SCENE 1[MENGELE is dreaming. 6 GUARDS stand around him]

CONSCIENCE: You are at Auschwitz concentration camp. Here ‘Work is Liberty.’ There is only one way to leave, by death. You have only two options; to work or die. You will work, or you will be shot. Did you see the flames? That’s the rest of your family. That’s where you will go to join them. The furnace. You’ll be burned and then Germany will be liberated, liberated of the filth before my eyes. You see, we, the Nazi’s must work hard to gain freedom. To rid ourselves of the problem.

[GUARDS march in time to rant]LEFT! RIGHT! RIGHT! LEFT! RIGHT! RIGHT! RIGHT! RIGHT! RIGHT!

[GUARDS line up against the sides of the stage. MENGELE wakes]

SCENE 2[Enter INTERROGATOR]

INTERROGATOR: Do you consent to the use of a tape recorder during this interrogation?(MENGELE nods)

INTERROGATOR: Tuesday 6th March 1300 hours. Interrogator Sarah Rosenberg conducting interrogation of Dr Josef Mengele Chief Doctor and Surgeon of Auschwitz concentration camp.

Do you admit that you are Dr Josef Mengele?

MENGELE: Yes.

INTERROGATOR: Do you also confirm that you went under the alias of Wolfgang Gerhard after World War II ended?

MENGELE: Yes.

INTERROGATOR: When did you enter Auschwitz concentration camp?

MENGELE: 1943.

INTERROGATOR: You came to Auschwitz after being given an assignment, whilst being under the instruction of your mentor Professor von Verschuer, correct?

MENGELE: Correct.

INTERROGATOR: Tell me about the Professor. What were his beliefs? What did he teach you?

CONSCIENCE: He taught us the true value of human life.

MENGELE: I began to work for him in 1937 as a research assistant. He was very interested in racial inferiority and genetics.

CONSCIENCE: He was a father to us, our first real father.

INTERROGATOR: Tell me about your family. Were they kind to you?

MENGELE: I don’t have many memories of my family. I was the eldest of three boys. My mother, was a strict woman and my father, was often preoccupied with work.

Father was distant with all of us, I don’t blame him. Who could blame him when he had that woman as a wife. That woman with her horrid temper, her foul distaste at everything. She called herself mother, she never loved, she was too cold to love.

CONSCIENCE: We were our mother’s son.

INTERROGATOR: Your father owned a business that manufactured farming equipment, did he not? I suppose he wanted you to inherit that business? Why didn’t you? It was doing quite well I believe.

MENGELE: Yes he did want me to inherit but I always wanted to study science and anthropology.

CONSCIENCE: We didn’t care how well the business was doing, we didn’t want to be around her. She would control us just like she did Father. Remember the car incident? Father brought home a car he had bought, due to the success of the business. He thought she would be proud. Instead she scolded him for being foolish enough to buy a car without her. Bitch.

INTERROGATOR: You were a model student, articulate and confident. Nothing here to influence your crazed Nazi ideals.

MENGELE: Do not insult me Miss Rosenburg, that is a Jewish name I believe?

INTERROGATOR: My heritage has nothing to do with this interrogation Mengele.

CONSCIENCE: You know she’s right. We were popular, we had movie star good looks, the girls loved us and we had that smile they all adored. When was the exact moment that smile became evil? I don’t seem to recall.(leans back in chair, reminiscently)

INTERROGATOR: Enrolled at the University of Munich you were influenced by a lecturer named Dr. Rudin who believed that not only were Jewish lives not worth living, but that doctors had a

responsibility to destroy such life and remove it from the general population, correct?

MENGELE: I believe Dr. Rudin said things similar to these, yes.

INTERROGATOR: Did you believe them at the time?

MENGELE: Yes.

CONSCIENCE: And still do.

INTERROGATOR: He and your mentor shared very similar ideas it seems.

von Verschuer was a prominent Nazi scientist I suspect he would have known first hand knowledge of the ‘Final Solution’?

CONSCIENCE: Is that a rhetorical question?

INTERROGATOR: Mengele, did he tell you about the camps? Did he speak about the millions of people that would pass through? Did he detail the millions of experiments you would all be finally able to conduct on helpless, innocent humans?

GUARD 1: It was cold. I was naked. I coughed. He yelled at me. SHUT UP YOU JEWISH WHORE! He put a long needle in my belly. I screamed and I screamed and I screamed. They called it sterilisation.

INTERROGATOR: Can you tell us your role at Auschwitz camp?

MENGELE: I was a doctor.

INTERROGATOR: What was your aim inside the camp?

MENGELE: To heal.

CONSCIENCE: We had to eliminate inferiority in races so we had to unlock the genetic code, we were going to create the super race – the Aryan race.

INTERROGATOR: What sort of medical procedures did you practise?

MENGELE: I helped to heal many Jewish prisoners.

CONSCIENCE: We both know that’s bullshit.

INTERROGATOR: Please give me your definition of heal, Mr Mengele.

MENGELE: I did what I could for the Jewish people, but they were a diseased race to begin with, all I did was try and help them.

INTERROGATOR: I have records here that show numbers in the millions passing through your camp.

MENGELE: Yes many came through.

CONSCIENCE: Yes we helped them all didn’t we?

INTERROGATOR: How many of them did you send to the right, Mr Mengele?

CONSCIENCE: Oh honestly do you think I counted? You’ve got your records there you tell me! There must have been mil –

MENGELE: Many.

INTERROGATOR: Is that how you helped them, by sending them to right, to the chambers?

MENGELE: I helped them more than you know.

CONSCIENCE: Better dead than alive I always said.

INTERROGATOR: So you admit that you ordered the deaths of innumerable numbers of Jews?

MENGELE: No.

CONSCIENCE: You’re forgetting the Russians, Soviets, Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals…

MENGELE: Quiet you!

INTERROGATOR: Excuse me?

MENGELE: Nothing.

INTERROGATOR: So you deny that you sent over a million to the crematory? With a flick of your baton.

GUARD 2: I was twenty nine. I had no name. I had no face. I was barely a number.I remember his face. A cruel face. Walking to the right I realised, he was a conductor.

MENGELE: It was a selection. Only the fittest could be allowed to work.

CONSCIENCE: We just hurried up the process.

INTERROGATOR: So how many did you send to the… left? Left meant life, is that right?

CONSCIENCE: left meant life …right, right, right, left right…right, right, right, right, right…(thinks, counting on fingers)…looking back, there were a lot more who went to the right.

MENGELE: If you put it that way, I suppose.

INTERROGATOR: Do you know how many went through the initial selection process?

MENGELE: I did not attend all selections. We only attended the ones we were assigned to for God’s sake!

CONSCIENCE: Interesting you mention that name.

[CONSCIENCE laughs, MENGELE backhands CONSCIENCE]

GUARD 3: I was an SS officer. I had seen some horrible things in the war. But the Angel of Death was the worst. I hated him. He was always wearing his medals, always boasting about his achievements in the war. He would oversee selections that were not assigned to him. Wherever death, desolation and destruction were, there he was. Auschwitz was indeed his kingdom.

INTERROGATOR: Who were you under instruction by?

MENGELE: Who do you think?

INTERROGATOR: I am not here to play games Mengele. I repeat, who were you under instruction by?

CONSCIENCE: Adolf-fucking-Hitler!

MENGELE: God.

INTERROGATOR: God? Alright Mengele, I’m going to leave you here for a moment to get your story straight. When I come back you better start giving me some answers. [Picks up tape recorder and leaves. Exit INTERROGATOR.]

SCENE 3

CONSCIENCE: Just you and me then.

MENGELE: Shut up, I’m sick of hearing you speak.

CONSCIENCE: You know I won’t just go away. I’m your Conscience. You can’t escape the narrator of your life.

MENGELE: She reminds me of someone.

CONSCIENCE: (Pulls out a deck of cards and shuffles them) Choose one.

(MENGELE reaches out and picks one)

CONSCIENCE: Is it the King of Clubs?

MENGELE: Five of hearts.

CONSCIENCE: Damn.

MENGELE: I know her, I’m sure of it.

CONSCIENCE: How can you be sure of anything anymore, I mean what’s with the armband, they went out of fashion years ago.

MENGELE: There was once a time when this was our world, am I the only one who still understands it? Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten what it means?

GUARD 4: Death. It was everywhere. That symbol. They called it swastika. It was the last thing I saw clinging to my mother’s skirt as we walked towards the chambers together.

SCENE 4[INTERROGATOR enters, puts recorder back on the table]

INTERROGATOR: Are you ready to give me some answers?

(MENGELE nods)Commencing interview at 1300 hours March 6th.We have records here that show you did various experiments on the Ovitz family. Is that correct?

MENGELE: There were many families…

INTERROGATOR: The Ovitz family consisted of ten members, seven of which were dwarves. Is that correct?

MENGELE: Ahh…Yes.

INTERROGATOR: What did you think of the Ovitz family?

CONSCIENCE: They were freaks!

MENGELE: They were interesting subjects. Everything about them was so genetically incorrect. Conducting experiments on them was so satisfying, I felt so…

CONSCIENCE: Alive.

MENGELE: …privileged to work with them. They never knew what their tiny, dwarfed bodies meant to science. They helped me on my journey to curing a nation.

INTERROGATOR: What did you do to them?

MENGELE: I removed their blood, and took bone marrow from their spines.Simple procedures, the findings became very useful. I greatly contributed to the advancement of medical science.

INTERROGATOR: Are you proud of what you did?

CONSCIENCE: Yes, yes I am!

MENGELE: As I said, the experiments contributed to the advancement of medical science.

INTERROGATOR: As, you said.What about the other members of the Ovitz family?

GUARD 5: The heavy metal door slammed behind us. I looked up at the shower heads and wondered why the water wouldn't come. Suddenly we smelled gas. We tried to push up for air and one of us collapsed. With our last strength, we began to cry out. It seemed to me like minutes but it can only have been seconds. Then we heard a shout from outside the door: 'Where is my dwarf family?' The door was opened and a soldier dragged us out and sloshed cold water over us. We were spared.

MENGELE: The normal members? I don’t recall.

CONSCIENCE: I think I can fill you in on that one. They survived, all of them, seven dwarves and all. You hated that didn’t you? You wanted to prove their weakness, but they were stronger than you anticipated. That cut you to shreds inside didn’t it? Didn’t it?

MENGELE: Shut it! Shut up! I am not listening to you! I hate you!

INTERROGATOR: I feel no love for you either Mengele.

[CONSCIENCE laughing]

INTERROGATOR: Very well then.What about those who passed selection? Did you have very much contact with them?

CONSCIENCE: They only lived because we did not have the facilities to terminate them all in one go. Then I made the SS dig a big pit and they filled it with gasoline. In they went men, women, children. Dead and alive.

MENGELE: I dealt with only those who I could heal.

CONSCIENCE: You mean experiment on.

INTERROGATOR: Come on Mengele, you would have some idea of what happened to them.

MENGELE: Worked in the camps from my knowledge. The sector was not under my command.

INTERROGATOR: You often saved twins on the ramp is that correct?(MENGELE nods)

MENGELE: Yes, the twins were special. They had their own clothes, their own hair and extra food. They were well looked after.

CONSCIENCE: I gave them chocolates and lollies and we played games. Oh how we loved the games! My favourite was ‘on the way to the chimney’. Only they never came back.

INTERROGATOR: The twins stayed in special barracks…

CONSCIENCE: The SS called it the Zoo.

INTERROGATOR: …where they were allowed to stay together.

MENGELE: Yes my children were treated well.

INTERROGATOR: Treated well I see. I suppose your definition of treated well includes, injecting dyes into their eyes, infecting them with dangerous diseases, removing sexual organs, placing children in cages and subjecting them psychological and physical torment. Performing autopsies on their mangled and maltreated bodies? For what purpose in the “advancement of medical science” was this? I suppose this comes under your definition of ‘treated well’?

CONSCIENCE: No dickhead this comes under my definition of medical research.

INTERROGATOR: Do you remember me Mengele?

MENGELE: Yes I remember you.

INTERROGATOR: Will you forget it? Will you give up? It’s lost. The Nazi’s lost, the Third Reich lost, you lost. Are you sorry? Do you repent for what you have done?

CONSCIENCE: There’s no repenting. No going back now. We exterminated six million. No bringing any of them back now.

MENGELE: I am not interested in resurrection.

INTERROGATOR: I know you’re not Mengele. Just like we knew last night and the night before. Just like we’ll know every night, until the night you die.You don’t remember us.

CONSCIENCE: She called your bluff.

INTERROGATOR: Six million and more Mengele. Remember me and remember us.

Ending interview at 1300 hours March 6th.