Friday, February 26, 2010

Tales from the Library

I don't do this often (or ever), but I have to share a reference encounter I had. Names are not used, 'cause I don't know anyone's names.

A gentleman came up to the reference desk this afternoon. He wanted some information about a specific incident during World War II, relating to the Holocaust. I looked up some information for him and we were just generally speaking about it.
Another man approached the desk and said how amazing it us to hear us talk about the Holocaust. He said his grandfather had been a survivor. He'd taken the place of a rabbi who the grandfather looked like and gone into the concentration camps. He then told us that his grandfather was "kept with others who had information that the nazis wanted." He asked if we'd ever heard of Mengele. Then proceeded to tell us about how his grandfather was a genetic specialist, who assisted Mengele with his experiments. Apparently his grandfather knew how to work with genes and was able to help Mengele create super babies. The girls were lovely and smart, etc, etc. But the boys were all sociopaths. The man then said his mother was one of those girls. Then said both his brothers were bad. One in jail, the other, he didn't elaborate. But he, on the other hand, wasn't. And what was so different about him? Well, he'd been electrocuted 16 times throughout the course of his life. Supposedly, every few months, he goes in and is studied by doctors to find out why he isn't aging.

The patron I was helping and I just stood their dumbfounded. After all, how often do you run across someone who claims his relative was a nazi collaborator? And that he's the result of Mengele's experiments?
Mind you, I did want to ask him how many times he'd seen Boys from Brazil.

3 comments:

David Larkins said...

Wow, that sounds like something from a Tim Powers book!

Demeur said...

So it was library day at the local mental clinic?

About Me said...

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Cheers,

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