A Good Jew
Klaus Brandt
Simon Hellyer (Klaus Brandt): Simon is a Lewes based actor and mental health professional who is excited to be back with SUTC after working on the 2013 tour of 'The Well.' His recent theatre work includes 'The Weir' (Finbar Mack), 'Taming of the Shrew' (Petrucio and Tranio), 'Twelfth Night' (Malvolio) and Much Ado about Nothing (Leonato) with Festival Shakespeare Company and 'Eat This' (Stripey Man) for Paddock Productions. He also starred as Tom Payne in the independent film 'Tom Payne in Lewes' and Oscar nominated short 'It's good to talk.'
I was born in 1899 in Konstance, a small country town on Lake Konstance, in south west Germany.
My parents were German. My father ran an agricultural machinery business there which was quite successful before the First war. I have one older brother, Karl and two younger sisters, Freda and Lena. My father was hard working and quite severe at home especially with Karl and me. My mother was a devout Christian but I found out after the first war that her father was actually half Jewish.
We employed gypsies at harvest time and I had a bad experience when i was kidnapped by them. I had been actually been friends with a gypsy boy called Frank and one afternoon his father took me onto a wagon and they kept me for two days. I was only five. Later I was told by my uncle that my father had not paid them and they were holding me till they got their money.
My brother, Karl, bullied me and he was bright. He got to go to Medical school and later became a professor of psychiatry in Berlin.
In 1916 I joined up and fought on the Western front. I was very proud to serve and was awarded the Iron Cross (second class) when my brigade escaped an ambush. I shot three French soldiers and saw two of my friends killed by shells.
When the war was over, the liberal intellectuals caved in at Versailles and sold our economy down the river. My father’s business went bankrupt because the farmers could not afford to hire the equipment and I missed out on college.
In 1920, I moved to Frankfurt and joined the German Workers party. I could not find work for several months and then managed to get a low paid clerical job. All jobs were low paid then. I married Florence the same year. She was a musician and very beautiful. I am not sure what she saw in me. We moved into a flat and soon after our daughter Hilda was born. I got promotion and we had a big Wolf hound called Blitz. Happy times.
Things changed in 1927 when Florence died of Spanish Flu. Things were never the same after that. Hilda grew up fast and followed her mother’s love of music and I joined the Nazi party. I felt I had been given a purpose in life to help restore Germany to its rightful place in the world. I found out Hilda was having an affair with a Jewish musician. This was in 1935, after the Nuremburg laws had forbidden interracial relationships. She chose the be with him and I therefore had to distance myself from her. Part of me died then but I was to meet her once again years later in Theresienstadt….
The Hartheim Euthanasia Centre was a killing centre involved in the Nazi euthanasia programme, also referred to as Action T4. The killing centre was housed in Hartheim Castle in the municipality of Alkoven, near Linz, Austria.Action T4, which was brought to an end by Hitler's order dated 24 August 1941 after protests by the Roman Catholic Church.
In all it is estimated that a total of 30,000 people were executed at Hartheim. Among those killed were sick and disabled persons as well as prisoners from concentration camps. The killings were carried out by carbon monoxide poisoning.
The Action T4 organisers, Viktor Brack and Karl Brandt, ordered that the execution of the sick had to be carried out by medical doctors because Hitler's memorandum of authorisation of 1 September 1939 only referred to doctors. The operation of the gas tap was thus the responsibility of doctors in the death centres. However, during the course of the euthanasia programme, the gas cocks were occasionally operated by others in the absence of the doctors or for other reasons. Also, many doctors used pseudonyms rather than their real names in the documents.
"This has to stop. I’m sure he’s very nice But this… Rassenschande… No. Not in my family. The Nuremberg Laws clearly state…"
"His people
are coming
to an end.
Do you see?"
"I have been given a great... opportunity. To serve. To save our country."
"Yes yes. Stand easy. Now. Let me see. Now… yes. Ah… here we are. You’re a good man, Obersturmführer Schmidt. Kurt. Can I call you Kurt."
Hartheim Schloss
Viktor Brack testifies in his own defence at the Doctors' Trial in Nuremberg in 1947
"Well, we’ve got them now haven’t we. Rounded the lot of them up, and we’ll see who wins in the end, huh? Oh it’s so lovely down there. What a coincidence! The mountains, the lake. I miss my horse. And… (LONG PAUSE) We Bavarians are so lucky, aren’t we? Well, the ones who get to stay there. Not like you and me. Frankfurt is such a toilet."
