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Babies were born: of proud Aryan men, tall, strong, clear-eyed, aquiline-nosed killing machines. Of women, some merely compliant, others filled with zeal for the mission, all with certifiable pedigrees.

The mission: to breed a pure race—racial hygiene to save the world, to accelerate the population of the purist of the pure. Babies—the bright future of the Third Reich.

Babies were born: into a mad world—a world aflame with passion, with fear, with hatred, with torture, with mistrust, with misinformation. The fathers ate well and fucked with abandon; the mothers less well. The babies tumbled into a world of need, a world of hunger, misery, and pain. The fathers vanished before the master babies swelled their mother’s bellies. Between labor pains, the breeding stock dodged bullets and bombs and worried. Starving women can’t produce milk. Nor can cows—devoured for the little flesh left on their bones. Who fed the babies? Who held and nurtured the babies? Who raised the babies?

What became of the master babies after the door slammed shut on their brave new world?  What became of the babies after the leader of the great National Socialist German Worker’s Party ignominiously exited the scene in that bunker below the living hell? What world of isolation, disrespect, and revulsion awaited these innocent master babies? How did they survive, grow up, grow strong, grow into a world they were never bred for? Who are they? Where are they? Have they atoned for the sins of their fathers? Have we atoned for allowing the sins of their fathers?

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This gruesome thing is my entry for this week’s Trifecta challenge which asks us to write a response between 33 and 333 words, using the third listed definition of the word “door” : a means of access or participation : opportunity <opens new doors> <door to success>  These exercises seem to plumb some dark place I never knew I had.