Zbornik Mednarodnega literarnega srečanja Vilenica 2004 - Ljudmila

Daša Drndić
in an existing hospital once called Am Steinhof, and later, for the sake of
peace of mind and forced oblivion changed into Otto Wagner Spital; those
jars which have for over half a century waited in the humid basements of
Europe, in the underground darkness of Vienna; those jars with floating
children’s brains, the exact number of which remains unknown, some
say ABOUT 500, some say ABOUT 600, some say ABOUT 770 brains
others, for the sake of precision, say 772
children’s brains, or 789 – it doesn’t matter,
this small difference of 17 cerebral
substances
belonging to children from 6 months to 14 years old, supposedly damaged
brains, nameless brains, pulled out of the tiny skulls of the euthanised
patients of the children’s hospital Spiegelgrund at the time an annex of
the psychiatric clinic Am Steinhof, today known as Otto Wagner Spital,
and all for the sake of improving the human race, for the sake of improving
the mindless human mind. Neatly lined, labelled like jars of Konfitüre
in a diligent housewife’s pantry, those preserved yet lifeless brains of the
past, toll and echo our present.
My name is Johann. I was born in Vienna
in 1931. I’m a house-painter, I have a
family, grownup children, healthy. I
have grandchildren. I have nightmares.
I spent three years in Spiegelgrund as
doctor Heinrich Gross’s patient. I was
ten then. Before the trial, they took us to
the hospital cellar. The jars are hermetically
closed and covered with a thick
layer of dust. The brains are preserved,
they say. They float in formaldehyde,
they say. Formaldehyde has a recognisable
smell. I don’t believe the brains are
preserved. Doctor Gross and the members
of his team pricked and prodded
those brains, and even if they were preserved,
what can be done with them today,
what? Those are dead brains, they
don’t throb, they’re pale. Those are soft
cerebral fossils, those are mummified
brains, decayed on the inside, maybe
even hollow.
When Gross would enter the hospital
room, we couldn’t breathe, our breath
was cut by a freezing wind.
Doctor Gross, the former head of the
children’s ward in Steinhof hospital, and
a notorious Nazi, today is eighty six years
old. He stands accused and, bewildered,
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