Free The Holocaust Opera by Mark Edward Hall Page A

What about Die Walkure ( The Valkyrie ), or Gotterdammerung ( Twilight of the Gods )? If you can play something from these selections, then perhaps I will be able to do something for you.” Mengele raised an eyebrow.
    The two men glanced nervously at each other. Aaron came down hard on the piano keys and began the opening to Twilight of the Gods. Abraham followed suit with a lush violin entrance. They played well and accurately. The officers in the room all wore bemused expressions. Mengele showed no emotion.
    In the middle of the number, Mengele abruptly pointed at Abraham and said, “You, out!” The two SS Soldiers went immediately to the man.
    Abraham stopped playing and laid the violin down, bewildered. “But—”
    “There will be a place for you in the prison orchestra. Now, I wish to talk to your son alone. Please, out!”
    “What about my wife?” Abraham asked. “You said that you would see to her care.”
    “So I have.”
    “Will I be able to see her?”
    “I’m afraid not,” Mengele said sadly, “for she has been taken to the chimney.”
    “The chimney?” Abraham said, confused.
    “Yes, you fool, the crematorium!”
    Abraham collapsed to his knees in sobs. The two SS soldiers roughly dragged him to his feet. “Why?” Abraham begged.
    “Because she was ill! Because we do not have enough doctors to see to the sick and injured! She was not strong enough to work, and she was not a musician, or a singer, like Aaron’s wife.” Mengele shrugged as if what he’d done was of little consequence. Brawne could not hide the look of horror on her face, and her expression was not lost on Aaron.
    Mengele had mentioned Aaron’s wife, Eva. Although sick with grief over the apparent loss of his mother, hope blossomed in him that Eva had, through some miracle, been spared.
    The soldiers dragged Abraham from the room and Mengele turned to the young composer. “Now, if you cooperate,” he said, “I will see that you and your wife are given special treatment.”
    “What do you want?”
    Mengele smiled. “I wish for your assistance in writing an opera. I have already spoken to your wife. She has...passed the audition...you might say, and you were right, she is a very fine singer.”
    Aaron glared confusedly at Mengele. His mind was a whirling mix of assumptions and possibilities. “What sort of opera do you wish to write?” he asked, knowing that he must not show his grief or his deep and inexorable hatred for this terrible man if he intended to stay alive.
    “Some of the notes and passages are in my head,” Mengele explained. “Some I have already written down. I will show them to you and we will see what kind of composer you are. Others will come in time. If you are creative, you will live, if I am disappointed, then you, your wife, and your father will all die.”
    So that is how Aaron Gideon and Josef Mengele came to know one another. They worked together for months, and in time, a body of music began to take shape. Something had happened between Eva and Mengele that Aaron had no knowledge of. Following their tearful reunion, she was like a wilting flower, or worse, a crystal dish. She no longer confided in Aaron and he was afraid that if he pressed her, she would shatter. So, he remained silent, watching her, watching Mengele, watching the woman, Brawne, who was almost always in their presence while they worked, but rarely spoke. Eva was a physically beautiful woman, and Aaron understood on a deeply emotional level that Mengele was interested in more than her singing. Brawne suspected as well; Aaron could see it in the quick and poisonous glances she gave Mengele when he showed Eva special attention.
    As time passed and the silences between Aaron and his wife lengthened, he became convinced that there was a secret between her and Mengele. It began to eat away at him. He was terrified that his own sanity might come unhinged if he wasn’t careful with his emotions and that his resulting actions might