Chapter+21

=Chapter 21: The Green- Eyed Boy=

Summary:
The chapter begins with Johann only having one more day out of the twenty one allotted days left. The process of writing the letter has changed Johann, he now feels more aware of himself than he was before. He hopes that Helga will understand and take him back. Until this day, whenever Johann looked at Generalleutnant Brandt, all Brandt had to do was simply look in Johann's direction to send a chill down Johann's spine and force him to look away. Johann had feared being recognized by Brandt, he had feared being put on trial, but more than either of these, Johann feared being inspired by Brandt again. He feared that his will would waver, and that he would again agree with Brandt's logic, that held that the Volk are "above an individual's life. But now, Johann, with his new-found self awareness is able to look Generalleutnant Brandt directly in the eye for as long as he feels necessary. Eventually during the proceedings, Brandt recognizes Johann. Brandt however decides not to identify Johann as a Nazi doctor. After the trial adjourns for the day, Johann goes out on the cold winter street and is drawn to the ruined Volksbank where Meier is still working, as always, to clear away the rubble. When he gets there, Johann finds Meier saying repeatedly to himself, "So tell me, what else should I do with the rest of my life?". Meier and Johann talk about how the Nazi party did do some good for the whole of Germany, how its determination and spirit gave the Volk hope and purpose, so that it believed in itself again. Eventually, the subject changes, and Meier tells Johann that he thinks he knows where he recognizes him from, but instead of elaborating, Meier decides to tell Johann about what has happened to him since the beginning of the Second War. He tells Johann of everything that he has lost, of his son that was killed in France in 1944, of how his wife was lucky to die before the Second War started, of how their only grandchild died in a bombing at the age of nine, of how the only family he had left was his daughter-in-law, and how he lived with her in Nuremberg. Johann recalls his second meeting with Brandt, at the Ministry Of Health for his reassignment away from Auschwitz. Brandt asks Johann to meet with him over lunch in the canteen. A few minutes later, Johann and Brandt are sitting in the canteen discussing what had happened to Johann at Auschwitz. About how he was injured in the bombing, and had only just been released from the hospital. Johann tells Brandt about how he had been arrested and detained for a day for implying that Germany would lose the war by saying that he would rather have his wife captured by the Americans than the Russians. When Brandt asks Johann about his work, Johann gives him a less than enthusiastic answer saying that when he first started working for the Party, he believed in what he was doing. He tells Brandt about one particular patient that he remembers vividly, a green eyed, mixed race boy, about seventeen years of age, who only sings beautiful songs to himself or plays word games on his own. The attendant nurse had told Johann that a lethal injection would be better, and more humane for him than the torturous carbon monoxide chambers, so Johann began to make ready to perform a lethal injection, the sight of the syringe frightened the boy visibly. In an effort to calm him, the nurse began to sing a children's song to the boy, and the boy joined in. Johann then performed the injection, the boy tensed, his eyes widened, and then was still. Brandt told Johann that he had done the right thing, and that there were many things that are terrible about war, however the things that he had seen and done were too terrible for him to continue work on the euthanasia program, and he begs that Brandt let him be reassigned. At first, Johann only did post surgical care, in the Charite in Berlin. But after he learned to control his right hand again, he returned to work on surgeries, and amputations. After one amputation, of a soldier who was left with no legs, the soldier in question asked Johann if he could kill him with an overdose of morphine, that he didn't want to go on living that way. Johann denied the man of his sought after death, telling him to wait a week for things to improve. The chapter ends with the Russians approaching Berlin, and the wounded pouring into the Charite.

Memorable Passage:
“Forgive me, please, but I must ask you, how has my son’s death, how has the death of ‘dozens of thousands,’ as you say, helped our Volk? Our healthiest youth, our precious future has been sacrificed. We have spent our blood in a ferocious war. Meanwhile, we expend enormous resources to exterminate millions of human beings. Jews, Gypsies, Slaves, men and women whose lives may be offensive to what we think to be normal, but who are entitled to their own happiness. And who are we to say who is a “useless eater”? And for all this, is our Volk healthier? Is our Vaterland. . .”(p. 424)

Vocab:
Grafeneck (413): Euthanasia center, first large scale gas chambers

Auschwitz (416): built by 3rd reich, largest concentration camp in Poland

Kobleznz (418): German city on banks of Rhine

Aktion T-4: Euthanasia program 70,273 people dead

Gestapo (420): Secret police beginning April 20, 1934

Reichsminister (422): members of German parliment

Key Concepts and Events:
__National Socialist Party__-party that opposed the nazis.(pg.414)

__Mischling__-mixed race child.(pg.421)

__Heil Hitler__-Common Nazi greeting, accompanied by hand salute.(pg.426)

__Koblenz__-German city that is on both of the Rhine.

__Tiergartenstrabe__-a street name; garden street