Photograph

Werner held the old, black and white photograph in his hand. There were two men portrayed on it. They were standing arm in arm, smiling at the camera. Behind them was a shiny car of beautiful design that would cost a fortune in the time Werner came from. He'd recognized the two immeditally. The one on the left was Wojciechowski and the one of the right was the Lagerführer. 

His mind was racing. He couldn't believe that the two had been friends. The Lagerführer was a nazi, the doctor a polish liberal - perhaps he was even a communist. He continued to stare at the photo, almost as if he expected the faces of the boyish men to change and turn into different people. But they stayed the same. The Lagerführer knew Wojciechowski. 

Werner heard footsteps in the hallway and quickly stuck the picture back into the folder, snapped it shut and put it away according to it's name and letter. He grabbed another folder and hastily pretended to sort that one into the desk drawer as well, running his fingers over the letters as if he was looking for the right place to put it. 

"Did you get far, Werner?" Dr. Ziegler asked as he stepped into his bereau. Werner looked up at him and nodded. Ziegler closed the door behind himself and crossed the room to his young assistant. "Ah yes, you did get pretty far. Thank you. I'm sorry for giving you the boring work but there was something I needed to do." Werner just shrugged. Dr. Ziegler grabbed a file and started to help sort them into the drawers. There was silence between the two. Werner grew paranoid the longer the silence lasted; did Dr. Ziegler know that he'd gone through Wojciechowskis folder? Had he maybe seen him? Peeked around the door when Werner was immersed in the file? But he calmed himself by convincing himself that there was no way Dr. Ziegler would know, and why would he even suspect Werner of doing such a thing? Dr. Ziegler did not know that Werner was interrested in Wojciechowski and had only taken the job because of that. Dr. Ziegler's thoughts troubled him as well. He thought that Werner might know where he'd went; that he'd had to ask Wojciechowskis opinion on the vaccine. Would Werner rat him out as an incompetent doctor who was working with the enemy? In no way was any SS-Officer allowed to find out that he was planning on doing experiments with Wojciechowskis help...

"So, für den Vormittag reicht das. Am Nachmittag zeig ich dir das richtige Labor. (that's enough work for the morning, I'll show you the lab after lunch.)" Dr. Ziegler said. Werner nodded, wished him guten appetit and headed off to lunch, leaving the increasingly nervous doctor behind. 

Nikolai and Werner sat at the far end of the dining hall, they'd tried to sit a little ways away from the main crowd but they were both surprised and belustigt to find out that the main crowd was where Nikolai was. Everyone in the camp enjoyed being near him. So lunch proved to be an impossible place for Werner to recount the information he'd found to his good friend, but none the less, they enjoyed a rather roudy and loud lunch. In times like these Werner sometimes forgot he was sitting next to Nazis, they were just like any other guys, talking about women about hating to wake up early, about missing home...

Werner knocked on Dr. Ziegler's door. He was called in with the harsh 'herein'. He found Dr. Ziegler bent over his desk in an almost crippled fashion, scribbling something in his lab journal. "Gut, dass sie das sind. (It's good you're here.)" He said without looking up. "We'll head to the lab in a minute." Werner stood in the corner and waited. "Alright, all done. Let's go, shall we?" The doctor said, closing the booklet and clamping it under his arm. He grabbed his keys and stood up, joining Werner by the door. "I didn't show you the lab yet, did I?"

"No, I don't think so. I was only in the room with the bed." 

"Yes, exactly. In the lab we have to be a bit more carefull. You'll have to put a lab coat on. We're working on a vaccine for smallpox. It's supposed to be much for effective then the older versions...but we haven't gotten it quite right yet. I'm pretty sure I know where the problem is now." As he explained everything to Werner he took him through the building to the right wing where the lab was located. "I worked on this vaccine before I was sent here," he unlocked the door. Over the arch it read; laboratory. "But I was only able to run tests on mice and rats, here, I can also run tests on people." If his words hadn't been the thing that made Werner shudder it was the sight of the Nazi labor. In itself it wasn't much different than a lab on a university campus, it even resembled the lab he'd had at his high school in Germany. But the energy was different. It reeked of desinfectionate, of metal and a little bit like smoke. 

"After you." Dr. Ziegler said, holding the door wide open for Werner who was forced to step inside.