War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 69

Chapter 14

A

nna arrived at the Charité Monday morning and was setting out to prepare new bacterial cultures when Professor Scherer appeared in the laboratory, clad in a white lab coat.

“Fräulein Klausen, would you please accompany me to the Pediatric Clinic?” he asked.

“Of course, Professor, let me finish setting up this round of tuberculosis experiments,” Anna answered, holding a pipette in her right hand as she dumped droplets onto the nutrient solution in a round bowl. She’d finally found a way to control the growth of the bacterium. Once finished, she blew a strand of hair from her forehead and glanced at the professor, who’d been observing her.

“I believe I’m this close,” she said, putting her fingers half an inch apart, “to finalizing a vaccine that will not only slow down the growth of the, but contain it entirely.”

“We’ll soon find out,” the professor answered and watched her as she disinfected and dried her hands. “Let’s go.”

On the way out, she tossed her lab coat into a basket for washing and grabbed a clean one. One could never be careful enough. God forbid, if the highly infectious bacteria spread into the wild…

Since the tour on her first day of work she hadn’t returned to the patient wards of the Charité

.

The head doctor was already waiting for them and Professor Scherer made the introductions.

“Doctor Bessau, this is Anna Klausen, the young woman I was telling you about. She has made marvelous progress finding a possible tuberculosis vaccine.”

“Then let’s have a look at your work.” The doctor smiled and handed them each gloves and a surgical mask.

Anna looked slightly confused at the two men, but put on the gear and followed them through the gated gangway to the quarantine barracks. The excitement of something important loomed in the air, but with every step she took towards the quarantine barracks, her steps become more labored as if she was treading through quicksand. The two men walked ahead of her, talking about a medical diagnosis she did not quite understand.

On the other side, they stepped into a huge room and the sight that greeted her knocked Anna’s breath from her lungs. Memories she’d buried deep down snaked back up her spine to attack her out of the blue, and she staggered.

Roughly thirty cots were in the shabby room, each one occupied by an emaciated child. Regardless of their age, all of them were strapped to their beds, wearing diapers and not much else. Some had obvious deformities, others showed the empty glance of imbeciles, but most of the children simply lay whimpering, howling, and coughing.

Anna put a hand over her mouth, oxygen not reaching her brain anymore. The air became thick, too heavy to breathe, and she fought the urge to rip the mask away in her struggle for oxygen.

“What is this?” she asked, the horror etched into her face.

“Imbeciles. Cripples. Worthless members of society. It’s disgusting, since most of them can’t even control their bowels,” the doctor answered.

“I can see that, but what are they doing here?” Anna asked, unable to look away as a child around six years of age started violently coughing, until blood smeared his face and bed sheet. At the other end of the room, a nurse gave another child an injection, but she didn’t even look up to see which one of her little patients was coughing so hard.

Anna grabbed a paper towel and walked over to clean the blood and mucus from the little boy’s face. He kept coughing and howling, his eyes empty. The sound chilled Anna to her bones.

“A waste of effort; he’ll probably die within a day,” the doctor said. “He got the first lot of the vaccine you’re working on.”

Anna felt the ground swaying beneath her and opened her mouth. No words came out. It took her several tries before she found her voice. “The...the vaccine isn’t completed,” she stammered.

The doctor nodded. “And the only way we will ever know for sure whether it works or not is to test it on a person. Laboratory tests can only tell us so much.”

“But, but…you’re infecting these children with tuberculosis!” Anna said.

“Not children. Degenerates. They have previously been selected for removal from society,” the doctor told her matter-of-factly.

Anna shook her head. It was so wrong. Just because a child was soft in the head or had a game leg didn’t mean they should have their life arbitrarily ripped from them.

“Fräulein Klausen, I know this may look cruel at first sight,” the professor said, entering the conversation, “but you have to remember that these subjects aren’t normal children. They are sub-humans, more similar to a guinea pig or a rabbit than to our race.”

Why wouldn’t the ground stop moving? Anna grabbed onto the bars of one of the cots and fought the dizziness attacking her. She thought she’d seen the abyss of human cruelty in Ravensbrück, but this? “But they are suffering…” she managed to murmur.

The doctor looked at her, his dark eyes void of any compassion. “I agree with you. This is unfortunate. Very unfortunate. A person with a pure heart like you cannot stand to see even the lowest animal suffering. But we have to be rational here; sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. And wouldn’t you rather have one of these subjects suffer for a short time, if it can help to save hundreds of thousands? Our soldiers, mothers, beloved children?”

Anna couldn’t form an answer. For the remainder of the morning, she trudged silently behind the two men, her brain trying to come to terms with what she’d witnessed.

At the end of the ward round, Doctor Bessau led them back through the gangway to the open part of the Pediatric Clinic. There she glimpsed mothers sitting at the beds of their children, trying to hide the worry etched into their faces.

“Fräulein Klausen, so far you have done outstanding work.” Professor Scherer congratulated her on their way back to the laboratories. “I would think a promotion is appropriate as soon as we see positive results from the vaccine.”

“A promotion?” she asked.

“Yes, as head of the vaccine team. I also thought of having you enroll into university on a part-time basis. I have great plans for your future.” He smiled at her and added, “Please excuse me; I have a lunch engagement.”

Then he was gone, leaving Anna standing at the entrance to the building that hosted the laboratories, dumbfounded. Her entire life she’d been dreaming about this. Enrolling in university. Becoming a biologist. Helping people with her work.

But right now it tasted stale. More than that, it tasted

wrong

.

She skipped lunch and instead buried herself in work. Work that caused suffering to innocent children. The bowl with the nutritional solution slipped from her hand and shattered into a million pieces.

Anna closed her eyes for a moment and then grabbed a broom and shovel to clean up the mess. When she’d swept up the shards and mopped the floor, she tucked an unruly strand of hair behind her ear. Leaning on the broom she sighed.

Sometimes a few have to suffer for the benefit of many.

In this war, everyone had to make sacrifices. Tuberculosis was one of the scourges of mankind, and she might be holding the key in her hands to rid humanity of an insidious disease. Could she really throw away the chance to help millions because a few dimwits had to suffer?