X-Men: Magneto Testament - Index

Credit

• Writer: Greg Pak


• Artist: Carmine Di Giandomenico


• Color Art: Matt Hollingsworth

X-Men: Magneto Testament is a five-issue limited series that details his life as a young Jew in Europe during World War II. This is a long three-year project by Greg Pak and Warren Simons. They intended to one present the young Magneto as how he would have lived in World War II Europe while staying true to history.

They said actors making Holocaust movies get the awards. I won't be surprised if the same becomes true for this limited series.

With this, we get a glimpse of how Magneto lived... and ultimately what made him Magneto as we know him today.

Btw, in each of the parts, I'll be including the actual captions regarding actual historical events taken verbatimly from the comics; no paraphrasing, no shortcuts. I decide it best to let history tell how some of the events turn out.

So here are the summaries for each issue:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

X-Men: Magneto Testament #5 of 5

Don't let this ever happen again.

Max approaches the fence to give Magda some bread. He tells her about getting more rations by going to a certain Nurse Shulman. As it turns out, Max manages to bribe guards and make arrangements to make life at least easier for Magda.

May to June 1944: Two months after German tanks roll into Budapest, trainloads of Hungarian Jews begin to arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In just six weeks, 300,000 men, women, and children are selected at the platform and then killed in the gas chambers and burned in the crematoria or outdoor pits.

While working, Max overhears that the Nazis are now slowly emptying the labor camps, including the gypsy camp -- where Magda is held -- by the end of July.

Later, within the Sonderkommando barracks, they speak of the upcoming revolt which will be delayed to August -- two weeks to late for Magda and the gypsy camp. With this in mind, Max arranges again for Magda to meet with him.

Max tells Magda of how relatives of frontline soldiers and herself are going to be transported to a work camp before the liquidation of the gypsy camp. But in case something goes wrong, she has to hide in the corpse pile; he bribed the Leichenkommando -- the body carriers -- to take her to him.

With enough bribes, Magda gets on the transport out of the gypsy camp. The train goes to Buchenwald then to Ravensbruck where, the bribed Nazi guard reveals, human experiments are done.

August 2, 1944: "Zigeunernacht" or Gypsy Night. The Gypsy family camp is liquidated. 2,987 people are gassed and burned in the outdoor pits.

October 5, 1944: Max and the others receive a message from the resistance about the impending revolt. The revolt will take place on the seventh, where there would be fewer guards. For it to work, though, they have to wait until dark and wait for the signal.

October 6, 1944, Nurse Shulman informs Max that Magda and half of the transport are carried back to the gypsy camp and not given food and left to die.

October 7, 1944, the Liechenkommando brings the corpse pile from the gypsy camp to the Sonderkommando's custody. Within the pile, there Max finds Magda, in a very sorry state. He brings her back to their barracks. Not everyone is happy that the girl is there and wants to bring her down to the Nazis before they find her there. The argument is settled shortly and not long after that, a signal was sent -- the crematorium explodes, signifying the start of the revolt. The work detail turn on the Nazi guards and escape as far away as possible.

Magda and Max are among the lucky ones to escape with their lives.

On October 7, 1944, the Sonderkommando in Crematorium II and IV rise up, destroying Crematorium IV, killing three S.S. men, and wounding a dozen more. 200 Sonderkommando are killed in the camp during and after the battle. Another 250 who escape the camps perimeter are shot and burned to death in a barn near Rajsko.

Crematorium IV is never repaired. But on October 9, the killings resume. 4,000 Jews are killed in Crematoria II and V. And on October 10, the 800 Gypsies who had been transferred back to Auschwitz from Buchenwald are killed in Crematorium V.

The Allies never bomb the death machinery of Auschwitz. But in November 1944, as the Red Army draws near, S.S. Reichsfuhrer heinrich Himmler orders the dismantling of the crematoria.

January 26, 1945. The S.S. dynamite Crematorium V.

January 27, 1945. The Red Army liberates the camp and the 7,000 prisoners who remain.

Altogether, the Nazis killed approximately 6 million Jews and many millions of other innocent civilians.

At least a million people died at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

In September 1948, Max returns to the Auschwitz grounds and unburies the jar containing his letter. "Please. Don't let this ever happen again."

THE END.

X-Men: Magneto Testament #4 of 5

Just stay alive...

September 1942, Auschwitz: the train carrying Max reaches its destination. The Nazis tells them to separate themselves from men and the women and children. By some chance, his former teacher, Herr Fritz Kalb, wearing the zebra stripes spots him and tells him to give him anything small and valuable (obviously to bribe some of the Nazi guards) and to tell the Nazis that he is eighteen and wants to work.

Doing so, he and the others are led to the concentration camp, where they are stripped of their clothes, shaved nearly bald, tattooed, and given the same zebra stripes Kalb is wearing. Afterwards, the Nazis enters their barracks and asks for anyone below sixteen who are included in the group. Three of the kids show themselves, despite Max's pleading, and are shown the way out -- and then promptly executed.

Later, when rations are being given out, Kalb tells Max how he is planning to get him transferred into the Kanada Kommando, the best work detail in camp. But until the bribe is put together, Max has to stay alive. The Nazis will "kill you if you break the rules. But do everything just as they say, and you'll starve to death within a month."

Later, Kapo -- apparently someone who has the privilege to give out work assignments -- approaches Max who will be transferred to Kalb's group. Unfortunately, though, a ranking Nazi officer, notices Kapo and hints that he needs one man to replace one lost in another work detail. Left with no choice, Kapo gives Max to the Nazi.

He learns shortly that he is now part of the Sonderkommando. Jewish women and children are told to strip down their clothes and belongings and will be taking a shower to be disinfected of a bogus louse infection. After all fo the women and children gets in the showers, the door slams shut and the Nazis release toxic gas at them.

The Sonderkommando are then told to gather up all of the belongings to a wagon and haul it off to one of the Kanada warehouses, where Kalb is holed up. There he sees a room piled up with eyeglasses, spoons, and other shiny, metallic objects. Imagine, if you can count the number of things in there and assume each one there belongs to one person... well, just look at the picture...



What follows is Max's letter (or confession) to whoever finds it:

My name is Max Eisendhardt. I've been a Sonderkommando at Auschwitz for almost two years. I watched thousands of men, women, and children walk to their deaths. I pulled their bodies from the gas chambers. I dug out their teeth so the Germans could take their gold. And I carried them to the ovens, where I learned how to combine a child's body with an old man's to make them burn better. I saw thousands of murdered people burning in giant outdoor pits. I have seen at least a quarter million dead human beings with my own eyes and I couldn't save a single one any more than they could save me.

To whoever finds this, I'm sorry. Because I'm dead and now it's up to you. Tell anyone who will llisten. Tell everyone who won't. Please. Don't let this ever happen again.

He puts it inside a jar and buries it somewhere within campgrounds.

Max, almost losing sanity and doesn't care if he gets shot for stepping out of line and getting close to the fence suddenly finds hope when he saw a familiar glimmer of necklace from the past -- it's Magda and she's just one barbed-wire fence away.

Perhaps for the first time in years, Max smiles...

X-Men: Magneto Testament #3 of 5

You can make things happen.

September 1939, Poland, the Eisendhardts and other Jews and/or Polish are running for their lives as Nazis gun them down. Max's family fled to the woods, but not before realizing that their pursuers are not taking prisoners: the Jews/Polish who stayed behind to surrender are promptly executed.

The German army invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Following the main German forces, Nazi Einsatzgruppen, or "operational groups," hunted down Jews and Polish intellectuals.

In September and October 1939, Einsatzgruppen and other German forces killed over 16,000 Jewish and Polish civilians.

Two years later, Einsatzgruppen followed the German army into the Ukraine and Russia, slaughtering Jews everywhere they found them.

By the end of the war, the Einsatzgruppen and their auxiliaries had killed 1.3 million Jews.

Using his sharp eyes, Max leads his family through the woods all the way to Warsaw where the other Jews are at least being held and not killed outright.

Spetember 1939: In the wake of the Nazi invasion of Poland, a flood of refugees swells the Jewish population of Warsaw from 350,000 to almost 500,000.

In the Jewsish sector of Warsaw, entire families live in Single rooms. Radios are confiscated. Coal becomes scarce enough to be called "black pearls."

October 1940: The Germans officially establish the Warsaw ghetto, forcing all Jews to live within an area less than two miles long.

November 1940: Overnight, the Germans complete the construction of ten-foot walls around the ghetto, topped in places with barbed wire and broken glass.

Over the next few months, the Germans drasticallyreduce food allotments to Jews.

By 1941, the official ration falls as low as 699 calories per day for Poles and 184 for Jews.

By June, 2,000 people a month are starving to death in the ghetto.

December 1941, Max exits a hole in the hole to do his usual smuggling business. A Jewish kid -- whom Max helped out earlier after being beaten for stealing rations -- exits the same hole, only to walk crawl out within sight of Nazi guards. The Nazis promptly kills the boy and throws his body over the wall. Seeing this, he would have tried to kill the Nazis if his Uncle Erich did not stop him immediately, who is also in the smuggling trade.

Max searches the city outside the walls and is lucky enough to spot a coin -- good enough to buy a half pound of beef for his family. Once again -- either his sight or his then unknown mutant affinity with metals -- pays off.

July 1942, Umschlagplatz, Warsaw ghetto: Nazis announces that food and shelter will be given to Jews who will ride the train to do hard labor. Although rumors of the Jews actually being killed in the trains are rampant, the promise of food is attracted many Jews to go anyway.

Max scopes out the inside of the trains and saw blood and scratches on the floor and walls. Max tells this to Jakob and Erich. Erich confirms a story from an escapee: the trains lead straight to a village Treblinka. The people are then told to be getting their baths. Then the Nazis gas them in the showers.

Using Erich's connections, they smuggled the family and arranged a meeting with Cecilia at the bank of the Vistula (a river). Everyone except Erich went to meet wiht Cecilia.

After a short boat ride, they walk right into the hands of the Nazis. Cecilia set them up as the Nazis are holding her mother hostage. They walk a while to a pit where the prisoners are told to line up in front of -- including Cecilia and her mother.

The Jews seemed resigned to their fate. As the Nazis fire, Max's mutant power fully manifests: he deflects the four bullets coming towards him. Whether he unwittingly redirected the bullets to his father or not is anybody's guess. Just the same, the shot prisoners all fell into the pit, on top of the other corpses.

Everything seems a blur to Max after that. He made his back to the city only to be hauled off by the Nazis into the death train -- the very same train where he sees the blood and scratches. The train chugs down the track and arrives to its destination...

X-Men: Magneto Testament #2 of 5

Fight back, and they'll stomp in your head.

1936, Max and his father, Jakob, rides a train to meet with his old colleague Major Jurgen Scharf, whom Jakob saved before. He wants to ask him to return the favor and to give him another job within the government.

Evening comes, Jakob finally meets Scharf as he was getting on his way home. Shortly, German police have approached them looking for the Jew that is "making trouble in his office" the whole day. As Jakob tries to go away, a German soldier stops him and beats him down. Max, trying to go to his father, is thrown down by Scharf, nearly knocking him unconscious. Jakob is taken in Scharf's office while Max lay sprawled on the sidewalk.

Later, Jakob is thrown out of the building and Scharf declares that he could have been killed - and now, they are even. Jakob and Max rides a train back home.

As the train passes by the Marzahn Detention Camp, it is reavealed that Magda and the other gypsies are being held there.

1938, Nuremberg. Max gets in trouble with some of his former classmates and is beaten badly for it. Back home, the Eisendhardts once again discuss that they should go immediately - a German attache in Paris is shot by a Jew. That night, thanks to Max spotting the soldiers outside, they barely escaped as Nazis started burning down the Jewish homes in the city...

November 7, 1938: Merschel Grynszpan, a teenager whose relatives were among the 15,000 Polish Jews deported from Germany but refused entry to Poland, assasinates the German attache Ernst vom Rath in Paris.

November 9-10, 1938, Nuremberg: Across Germany and Austria, Nazis unleash attacks on Jewish businesses, homes, and synagogues. At least 91 Jews are killed and 30,000 Jewish men are arrested and sent to concentration camps. Approximately 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses are smashed and looted. Within days, the Nazis begin passing legislation to enforce "Aryanization" of Jewish businesses. Jews throughout Germany are forced to sell their businesses to non-Jews, usually at enormous losses.

November 12, 1938: The Nazis announce a one-billion-mark fine to be levied against the Jews to pay for Kristallnacht.

1939, Poland, the Eisendhardts arrive in Poland. They are going to stay with their realtive Cecilia's barn for the time-being. Suddenly, the Polish cavalry dashed down the street on their way to the border. With their superior armored tanks and firepower, the Nazi invasion of Poland starts...

X-Men: Magneto Testament #1 of 5

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.

1935, even then, Max Eisendhardt shows his skill of metal. Max is a Jewish teenager in Germany with apparently inherited skill in making metal jewelry and a very good eyesight. He collected scraps and made a necklace for Magda, a girl working on the grounds of a school Max is attending to.

In school -- consisting of mostly Germans not sympathetic to Jewish -- Max is on top of the class in almost all subjects except in physical activities. In a sports event, he ends up last in all of the events except the last one. The German kids make sure that he gets humiliated at every turn. When he finally does speak up, he is publicly humiliated by the headmaster saying how he's small, weak, and vicious, and his intelligence to be nothing more than degenerate cunning. During the final event, the javelin throw, perhaps inspired by Magda, or the fact that the javelin is metal, or both, he manages to throw the javelin farthest, thus gaining first place and getting a gold medal for it -- much to the chagrin of everyone except Herr Kalb, the only teacher -- apparently also Jewsih -- who seemed to care for him. He warns him to be careful about standing out saying "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down."

After school, he managed to give the necklace to Magda in the midst of a crowd. It turns out to be that his uncle, Erich Eisendhardt, somewhat of a ladies-man, is bound, battered, and bruised by the police with a sign saying "I have shamed a German woman".

It turns out that it was September 15, 1935, the day when the Nuremberg Laws are announced by the Nazis:

A Jew cannot be a citizen of the Reich. Marriages between Jews and German or kindred blood are forbidden. Extramarital intercourse between Jews and nationals of German or kindred blood is forbidden. Jews are forbidden to hoist the Reich and national flag and to present the colors of the Reich.

Back home, the Eisendhardts contemplate on what to do next. Erich wants to pack up and run. Jakob, Max's father and head of the household, wants to stay.

Next day, the headmaster declares that the javelins used in the event yesterday were defective and, therefore, Max was told to return the gold medal which the headmaster declares belongs to a German boy, unless he can throw the javelin the farthest again with a regular javelin.

Event day. The javelin is obviously made heavier to ensure he cannot throw it like before. Despite the disadvantage, the metal javelin still flies the farthest. But instead of a medal, the headmaster announces that he cheated and immediately expels Max from the school. Herr Kalb is also beaten, apparently for showing more sympathy to the Jew than the German kids.

After being expelled, the German boys chase down Max and beat him (with gold medals on their hands) to a bloody mess.