A Perfect Madness (7 page)

“
I should thank you, and I
do, but they are nothing but bully-cowards. Nothing more. And yet
we had been friends, all of us,” Julia said, turning away from
Erich for a moment to stare down the tall, blond student now
standing alone by the door, glaring at her.

Erich knew this day had long been
coming. The large German minority in the Sudetenland had been
seething with undiminished hate against the Czechs and Jews and
everyone else, from the very moment they were literally given to
Czechoslovakia by the Versailles Treaty at the end of World War I.
Hitler had promised they would soon be free, and they believed
him.

“
We must be vigilant,
Erich. They have begun to hate their Jewish friends now, and anyone
who stands with them,” Julia said.

“
I know, Julia, and it’s
hard for me to accept, since I’m German, too.”

“
Father says that it’s the
beginning of the end of all that is good in Prague and the rest of
the nation.”

Before Erich could respond, Dr.
Neumann, a distinguished professor of anatomy and a Jew, entered
the lab. The class chatter stilled, but not completely. Stomping of
feet began softly at the rear of the classroom, then grew bolder,
causing the glass vials and beakers on the lab tables to shake
violently, some tipping over. Horrified at the scene unfolding
before him, Dr. Neumann raised his hand for silence, only to be met
with an outburst of derisive jeers.

“
Out with the dirty Jews!”
one yelled, then another.

His face red with embarrassment and
rage, Dr. Neumann retreated from the room as single voices quickly
became a taunting chorus chanting, “No more Jews! No more
Jews!”

As if on a signal, the chanting
stopped as quickly as it began. The tall, blond student had moved
to the door, where he turned and raised his hand to silence the
rebellious students in one motion. Then, looking straight at Julia
and her fellow students, he screamed, “You Jewish vermin, you
pollute the air we breathe. Leave and crawl back in your holes.
This is your only warning.”

Erich could restrain himself no longer
and rushed towards the sneering student. Before he could reach him,
several students grabbed and wrestled Erich to the floor while
others pummeled him with their fists and books. As Erich lay on the
floor unable to protect himself, the students began kicking him,
but stopped immediately as several shrill whistles sounded from a
cadre of Czech uniformed police running down the hall to the
classroom, followed by Dr. Mann, the rector of the university. With
order quickly restored, Julia rushed to Erich’s side and began
wiping the blood oozing from his mouth and nose with a lab towel.
She had never felt closer to him than now, nor surer of her love
for him.

As the police escorted the tall, blond
student along with several of his colleagues from the laboratory
room, he looked back at Erich and Julia shouting, “You Jewish
lover, you have betrayed your homeland. The authorities will hear
of it because I will tell them.”

Erich said nothing and turned away to
join the few remaining students in the room who were huddled around
Dr. Mann answering his questions about the incident. Erich was the
only German in the crowd and Dr. Mann took note of that fact. The
rest were either Jews or Czechs, or both, all citizens of
Czechoslovakia. What became shockingly clear to everyone was the
unexpected volume of gathered hate showered in the room by a rather
small group of Sudeten German students. It was clearly not what the
other students wanted to face, nor the university. In time this
hate would become a monster frightening everyone in sight and
closing down the university. For now the university would continue
its mission of liberal education. All the students that
participated in the assault on Erich were summarily dismissed from
the university, and the cold Prague winter became
spring.

Spring and young love have always been
equals. When one, they soar apart from the world as the poets have
long written. And so it was with Erich and Julia. Their days and
evenings together became more intense, each grasping for the last
seconds of the day entwined in the arms of the other. However, any
thoughts of marriage between a German and a Jew at that moment in
history were mired in the hidden terror of uncertainties about what
the future could become for both of them. This terrible fact became
more apparent to them than ever during the traditional convocation
at the university.

Dr. Arthur Guett, a prominent
physician and high-ranking Nazi health officer, delivered the
prestigious lecture to the graduating seniors. Striding to the
podium as if carrying a new commandment tablet from God for the
young graduating doctors eagerly looking on, he began in a strong
voice. “Listen carefully to my words today for I am giving you two
new maxims that all German physicians must follow. One, the
ill-conceived love of neighbor that you harbor must disappear
forever. This is an absolute if you are to understand the second
one, that it is the supreme duty of the state, and no one else’s,
to grant life and livelihood only to the healthy. The life of the
individual has meaning only in the light of that ultimate
aim.”

Erich glanced quickly around the
crowded auditorium; no one stirred. The silence was deafening. Then
Dr. Guett added a stern admonition for all to hear, one that seemed
to bother no one but Erich and Julia.

“
As physicians, it is not
your job, and never will be, to determine whether something is
true, but rather, whether it is in the spirit of the National
Socialist revolution.”

With the word “revolution,” as if on
cue, the tall, blond student who had been expelled from the
university jumped to his feet wildly applauding and shouting his
support. Immediately, row after row of other German Sudeten
students mixed with Czechs leaped to their feet to join the growing
cheers. At first, Dr. Guett did nothing but smile, secretly
satisfied with the outburst of support for his radical remarks.
After a few minutes, he raised his hand and the demonstration and
shouting grew silent. Continuing for the next forty minutes, he
meticulously demonstrated the staggering growth in the ranks of the
mentally insane and disabled and those suffering from incurable
diseases in all of Europe and the threat this carried to every
country’s wellbeing, not just Germany’s.

Dr. Guett stopped talking then and,
inhaling the drama of the moment, looked slowly around the crowded
room, taking on the aura of a great thespian preparing to deliver
the most compelling lines of the play. “My fellow physicians, at
this very moment in history we must embark together on a journey
that will bring a spiritual reawakening of our sacred profession.
To accomplish this, every doctor, when put to the test, is expected
to embrace the ice-cold logic of the necessary—nothing less will
do. It is the health of the country we should be concerned with,
more so than individual disease.”

Then he paused, clasped his hands
together in front of his chest and looked upwards towards the
ceiling as if awaiting the final divine words from God before
shattering the silence with his concluding remarks. “Fellow
physicians, we must prevent the bastardization of the population
through the propagation of the unworthy racial alien elements. We,
you and I, are the sacred guardians in keeping our blood
pure.”

Dr. Guett had barely finished his
closing words, when the tall, blond student rose to his feet again,
and in mob-like fashion led the resounding cheers of the growing
number leaping to their feet. The restless crowd now included many
of the German professors at the university. Dr. Guett’s words had
sounded the ancient trumpet of the Goths calling to arms all who
would listen, and the students and young doctors were thrilled. A
holy cause now beckoned them that gave greater meaning to the word
doctor. The medical profession was to be recast in the service of a
larger healing—the “protector” of the future life of the German
people.

As the years passed, Erich would be
haunted by the demons revealed that April day. But for now he could
only grasp a small piece of the emotional rollercoaster Julia and
her father were hanging onto. He glanced quickly at the row of
distinguished Jewish professors sitting to his right. No one was
speaking. None had risen to challenge Dr. Guett’s remarks. Their
eyes fixed on some unknown distant object. It was as if the sun had
suddenly disappeared from the sky and they were hiding deep in the
cold darkness of a great cave, waiting for the beast to come and
devour them.

Erich suddenly reached over and took
Julia’s hand, lifted it to his mouth and kissed it, hoping the
tall, blond student and everyone standing with him would see it.
Kissing Julia’s hand in public was the strongest protest he could
make against the filth that had spewed forth from Dr. Guett’s
mouth. And it didn’t go unnoticed by several of the German students
and professors, nor by Julia’s father, who smiled and nodded to
Erich. Later, as they stood to leave, Dr. Kaufmann placed his hand
gently on Erich’s back and whispered to him, “Please walk Julia
home and stay for dinner. We have much to talk about.”

Then he turned and walked over to the
Jewish professors who were still sitting in their muted state and
sat down among them.

Walking with Julia was always a
special time for Erich, but today he had no stomach for dinner or
any serious dialogue with Dr. Kaufmann, who had come home early
from the university. Instead, he left Julia standing alone on the
front porch, greatly puzzled by his sudden silence and distance. He
was disturbed by the dichotomous emotions playing out in his head
between Dr. Guett’s message of hate and the mystifying logic of
necessity that lay behind the message. He no longer dwelled on hate
because it was everywhere, saturating the air like seawater, until
it dripped from the trees, drowning the few remaining blossoms of
reason. It was the logic of the necessary so deftly concealed and
emboldened by the sacred white coat of medicine that Dr. Guett’s
malevolent words hid behind that bothered him. He had used a
medical metaphor to blend with the biomedical ideology of the
Nazis, the cleansing of the race. A sick Germany can become
healthier by sterilization of misfits with hereditary disorders.
That is, if it stopped there. Would medical killing be next,
disguised under the name of compassionate euthanasia? Yet
physicians had always been the protectors of the health of a nation
deeply obligated to the promotion and perfection of the health of
the people. Nothing more should be expected of them by the state.
No, Erich concluded, pushing logic aside, Dr. Guett’s words were
ill suited for young physicians and dangerous to the mind. He would
think no further about them; yet he would stay troubled by the
words, recalling them many times later.

Returning to Julia’s home, though it
was quite late, Erich knocked on the front door. After a few
minutes, Dr. Kaufmann turned on the porch light and opened the door
just enough until he could recognize Erich as the late night
caller.

“
Why are you here so late
Erich? Everyone is in bed.”

“
I must see
Julia.”

“
She is asleep. Please
come back tomorrow.”

“
I am here, Father,” Julia
whispered, standing in the hallway behind him.

Without waiting for her father’s
approval, Erich took Julia’s hand and led her out on the
porch.

“
I love you, Julia,” was
all he said, before turning and walking away into the
darkness.

He had spoken these words many times
before during their moments of lovemaking, but this time they
carried beyond the simple utterances of young lovers in passion.
They sprang from his soul. He had uttered them the first time they
lay together in their secret Eden along the banks of the Vlatava.
Inexperienced and clumsy as he was, she had simply held him tightly
to her body, ignoring her own sexual awakening, for which he was
thankful, and whispered softly, “I love you, Erich. I always will.
Forever.”

Julia watched Erich disappear into the
night, and then felt her father’s comforting arm around her
shoulders.

“
He is a troubled young
man Julia, troubled and haunted.”

“
Haunted?”

“
Yes, haunted, I’m afraid,
by what he sees as the truth now.”

“
Truth should haunt no one
unless it becomes mixed up with evil,” Julia said, puzzled by her
father’s observation of Erich.

“
I know, but Dr. Guett’s
lecture shredded Erich’s innocence into a thousand pieces. It’s
difficult to see one’s reality shattered before your eyes as Erich
has.”

“
His reality?”

“
Yes, his reality, not the
reality you and I know and live in. I believe he understands now,
for the first time, the futility of the Jews trying to stay alive
in Germany, and perhaps even here in Prague. That is what Dr. Guett
was telling all of the German students today.”

“
Oh Papa, how horrible,”
Julia cried, using the pet name she used to call her father as a
young girl.

“
We must be patient with
Erich. Truth can become so fragile when one’s existence depends on
it. Now go to bed. We will talk some more tomorrow when the sun is
shining and the day is bright.”