Strange Associations: "Now De-Classified: Hitler's First 'Secret Weapon', Wwii"

By John M. Hill

In 1964, I had the opportunity to share several luncheons with the Polish inventor of a chemical that had an unusual configuration and targeted the site of action in the human brain, the limbic system. This chemical, which was stolen by Hitlers men and used as a secret weapon at the start of World War II while the supply lasted, was an antifear drug. This started a chase to find, kill, or capture the inventor at a time when he lost his assistant and fianc, the daughter of a prominent Jewish family, to capture by the Nazis while she was trying to find them in the Warsaw Ghetto. A Swiss national, and therefore a neutral person, helped him with the search as a representative of a large Swiss pharmaceutical research company, but he never saw his lost love again. While searching the Warsaw Ghetto, he was able to help the inhabitants and witness their prosecution as well as aid them with pharmaceuticals. I promised to tell the world his story some day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524548704

John M. Hill

John M. Hill, a very healthy seventy-eight-year-old, was born in Springhill, Nova Scotia, Canada, and grew up with Anne Murray’s (singer) oldest brother. He practiced pharmacy there then moved to Halifax to further studies in pharmacy and pharmacology. He joined Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., the Canadian subsidiary, in 1960. His major hobbies were music (reed, play sax, and some piano) and writing articles, papers, and political notes and petitions. Roche underwrote much postgraduate training, courses, etc. in pharmacology, psychology, and sociology, including sexology, giving me background to discuss medicine with MDs, specialists, and researchers. During a training and launch session for Valium, now a common tranquilizer, its inventor told him his story, to be kept secret for 50 years. Now it must be told. John M. Hill

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by John M. Hill.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5245-4871-1

                  eBook         978-1-5245-4870-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 12/27/2016

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

751095

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

NOTICE

1 CAMP X: Prelude to Hades

2 KRAKOW: Escape

3 WARSAW: Escape to Hell

4 WARSAW GHETTO: Absolute Hell

5 ESCAPE TO THE BORDER: War Is Hell

6 SERENDIPITY?

EPILOGUE THE SEQUEL: Sobibor

PROLOGUE

The Waldorf Astoria hotel was just as I remembered it from the time in my late teens, when I was a guest visitor from Springhill, a small mining town in Nova Scotia, Canada, to the home of relatives of my girlfriend, in New York City. The glitter and glamour of the New Year’s Eve ball in the Waldorf hotel was fantastic, even when viewed from the foyer, and the sea of revellers in Times Square was awesome. In that setting, Darlene was the most beautiful creature in both heaven and earth in her pale blue strapless gown that night, as it happens, about three years before she died of an acute version of Parkinson’s disease. As a 29 year old divorcee, a nurse and airline stewardess, runner-up in the Miss Canada beauty contest (i.e. one of the most beautiful women in a country of 40 million), she was, as an 18 year old pharmacy student, my first ‘Strange Association’. I loved that woman.

This visit a decade later was on business, but very pleasant business indeed. As a three year established representative of one of the largest pharmaceutical research companies in the world, I was invited to attend a combined Canada/ United States Sales Convention to be held for five days in Nutley, New Jersey, headquarters and research centre of Hoffmann-LaRoche (ROCHE) in the U.S.A., for the North American launch of Valium in1966. All of the invited Canadian sales force, were quartered at the Waldorf hotel, as a reward for a great year, and my recent order for a million doses of Librium to one of my hospitals, had been a noticeable contributor to mine. The ten hour days of intensive training and study in neuropharmacology, psychiatry, physiology, etc., allowed for minimal entertainment, but I made it to jazz clubs like the Blue Note, etc., my most preferred venue for jazz and swing music. I met Zoot Sims there, my favourite tenor sax player and role model in my efforts with the saxophone.

For a few of the days, luncheons were held in the same ballroom as I had seen a decade earlier, at tables for ten, each table presided by a major executive or VIP from the facility in Nutley, which encompasses the whole town, with its own water supply and gated security. For one of the luncheons I was seated beside a small, older, but very personable chap, who turned out to be the chemist who invented the family of chemicals of which Librium was the first and most successful to date, and now Valium was the latest (yes, the Germans called it ‘the drug of the valiant.’-??) We ‘hit it off’ and he started to tell me his story. The more he told me, the more fascinated I became, and, realising that, he decided to pour out the most unusual story I will ever hear, even if I live to be a hundred (and I’m 78 now). It took three lunches that went overtime and therefore some difficulty with my boss, but I think it was worth almost losing my job.

The research chemist wanted to make it clear that his pride and claim to fame was simply to have developed a carbon ring with an unusual configuration. Nature loves symmetry, and carbon rings normally have six sides, or eight once in a while. His achievement, according to him, was simply to develop a five-sided configuration, which won him an obscure award at his university in Krakow, Poland, in the 1930’s. He won a coveted ring from the university, which he later had to use as an engagement ring for his fiancé at the start of the war, as she was taken to the Warsaw Ghetto as a Jew, and he went after her.

During the conversations at the luncheon, he admitted that this discovery had changed his life greatly because the pharmacologic tests with his chemical, done by Roche, suggested that it had unusual effects like altering the effects of fear and anxiety on the body, and perhaps reducing fear itself. This caused him a little trouble when Nazi Germany learned of it, as did the Americans and British, as it became one of Hitler’s touted Secret Weapons, but in the end, Roche was able to rescue him and provide a safe haven, and eventually a wonderful situation in the U.S.A. It was never established whether his drug or a placebo (dummy) was used by some Nazi S.S. Blitzkreig troops heading the invasions, but Hitler, historically, did use an anti-fear drug as one of his secret weapons at the start of the war, while the supply lasted. In my innocence, I commented later that his story would make a good book. Andre, my boss at the time, said, Write it, and I will have to fire you, and sue you for all you’re worth. Apparently Roche had the usual Swiss attitude of requiring anonymity in all its dealings, even heroism, altruism, and developer of miracles. They are still doing this, and I may write a book about them some day, now that I’m retired.

The Author

NOTICE

Although based on a true story, this is a work of fiction, and all of the events and persons are fictitious. Names, when appropriate, have been changed to protect persons who may have been involved in some scenes or scenarios at a similar time or place.

Although the basic events and elements of this story are true, it is a work of fiction, and any similarity to any of the characters depicted is purely coincidental. Names, dates, and other items are purely fictitious, or have been changed for the protection of real persons when necessary. Let’s face it, I was born the year before Germany overran Poland, so everything I know about the story has been related to me by others, however, I trust these sources. I have been in similar situations to those of the characters and have sometimes described how I would have reacted.