bottoms. “Thank you,” he said in a thick, hard-to-understand voice—the voice of one who had never actually heard language. Elise rolled up the wet clothes and tucked them into a bag. Then she wiped her hands on a damp cloth.

“You’re welcome, Liebling,” she replied, ruffling his fair hair.

Brigitta remained silent.


The bus traveled southwest, from Berlin to the Hadamar Psychiatric Institute, located in Hadamar, a small town in the Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse, between the cities of Cologne and Frankfurt. The longer they drove, the more uneasy Elise grew.

Halfway into the journey, Brigitta began distributing small cups of liquid medicine. “What is this?” Elise asked, as she was given some to pass out.

“Just a little something to keep them calm,” Brigitta answered.

Elise gave one to Friedrich, and he rewarded her with a huge grin. When they were done distributing the medicine, Elise took her seat at the front of the bus and tried to look out the window. There was a small crack in the white paint, where she could see through to the darkening sky. She had the disconcerting realization that while they couldn’t see out, no one could see in. She hadn’t told anyone where she was going. No one had seen her leave; no one could see her now.

Finally, at almost midnight, they reached Hadamar and pulled up the drive to the institute. Out the driver’s window, Elise could see a series of redbrick buildings. They drove past the main entrance and went to what seemed to be a garage for the buses.

“All right then, stand up, everyone!” Brigitta called, clapping her hands. The children, groggy from their medicine and tired from the late hour, rose to their feet.

Brigitta and Elise, along with some orderlies from the institute, guided the children from the bus garage through what Brigitta called “the sluice”—a narrow, fenced-in path—to a large building. They went inside what looked like a gymnasium locker room in the basement. All of the windows were sealed.

“You’re all going to take showers now,” Brigitta called to the group. “Please find a locker. You will leave your clothes there. Remember the number—you’ll need it to get dressed again. Any jewelry and valuables should be handed over to one of the doctors for safekeeping.”

Friedrich looked at Elise, and she pointed to the other children, then pointed back at him. He smiled and followed the lead of the others.

When the children were naked, they were walked past a long table for registration and a superficial inspection by a doctor in a white lab coat and swastika armband. Each had to open his mouth for inspection. Those with gold crowns were marked with black crosses on their backs. Each child was then photographed, a startled second of flash.