Ebola Holocaust

EBOLA HOLOCAUST

by Richard Brown

Published by Richard Brown at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Richard Brown

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

POSTSCRIPT

PROLOGUE

Few viruses inspire more terror than ebola. And for good reason. Apart from its high fatality rate - seventy percent upwards for its more virulent strains - those infected suffer a horrific death. This virus is like a molecular fast breeding piranha. Once just a few particles of it have got into your bloodstream, it rapidly keeps reproducing itself until there are thousands, then millions, then trillions of the lethal virus particles coursing round your defenseless body. It does this by feeding ravenously on every organ and tissue in your body.

Its feeding frenzy turns the under layers of your skin into a porous liquefied mush. Blood seeps out of your skin and every opening in your body. It oozes out of your nipples, your eyelids, your tongue, your nose and your rectum. If you are man, it trickles out of your bloated testicles and penis. If you are a woman, it flows out of your protruding labia. The blood streaming out of your body cannot clot since its red cells are dead. Your brain becomes all clogged up with these dead blood cells and progressively loses function. Blood squeezes out of softened heart muscles and floods into your chest cavity. Your eyeballs start filling up with blood as their linings disintegrate and you start to lose your sight.

This deadly virus starts to kill your vital internal organs while you are still alive. Your liver turns yellow, starts to liquefy, cracks apart and goes putrid. Your kidneys, jammed up with dead cells, stops functioning and your blood goes toxic with urine. The lining of your intestines sloughs off and is passed out of your anus along with copious amounts of blood. The lining in the back of your throat also sloughs off and slides down the windpipe into your lungs. Towards the end of your horrific death you go into epileptic convulsions with your arms and legs violently thrashing about to spread blood all around you so helping the virus to jump to a new human host.

It is not hard to see why ebloa provides the perfect base for producing a weapon that is the ultimate unseen killing machine.

CHAPTER 1

Berchtesgaden - Friday 7 July 1944

Doktor Viktor Ruoff briefly glanced out of the vast hydraulic powered vertically sliding picture window that dominated the main living room of the Berghof, Hitler's alpine retreat at Berchtesgaden.

Outside it was a perfect summer's day. The majestic alpine landscape was bathed in bright morning sunlight, the snow capped Untersberg peak glinting in the radiant sun's rays. Fresh blue and yellow flowers covered the steep slopes of the mountainside meadows. Even the rows upon rows of tall pine trees looked welcoming. It was a picture of flawless nature at total peace with itself.

But inside?

Viktor returned his gaze to the tastelessly but extravagantly furnished room.

Inside the atmosphere was far from tranquil. Hitler was restlessly pacing up and down, repeatedly clasping and unclasping his long fingered hands. It was the first time Viktor had seen the Führer in the flesh and he looked much older and more pallid than portrayed in the newsreels and newspaper photographs. He moved round the room dragging his feet with his back bent in a permanent stoop. There was an unhealthy gray tinge to his complexion and his cheeks were noticeably bloated. Only his piercing blue eyes retained all their famed vitality - intense, hypnotic and penetrating.

"I should have got rid of that lily-livered apology for a feldmarschall months ago, shouted Hitler, his voice quavering having lost its previous masterfulness. If our forces had been properly led we would have defeated the enemy on the beaches of Normandy back in June. But what did I get from von Rundstedt instead? Just endless pleas to keep withdrawing our troops further and further back for so called 'strategic regrouping'. If I hadn't stood firm, the Americans and British would be lording it up in Paris by now. The last straw was his request to withdraw to a defensive line along the river Seine. When I refused, he told High Command that we might as well finish with the war and attempt to make peace. Can you believe that? I can only hope that feldmarschall von Kluge makes a better job of it than von Rundstedt did but you can never be sure with the officer corps."

The other two in the room apart from Viktor - Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS and Adolf Eichman, the head of the SS department responsible for the 'Jewish Final Solution' - nodded their heads sympathetically. There was no love lost between the SS and the German army, especially its haughty senior officer class. Viktor took his cue and nodded his head as well.

Hitler stopped pacing in front of the giant window overlooking the Untersberg peak and turned to stare straight at the leader of over a million men in the Nazi party's paramilitary Schutzstaffel, the schoolmasterish looking Reichsführer-SS Himmler.

So now my dear Heinrich, tell me what the latest progress is on settling the Jewish question. Not a host of problems and set-backs like I suffer all the time from the Wehrmacht generals, I hope?

"No mein Führer," Himmler quickly assured Hitler as he nervously adjusted his glittering pince-nez. Like most of the Third Reich leaders who worked closely with the Führer, Himmler felt uncomfortably exposed whenever Hitler's piercing blue eyes looked intently into his. "Just challenges which I am confident that the SS will overcome. Plus an encouraging development that holds promise of a new radical solution to the Jewish problem which is why I have brought along Doktor Ruoff from the Reichsforschungsanstalt at Reims Island."

Hitler transferred his penetrating gaze from the Reichsführer-SS to Viktor. For a brief second or two Viktor felt the Führer's deep blue eyes bore deep into his and like many before him, found himself momentarily hypnotized by them.

Hitler looked back at Himmler without saying a word to Viktor.

So what's the latest on the Hungarian Jews? he asked the Reichsführer-SS.

Himmler invited Eichman to respond on his behalf with a wave of his right arm in the direction of the head of the infamous Amt-IV B4 department within the SS.

"So far the roundup of Jews from the provinces outside Budapest has gone to plan mein Führer," briefed the bland faced Obersturmbannführer responsible for organizing the 'Jewish Final Solution'. In fact better than plan thanks to the enthusiastic co-operation of Andro Jaross and his men.

Hitler raised his heavy eyebrows in query.

"The head of Hungary's Interior Ministry mein Führer, expanded Eichman, and the man in control of the Hungarian police. They are no lovers of Jews and have exceeded our expectations on the speed with which they are rounding up the provincial Jews. At the latest count over 470,000 Jews have been deported to the extermination camp at Auschwitz which is almost 80,000 ahead of the target we set ourselves back in April."

And how many Jews are there altogether in Hungary?

"Approximately 860,000 mein Führer."

So there are still roughly 400,000 to be dealt with?

"Yes, mein Führer. Having started with the provinces, the bulk of the Jews left are those living in Budapest. There are about 260,000 of them."

So how long until we have dealt with all the Hungarian Jews? asked Hitler.

"Difficult to say mein Führer. After a good start we are now facing three problems."

Himmler scowled at his head of Amt-IV B4. Eichman hastily corrected himself. "Or rather three challenges mein Führer."

And they are? queried Hitler.

In brief the Regent of Hungary, the transport system and Auschwitz itself, summarized Eichman before continuing: "Dealing with the Regent first. Two Jewish prisoners managed to escape from the Vernichtungslager at Auschwitz and get to Slovakia where they produced a report for the Allies on our deportation and extermination of Hungarian Jews. Last month extracts of this report were broadcast on the BBC and printed in the New York Times. As a consequence the Pope, the American President and King Gustav V of Sweden have all written to Regent Horthy pleading him to use his influence to halt the deportations. As yet he hasn't but the pressure is there. If he were to replace Andro Jaross at the Hungarian Interior Ministry with someone less enthusiastic about resolving the Jewish question it would complicate things. Maybe slow it down initially but I am sure it is a challenge we could manage.

"The transport system though is of much more concern. Up until recently we have managed to ship out between four and five train loads a day. However of late thanks to all the Allied bombing of the Hungarian rail network, we have barely managed one train load a day which only amounts to 2,000 or so Jews.

Then the third problem ..... Eichman corrected himself again. ..... the third challenge is Auschwitz itself. The gas chambers and crematoriums are not coping with this large influx. The backlog of prisoners waiting to be dealt with is causing major overcrowding problems with all its associated security implications.

Hitler directed his penetrating glare to Eichman's boss.

"So Heinrich what's your view on these difficulties that the Obersturmbannführer has outlined?"

The Reichsführer-SS choose his words carefully.

"The challenge is wider than that of just the Hungarian Jews, mein Führer. With the Russians re-taking Minsk we also have to transport all the Jews from the Vernichtungslager at Majdanek to the extermination camp at Auschwitz. That's putting a further great strain on both the Reichsbahn's resources and that of the Vernichtungslager at Auschwitz. But we may have come up with a solution that eliminates the need for both transporting Jews and coping with under resourced extermination camps. The scientists working under my command at the Reich Scientific Institute at Reims Island have been researching a means of exterminating Jews where they live which requires no police or military resources. Thanks to a recent breakthrough in their research we may well have that solution available to us right now which is why, mein Führer, I have brought Doktor Ruoff along to this briefing. Doktor Ruoff is the leading scientist on the team and is far better equipped than I am to explain his team's breakthrough and answer any questions you might have."

Hitler turned his intense blue-eyed gaze to Viktor.

Please enlighten us Doktor Ruoff.

As Viktor proceeded to outline what his scientific team had been working on and what it had achieved, the color perceptibly returned to Hitler's cheeks. The Führer's back appeared to straighten, his left hand stopped shaking and his lips seemingly straightened into a purposeful expression. By the time Viktor had finished his briefing, the dynamic magnetism of old seemed to have returned to the Führer.

"Sehr gut, sehr gut, he repeatedly exclaimed. Sehr gut."

"As Doktor Ruoff explained, interjected Himmler, his thin lips creased in a clear smile of satisfaction at the Führer's obvious approval, the next step is a live field trial in a secure environment. Naturally we have examined various possibilities."

And? probed Hitler.

"There is nowhere within the Reich's borders that can be regarded as sufficiently secure to ensure there is no collateral damage to our German volk should the field trial be unsuccessful. The field trial really needs to be conducted in a location as remote and isolated as possible from the Reich. Amongst the options we have considered is one that we consider ideal. It is an uninhabited island seventy kilometers to the north of the Scottish mainland. It is one of the remotest islands in the British Isles. And as I said it is totally uninhabited. It hasn't even got a lighthouse on it. It is so small and remote that it is frequently omitted from maps of Great Britain. It is called North Rona. However to transport those involved in the field trial to this remote Scottish island we would need the services of the Kriegsmarine. Using a U-Boot is the only way we can possibly get the field trial personnel and their equipment to the island unseen."

"So you want me to have a word with Großadmiral Döenitz?" queried Hitler.

"Yes, mein Führer," confirmed Himmler, lightly brushing his small apology for a moustache with his slender and effeminate looking index finger. Even with all the power and million men at his disposal, the Reichsführer-SS knew only too well that he had little to no influence over the commander-in-chief of the German navy. A request from him for a U-boot in these fraught times would be bluntly refused. For that he needed the intervention of the Führer himself.

The SS team along with the Jewish guinea pigs, continued Himmler, have already been selected and so are all ready to go as soon as a U-boot is made available.

In that case I will get onto Döenitz this afternoon. Is there anything further you want to brief me with at this stage?

"No, mein Führer."

"In that case, I would like a private word with the Herr Doktor," said Hitler dismissing the Reichsführer-SS and his head of Amt-IV B4.

Of course, responded Himmler, his pale face slightly flushing in clear annoyance at being dismissed while one of his minions was to be treated to a private audience with the supreme leader of the Reich.

After Himmler and Eichman had left the vast living room, Hitler walked across to where Viktor was standing and warmly clasped the scientist's right hand between both of his. As the Führer's piercing hypnotic eyes bored right into him, Viktor felt himself being strangely drawn into the leader's innermost core.

The battle in which we are engaged today, softly breathed Hitler, "is the same sort as the battle waged by Pasteur and Koch in the last century. They were fighting plagues that were threatening to destroy human civilization. Typhoid. Tetanus. Syphilis. It is just that the plague we are fighting today is much more dangerous and cunning than those bacterial diseases. My war against the Jewish virus is one of the greatest revolutions that have ever been initiated in the world. For the sake of future Aryan generations it must be won. I am relying on men like you Herr Doktor to win this sacred war, with or without me at the helm. How old are you Herr Doktor?"

"Twenty-five mein Führer," replied Viktor.

Thirty years younger than me. commented Hitler. It is unlikely that I will live long enough to see this war against the Jewish virus through to its successful conclusion. But as a young man you might well do so. And you have the scientific skills to achieve what is still eluding me in spite of my best efforts. So I want you to swear an oath to me right now. I want you to swear that you will personally continue the war against the Jewish virus until your dying breath.

Viktor looked straight into the Führer's deep blue eyes with his single working eye.

"I swear mein Führer that I will wage war against the Jewish virus with all at my disposal until the day I die," he found himself saying without any hesitation.

After he had spoken, he knew deep inside him that he had meant every word he had just uttered. That whatever the future held for him, he would remain faithful to the oath he had just made to the Führer.

NordWestZentrum Shopping Center, Frankfurt - Tuesday, 13 March 2012

Colonel Saeed Zamani of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was momentarily distracted by a young couple swaying from side to side as they weaved their way down the wide curved glass roofed shopping lobby towards where he was standing. They were clearly both drunk. The young man had his arm swung right round the girl's narrow shoulders with his fingers draped over the side of her right breast. The girl was dressed in jeans and black semitransparent blouse. The nipples of her pert breasts were clearly visible as was the 'camel-toe' outline of her crotch in her impossibly tight figure-hugging jeans. To the Muslim army officer the young couple symbolized the total decadence of the West. A boy and girl barely out of school, no doubt unmarried, their minds enfeebled by drink, out strolling in public locked in a filthy embrace with the girl openly flaunting her body in scanty over-tight clothes. All quite disgusting.

Saeed took his eyes off the drunken young couple and returned his gaze to his young niece Jamileh who was serving a customer with a sample cup of the soft drink they were supposedly promoting. What a contrast. She was fully dressed in loose fitting trousers, a long sleeved manteau coat and roosari headscarf. She had no makeup on. There was just her natural beauty that shone in her dark liquid eyes and her soft voice. An exemplary example of Iranian womanhood.

Naturally he would have preferred not to be here in this God forsaken shopping center in the heart of Germany promoting a non-existent soft drink. If he could have delegated the task he would have done so. But this initial phase of the mission that he had been ordered to carry out by the commander of the elite special forces within Iran's Revolutionary Guards was too critical to the success of the whole operation to be left in the hands of someone else. It was important that procedures were strictly adhered to. Not quite as critical as it would be at his next stop - Tel Aviv - but important nonetheless. He just had to overcome the uncomfortable feeling he always had when he was in the West. So far he had managed quite well. It was just seeing that young entwined couple .....

Saeed's thoughts were interrupted by a polite cough behind him. He turned round in the circular stall to face a tall blond haired man in his thirties dressed in a business suit and tie. As Saeed looked into the man's light blue eyes he immediately decided this very Aryan looking customer was worth cultivating.

"Willkommen gnädiger Herr, he smiled in his best German. Can I interest you in sampling the three different flavors of our SPHINX soft drink and the possibility of winning an all expenses paid holiday in the Maldives. As you can see from our posters, we are an Egyptian company planning to break into the European market but before doing so we need to know which of the three different flavors we produce most appeals to European tastes."

Sure, smiled back the blond Aryan.

Saeed handed the Aryan a small plastic cup half filled with the first of three flavors. The businessman sipped up the amber colored liquid, swirled the soft drink round in his mouth a couple of times and then swallowed it. Saeed handed him a cup with the second flavored soft drink and then one with the third flavor.

Definitely the second flavor, volunteered the Aryan businessman once he had sampled all three flavors. It has got a slightly delicate coconut flavor which I really like.

It is interesting that you like that one the best, smiled Saeed, even though it wasn't. It's the favorite of most of those who have sampled our selection so far today. Now can I interest you in entering our competition for an all-expenses paid holiday in a luxury island resort in the Maldives? It won't take you more than a couple of minutes of your time to complete the form. Would you like a pen?

The Aryan businessman nodded. Saeed handed him a competition form and a biro pen and in less than two minutes the German had completed it and handed it back. As the businessman turned his back on Saeed to continue on his way down the shopping center lobby, Saeed glanced down at the completed form. The name written down - GUSTAF BAUER - was a good German one and the address a Frankfurt one but more importantly he had ticked both key boxes in the list of hobbies and activities - swimming and diving. All in all the perfect candidate with his very Aryan looks and the right hobbies. Saeed stapled the completed competition form to the last plastic cup the businessman had drunk out of and carefully placed it in a box on the floor behind the counter.

Saeed then glanced at his niece Jamileh who had just finished serving a black woman. As previously instructed, Jamileh threw the three cups the black woman had drunk out of and the competition form she had just completed into an open bin liner. Only the plastic cups and competition forms from obvious Aryans with at least 'swimming' ticked as a hobby were to be collected in the special box for later analysis.

North Atlantic - Saturday, 15 July 1944

Oberleutnant zur See Hans Falke rotated U-992's Zeiss periscope a full 360 degrees. His eyes were well practiced in looking for the slightest dark blob on a moonlit night such as this. But there was nothing he could see that resembled a possible ship or aircraft in this deserted stretch of the North Atlantic forty seemeile off the north-west tip of the Scottish mainland. The only blob that he could see was the nearby outline of North Rona Island with its conical shaped headland. A tiny remote island that the most senior naval officer stationed in Norway - the Führer der U-Boote Norwegen - had assured him had been left uninhabited by the enemy.

This mission made no sense to the twenty-five year old U-boat commander. Why ferry four Jewish prisoners and their four-strong SS guard from the Kriegsmarine base in Bergen to this remote uninhabited Scottish island? What possible relevance could it have to the war effort that was getting more and more desperate as the borders of the Greater Reich kept shrinking day by day? The Red Army was now already within a few miles of the borders of the Baltic states. The Americans and British were on the point of capturing Caen in Normandy. In Italy, the U.S. Fifth Army was closing in on Florence. And the very heart of the Fatherland was being mercilessly bombed day and night into a heap of ruins. At a time when his U-boat should be with the rest of Unterseebootsflottille 11 attacking enemy convoys, here it was on some damm fool mission dreamt up by the SS.

When he had questioned what the mission was all about, he had been told in no uncertain terms by the Führer der U-Boote Norwegen to mind his own business and just obey orders. His role in this top-secret mission was simply to deliver the Jews and their SS guards safely to this uninhabited island. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Hans Falke carefully scanned the horizon a full 360 degrees through the periscope a second time before giving the order to surface.

"Tauchzelle fünf geblasen," reported back the rating in charge of releasing compressed air into the U-boat's ballast tanks. Sea water in the submarine's five main ballast tanks was always blown out starting out at the bow and progressing back towards the stern.

" ..... vier geblasen ..... drei geblasen ..... zwei geblasen."

Hans watched the liquid in the Papenburg shallow depth gauge steadily move from the fourteen meters mark towards zero. With the conning tower now above water, he gave the order to shut down the two Siemens electric motors and start the two supercharged Germaniawerft diesel engines. Once the diesels were running, the rating who had released compressed air into the main ballast tanks to partially expel the sea water, operated the controls to complete the blowing out of the tanks using the diesel engines' exhaust gas at a pressure of 0.6 atm - again one tank at a time.

With the U992 now fully surfaced, Hans climbed up the conning tower and opened the air tight hatch. Once on the bridge he took in a deep breath. He always savored this moment when the fresh sea air first filled his nostrils. A more then welcome relief from the dank stale air inside the U-boat with its heavy accumulation of sweat and lingering flatulence. Most of the two-day 330 nautical miles voyage from Bergen had been made underwater at a painfully slow 7 knots. Suitably refreshed, he wasted no time in searching the moonlit horizon with his powerful standard issue 8x60 BLC binoculars for any sign of an aircraft or ship. He could see nothing. The waters and sky round him looked as deserted as ever.

Hans nodded to his second-in-command who had joined him on the bridge and handed him the binoculars. It was time for him to go back down the conning tower and supervise the preparations for the landing party.

Down below in the control room were huddled the pathetic looking Jewish prisoners, dressed in their coarsely made faded blue and gray stripe uniforms, their wrists locked in handcuffs. Standing to one side of the Jews were three SS guards and their commanding officer, Hauptsturmführer Wolfgang Keister. Hans had taken an instant dislike to the SS officer from the moment he had first met him at the Kriegsmarine base in Bergen. Like many in the SS, the Hauptsturmführer was arrogantly full of his own importance.

"Please ask your men Hauptsturmführer to remove the handcuffs from the prisoners," requested Hans having observed the problems two days previously that the Jews had experienced climbing down the conning tower ladder with their hands handcuffed in front of them.

Certainly not, snapped back the SS officer, his fair skinned face beginning to flush with anger. The handcuffs are a vital security measure.

"But not as vital, I venture to suggest Hauptsturmführer, as your safety and that of your men and my crew."

What do you mean? sharply snapped back Hauptsturmführer Keister, his ice-blue eyes now full of anger.

Having the prisoners in the inflatables unable to use their hands to steady themselves will seriously jeopardize the whole stability of the dinghies. The sea is quite choppy at the moment.

That is as maybe but it is a risk that will just have to be taken, unilaterally decided Hauptsturmführer Keister. The security of the prisoners is paramount. Without being handcuffed, the prisoners could escape.

Where to exactly? questioned Hans. The nearest land apart from the island you are disembarking to is over sixty kilometers away. I very much doubt whether any of your prisoners have the physical strength to swim that far.

This commonsense observation of their young commander triggered a few sniggers from the Kriegsmarine ratings stationed in the submarine's control room. None of them were lovers of the SS and especially not this arrogant puffed up Hauptsturmführer.

Keister's face now went bright red.

"I would remind you Oberleutnant that I outrank you. The handcuffs stay on."

Hans stood his ground.

"In that case Hauptsturmführer the disembarkation cannot proceed. You may outrank me but I am in charge of all the operations of this U-boat and that includes the transit of the inflatables to and from the island. I am not prepared to compromise the safety of that transit by the unnecessary use of handcuffs on these prisoners."

"You realize that you could be executed if you prevent this special Führer ordered mission from going ahead?" snarled the SS officer, his eyes still blazing.

Possibly, conceded Hans. "But then you would have to explain away your ridiculous insistence on the unnecessary use of handcuffs. I suspect your superiors would take a dim view of your unwillingness to work within the normal safety procedures of the Kriegsmarine."

For a few seconds there was a deathly silence in the control room, broken only by the distant hum of the Germaniawerft diesel engines.

Hauptsturmführer Keister finally capitulated.

"Very well. The handcuffs will be removed until we get to the island. But don't think Oberleutnant I will overlook this matter for one minute. Once this mission is completed I will submit a full report on your gross insubordination to both your superiors and mine."

With the issue of the handcuffs settled, the two inflatable rubber dinghies were made ready for the short trip to the south facing side of North Rona Island. A waterproof box containing camping equipment was carefully positioned inside one of the inflatables. Another box containing rations and various items of radio and other equipment was put into the other inflatable. Two U-boat ratings got into the back of the first of the inflatables, followed by two SS guards with two prisoners taking up the two front positions. A similar seating arrangement was followed for the second inflatable - two U-boat crew in the back, the SS officer and the third SS guard in the middle and the remaining two prisoners in the front.

The two inflatables set off on their short journey to the island's shore, the rhythmic sound of their oars breaking through the seawater gradually getting fainter and fainter. Hans repeatedly scanned the moonlit horizon with his powerful binoculars for any sign of enemy shipping or aircraft but this patch of the North Atlantic remained as deserted as ever. However he was relieved when the two inflatables returned with their U-boat crew an hour and twenty minutes later. It never felt comfortable lying surfaced in a sitting duck position for any passing enemy plane or surface vessel.

Once the inflatables had been returned to their home in the bowels of the U-boat, Hans gave the command for the bridge to be cleared and for the vent valves to the ballast tanks to be opened. In short order the voice tube was closed, the portable machine gun dismounted, the radar detector aerial taken down and flooding of the ballast tanks initiated. Once the conning tower hatch had been shut tight, Hans ordered the closure of the supply and exhaust ventilation valves. The diesel engines were shut down and the electric motors started up. With its fore plane down and stern plane up, the submarine started submerging at a gentle twelve degree angle. Once it had submerged to forty meters, Hans ordered the planesmen to move the fore plane up and the stern plane down to level the U-boat at this desired depth.

With the U-boat safely under water, Hans let his thoughts wander. As he had done several times before, he tried yet again to figure out what this mysterious mission to a tiny deserted Scottish island could possibly be all about. But no matter how wild he let his imagination run, it still made no sense. Even less so given that the mission was being carried out under the direct orders of the Führer himself with a relatively high-ranking SS officer in charge. What could four Jews guarded by four SS men on a remote island off the coast of Scotland possibly achieve for the war effort? It was all completely beyond him.

Still at least U-992's role in the mission was completed. It felt good to be sailing back at last to rejoin Unterseebootsflottille 11 on convoy patrol off the north coast of Norway. That's where U-992 should be instead of providing logistical support to some damm fool SS mission.

Konzentrationslager, Auschwitz, Poland - Saturday, 5 August 1944

When its doors were roughly yanked open, Abraham Rosen expected a blast of fresh summer air to fill the stuffy airless cramped inside of the cattle wagon. Instead a foul sickly sweet odor filled his nostrils. It smelt like human sewage, only much worse.

"Raus, raus, raus! shouted an SS guard as he roughly banged the butt of his rifle against the side of the wagon. Schnell, schnell, schnell!"

Abraham Rosen was one of the first to awkwardly clamber out. His legs felt like jelly after being cooped up in the overcrowded Reichsbahn wagon for the last four days. He stumbled as one leg and then the other made shaky contact with the ground. Hell, he felt weak. Weak, hungry and totally exhausted. His tired eyes slowly adapted to the bright sunlight outside. The first image that he consciously registered was an electrically charged fence with each of its barbed wire strands connected by porcelain insulators to high concrete posts. Then, stretching the full length of the train, he saw a row of armed guards. They were all dressed in the green-gray SS-Totenkopfverbände uniform with the infamous death's head insignia glinting on their right collar patches. Then finally Abraham's tired eyes registered the cause of the sickening smell. Belching out of a tall chimney beyond the end of the rail track was a thick plume of dense smoke broken every now and again by a bright orange glow.

It was then that Abraham Rosen realized what the obnoxious suffocating smell was. It was burning human flesh. Of that he had little doubt. Back at the concentration camp he had come from - Theresienstadt - there had been many rumors about the existence of Nazi 'Death Factories'. Few in the cattle wagon had wanted to believe that's was where they were being transported to. But Abraham now instinctively knew that was exactly where they had been brought to in their slow moving train.

In a strange way he was relaxed about the prospect of his imminent death. At least it offered a final release from the living hell he had been suffering for the last six years in the concentration camp at Dachau and then the year at Theresienstadt. Day after day of grueling hard labor, standing to attention for endless roll calls in all weathers, scrubbing out filthy latrines, being continually starved, being covered in lice, sleeping in a rough wooden bunk with no mattress, being continually shouted at and beaten. Day after torturing day. All now about to come to a final end.

As more and more of the train's wretched passengers disembarked, the SS guards closed in, whips at the ready and their threatening German Shepherd dogs fiercely barking. Pitiful screams rent the air as several of those alighting from the train were slow in forming into a five abreast line and were whipped across their backs, arms and legs for their tardiness. Gradually the screams died down as the line slowly formed into an acceptably ordered column for their Aryan masters. At the head of the line standing on a small stool was an SS officer immaculately dressed in perfectly creased trousers, well pressed jacket and white gloves. Proudly pinned to his jacket was the Iron Cross (First Class) and War Merit Medal (Second Class with Crossed Swords). The three silver pips and two silver stripes on his left collar patch showed he was a Hauptsturmführer, the equivalent of an army captain. As the column of Jews moved past him, using his riding crop he directed the more able bodied to his right and the disabled, elderly and children to his left. Anyone protesting about being separated from a family member directed to the left was smilingly redirected also to the left. Walking with a limp and his gaunt face showing his premature ageing, Abraham was directed to the left.

As he joined the elderly Jews, children and protesting mothers walking in the direction of the tall chimney belching out foul smelling smoke, images from his past flashed through his weary mind. First they were of happier times. A bench in Berlin Zoo, the sun shining, a group of baboons swinging on ropes. The person sitting beside him came into view. She was beautiful. Dark entrancing eyes, a rosebud mouth, thick brunette hair. It was Esther, his future wife. They were on their first date. The scene of the zoo faded away to be taken over by a hospital ward. All white walls, a white painted metal bed and white nursing uniforms. In the center of all this whiteness was that rosebud mouth smiling lovingly at their baby boy Yossef who had just been born. The joy filled scene quickly faded away to be replaced by tears running down the same rosebud mouth as it spoke of being spat at in the streets by thugs wearing swastika armbands. Then the scene changed to one of an endless line of fellow Jews queuing for exit visas. The lips on the rosebud mouth of the woman standing beside him in the line were now trembling in deep anxiety. Images of the precious visas with Esther's, Yossef's and his name written on them flashed by to be replaced by that rosebud mouth again. This time its lips were opening and closing rapidly in obvious anger. It was Ester telling him that he was a fool not to be accompanying her and their son on their voyage from Bremen to New York. That it was madness to delay following them until he had managed to sell his water pump business. That things could only get worse for Jews in Germany and that he was taking a stupid risk staying behind a day longer than he absolutely needed to.

"Stoppen!"

The rosebud lips immediately evaporated to be replaced by the real life sight in front of Abraham's tired eyes. The five abreast column he was in had come to sudden halt in front of a high gate. Behind the gate Abraham could see a steep roofed red brick building with a tall chimney mid way down its long length - the same chimney he had seen for a distance when he had got out of the train. Plumes of foul smelling dark smoke were