The three of them share a look, followed by a pause. One of them bursts into laughter. “We were all prisoners here once, then sent to the front to train as soldiers. Our petty crimes could be paid for with our service. Since we were familiar with the camp, we were sent back here to work.”
“Shut up,” one of them snaps. “You run your mouth like a little girl. You’ll get us killed.”
“I won’t say a word,” I promise, desperately trying to protect myself from becoming one of the loose ends Otto was talking about.
“He’s lonely. Forgive him,” the other soldier says.
I fidget with my wedding band, hoping the lonely one will notice so I don’t have to share anything about myself.
“Just to confirm…what temperatures will you be setting the water to?” I ask.
“34°C/93°F, as mentioned earlier, Fräulein,” the lonely soldier says.
“Frau,” I reply. “Frau Berger.”
“My apologies.”
Otto bursts into the room, his expression intense, his arms wrapped tightly around a mess of supplies. My throat tightens and the muscles in my limbs lock as the reality of what’s about to happen crawls in closer. With a trembling hand I can’t conceal, I reach over to take something from his full arms, finding the supplies to be life vests and uniforms. “What—wh—what are these for?”
“We will be testing the difference between summer air force uniforms and the winter ones, with and without life vests,” he says, a grimness lining his voice.
Twelve subjects won’t be enough to gather sufficient data, but I’m not going to be the one to suggest we bring in more people. “I see.”
“Emilie, could you prepare the notes for data collection?” Otto asks, with a flashing plea in his eyes.
He needs a transcriber. That’s why I’m here.
“Yes,” I say, trying to keep myself composed though my insides are shattering like fragile glass. I clutch the notebook and a mess of life vests against my stomach, pressing against the never-ending nausea that started when this situation began, and has yet to dissipate.
“We need to know the water temperatures, Herr Berger,” the lonely soldier says.
“Yes. The freezing water should be set to 16°C /60°F and the hot water should be 40°C/104°F.”I’m thankful Otto didn’t question my numbers, but this experiment could result in significant damage if not properly monitored.
“Are we planning to warm them in blankets in between immersions?” I ask, worried about the sudden shock a person would experience with exposure to extreme temperature changes.
“No, we’re to move them straight from one tub to the other,” Otto says, firmly.
“And for how long?” I continue, shivering as I stare at the water.
“Until their body temperature reaches 26.5°C/79.7°F.”
“How will we monitor their body temperatures?” I press, noticing there’s nothing around us that could give us that reading from inside the tub.
“We’ll get thermometers,” he says.
There’s no proper equipment and there’s no in-between life and death. I can only stand here, watching helplessly as we attempt to freeze a bunch of men only to then try and warm them back up without an ounce of science behind this theoretic remedy. We aren’t trained to be doing this. We could cause serious damage, or worse, and that’s not why I’m here. I came to help, but I’m not. I might as well be restrained to a wall with what little control and power I have.
“Go on, bring the first twelve in,” Otto tells the lonely soldier.
In the moment I have before I need to find a way to lock all my emotions inside, I scan the room, taking note of how sterile the environment is. The door opens and twelve men shuffle in, still clothed in their prison attire, all disheveled, bald, weak, thin, hollow eyes, with frail frames. Each one of them has a Jude patch sewn to their shirts. These men aren’t prisoners. Danner is not in this group and at the moment I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. I’m sure each of these men has someone who loves them dearly, who would do anything to help them get as far away from here as possible.
Otto won’t look at them. He keeps his head down, buried in the folder. The man I know…the man I’ve always known is hiding inside the cloudy soul that has taken over. His ability to shut out emotional ties to humanity must be genetic. I didn’t think he would become like this. This is my fault for assuming wrong.
“Look at them, Otto. You have no choice but to look at your subjects. You should be studying them so you know every single detail for each one of them before you go any further,” I whisper to my husband.
“Emilie, please,” he replies, “I’m trying to read something.”
“The water is set to the requested temperature,” one of the soldiers says. “Would you like us to immerse the first prisoner?”
