Spawn of Evil

By Donahue B. Silvis

The story melds the horror of World War Two Nazis in Auschwitz, and the cruel murders and graphic sex committed by six sociopathic young Nazi men on post-war Jews and the Jewish Nakam hit squads.
Six psychopathic young Germans, who are murdering Jews, become the hunted. The boy's parents who are serving as Nazi guards at Auschwitz, during World War Two, are selected for their sociopathic tendencies to join a special education class. There they're indoctrinated in the ideals of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. They learn to participate savagely in the atrocities committed against Jews and Gypsies in the camps, but the violence does not end with the coming of peace.
With their parents executed as war criminals, the boys are brought up in the homes of non-Nazi German families. In their teens, their psychopathic behavior erupts once more. It leads to a wave of rapes and serial murders, which sweeps across Europe and beyond. Patriots and ex-prisoners known as the Nakam Group, hunts for them. The Nakam was initially organized to target those German officers who've evaded justice for their war crimes. A Nakam hit squad is dispatched to locate and kill the young Nazi spawn before history can repeat itself with yet more deaths. Now, the table has turned. The hunters have become the hunted

• Language: English
• Publisher: Donahue B. Silvis
• Release date: Oct 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781646331123

Donahue B. Silvis

D. B. Silvis lives in Naples, Florida. He is the author of five novels, of various genre, and one illustrated children's book.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

The man was screaming with arms and legs flailing as he crashed through the fourth-story window. As he plummeted through the night air, his assailants shouted racial insults after him. He fell toward a street spewed with smashed furniture, burning beds, and shattered glass. When His limbs splayed and broken when he hit the ground, and his body twisted. Blood poured from his head. His dead eyes stared up at the SS black shirts in the glassless window.

A middle-aged woman standing in her open doorway glanced at the man’s body and flinched from the tall man looming over her. I’m unable to tell you, she pleaded. I don’t know!

The impatient man, wearing the brown shirt of SA, slapped her sharply. Tell me where your husband is hiding!

I don’t know where he is!

The brown shirt raised his Luger and put it to her head. Where is he?

Please! I don’t know!

He pulled the trigger. The woman’s blood splattered against the splintered door behind her, crumpling to the ground.

On the night of November 9, 1938, when Jewish homes, stores, and synagogue;, the windows smashed, and the contents destroyed and thrown into the streets.

SA brown shirts, SS black shirts, and the Hitler Youth coordinated a massive attack on Jews throughout the German Reich. For hours, the cacophony of sledgehammers and axes broke down doors, the shattering of windows, and the destruction of the property went on. Women were screaming, babies wailed, and teenage girls shrieked as boys from the Hitler Youth entered their bedrooms, ripped off their nightgowns, and raped them. In many households’ younger brothers tried to protect their sisters and were beaten to death.

Synagogues throughout the Reich attacked. Chandeliers were torn down and smashed; the SS men chopped up benches and the rabbis’ seats. Torahs and prayer books are strewn on pavements. They ripped the Scrolls of the Law to shreds; they used the great Menorahs as battering rams. When they set the synagogue on fire, the glow of the flames was as red as blood. While the mob violence continued, the regular German police and spectators stood by and watched.

The SA and SS men went to the bars to celebrate the late evening.

At three in the morning on November tenth, drunken Nazis unleashed a renewed barrage of ferocity. They beat, murdered, raped, and burned Jewish property until dawn finally broke. In the Jewish cemeteries, caretakers uprooted the tombstones, and violated the graves. They break into Jewish-owned stores, and the merchandise, like garbage, is thrown into the streets. All the windows smashed. It was still possible to read the remains of banners among the shards of glass which read: ‘Germans! Buy German—don’t patronize Jewish businesses!’

As the SS set the  rabbi’s synagogue on fire, he rushed out to accost the stormtrooper in charge. ‘This is evil!’ he shouted. ‘I know Minister Goebbels instructed you to burn our synagogues! He is a hateful man!’

The stormtrooper glared back at him. ‘You dirty Jew! You don’t talk about our minister in that manner!’ He turned to his men. ‘Shoot the filthy bastard!’

Three shots rang out, and the rabbi fell to the ground.

When the apartment of a Jewish family pointed out to a group of Hitler Youth, the cry went up, ‘Let’s get them!’ They broke the apartment door and dragged out an older man and woman. ‘Kill them! Kill them!’ chanted the onlookers. The boys kicked the old couple to death.

They didn’t spare the Jewish hospitals. Doctors, nurses, and ward attendants were beaten and kicked. Windows shattered, chairs, tables, beds, linen, laboratory equipment, and other items destroyed. Wearing only their nightgowns, the patients, including sick children, were forced to leave the hospital, walking barefoot over the broken glass.

The insatiably sadistic perpetrators continued their destruction, with Berlin and Vienna suffering the most atrocities as they had the largest Jewish communities in the German Reich. Fire trashed or leveled thousands of homes and businesses. Mobs of brown shirts, black shirts, and Hitler Youth destroyed over two hundred sixty synagogues. It was the start of what’s called the Holocaust. It became known as Kristallnacht, the night of the broken glass.

Chapter 1

It was a chilly but sunny spring day in 1942 when Ignatz Goldschmidt placed a weathered wooden crate under the first-floor window of a two-story red-brick building. He stood on the box and peered through a small crack in the black-painted wooden boards that covered the dirty windows. He was watching his mother.

Some naked females are milling about inside the examination room. Ignatz perceived the differences in their bodies. Some of the younger girls, his age or younger, were built much like him. The teenage girl’s breasts were small but firm, and a few had hair between their legs. The breasts of the older women were large and sagged, with much more dark hair between their legs. He found this new knowledge fascinating.

He’d only been at the camp for a few days, but it seemed longer.

Two months earlier, Ignatz and his mother lived in a small apartment in Neustrelitz, Germany. He attended grade school while she worked as a secretary for an old Jewish lawyer. Whenever he went to her employer’s office with his mother, the tall, stooped man always smiled, patted him on the head, and gave him a sugar cookie. Occasionally, Ignatz played with the older man’s grandchildren when they visited.

Ignatz didn’t know why, but suddenly, his mother no longer worked for the nice Jewish man for some reason. He guessed that maybe the older man had moved away. His mother didn’t seem upset that she’d lost her job. She was in excellent spirits and training for new work.

When Ignatz’s mother woke him, he saw she’d packed his clothes. She informed him they needed to leave. A black and brown Opel truck with a greenish canvas top was parked outside their apartment. Three military men in brown uniforms helped him, his mother and four other women and a boy about his age into the back of the army vehicle. One of the uniformed men climbed in the back while the other two got into the front, and the truck drove away. Ignatz and the other boy gazed at one another and then pushed back into their seats. Ignatz didn’t want to socialize, and from the look he received, it was evident the other boy felt the same. The women talked endlessly, but Ignatz ignored what they said. His mother ignored him, and that was all right with him. He wondered, however, where the uniformed men were taking them and began daydreaming about being a great military officer.

They drove for quite a while. Ignatz didn’t know how long, as he’d fallen asleep. When he woke, it was late in the afternoon. He saw the other boy move to the truck's rear and looked out as they passed through a tall barbed wire gate. Ignatz settled himself alongside the boy without speaking to him. He noticed the gateway spanned by an arched ironwork sign but could not read it.

The sun slowly moved in and out of scattered clouds as the truck headed into a large complex with many new buildings. He saw a towering wall with barbed wire and railroad tracks leading to an extended loading platform. And then they passed large warehouses, numerous two-story brick buildings, and older wooden structures resembling windowless stables. Tall square wooden towers surrounded the compound with red roofs and windows on all four sides.

The Opel truck stopped in front of a two-story red-brick building. The uniformed men helped them off. Ignatz’s mother led him up three steps toward a black-painted door with twelve on it. They went inside and looked around. Ignatz’s mother deposited her suitcase in one of the bedrooms and directed him to the other. Ignatz heaved his bag onto the bed as his mother left the room. After a moment, he followed her out, glanced around the colorless kitchen and small living room, and went into the bathroom.

A few days later, Ignatz stood on a crate and looking through the tiny crack in the boards to watch his mother, Gertrude, and another high-ranking SS guard, Margot Drechsler. They wore short white lab coats and seemed angry, striking, and shouting at the naked prisoners. The frightened females raised their arms over their heads and were forced into straight lines. Ignatz recognized the doctor in charge dressed in a long white lab coat and carrying a riding crop. As the man walked in front of the naked women, he playfully stroked their bare breasts with the riding crop. When one of the women pulled away, the doctor thrashed at her. The woman cried out in pain. The doctor and the two women guards laughed.

I don’t think she wanted her breast tickled, chuckled Dr. Mengele.

She should enjoy it, doctor, Margot Drechsler responded. It’s the most fun she will have while at Auschwitz.

Dr. Mengele selected four younger women by tapping their breasts with the riding crop.

Keep these four here and send the others away, he ordered before turning and leaving the infirmary.

Ignatz watched as his mother hustled the naked women out of the room. He stepped male SS off the crate and walked around the side of the building. He watched as his mother handed the women over to male SS guards, who herded the group toward the gas chambers building.

Ansaldo Siever, the boy who’d been in the truck, appeared a few feet away. He stared at Ignatz and then at the naked females.

You like looking at naked Jew women?

Ignatz was surprised when the boy spoke to him. They'd never exchanged a single word during their truck ride and the three days they’d been in the camp.

He shrugged. The younger girls look a lot like us, except they don’t have wieners, Ignatz answered, trying to shock the other boy.

Yes, but the older ones have big tits and lots of hair between their legs.

The boys looked at each other and then burst out laughing as if it was the funniest thing either of them had ever heard.

After they’d stopped laughing, Ignatz held out his hand, My name is Ignatz Goldschmidt. I’m here with my mother, a guard, who works in the medical building.

The other boy shook his hand equally formally. I’m Ansaldo Siever. My mother’s a guard too.

Is your father a guard? Ignatz asked.

No, he was a soldier. My father was killed last year in a battle against the Russians. What about your dad?

Ignatz shook his head. I don’t know. I never knew him.

Ansaldo nodded, and they turned to watch the naked, petrified young girls and women disappear into the gas chambers’ buildings.

How old are you? asked Ignatz.

Twelve.

Me too. I’ll be thirteen on August the nineteenth.

I’ll be thirteen on August the twenty-second.

Hey, we were nearly born on the same day.

Ansaldo smiled, and Ignatz smiled back, automatically.

What’s that in your hand? he asked.

Ansaldo held up a small artist’s drawing pad and showed it to Ignatz. It’s my drawings. He turned the pages to show his birds, soldiers, and buildings sketches.

You did these?

Yes, and I have many more pictures like this hidden at home. I always carry my sketch pad with me. But I don’t let my mother know as she’d take it away and tear up my drawings.

She doesn’t like you to draw?

No, she hates it.

Ignatz contemplated the pad for a moment. Will you draw my picture?

Without answering, Ansaldo took a pencil from his pocket, flipped to a clean page, and began to draw. Ignatz struck the pose of a proud SS officer.

Seconds later, Ansaldo showed his new friend the drawing. Ignatz burst out laughing when he saw the picture. It was an excellent pencil image of Ignatz, but behind him was one of the naked girls.

It’s good, Ansaldo. I’ll hang it on my bedroom wall.

Every day, like everyone else in the camp, the boys woke at four o’clock in the morning. That was when the gong for reveille sounded over the many loudspeakers. The prisoners had little time for answering the call to nature, washing, or having breakfast, if there was any. Sometimes they only drank a weak cup of coffee before roll call; then, they were bullied into rows of ten to facilitate the counting of heads by the guards. The prisoners were formed into work squads and marched off to the sound of an orchestra. A typical working day for the prisoners was eleven hours long.

As Ignatz’s mother was assigned to the Block 10 medical building, she did not need to be on duty for an early roll call, so she and Ignatz slept on for a couple more hours. He usually found Ansaldo waiting for him in the central courtyard when he finally emerged.

Ignatz and Ansaldo spent most of their first three weeks in classrooms. The school was only for the children of German staff members.

During their free time, they’d walked around the courtyard, counting the scores of barracks and other buildings.

Ansaldo always carried his pad and colored pencils with him. There are over three hundred buildings here at Auschwitz, and they’re still building more. And they’re making changes to the older ones too, like the little red house they’ve just finished. I’ve drawn pictures of a few of them.

Ansaldo flipped through his sketch pad and showed Ignatz a picture of the red building. Have you heard what it’s going to be?

Mother said a shower.

Ansaldo considered the picture. That’s a big shower. But I suppose they need it because some Jews smell awful.

Ignatz nodded, They don’t have any showers in their barracks.

The young boys were becoming hardened to the atrocities they saw being committed against the prisoners by the guards. They soon became used to seeing the SS Nazi guards administer floggings in the courtyard and at other times witnessed prisoners, with their wrists tied behind their back, their arms were attached to a tall post. They were left hanging in pain.

Ignatz openly voiced his approval of such sights. Someday, I’ll wear a uniform and be able to discipline the prisoners. Then they’ll see that I’m important too.

Ansaldo did not reply, but he didn’t have sympathy for the sufferings of the prisoners either.

They spent hours strolling through the compound, watching the prisoners work, and the SS guards yell and hit those who did not move fast enough.

Do you wake up at night when the tower guards shoot at prisoners trying to escape? Ansaldo asked.

I did, but I’m used to it now. I think the Jews are crazy to try to escape over an electrified fence.

Ansaldo nodded. Yes, you’re right. They must be crazy.

Shaking their heads in wonder, the two boys continued their stroll.

CHAPTER 2

Once Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, there were sweeping changes to the country’s education system. It focused on the indoctrination of children into Nazi ideology. The primary focus was on racial purity; all boys and girls needed to understand the necessity and essence of blood purity. Young boys also needed to be taught to be enthusiastic about dedicating their lives to the Fatherland.

During a speech in 1935, Hitler said, He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future! Practical consequences of this doctrine: The boys will enter the Jungvolk, boys who are age ten to fourteen, and the members of the Jungvolk will come to the Hitler Youth, and the boys of the Hitler Youth will join the SA, the SS, and other formations, and the SA man and the SS man will one day enter the Labor Service, and from there he will go to the Armed Forces, and the soldiers of the people will return to the organization of Movement, the Party, the SA, the SS, and never again will our people be so depraved as they were at one time.

In Berlin, in January 1937, Hitler gave his name to twelve new National Socialist Schools, which were to be known as Adolf Hitler Schools. The plan was to erect a citadel for such instruction in every Gau, or region, within the country. Education was central to Nazi Germany’s plan to cultivate a loyal following for Hitler and the Third Reich. These schools were to play a significant role in indoctrination and propaganda.

The Hitler Youth transformed all schooling. Nazi officials vetted all teachers. Hitler Youth leaders and educators were employed as school leaders, and all held Hitler Youth ranks. Members of the Hitler Youth were alienated from their families as their teaching was quite different from their parents. These children were a new breed, molded to become soldiers loyal to the Nazi Party.

The pupils were indoctrinated into Nazi ideology early in their school career to ensure the continued vitality of the Thousand Year Reich. Nazi ideals were the only truth, and Adolf Hitler was the sole authority. The denominational religious instruction was no longer offered. Instead, a broad range of athletic and musical opportunities was assured. The boys would become Nazi officers, while the girls would become good wives and mothers.

Nazi ideology emphasized both the power of Germany and the inferiority of the Jews in particular. Classes in biology were used to prove Nazi belief in Aryan racial superiority, and the children were taught about the problems of heredity among lesser races. Physical education was another essential part of the curriculum. Hitler wanted tough boys as leather, indifferent to pain, fast of the foot, and strong as Krupp’s steel. Pupils found to be physically unfit were expelled from school.

The supervision of the schools was placed under the authority of the district leader of the Nazi Party, the Hoheitsrechte des Gauleiters. Only Adolf Hitler could appoint someone to the rank of Gauleiter, which was the second-highest Nazi paramilitary rank, below only that of the Reichsleiter, or national leader. The Reichsleiter reported directly to the Fuhrer himself. A newly appointed Gauleiter was assigned to a regional area. He would become the senior representative of the Nazi Party, coordinating regional party events and acting as an advisor to the local government.

Each Gauleiter was the unquestioned ruler of his area.

Friedhelm Krupp Knauf was born in his mother’s bedroom at his parents’ estate home in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1904. He was the son of Alfred Knauf, a member of the landed gentry who made his living from rentals. Friedhelm’s mother Viktoria was a distant cousin of Bertha Krupp. In 1902, she inherited the family company, the Fredrick Krupp steel production empire, a four-hundred-year-old dynasty.

Friedhelm studied political science and business administration at both Cologne and Berlin universities. Shortly after becoming a teacher, he joined the Nazi Party and became friendly with Hitler, who noticed his middle name. In 1928, at a Nazi Party function, he met Klara Fischer. They were married a year later, with Adolf Hitler taking the role of guest of honor at their wedding. In 1930, Klara died while giving birth to their son Karl.

When the Adolf Hitler Schools were established, Friedhelm Knauf became a school leader. All teachers were required to defend, without reservation, the National Socialist State. They had to participate in elections, have complete knowledge of Party principles and literature, render the Hitler salute, send their children to the Hitler Youth, and educate them in the Nazi spirit. Karl Knauf dutifully enrolled in the Adolf Hitler School, where his father was teaching. In 1941 Hitler appointed Professor Friedhelm Krupp Knauf to the rank of Gauleiter, and in 1942 he was assigned to the zone that encompassed the new camp at Auschwitz. The camp administrated an area of twenty-four square miles. The zone comprised more than ten Polish villages, from which the Germans ousted several thousand Poles while pillaging all their property.

As Gauleiter, Professor Knauf’s duties did not include teaching. However, while at Auschwitz, he could not resist setting up a particular class for his son, whom he knew had sociopathic tendencies. He visualized his ability to mold his son and others like him into exceptional Nazi SS officers. One month after becoming ruler of the area as Gauleiter, the professor ordered psychological testing done on all the German boys living in the concentration camp with their German parents, who worked or were military personnel there. He concentrated on the boys because he was aware they were more likely than girls to possess the characteristics of the sociopath or psychopath.

The professor searched for children who exhibited elevated views and grandiose feelings through testing and analysis. These are characteristics of narcissism, both the result of genetic factors and a product of dysfunctional interactions with parents. Narcissistic children seek to impress others and gain admiration but are not interested in creating sincere friendships. They have an anti-social personality disorder which prevents them from adapting to conventional ethical and behavioral standards.

After the testing was completed, five boys had such emotional instability. All five showed a lack of social judgment, perverse and impulsive behavior, amoral and asocial feelings, and other personality defects. The Gauleiter himself had big ambitions for them, as he felt he’d be able to mold these five boys, along with his son Karl, into exceptional future SS officers. Possibly one of them could even be the next Fuhrer.

The tests, supported by the Gauleiters' interviews with each boy, revealed that one boy was a sadist, two were sociopaths, and two were flamboyant psychopaths.

Dolf Daecher was the sadist. He was short and stocky, with brown curly hair and dull blue eyes. He possessed a sadistic personality that incorporated algolagnia, sexual gratification derived from inflicting pain. Dolf enjoyed inflicting pain, cruelty, and degradation upon others and derived sexual pleasure from watching such tortures inflicted. He hated being with other kids as they teased him as a young child. They called him pig face because of his upturned nostrils. His home life was similarly miserable, as his mechanic father was a drunk who often beat him and his frail mother. When he was only eight years old, he watched as his drunken dad pushed his mother down the stairs to her death. His father lied about it, saying it was an accident. From then on, Dolf, as much as possible, avoided being anywhere near his murderous father.

Ignatz Goldschmidt was a nice-looking boy. He was of average height and weight, with blond wavy hair and hazel blue eyes. His mother was a working woman and a slut. She was drunk most of the time and always brought home different men. Ignatz had never known his father. He would daydream and envisage himself as a great man as a boy. He revealed himself to be incredibly self-centered and quickly bored early, always seeking something to do to fend off boredom. He was also overly deceptive and continually lied to his mother.

Ansaldo Siever, a slight, dark-haired boy, often stood in front of his dresser in his room and studied himself in the mirror, practicing various facial expressions. He would do joy, sorrow, concern, pride, or anything else which might come in handy when he wanted to influence others.

She told her son he was wasting his time and tore up or burned his drawings, telling him he needed to be more serious. Ansaldo’s father was killed fighting with the German army against the Russians before moving to Auschwitz with his domineering mother. He didn’t love his surviving parents and became more and more anti-social, although he continued with his drawing, stealing the items he needed.

Max and Markus Brandt were twins, but not identical. They were unwanted and told so many times. On one of his drinking nights, their father was a truck driver who screwed Oda, a pretty-faced, short, fat barmaid, who became pregnant. He married the girl but spent most of his time on the road. When home, he was abusive to both the twins and Oda, who became fatter and uglier and developed the face of a bulldog. Seven years after the boys were born, their father left and joined the German army. They never heard from him again. Their mother took a new lover, who came to live with them, a tall, thin woman with sunken brown eyes and stringy black hair. Once, when Oda’s lesbian lover criticized him, Max beat her savagely, almost killing her. He showed no emotion when she almost died.

Markus was unlike his twin brother in that his temperament was more natural. He was shorter than Max with straight brown hair but the same eyes. His personality disorders were the results of his childhood experiences. His mother’s neglect bothered him, and he would lie or destroy things to get her attention, though he’d always receive punishment. Like Max, he showed a total lack of concern for the consequences of his actions his behavior and suppressed any sympathy or empathy he might feel for others.

Professor Knauf’s son Karl had a similarly dysfunctional background. Raised by his overbearing father, he learned to obey his every command, though he was still made to suffer acute mental torture and often lied to avoid punishment. When caught in a lie, he was locked in a dark closet and left all day while his father was at work or attending a Nazi meeting. Karl knew nothing of his mother, who’d died while giving birth to him. Friedhelm blamed Karl for his wife’s death, a fact the professor often mentioned to his son.

Karl never experienced a mother’s love. The only women he’d known were the partying and drunken sluts who drifted in and out of his father’s life. His childhood was void of affection or tender feelings of any kind. Perhaps, it wasn’t surprising that Karl Knauf, like the other five boys selected by his father, was seemingly incapable of remorse, shame, or guilt.

CHAPTER 3

One morning, Ignatz and Ansaldo’s teacher, Elger Pheifer, informs them they’re now part of a specially formed class.

Elger Pheifer and his wife Emma were teaching in the Adolf Hitler School in Hamburg when they were being transferred to Auschwitz to train and manage a school for the children of German personnel stationed at the concentration camp. Elger taught science while Emma was a language teacher. Besides German, she spoke perfect English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian. A German soldier escorted Ansaldo and Ignatz to the new classroom on the second floor of the administration building. They found four other boys their age in the large, square room when they entered. The teacher pointed at two seats, and the pair sat down, taking in their surroundings. The white-painted wall behind the middle-aged teacher’s desk was a sizable colored picture of a stern-looking Adolf Hitler. On the wall to their right was a four-foot by six-foot swastika flag, and on the left wall was a large display of pictures and posters depicting stereotypical Jewish faces. The caricatures were distorted and ugly, with large, hooked noses, thick lips, tired eyes, fat fingers, and low foreheads. One colorful poster depicted a Jew as the Devil of Christian lore. Next to this array were colored pictures and posters of the ideal German, a tall, blond, slender, and influential Aryan figure with regular features and a high forehead.

Their teacher gestured toward the pictures gallery, a tall, thin-mustached man in a brown military uniform.

The Jews are inferior to us, he told them. "They walk differently than we do. They have flat feet and longer arms than we do. They speak differently than we do. You've learned from your previous teachings that they were created by