The History of History - By Ida Hattemer-Higgins Page 0,138

while my brother had charisma, I was the brains, it was not looked upon askance that I should go to university. And so I traveled every day from our villa on the Wannsee to the University of Berlin, traveling through the hustle and bustle of Alexanderplatz and the Scheunenviertel, where immigrants, crooks, and scalawags had their paradise—it was a different world than the one I knew.

“I began at the university the same year as my brother’s incident in the Saxon woods, that is to say, in 1938. (My brother was only a year younger than I.) And I began to study medicine right away. Do you know who also did that? Hitler’s young niece, down in Munich back in 1931, although it seems she never went to a day of classes.”

“The activities of Hitler’s niece do not interest me,” said Margaret.

“Is that so?” The doctor showed a particular type of contempt at this, but let it drop. “All right then,” she said. “Well, I was a precocious student. My temperament is naturally scientific. Already in 1941, I received my diploma with a thesis on endoscopic abdominal surgery. This thesis put forth various proposals detailing how the practice of endoscopic surgery could be expanded to include many more types of gynecological surgeries than were performed in this way at the time. Endoscopy—the use of an instrument to see the inside of the human body without cutting it open, or making only a tiny incision. Also the mechanical alteration of the interior of the body through the use of such a device. Imagine, then, this idea that you could, for example, take out the appendix of a woman by going in through her vaginal canal and uterus, no major incisions necessary! Incisions can lead to infection, take a great deal of time for the surgeon, who must stop the flow of blood to the area, and are higher risk for the patient as well, who is usually, especially in that era, under general anesthesia.

“But how does one conduct endoscopic surgery—perform a highly precise task, without being able to see? These days, they introduce tiny video cameras into the body at the end of tubes, which project everything onto a screen. But in my day we didn’t have video, much less exquisite little versions of same.

“This is where an invention of mine came in. It was a device I dubbed, rather fancifully I now think, the Inner Eye. Think of the submarine periscope, which uses a system of lenses, prisms, and mirrors to see what is not in the direct line of vision. Now think of that on a very small scale and with hundreds more prisms and mirrors, all much closer to one another. Think of them jointed to one another with dozens of tiny joints, like a snake’s vertebrae, so that unlike the submarine’s periscope, which is rigid and only sees that which is directly perpendicular, the Inner Eye can bend, twist, curve, following the lines of the body’s canals whither they shall lead.

“The only trouble is light. Can you understand that? How will it all be illuminated?”

Margaret shook her head.

“I hit upon it!” The doctor banged her fist on the desk. “Cyalume!” she cried out, old pride billowing from her voice. “Phenyl oxalate ester, the liquid ester which is used in a glow stick.”

“I see,” Margaret said.

“Once the ring around the head of the Inner Eye was made to glow, there was enough visibility to conduct simple operations.

“My thesis, and this invention of mine, received a great deal of attention, and I was invited to work toward a doctorate. But there was something else that came of it. You see, I mentioned in passing at a conference the great possibilities of using my method in laparoscopic hysterectomies.

“The man who became my advisor was a certain Professor Dr. Hermann Stieve, a well-respected anatomist and gynecological researcher. And he happened to be working, quite openly, actually, with the Gestapo, and had ties to the RSHA. It just so happened that both of these offices were very interested in how women might be sterilized more quickly and cheaply—how hysterectomies could be performed en masse. So I was recruited by Stieve to develop new and rapid methods of performing hysterectomies.

“You must understand, these enormous feelings of enthusiasm around my work—” the doctor paused, “affected me greatly.” She sighed. “And at first it was pride that moved my heart toward cooperation.

“But I do not think I would have gone along. Even I was not so