Tom Knox - The Marks of Cain

'As we see in the documents.' Simon gestured at one of the open boxes. 'Because of their religiously imposed self-segregation, their strictures against outbreeding — which enforced genetic isolation from the wider family of man — the Ashkenazi Jew was gradually becoming a new subspecies, maybe a new species, with a unique genotype. And all this Fischer told Hitler in a letter. This letter.' He brandished the document, then returned to his notes.

'Indeed Fischer told Hitler that, paradoxically, Nazi isolation of the Jews was only going to increase the chance and speed of this speciation. When he handed over the information, Fischer knew that Hitler would be excited by proof of Jewish Otherness. The problem was, as Fischer reluctantly told Hitler, the Jews were becoming, in some respects, a superior species. Certainly in terms of intelligence. Superior even to the Germans.'

He flipped a page. 'How, ah, had this happened? Over centuries, Talmudic tenets and customs had emphasized the fame and renown of the scholar. For a Jewish girl in medieval Europe it was much more desirable to marry a brilliant rabbi than a successful merchant or a wealthy goldsmith.'

'So the brainy, rather than the brawny, had more kids.'

Simon nodded at Amy.

'The genetic evolution of the Jews was biased towards ever higher intelligence. Pogroms against Jews merely increased this effect. In times of great adversity and persecution only the most highly educated and adaptable Jews survived: the less bright Jews died off.'

He coughed, with a flicker of emotion. Then went on:

'The…result of these centuries of upward pressure on Jewish intelligence, and the simultaneous genetic isolation in ghettos and shtetls, meant that Jews were speedily evolving into a more intelligent kind of human. There were downsides: Jews were and are uniquely prone to certain genetic ailments, like…how do you pronounce this…Tay-Sachs disease?'

Angus nodded. Simon returned to his text:

'But the Jews were brighter. The syndromes might even have been the genetic price they had to pay for their cognitive gifts.

'This remarkable discovery, when relayed by Eugen Fischer to the Fuhrer in Berlin, chimed with the darkest fears in Hitler's mind. Prior to this revelation, the Nazi leader had entertained other ambitious plans for Europe's Jewry — sending them all to Madagascar, or using them as gifted slave labour in some far-off Russian province. But with the Fischer data in his hand, Hitler realized he had little choice. He had to strike now, while he controlled Europe, before those clever and very different Jews became truly dominant and different — and enslaved Germany in turn.

'So in 1942 Hitler gave the go ahead for the Final Solution: the extermination of all European Jews, despite the huge cost and the possible crippling of the German war effort. Hitler had to end this menace to Aryan racial supremacy once and for all.

'But Hitler also decided to put his knowledge of speciation to one further use: he employed it as a threat against the Catholic church.'

David spoke: 'The Milan Treaty.'

'Yes. In a secret accord signed in Milan in 1942 Hitler agreed to stay silent about human speciation, so threatening to Catholic doctrines, if the Pope agreed to stay silent about the Holocaust. It was a total bluff. Hitler had no intention of revealing the Fischer discovery that the Jews might be "superior" to the Germans. He simply intended to exterminate. But the bluff worked. The Pope stayed silent about the Shoah, thus assisting the Germans in their genocide; the shame of papal complicity has plagued the church to this day.'

Simon sighed, but continued.

'So…Between 1944 and 1945, the Allies slowly liberated Occupied France. The Nazi doctors who had worked at Gurs feared for their lives. But they had one grand bargaining chip: the mindblowing results of the Fischer experiments.

'Eugen Fischer realized that the western democracies would be just as keen as the Catholic church to suppress this knowledge — as it would destabilize the world, in so many ways, and of course lend disastrous credibility to Nazi racial theories. So Fischer and his colleagues had potential leverage over the Allies — but only if they could preserve the data. They therefore hatched a plan to conceal their results: in the labyrinthine vaults of an inaccessible SS castle, in Bohemia. The vault was hurriedly built — here — even as the Red Army marched across Slovakia.

'The plan worked. The doctors, many of whom had committed the most appalling crimes, threatened to reveal their experimental data if they were harmed; so they were hastily exonerated and returned to work at German universities by the fearful Allies. The Fischer data remained entombed and unknown. The conspiracy of silence had worked. Up to a point.

'At the end of the war, there was one other class of people who might reveal the terrible secrets of the Fischer experiments. The survivors of Gurs. Cagots and Basques, in the main. The Germans had been free and easy with the Fischer results in the camp. The few survivors therefore also had to be silenced: this was done with large sums of money. The Gurs survivors were bought off by the Catholic church — which was consumed by guilt at the behaviour of its chaplains in the camp. The church was also shamed by its cooperation with the Nazis. Blood money was paid.

'Some of the survivors then dispersed around the world, to Britain, to Canada and to America. But for many of these people the Gurs money was tainted: associated with the terrors of Gurs. Many of them never spent the cash, and endured a life of concealed shame.'

'So what happened afterwards?' Amy asked.

Angus answered. 'Nothing. At first. The plan worked: the Nazi doctors slowly died off, as did the Gurs survivors.'

'But everyone forgot about…the Kellermans?' she said.

Simon nodded:

'Yes. The Kellerman dynasty in far-off Namibia. They had been close to Fischer; Fischer stayed in touch with them after the war. Indeed some of Fischer's Nazi colleagues fled to Namibia, after the war, and were protected by Kellerman Namcorp.'

David gazed around the assembled faces. 'But what was in it for the Kellermans?'

Angus spoke:

'I can provide that answer. Truth is, the Kellermans were interested in the Fischer results for the Jewish people. Old Samuel Kellerman was a strict believer in Leviticus 25, that Jews were allowed by God to take slaves from the inferior Gentiles.'

Amy protested, 'But — Nathan?'

'Sure, yup, the younger Kellermans were different…they may have dispensed with these superstitions, but they were still ardent Zionists. Determined to create and then preserve Israel as a homeland for Jews.'

'So?'

Angus gazed Amy's way. 'Think about Israel, Amy. You're Jewish, you know this stuff. Through the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, demographics have been pointing to one outcome in Israel: at some point Jews are gonna be outnumbered by non-Jews even in their Jewish homeland. And then Israel will no longer be safe: and maybe another Holocaust will ensue.'

Simon interrupted: 'The Fischer results promised a philosophical escape route. If it could be proved that Jews were a different subspecies to ordinary gentiles — or at least headed that way — that would give a justification for treating non-Jews, within Israel, in a discriminatory fashion. Why should a different kind of man get the vote — in a homeland reserved for Jews?'

Amy shook her head. 'Homo judaicus? Shameful!'

'But it makes sense,' Angus answered her, calmly. 'Universal human rights do not apply if humans are not universally the same. If the Jews are provably different, superior, then they deserve provably different and superior rights. If you really want to fucking push the point.'

'Therefore,' Simon added, 'the Kellermans wanted the Fischer results for their Zionist purposes — or, failing that, to repeat the, ah, experiments and get the same data. Right?'