Director of Intelligence
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Season: season 5
Episode:Serenity, Passages, Humanity
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Black/Navy flight
House: House boat
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Welcome to chapter 7 of the story. This is the most controversial part of the story. I did a lot of research on life in the concentration camps, mainly in Auschwitz and stuck as close as I could to the reality of that time. Of course it wasn't a pretty sight. I also found out about this doctor performing experiments on the prisoners. A man named doctor Josef Mengele. He's the number 3 of the top ten most crazy scientists in history. He plays a part in this story. The experiments are what makes this part of the story controversial. So sensitive readers be warned. But the most important thing of this chapter is not the atrocities but the relationship MacGyver and O' Neill develop during this test.
(We fade in with tense music)
Chapter 7
The horrors of Auschwitz
Life in death camps
Torture & Escape
November 1943 – January 1944
It’s been only like two weeks at the most since my glorifying escape with Lt. Johnston from the Kriegsmarine at the Austrian-Hungarian border.
Lt. Johnston was brought into safety and was send back to his company. The whole rescue operation resulted in having a new friend and gaining more military respect. As far as friendships and respects goes since my serving time and doing assignments for O’ Neill, the reached results has also resulted in gaining a deep respect for each other. But, he was still my superior, just like the generals were his and he was still in command giving the orders which I had to follow, no matter what.
For my next assignment in Poland, he joined me just like the very first one I did in Austria. Only this time he was coming all the way. It was supposed to be another assignment like all the others but in an heavily guarded outpost, two soldiers were required. One to lure the guards away and another one to go in. I was the one supposed to go in. It was a well laid plan, we figured out in O’ Neill’s office in Austria. Except this time, the whole plan fell apart. We sat there in the bushes examining the outpost and trying to avoid the guards and officers.
‘You remember what you have to do, right?’ O’ Neill asked.
‘Sir, I never let you down on anything before. I won’t do it this time either.’
‘I know. Time to go!’
‘Yes, sir.’
Looking left and right to see if there were any guards nearby I crawled further over the ground to the wall of the outpost and carefully walked ahead to the entrance. I nodded to O’ Neill to lure the guards away. He began to draw their attention by screaming.
‘Hey! Hey, hey! Over here!’ (The music increases)
‘Was war das?’ the guards wondered and than they saw O’ Neill.
(Subtitle: 'What was that?')
They immediately sounded off the alarm and ran after him when he took off. I took my chance to enter the outpost. I reached a door but when I was about to open it, the door opened up from the other side. I quickly hid against the wall but than I heard the click of a gun against my temple.
‘Wer sind Sie?’ he asked. ‘Schnell, oder werde ich schießen.’
(Subtitle: 'Who are you? Quick, or I'll shoot.')
Than I heard gunfire from in the woods.
‘O’ Neill!’
In a fraction of the moment, I grabbed the soldier and pushed him against the wall. I kept his arm up so he wouldn’t be able to shoot. By smashing his hand against the brick wall, a couple of times, he let go of the gun. A launching right hand connected with his side ribs, followed by a right hook in the face. My knee struck his face and with a firm left hand, I knocked him out against the wall.
There came more gunfire from the woods and I quickly ran back to where it came from. In the end I found O’ Neill hiding behind a tree.
‘Colonel, what happened?’
‘MacGyver, what are you doing here?’
‘I heard the gunfire. I just wanted to make sure you were alright.’
‘I’m fine. I can keep them off,’ O’ Neill said and fired couple of times more. (The track Killing Road from Bitter Harvest starts playing)
Than a jeep appeared from out the outpost. It was an open one with machine gun in the back.
‘You think, you can keep that off?’ I asked.
‘Holy sh*t!’ O’ Neill said.
A rain of bullets was released. The bullets ricocheted on the ground and in the trees. A bullet missed me by an inch.
‘Wow! That one almost hit me.’
‘You’re right. Let’s get out of here.’
O’ Neill and I took off. We ran back into the woods with the Nazis following our tails. We ran as fast as we could. The distance between us and them seemed to become larger. We stopped one moment to see how far they were from us. They were far but not far enough. We could still see them.
‘Come on, MacGyver. We gotta run! We’ll split up and we’ll meet again on our rendezvous point, alright?’
‘Yes, sir!’
The Nazis were coming closer again and the jeep accelerated and released another salvo of bullets. I went to the right, O’ Neill to the left.
In a blink I saw O’ Neill disappearing in the woods, I jumped over a tree-trunk. In my landing, I tripped over a rock and stumbled and tumbled forwards. By rolling over a coupling of times I came back to a stop. My breathing was heavy but I was far from out of harms way. I crawled further underneath some bushes until I heard nothing no more.
Had they given up?
Than I heard two gunshots echoing through the woods.
‘O’ Neill!’
I crawled back through the bushes, jumped over the tree-trunk. I passed another tree and than I got whacked by the barrel of a rifle.
‘Aaagh!!!’
I hit the ground hard and was completely dazed by the blow. Keeping my consciousness was getting hard as I was put to the edge of it. I felt my face bleed as I kept my hand on the wound. I saw the gray sky becoming whiter. There was this intense ringing in my ears. I was falling off the edge but still I tried to keep myself conscious. In my blurred vision I saw the Nazis gather around me. One of them was dragging O’ Neill with him while another him hit him several times in his stomach.
‘No. No!!’
I couldn’t haul myself up from the edge of unconsciousness. Everything was fading away. One of the Nazis stood over me, presumably the one who has hit me. I saw him launching his rifle up and with all his force he hit me hard in the face again causing me to fall of the edge. Everything became black in front of my eyes.
(The music reaches it's peak and we fade out here)
(We fade back in with no music)
The train was rocking and bumping heavily on the rails when I regained consciousness.
‘Woah! Be careful, Mac,’ O’ Neill said trying to support me.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked while trying to have a look back at reality. ‘Where are we? Where are we going?’
The whole boxcar was filled with peoples just standing there. On their faces I could read a terrible fear. There was no place to sit and to the looks of things I was standing unconscious.
‘Man, my face hurts!’
With my hand I touched the wound. The blood has crusted and it felt swollen up. I could see though through the eye but the best thing was to keep it shut.
‘Well?’ I asked after O’ Neill didn’t answer me.
‘MacGyver, just relax.’
‘I wanna know what’s going on here.’
‘How’s your face?’
‘The face is fine, now answer my questions.’
Some of them looked annoyed and/or terrified in my direction when I kind of raised my voice.
‘OK. They’re sending us to the concentration camps.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah,’ O’ Neill said raising his eyebrows in confirmation.
‘How long was I out?’
‘Couple of hours. How do you feel?’
‘Fine, just a little dazed.’
‘Look, when you were on your assignments the past years, I read and heard a lot about the concentration camps. They’re horrifying.’
‘I’ve caught up a few things here and there.’
‘Yeah. I just wanted to say that we’re fully cut off of our troops in Austria.’
‘We have to rely on each other now, huh?’
O’ Neill nodded. ‘That’s the point. We don’t know how bad it is down there but one thing is certain: we’re going to hell.’
‘We’re getting punished for saving the world?’
‘That’s what life is at the moment. Or probably has always been that way. During the Great War everything had to became much worse before it got better. It’s the same way as it is now. I don’t know if we’re going to die or not in that camp. The chances are pretty likely. If the large scale invasion that is set for next year works, we can win this war. Than it doesn’t matter if we die now or not. Hitler already lost a big deal on the battle of Stalingrad. They lost the battle of Kursk and the Italians already turned their backs to the Nazis. Those are three blows they had to digest. Maybe no major blows but it sure damaged them.’
‘Yeah, but don’t forget, I was the appointed strategic thinker on that operation.’
‘Well if they use our notes we took, it still might take place. But what I actually wanted to say is indeed, we have to go through hell if we want to save the world. And something tells me that we’re just on the way to the gates of hell.’
(The track Welcome to Gateway from the movie Lock Up starts playing here)
The train ride lasted for many long hours until it suddenly stopped. O’ Neill and I shared a look. Ignorant he lifted up his shoulders. Outside we heard the SS-officers open the boxcars and screaming that everyone had to come off in German.
‘Aus! Aus!’
(Subtitle: 'Out! Out!')
When they opened our boxcars fresh night air tickled my nostrils. And it was about time as well. The smell in the boxcar was unbearable. There wasn’t any room to move and there were no sanitary stops. Everyone had to do their needs where they stood.
‘Aus! Aus!’ they screamed pulling everyone of it.
(Subtitle: 'Out! Out!')
We went off the train and were standing in one long line in front of the boxcars. I tried to figure out where we were. There was some moonlighting lighting the place. Apparently we were on a railroad track in the deep Poland woods.
The SS officers were controlling us out, some of them were holding down bloodhounds. They were going down the entire line.
‘What do you think?’ I whispered from out of the corner of my mouth to O’ Neill.
‘I don’t know,’ he whispered back from out his corner. ‘Why? Do you think, we can make it?’
My eyes were scanning the area for an escape attempt.
‘Well, maybe if we…’
Before I could finish me sentence there was a lot of commotion on my right. Women started to cry and also another man who tried to run for it.
‘Auslass das Hunden!’ they ordered.
(Subtitle: 'Release the hounds!')
The man who was trying to run got hunted down by the dogs. There was a lot of aggressive barking and than an ongoing yell of pain. The dogs must’ve got him. The SS-officers went to see what happened. Then there was a moment of silence when the dogs stopped barking. Some women gasped when they heard the hard echoing shot followed by another. Now they really started to cry as they saw the SS officers come back.
Realizing that could’ve been me or O’ Neill, it seemed better not to escape.
‘I think we can better forget about escaping,’ O’ Neill whispered.
Losing hope, I just nodded in response. (The music slowly fades away here)
Another dead moment occurred when I saw the SS officers standing closer together. It was as if they were discussing something.
‘What do you think, they’re talking about?’ I asked.
When I asked that an SS-officer looked in my direction. I looked away from him.
‘I don’t know. Probably about the next one they’ll victimize.’
The SS-officers nodded to each other so they must’ve come to an agreement of something. They continued down the line and began take out five peoples from my right and five from my left side. Two women and three men on my side and three women and two men on O’ Neill’s side. I was lucky, they took their last person who was standing right besides me. And I know how this sounds because that person had as much right as I did to live.
The officers forced them all on their knees. On each side, everybody got a neck shot. When they reached the fourth person on my side a woman started to scream.
‘Nein, nein!’ (The track Verloren Im Stillstand from the movie Der Untergang starts playing)
The person they were about to shoot must’ve been her husband. She tried to protect him by throwing her body over him. On the most brutal way I have ever seen a man treating a woman, they pulled her off of him and threw her very hard against the boxcar. She hit her head and her shoulders to it. She was dazed for a moment but still didn’t want to give up and threw her over her husband again. Once again they threw her off of him against the boxcar. She collapsed but the guards weren’t finished with her yet. They pulled her up by the hairs as she tried in any way possible to defend herself crying and screaming. In the struggle she managed to bite the officer in his wrist. He screamed of pain and slugged her against the boxcar again. Than he grabbed her head and banged it several times harder and harder against the boxcar until there was blood pouring down her face. Dazed she collapsed on her knees, crying and protecting her head with her arms. With the back of his gun he treated her on a last destructive blow against her face. She fell backwards and remained motionless. Than the officer continued his work of executing the other passengers.
On O’ Neill’s side everyone was too scared to do something and they just looked at the ones getting shot. I was scared too. I’ve never been this scared before. Still a part of me wanted to do something to save these peoples, but I was too paralyzed with fear.
They shot down the last one and turned to us.
‘Das sein der folgen, vor wer fluchten willen.’
(Subtitle: 'These are the consequences, for those who try to escape.')
We heard a soft moaning. The women that just got beaten regained consciousness, but before she got a chance to get herself back together she got shot in the head.
Helpless I looked at O’ Neill who saw the desperation on my face.
‘There was nothing we could’ve done for that poor woman,’ he said and I knew that.
For the first time since the war and for the first time in my life, I felt like a coward but what the hell was I supposed to do? One thing only matters now: surviving.
(The music fades away here)
We remained standing there in the line, just looking forward and not talking to each other for at least another six hours. Though every now and than O’ Neill and I whispered something to each other. But it wasn’t before the first shades of dawn appeared in the sky that we had to go back up the train. The dead were left behind.
Once we were back in the train there was more room since three of the eleven dead people were from boxcar. That includes the woman who got beaten.
The train slowly gained speed and another bumpy ride was ahead. The ride still lasted like another three hours before we arrived on our final destination: Auschwitz.
Auschwitz was the symbol of the Nazi German death camps. It was build under the command of Hitler’s right hand man, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. It was the largest camp around. The camp itself was divided in three large sections.
Auschwitz I, the original concentration camp which served as the administrative center for the whole complex.
Auschwitz II Birkenau, an extermination camp. Birkenau was the largest of all the Nazi extermination camps.
Auschwitz III Monowitz, which served as a labor camp for the Buna-Werke factory.
The train passed Auschwitz I. Through a crack in the boxcar I could see a sign above the entrance gate saying: “Arbeit macht frei”. (Labor makes free)
We proceeded to Auschwitz II Birkenau. Once the train stopped there almost the same ritual as the night before began. They ordered us to come of the trains. We were supposed to stand in lines again. Only this time nobody got executed, we were forming this line to go to the administration tables that were installed outside in front of the big building that was known as the death gate. If you were in there nobody was coming out.
Everywhere I looked I saw peoples coming of trains and forming lines to go to the administration tables. Men, women and children of various nationalities, but mostly Jews. Long lines were formed as everyone waited for their turn. Turn for what, I didn’t know yet. As I tried to see what happened at the front of the line, it was not very clear but things were going slow down there. I kept an eye on O’ Neill.
‘What do you think is going on down there?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know, Mac. It looks like we’re supposed to be registered.’
‘Registered?’
‘Or something, I don’t know.’
‘I’m thirsty,’ I said, ‘and hungry.’
‘So am I. Haven’t had anything since we left for the assignment.’
It took over an hour and a half before we began reaching up to the front of the line. I was now able to see more. It looked like the ones in front of us had to give in their values and sometimes even their clothes. The closer I get to more shocking everything became. I saw naked men, women and children walking around in the cold morning air. Though not always. But they were pushed into a certain direction.
‘I wonder where they’re going,’ I said.
‘They’re probably getting gassed,’ O’ Neill replied.
‘Gassed?’
‘It really happens, Mac.’
‘I couldn’t believe it when I first heard about it. I thought they were exaggerations.’
‘You better believe it. There is this person here, a doctor Josef Mengele, who decides who lives and who dies. When it’s our turn, you can better hope on that first one.’
‘What else do you know about this Mengele?’
‘He’s been known as the Angel of Death. He’s performing experiments on the prisoners here. But I don’t know what exactly. The info on that was quite brief.’
‘Sounds like someone, you don’t wanna meet.’
‘That’s right.’
Another half hour passed before we reached the administration table. O’ Neill’s line made it before I did.
‘Name?’ the person in front of him asked.
O’ Neill didn’t respond.
‘Name?’ the person asked again.
O’ Neill still didn’t respond. An SS-officer saw this and walked up to him slapping his face.
‘Er fragt du wat, Schweinhund!’ he said and hit him again.
(Subtitle: 'He asked you something, you pig!')
O’ Neill shook his head, grabbed himself together, gave me a look and than to the surprise of the SS-officer and myself included, he swung up a firm right hook to his nose. It was right clean on the nose and an explosion of blood dripped out of it. The SS-officer staggered backwards and held his handkerchief against the bleeding. With angry and tearful eyes, he swore he’d get him for that. But in his eyes was most of all surprise to read and a slight fear. The surprise part was the worst thing, because he’d never expected to get hit by a prisoner. The guy who was sitting behind my desk got up and was about to get in between but they were held back.
‘Brandenburg!’ someone said.
‘Dr. Mengele!’
‘Was ist?’
(Subtitle: 'What's happening?')
‘Die Schweinhund brach mein Nase.’
(Subtitle: 'That pig broke my nose.')
‘Echt?’
(Subtitle: 'Really?')
Doctor Mengele seemed impressed. ‘Du bist stark, éh?’
(Subtitle: 'So you're strong, huh?')
He grinned to O’ Neill.
‘Steuer ihn nach Monowitz und sie anderer auch. Sie gleiche auf einander.’
(Subtitle: 'Sent him to Monowithz and the other as well. They look a like.')
‘Jawohl, Dr. Mengele!’
(Subtitle: 'Yes, sir, Dr. Mengele!')
Dr. Mengele took the SS-officer O’ Neill wounded away to patch him up while the others obeyed his orders. They asked our names again.
‘Jack O’ Neill.’
‘MacGyver!’
‘Vorname?’
(Subtitle: 'First name?')
‘Allein MacGyver.’
(Subtitle: 'Just MacGyver.')
‘Nach Monowitz.’
(Subtitle: 'To Monowitz.')
We were supposed to follow a couple of SS-officers along with others who were about the suffer the same fate as we did. On our way to Monowitz, O’ Neill asked me if I spoke German.
‘You speak German?’
‘Yeah, well, little bit. It’s a little rusty but I learn fast and I’ve read Mein Kampf in German.’
‘You speak any other languages?’
‘Besides English and German?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I speak French, Italian, Russian and a little bit of Mandarin.’
‘With you speaking German, we might have something that can work in our advantage.’
‘Schweigen!’ an SS-officer said hitting O’ Neill in the back with his rifle.
(Subtitle: 'Shut up!')
We had to walk from Birkenau to Monowitz. That was a couple of miles further up ahead. While walking through the camp, we had our first good look on the conditions there. It was unworthy to mankind. The prisoners on the courtyard looked at us with such grief and terrifying looks. O’ Neill and I could do nothing else but keep walking and looking stunned. The prisoners were merely robust walking skeletons. Some naked, others in striped prison outfits. Some of them were so thin that only their skin were covering their bones. The Nazis were trying to reduce them to animals. Here and there carts were located with a big pile of naked human corpses. The prisoners were pushed to bring them to crematories down at the camp. Out of one cart a couple of corpses fell off the side. The prisoner got kicked and beaten over it. The SS-officer seemed to enjoy it. Others were pushing more carts to the crematories and when we neared one, I could have a peek inside it. Several bodies were put into the burning ovens. They were getting burned to ashes and nothing more as if they never existed. The black smoke rose up from the chimneys.
‘This is pure genocide,’ I whispered to O’ Neill.
‘It’s a holocaust,’ he whispered back to me. ‘Either they’re getting killed or die of hunger, cold, diseases.’
‘Is that what’s going to happen to us?’
‘We’re in hell now. Who knows what might happen to us.’
‘Schweigen!’ the SS-officer said and really hit us hard.
(Subtitle: 'Shut up!')
We were quiet for the rest of the walk. There was one more horrifying discovery I made and that was when I saw the mass graves. Everybody was just piled up on each other like… like whatever you pile up on each other.
It took us another forty-five minutes to get into Monowitz and nearly the same procedure as in Birkenau began. Only this time it didn’t took that long to get up front.
Once it was our turn, we were supposed to give in our clothes and other valuable things. They checked our mouths for gold teeth, our scrotums, in case we hid anything in there. They even checked our most private body parts to see if we were circumcised. Unfortunately for them. Our passports got destroyed and we no longer existed as MacGyver and O’ Neill. In exchange for our clothes they gave us the striped costumes the other prisoners were wearing and wooden clogs. Afterwards we got send to another area where they shaved our heads and tattooed us a number on our right arm. They used a fountain-pen to do so. With an inkless fountain-pen they stung us in our skin until blood came out. I really bit on my teeth to ignore the pain while O’ Neill didn’t move a muscle. He just kept that same look in his eyes. It was that look that he swore he would kill them all. In the end I had the number 520323. O’ Neill had the number 502310.
Than we were sent to our cellblocks. They were actually stables and overcrowded. It was filthy and it smelled like droppings. The toilet was just a hole in the ground, infested with bugs and lice, with no support for your arms. There were rows of some sort of bunks installed. Three on each other, where they slept with five of them in one bunk. We were brought to an open place and we were supposed to stand there in front of the bunk.
‘Hier stehen und schweigen,’ the SS-officer said and left.
(Subtitle: 'Stay here and shut up!')
‘Great, now what?’ I asked.
‘Stand and be quiet,’ O’ Neill answered.
‘That’s going to be boring.’
‘I know. But we can’t afford to make a move right now. We’ll have to wait.’
‘Yeah? For how long?’
‘Days, weeks, months. As long as it takes. Look, I don’t think, they would kill us soon.’
‘Unless they’re really that unscrupulous.’
‘They’ve caught an American lieutenant and colonel of the United States Army. There’s no doubt, we’re going to be questioned, tortured. They wanna know what the Allies are up to.’
‘Well, we can’t give them that information, can we?’
‘No, we can’t. No matter what the atrocities are, we will not give away our location and the plans of the further going of the war.’
‘I know. I mean, yes, sir.’
Somebody angrily barged into the stables.
‘It’s Brandenburg,’ I said.
‘I can see that,’ O’ Neill said.
Brandenburg came in, angry as hell and with a band aid on his nose.
‘O’ Neill! Du bist ein verdammt Schweinhund!’
(Subtitle: 'O' Neill, you're a goddamn pig!')
Brandenburg stormed at O’ Neill and rammed his fist in his gut for retaliation on his nose. O’ Neill collapsed and when I tried to help him up, I felt the back of Brandenburg right fist in my face. My lip burst open and blood ran out. O’ Neill couldn’t help but laugh. In response Brandenburg smashed his knee against his ribs. Now O’ Neill laughed even harder. Brandenburg didn’t understand.
‘I may be a Schweinhund, Brandenburg. But you are just one hell of a son of a b*tch.’
‘Was?’
(Subtitle: 'What?')
‘Son of a b*tch! Wait, let me translate this for you. Sohn von ein Hündin.’
Brandenburg still didn’t quite understand.
‘That was quite literally. You probably meant, b*stard.’
He did understand that word.
‘Ich gehen mich amüsieren als sie gefoltert werden.’
(Subtitle: 'I'm going to enjoy torturing you.')
He left without saying or doing anything else.
‘Looking forward to it.’
‘You alright?’
‘Yeah,’ he grunted while I helped him up.
‘You just couldn’t let it, could you?’
‘Nope.’
‘Well, enjoy it, now that we can still laugh,’ I said and patted his shoulder.
‘Excuse me,’ a voice from behind me said.
‘Yes?’ I asked.
‘What do you want?’ O’ Neill asked not very tactful.
‘My friends, my name is Sam Bolinski,’ the man said introducing himself. ‘I was merely wondering if you were alright.’
‘We’re fine,’ O’ Neill said.
‘Name’s MacGyver and this is O’ Neill.’
The man nodded.
‘You’ve been here long,’ I asked.
‘I’ve been here a couple of months now. They transported me here after I escaped from Sobibor.’
‘Sobibor? Another death camp?’
‘Yes, it was Saturday October 12 1940, nine o’ clock in the morning, when the ERR barged in my house and arrested my family and stole paintings from my house.’
‘The ERR? What’s that?’
‘Einsatzstab Rosenberg Reichminister,’ O’ Neill answered. ‘Hitler’s gang of art thieves.’
‘That is right.’
‘A colonel knows what’s going on in the world.’
‘Yeah. We were sent to Sobibor and within the hour my father was executed and my mother and my brothers and sisters were gassed. And I was left behind.’
I gave O’ Neill a shocked look thinking of the fact that someone would be left behind in a place of horror.
‘They held me captive in Sobibor for three years until the uprising. With five hundred we stormed up the fences. Two hundred got killed but three hundred lived through.’
‘And you are one of those three hundred?’ I asked.
‘Yes, unfortunately for me, I got recaptured and got sent here.’
‘That’s tough!’ O’ Neill said.
‘Yes it is.’
Sam paused for a moment realizing he might have been butting in on something.
‘I hope, I was not interrupting on something,’ he said apologizing.
‘No, not at all.’
‘I just saw the way you dealt with Brandenburg. You’re probably the first prisoners who stood up to him. Everybody is scared to death of him.’
‘The Nazis are more easily fooled than you might think.’
‘How so?’
‘By making them believe you know more than you let them believe. If you make them think that Allies are much closer than they expect, they might wet themselves.’
‘We don’t know much on the war status. How close are you?’
‘Not close enough. But we’ve won the Battle of Midway, Germany capitulated in Stalingrad, we’ve taken over North Africa, the Nazis were crushed at Kursk and Italy joined the Allies.’
‘That’s how things are looking like, right now,’ I said.
‘So liberation is coming at last?’
‘Yeah, but since our capturing, probably on a long delay.’
‘How did you get caught anyway?’
‘We were doing an assignment here in Poland and things got out of hand.’
‘The worst thing is that we’re cut off of our troops in Austria,’ O’ Neill continued.
‘You’re in Austria already?’ Sam asked with a touch of hope in his tone.
‘No, unfortunately not. Only a small section of the US Army is located there. Just our superiors are over there and some other doing other missions of taking out German outposts.’
Sam showed signs of disappointment when he found out that liberation seemed further away than he first thought.
‘Look, Sam, we’re going to get out of here,’ I said trying to reassure him.
‘Do you really think so? Because that is what most of us thought so too. Most of us got gassed or died of hunger and decease or cold. This is a labor camp. Labor accidents happens fast around here.’
‘What kind of labor do you do here, than?’ O’ Neill asked.
‘That depends. Some of us work in factories of Siemens to make German weaponry. The newest weapon they’re developing are the V-1 bombs.’
‘V-1? What’s that?’
‘They’re calling it the flying bombs. Hitler wants it to have ready within six or seven months. If you’re lucky and you’re appointed to work in the factories, it’s pretty easy to sabotage something.’
‘What else?’
‘As I just said, it depends. Some of us are working in the factories, others in the mines.’
‘Mines? What’s their purpose?’
‘I don’t know. They dynamite the wall of mountain and we have to dig holes in them. That is very dangerous work. Sometimes we have to blast inside the holes and the chances that everything caves in on us, is big. It happens every day that we have to carry out the dead.’
O’ Neill and I shared another look.
‘The third one is probably the most decent job of them all and that’s cleaning the buildings. Cleaning their offices is not so bad but the labs are horrific sometimes.
‘They’re using you as slaves,’ I said.
Sam nodded. ‘That is correct. And if you work too slow, they either whip you back into shape or release their dogs on you, or they simply kill you. On occasion they just pick out a poor soul and kill him on a beastly way for no reason.’
‘Well, this is definitely no picnic,’ O’ Neill said.
‘Sam, what do you know about the surrounding areas?’ I asked.
‘I know there are at least forty sub camps but I don’t know much else. I heard those who tried to escape got busted and killed over it. Some did escape and were never recaptured, some died in the minefields around the camp.’
‘Minefields?’
‘But they’re not everywhere. I know a place where there aren’t.’
‘Good, this might also work in our advantage.’
‘What are the two of you up to, anyway?’ Sam asked.
‘We’re going to escape,’ O’ Neill said determined. ‘The questions are how or when.’
‘Escaping now is out of the question because we don’t know what to expect from the outside and we don’t know the camp well enough from the inside to find the weak spots yet,’ I said.
‘Than I wish you all the luck in the world than,’ Sam said not believing us.
‘You don’t believe us, do you?’
‘Sorry, but I don’t have a lot of faith now.’
‘You’ll see, even if takes us years, we’ll get out of here.’
‘If you do escape, spread the word of what’s going on here.’
‘We will,’ O’ Neill said.
‘Good,’ Sam said and took from his bunk something that was covered in a rag. ‘You can have this. It’s food. It might help thinking things through.’
A little awkward I excepted it.
‘Are you sure, you don’t need this more than we do?’ I asked.
‘I’ve been saving these. They only come around once a day with little food and very little water. The catering isn’t exactly high quality food. There is soup every now and than but also very little. These are just two pieces of bread. I don’t have anything more. There’s a bit of water in my cup here.’
‘It’s very generous of you,’ I said and gave O’ Neill a piece of bread. ‘But I can’t except a whole piece of bread, if I see you need it more than I do.’
‘Please, just take it. I insist.’
‘We’ll share it!’
I really had to use all my power to break the hard piece of bread in equal parts.
‘Here.’
‘God bless you, MacGyver!’
‘You’re welcome!’
‘There is just one last piece of advice, I would like to give you two.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Whatever you have left of possession, clothes or food. Be very careful with it. Other prisoners steal of each other. But if they do steal it, don’t blame or hurt them over it. Because it means they’re in extreme need of it.’
‘We’ll keep it in mind.’
(The track Exodus from the movie Der Untergang starts playing here again)
Two weeks passed with us standing there in front of the bunks. Fourteen days, we stood there and did nothing. The only activity for us was eating but still even then we weren’t allowed to leave bunks. The only time we didn’t stood in front of it was at night. Then we slept with five of us in one bunk. It was overcrowded and uncomfortable. The lack of food caused us to lose a lot of our weight. Sometimes they only came at night to bring food. And it was just like Sam said; merely a piece of bread and some water. That was alright but the soup tasted like soap almost every time. We became weaker and thinner every day. The only thing we could do to pass to time when you haven’t nothing to do was think. Thinking about a lot of things. The things of life. How everything was before the war. There was still the Great Depression and the economics went bad but I was thinking more about home and how bad I missed my mom and dad and Harry. The person I missed the most was Kate. I haven’t seen her in three years and never heard of her again since the attack on Pearl Harbor but that sort of goes for my friends as well. I missed Jack, Neill, Chuck and Jesse, not knowing if they are dead or alive, or missing in action. They could’ve been captured and being tortured. All I could do was hope. I knew they were still alive during the Battle of Midway.
Besides thinking we had our occasional chat with Sam, but in the end there’s no longer something to talk about. (The music changes into The Soldiers Theme of the episode The Wall)
One night there was terrible storm raging above our stables. Thunder crashed as hard as bombs and the rain was ticking immensely on the roof of our stable. Of course the rain poured in on several places. There was some soft talking here and there, some stood against their bunks, others were trying to sleep.
Suddenly the door was kicked open. Brandenburg barged in again with two of his companions and stormed up to us.
‘What do you think, you’re doing?’ O’ Neill demanded as he stood up in front of Sam and me ready to protect us.
He didn’t receive an answer as he was pushed aside. Before he could make a move, the two companions took him under hands and hit him with their nightsticks everywhere they could. They kicked him a few times too. Than they grabbed me. One of them hit me hard in the gut and I almost got dragged along. When I was almost outside I heard O’ Neill yell.
‘Mac! Don’t give in!’
In the splashing rain I was brought to Auschwitz I to doctor Mengele’s office. We went through a whole maze of rooms and offices to get there. If that was completely necessary, I don’t know. They probably did it so I would lose my orientation. They fairly did a good job, because I in the end I couldn’t remember anymore which way we came. While going through rooms and offices we passed by the operating room of Dr. Mengele. In that room he performed the most evil and devilish medical experiments on the prisoners. They were so evil in a way I couldn’t apprehend. (The music fades away here)
On what I’ve heard about him in the camp, he performed the experiments without anesthetics. He liked doing them on women and children. Some women were getting sterilized and children got sewn together because he wanted to see if he could create Siamese twins. If the experiments failed the children got stabbed in their heart with lethal injection to kill them off. It must’ve been a busy day for him because I saw naked children corpses lying in the corner of his office. We passed the pile of bodies but the most disturbing thing was underneath that pile I saw movement. One of the children was still alive.
(Author's special note: For once I've edited a part out because it was considered far too intense and too controversial to release it. That's why there's now a blank space in the story. The part which has been cut out involves the execution of the boy that was still found alive in the pile of corpses with Mac as a witness. You might compare this with the scene from Black Rhino where in the mutilated rhino is been shot. But the brutality of this part was much higher than in Black Rhino since this involves an eight year old unclothed boy getting executed. So instead of the part I just gave this description about what happened so you won't get confused when Mac talks about his thoughts that are with an eight year old boy. Unless you want otherwise, I can still add the part up.)
For the first time in years, I was crying like a child, laying down on the floor. At that moment I couldn’t give a damn about the world. I lost my interest in practically everything. No matter what we did the Axis still had a major majeure. Though Italy and Russia has changed sides, Nazi-Germany had a majeure. The Luftwaffe still owned a lot of the world’s airspace and the Kriegsmarine owned a lot of the European oceans and the Wehrmacht owned a lot of land. The world is doomed to go down that way, no matter what we did. I’ll never forget the look on that boy’s face.
I don’t know how long I was on the floor, maybe only two minutes, I wished it was longer. Two hours would’ve been better, but in fact I just wished I was somewhere else. I wanted to be home, on Harry’s farm back in Minnesota with mom and dad and grandmother and Kate. They dragged me the rest of the way to Mengele’s office. Mengele was in there of course writing things down.
‘Ah, Herr MacGyver. Danke, Brandenburg.’
(Subtitle: 'Ah, Mr. MacGyver. Thank you, Brandenburg.'
The SS tied my wrists to the chair, greeted the way they were supposed to and left the office. All I could do was think about the boy.
‘Herr MacGyver, sprechen sie Deutsch? Ja? Nein?’
(Subtitle: 'Mr. MacGyver, do you speak German? Yes? No?')
I didn’t bother to respond.
‘Macht nicht aus. Später du sollen verhört worden. Nun sollen sie mein nächster test worden.’
(Subtitle: 'Doesn't matter. Later, you will be interrogated. Now you will be my next experiment.')
I was barely listening but still paid attention to whatever he was up to with me.
‘MacGyver, wir haben das beste für mit dieser Welt.’
(Subtitle: 'MacGyver, we're looking for the best interests of this world.')
Now I looked up. ‘Really?’
‘Echt wo.’
(Subtitle: 'Really.')
I was growing so angry that I didn’t bother to speak German.
‘How dare you say that? I just saw about an eight year old tormented child getting executed. And you dare telling me you’re looking for the best for the world?’
‘Wir reinigen das Welt und wir bauen ein reich für der herschafft von das Arische Rasse. Schlechtigkeit mit Schlechtigkeit bekämpfen.’
(Subtitle: 'We're cleansing this world and we're building an empire for the ruling of the Aryan Race. Fighting evil with evil.')
‘Purifying evil with evil.’
‘Und sie können da teil von aus machen.’
(Subtitle: 'And you can be a part of this.')
‘What?’ I was shocked hearing him say that. ‘I don’t want to have any part in this. I’m not even Aryan.’
‘Ich weis du bist kein Arische. Aber, ich machen ein von sie. Du hatte das blonde haar, schön haut. Allein kein blaue äugen.’
'I know, you're not Aryan. But, I will make you one. You have blond hair and fair skin. Just no blue eyes.')
‘That’s right. No blue eyes.’
‘Du sollen blaue äugen bekommen.’
(Subtitle: 'You will get blue eyes.')
‘What are you going to do with me? Give me an eye transplant?’
‘Brandenburg!’
Brandenburg came back in.
‘Jawohl, mein Herr?’
(Subtitle: 'Yes, sir?')
‘Nehmen MacGyver, nach der Operation Kammer.’
(Subtitle: 'Take MacGyver, to the Operation Room.')
‘Jawohl, mein Herr!’
(Subtitle: 'Yes, sir.')
Again they dragged and pulled me back to the room where they killed that poor boy. I was placed on the operating table. No matter how hard I wanted to struggle, I just couldn’t. They strapped my wrists again and my feet as well.
‘No!! No!!’
‘Ruhig, ruhig!’ doctor Mengele said on a calm tone.
I couldn’t move any more. Dr. Mengele turned on the operation light above, it was an extreme white light that hurt my eyes.
‘Brandenburg? Der Kamera.’
(Subtitle: 'Brandenburg? The camera.')
‘Jawohl!’
While Brandenburg went to get the camera I saw Mengele taking a syringe and filling it up. (Tense music comes up)
‘What the hell is that?’
‘Dieser, mein freund sein verbesserte blaue Chemikalien. Vorige Experimente ausfallen.’
(Subtitle: 'This, my friend, are improved blue chemicals. The last experiment has failed.')
‘Kamera klar!’ Brandenburg said.
(Subtitle: 'Camera's rolling.')
The camera was rolling when Mengele began speaking.
‘Guten Abend. Heute ist vierzehn Dezember 1943. Ein neu test. Die Chemikalien waren verbessert und wir sollen sehen was es Wort. Vorige Experimente ausfallen. Wort dieser ein erfolg, sein wir ein schritt weiter in unser Fortsetzung von der reinig von das Welt. Ein reich, ein Volk, ein Rasse, ein Führer.’
(Subtitle: 'Good evening. The date is December 14 1943. A new test. The chemicals has been improved and you will see what it has become. The last experiment has failed. What will follow is the next step in our continuation in the cleaning of the world. One empire, one nation, one race, one Führer.')
When he finished speaking, he attached some sort of claws to prevent me from shutting my eyes. The claws hurt the skin around my eyes because they firmly attached it in the skin. I could feel I was bleeding. (The tense music increases)
‘Anfang von das Experiment.’
(Subtitle: 'Start of the experiment.')
I saw him coming with his syringe and very sharp needle on top of it to my right eye. My breathing became heavier. He sprayed it in without any kind of warning. The blue liquid dripped in my eye. It stung and burned immensely. I screamed my lungs out but to no effort. Than my left eye followed.
‘Das Experiment sollen abgeschlossen worden in zwei tagen.’
(Subtitle: 'The experiment will be over within two days.')
Brandenburg closed the camera down. The claws were removed and I pinched me eyes shut to exorcise the excruciating pain. Before I could reopen them they blindfolded me. Next thing I knew I was pushed away on the operating table.
‘Bring ihn nach ein Kammer,’ Mengele said.
(Subtitle: 'Take him to a room.')
They brought me to a room apparently but I couldn’t see a thing. They shoved me in the room on the table and shut the door. I heard their voices fade away, than I was left alone in silence. (The music fades away here)
The silence was painful just as my eyes were. I couldn’t move, my wrists and feet were strapped to the table. The chemicals injected in my eyes were piling up so it began dripping from underneath the blindfold.
I don’t know for how long I lied there but it seemed like ages. Doctor Mengele said it would last two days. Two days in complete silence with no food or water. Maybe if I lose more weight I could get out of the straps without effort. Unfortunately for me it wasn’t meant to be. The door opened and they pulled me out. They brought me back to operating room. I heard the camera roll again and it seemed like everything was going to start all over.
‘Heute ist sechzehn Dezember 1943. Wir gehen sehen ob das Experiment ist gelang.’
(Subtitle: 'Today it's December 16 1943. We will see if the experiment has worked out.')
They took of the blindfold.
‘Offen sie äugen.’
(Subtitle: 'Open your eyes.')
I opened my eyes but I couldn’t see anything.
‘I can’t see.’
That was my first impression and fear. I was blind.
‘I’m blind.’
‘Blind?’ Mengele asked.
Soon I understood that the blindness was due to the darkened room I was in. My vision began to adjust and slowly I was aware of shadows.
‘No wait! I can see after all.’
Mengele turned on a little light.
‘Wir sollen sehen.’
(Subtitle: 'We'll see.')
Mengele was now checking my eyes with a little lamp.
‘Schülers sehen weit und sie Iris…’
(Subtitles: 'Pupils are wide and your iris...')
Mengele stopped speaking realizing the experiment has failed.
‘Doktor?’ Brandenburg said.
‘Sie Iris ist noch stets braun. Allein das äug Weib ist blaue.’
(Subtitle: 'Your iris is still brown. Only the eye white is blue.')
He saw the blue marks and the dried up blood on my face.
‘Und das läuft aus als ein Füller. Das Experiment ist ausfallen.’
(Subtitle: 'And that runs ou like a fountain-pen. The experiment has failed.')
I could see the disappointment on his face.
‘Verdammt!’
(Subtitle: 'Damn it!')
‘Und nun?’ Brandenburg asked.
(Subtitle: 'And now?')
‘Bring ihn zurück nach das Kampf,’ he said disappointed.
'Subtitle: 'Bring him back to the camp.')
‘Doktor Mengele,’ Brandenburg said protesting.
‘Nein! Bring ihn zurück.’
(Subtitle: 'No! Bring him back.')
‘Jawohl, mein Herr.’
‘Gut!’
(Subtitle: 'Good.')
I was brought back to the camp. Surprised I was looking around because what Mengele didn’t knew was that I could see better than before. But that didn’t made up for what they did to me.
‘Nach binnen.’
(Subtitle: 'Get in there.')
They pushed me back into the stables and I went back to my place. Sam was there but O’ Neill was nowhere in sight.
‘MacGyver? You’re alive,’ he said. ‘But what have they done to you?’
‘Where’s O’ Neill?’
‘He’s working in the mines now.’
‘Do you think, he’ll come back?’
‘If you work down at the mines, you never know if you’ll come back or not.’
I went to lie down at the bunk.
‘I’m hungry and I’m thirsty. Haven’t seen food or water or daylight in two days.’
‘We saved some for you. It’s in the rag.’
‘You’re too good for this world, Sam,’ I said trying to smile. ‘Are, you sure you don’t want some?’
‘Don’t you dare share this with me, MacGyver. You’re too good for this world too.’
It wasn’t until late that night when O’ Neill came back from the mines. The look on his face was one of intense relief when he saw me. We ran to each other and gave each other a big bear hug.
‘My friend, you’re alive,’ he said in relief. ‘What happened to you?’
Sam, O’ Neill and I got together in front of the bunk and I told my story.
‘The night they got me I saw another part of hell.’
‘Have you seen Mengele?’ O’ Neill asked.
‘For sure, I saw him. That man is pure evil and a real Angel of Death. They dragged me to his office and I saw his operating quarters.’
‘Is it true about his experiments?’
‘Yeah. He likes to sterilize women and sew children to each other to see if he can create Siamese twins.’
Sam covered his face in his hands hearing that. It was getting hard to proceed.
‘He… The bodies of the children, he piles them up in his office. One of them was still alive,’ I couldn’t hold it in no more and started to sob.
‘What?’ O’ Neill said in disbelief.
‘I don’t want to hear this,’ Sam said covering his ears.
‘They shot him. Through his mouth.’
Than a long shocking silence fell. Blue tears were rolling down my face now.
‘What’s up with the blue tears,’ O’ Neill asked.
‘One of doctor Mengele’s experiments is that he tries to create blue eyes. He said he improved the blue chemicals he uses. But it failed. Only my eye white became blue and they’re leaking like a fountain-pen.’
‘Are you alright with that?’
‘Well, I can see better for one thing. I can see like an eagle or something. The blue chemicals, I don’t know if it goes away or not. I assume it does if it has failed.’
‘Look Mac, I’ve done some looking into things,’ O’ Neill said. ‘Now, Sam you said you knew a place where there weren’t any mines, right?’
‘Yes, it’s completely to the left of the mines passed mine hall six.’
‘But that is still part of the camp, right?’
‘Yeah and crowded during the day, but the least guarded location of the entire camp.’
‘What do you think, Mac?’
‘What’s the security during the night on the outside?’
‘There’s at least one guard in every part of the camp,’ Sam said.
‘You see?’
‘Are you scared, Mac?’
‘Aren’t you?’
A question he didn’t quite expect. But it was a question, he respected, because he was scared as well. ‘Sure, I am.’
‘But if sneaking out during the night is our only option, we don’t have much choice, do we?’
‘So you wanna go right away?’
‘You got anything else to do?’
‘Except getting the hell out of here, not really.’
‘What about you, Sam?’
‘If you offer me a way out of here, I accept.’
‘OK, let’s go than.’
We were about to leave when the SS came back in. (The Soldiers Theme from The Wall starts playing again)
‘Sh*t!’ O’ Neill whispered.
‘Wohl? Was gehen wir machen?’ Brandenburg asked.
(Subtitle: 'Well? What do we think, we're doing?')
‘I’m going to kill that son of a b*tch,’ O’ Neill threatened.
Brandenburg grinned and than hit O’ Neill with his nightstick full frontal in his face. O’ Neill staggered and collapsed. His mouth was bleeding.
‘Entlang!’ Brandenburg ordered and they dragged him away as they dragged me away two days ago.
(Subtitle: 'Take him.')
‘Now what do we do?’ Sam asked.
‘We’re not leaving without him,’ I said determined. ‘OK, Sam, listen up. I want you to wait here, okay. I’m going to follow them.’ (The music fades away here)
‘You’re not going to leave me here, are you?’
‘No, no, no, no! Sam, you’re coming with us, I promise you that. Soldier’s honor. I think they’re taking him to Mengele. I’m going to find out and get him out, we’ll come back for you and then we’re out of here.’
‘OK, MacGyver, I trust you.’ (Again tense music comes up)
I nodded and left the stables. It was cold and raining that night mixed with a blizzard. In the distance I could see them dragging away and I followed them. It was the same way they took as when they brought me to Mengele. I began to fear for O’ Neill of what they might do to him. He might see everything I saw.
I followed them to Mengele’s office, but when I reached the door they locked it. I noticed on how the windows were boarded shut around his operating room. So I went looking for the boarded windows and I found them. Through cracks in the wood I could see what was happening in there. I could even hear them converse vaguely. It was all about our location and the Allied missions and what we were up to. O’ Neill refused to answer those questions and got a beating over it. Than they tied him up on the operating room, with his head of the operating table so it would have no support.
Brandenburg entered the room with a funnel in his hands. They were going to do the water test torture. O’ Neill reluctantly tried to fight back but they just beat him some more. They forced the funnel in his mouth while Mengele poured water into it. A lot of water.
O’ Neill was forced to swallow it but he couldn’t and choked almost in it. He was spitting out water and they just continued beating him.
‘Ich frage es noch einmal. Was sein das Bündnispartners von plan und wo ist deine Militär Standort?’
(Subtitle: 'I'll ask again. What are the Allies up to and where is your military outpost?')
O’ Neill was still gagging and coughing. Then he took a breather and said: ‘F*ck you!’
Again he took a beating until he was spitting out blood.
‘Goddamn it, son of a b*tch!!! Go to f*cking hell!!! Bunch of motherf*ckers!!! I ain’t telling you nothing. You won’t get any f*cking from me!!! F*ck off!!!’
Again they water tested him but O’ Neill kept refusing to answer them. O’ Neill was sure a man of his word. No matter what the atrocities are, don’t give in any answers. I witnessed on how they tortured him until I couldn’t bear it anymore. There was nothing I could do for him anyway. Our escape will have to wait.
I went back to the stables where I met Sam again.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘They’re torturing him right now. They’re water testing him.’
‘Dear God. So what do we do?’
‘We can’t do anything for him now. I guess we just have to wait.’
(The track First Aid from the movie Rambo III starts playing here)
Four days passed. It was December 18 when they brought him back. Tortured, mangled and exhausted. He was very weakened and holding his right hand close to his chest.
‘O’ Neill, are you alright?’ I asked.
‘Do I f*cking look alright to you, man?’ he snarled. ‘They tortured me for four days. But I didn’t give in any answers. Did you?’
‘No, you know that. What’s wrong with your hand?’
‘The bastards broke it.’
‘Let me see.’
‘No!’
‘Let me see!’
I looked up at his hand and felt it.
‘It’s broken,’ I confirmed. ‘We gotta put the bones back.’
‘Alright,’ O’ Neill said and prepared himself for it.
‘Colonel, this is going to hurt,’ I assured him.
‘Mac, I’ve been tortured for four days, I think I can handle this as well.’
‘OK, but when I put it back in…’
*CRACK* O’ Neill screamed his lungs out and out of a total impulse he swung up a punch in my face. I hit the ground. The other prisoners gave as surprised looks.
‘Don’t complain!’ I added. (The music fades away here)
‘Thanks a lot!’ he said helping me up.
‘Did I just saw you hitting him with the broken hand?’ Sam asked confused.
‘Yeah,’ O’ Neill said.
‘That’s amazing.’
‘That’s why I’m colonel and he’s lieutenant,’ O’ Neill joked.
‘You better protect that hand now.’
‘Alright, enough with the fun and games now,’ O’ Neill said to regain order. ‘We’re still stuck here and who knows what will happen tomorrow. If we want to escape, we better don’t wait too long anymore. Time’s running out.’
‘You have to rest, O’ Neill. The way you are now, can’t do us no good. You know, I’m right, O’ Neill.’
‘I know.’
‘Let’s get some rest.’
We tried to get some rest. We slept for like only four hours or so because of the uncomfortable situation of our bunks. The officers woke us up on the in the meantime well known brutal way. Only this time it was different.
‘Aufstehen!! Zeit um zu duschen.’
(Subtitle: 'Get up!! Time to get a shower.')
‘What?’ O’ Neill growled. ‘Come on, it’s not even Sunday yet.’
‘Getting two showers in the week?’ Sam wondered.
‘That sounds pretty suspicious to me.’
In shackles they brought us back to Birkenau.
‘Something tells me we’re not coming back,’ I said.
We were pushed in the directions we saw the naked prisoners were pushed to the day we arrived. They were bringing us to the gas chambers.
‘This is not the way to the showers,’ Sam said shaking.
We were brought the gas chambers. (The music from the scene where they are send to the gaschambers from The Ten Percent Solution starts playing here)
‘Du drei, wache!’ Brandenburg said.
(Subtitle: 'You three, wait!')
‘He was talking to us,’ O’ Neill said.
That’s right and we were taken out of the row. The other prisoners were taken off the shackles and were forced to take off their clothes. Naked they were pushed into the chambers. The door was shut and after a moment of silence we heard some noise. It was like a car muffler began to operate and went louder and louder. Inside they began to scream on a horrible and inhuman way that I though they were butchering animals. It was screaming and coughing. I began wondering why we weren’t in there. Not that I wasn’t glad we weren’t there.
‘Sie werden abgesondert vergast.’
(Subtitle: 'You will be gassed apart.')
‘What for? What good will that do?’
Brandenburg didn’t answer and we were brought back to Monowitz to mine hall six. Deep inside mine hall six a new gassing chamber was about to be installed. We were the first ones to be gassed there.
‘Sie sein der ersten um hier vergast zu worden.’
(Subtitle: 'You will be the first ones to be gassed here.')
They opened up a metal door in a dead ending hallway.
‘Entkleiden und nach binnen!’ Brandenburg ordered.
(Subtitle: 'Take your clothes off and get in.')
‘No!’ Sam cried out and tried to run for it but the barrel of the German machine gun hit his face.
‘Mach es nicht schwieriger als es als ist.’
(Subtitle: 'Don't make it more difficult than it already is.')
We undressed ourselves and went inside. They closed the door and opened the gas. The gas came in via a grate above the door. (The music changes into the escape music from The Ten Percent Solution)
‘It smells like garlic,’ Sam said. ‘You animals! You can’t do this! You animals!!’
He started to bang on the door.
‘Sam! Sam!’ O’ Neill barked on his ordering tone. ‘That will do us no good.’
‘Everybody stay low. The gas focuses on the ceiling first,’ I said.
‘Do you think, we can get out of here?’ O’ Neill asked.
‘Maybe. There is still some material here we can use.’
I began to look around and noticed a box. I placed the box in front of the door. While standing on it I was able to remove the grate.
‘You think removing the grate is a good idea?’ Sam asked.
‘He knows what he’s doing, when he has an idea. Isn’t that right, MacGyver?’
‘What? Uh… yeah.’
I removed the grate and was able to pull the hose that was releasing the gas inside. The hose was pretty long so I could come down of the box. I made a knot in it.
‘Here, hold this, colonel. Put pressure on the top of it with your thumb and index finger to make sure no more gas escapes.’
O’ Neill did what I said.
‘MacGyver, whatever you got in mind, make it fast.’
‘Alright, this door is like a fire door. Metal on both sides and air in the middle.’
‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ Sam said though I wasn’t really talking to him.
‘Okay, tools. I need tools.’
On a shelf I noticed a screwdriver.
‘This screwdriver can help us out and this rock on the ground as well.’
I placed the top of the screwdriver against the door and with the rock I began hammering on it. It took me some time to hammer a hole in the door. With a little forcing, I was able to make a hole big enough to lead the gas back out. I stuck the hose into the hole.
‘Everybody find some cover,’ I said while taking the light bulb cable of the ceiling.
There wasn’t much cover to be found except improvised covers.
‘Ready?’
‘Yep!’ O’ Neill said.
I threw the light bulb cable into the gas filled door and a small explosion occurred blowing the door open.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ I said.
We put our clothes and clogs back on before going back to the entrance of the mine. I observed the territory to see what our chances were. (The music changes into the track Escape from the movie Desperate Measures)
‘Oh no, look,’ Sam said.
‘What?’
‘There,’ he said pointing his finger to a woman we saw in the distance taking things away from the dead. ‘She’s here too.’
‘Who?’ O’ Neill asked.
‘That’s Frau Brandenburg.’
‘Brandenburg’s wife?’
‘Yes. She and the wives of the other officers often came by in Sobibor to steal the values of the dead like vultures. And now she is here too. Oh yes, I know her.’
‘Now you said there weren’t any mines on the left side of the mines. Bring us there!’ I said.
‘Follow me.’
Sam led us to the edge of the camp but the area was locked down with barbwire. When I looked to my right I saw an SS-officer standing with his back to us.
‘Alright, quick, quick,’ Sam whispered. ‘You go first!’
‘But…’
‘No time to argue, go now!’ he said and held the barbed wire up.
‘Go, Mac, now!’ O’ Neill ordered.
I crawled underneath the barbwire but when O’ Neill was crawling we got caught by the SS-officer standing nearby. (The music increases)
‘Halt! Halt! Brandenburg! Alarm! Schnell! Sie entkommen!’
(Subtitle: 'Stop! Stop! Brandenburg! Alarm! Quick! They're escaping!')
In an instant several SS-officers gathered around and ran to us. O’ Neill quickly crawled from underneath the barbwire, but for Sam it was too late.
They grabbed him and brutally started beating on him.
‘Run, my friends, run!!’ he yelled.
It sure dragged attention with the other prisoners and they began cheering when they saw us standing on the other side of the barbed wire.
‘Sam!’ I yelled.
‘Come on, Mac, we can’t help him anymore,’ O’ Neill said. ‘We have to go. Now!’
We ran into the forest away from the camp, away from hell. For as long our weakened bodies permitted it we ran and ran deeper into the forest.
Deep in the woods, far away enough from the camp, we stopped to regain our breath.
‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it,’ O’ Neill said out of breath. ‘We’re out of there.’
‘Yeah, but Sam isn’t.’
‘I know. I know. But we can’t help him anymore. We can only hope and pray they don’t gas him or torture him. We owe him very big time for helping us escape.’
‘I hope we can ever fulfill that I-O-U.
 I think the poison that was used was applied to this knife, passed to the mutton when it was cut and then activated by the wine. - MacGyver.
Sometimes you just have to die a little inside to be reborn and rise again as a stronger and wiser version of you.
It's better to be a little sad than to be fake content.
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And describing Mengele...*shivers* He really did perform some gruesome "experiments". I also like how you brought up how he "experimented" on twins and noticed that Mac and O'Neill look alike. Great job! I'm looking forward to reading more! 
