The following interview was undertaken in the casualty ward of the General hospital in Kempten (Allgau) by Officer Omar Itzbegovic of the Kempten Police on December 18, 1996. He is interviewing Wilfrid and Hannelore Heyligenstaedt; Herr Heyligenstaedt, 53, is the former chairman of the local Christian Social Union organization and a lawyer, and his wife aged 39, is a nursing supervisor at the Kempten General Hospital. Int: Can you describe what happened to you? WH: We were attacked by a knife-wielding homeless woman that we were attempting to assist. Int: How did this happen? WH: We were sitting in our car at the corner of the Munich road and the Outer Ring, having an argument. Int: What time was this? HH: About 23h30. We had just come from a CSU meeting at which Wilf had been dragged through the muck again, and I was telling him that there was no point in having anything to do with those people anymore. WH: But how can I get the organization back on track if I don't keep trying? That arsehole Schuler is almost a Nazi, and I know he's in bed with the Republicans. HH: And he's won every challenge you've put to him. Face it, the council members have given in to their worse instincts, and you're going to have to pass the torch... Int: Excuse me. HH and WH: What? Int: About the attack. WH: Well, now you know what we were arguing about. So my wife is going on about how its time for me to give up, when I see these two derelicts having an argument in a bus shelter, a man and a young woman. The woman then puts her hand through this glass panel over an advertising poster and smashes it. Then she draws out her hand and stares at it. So I stopped my wife and told her to look, and she did and she said it was serious. HH: It was. You know those ad cases with the glass in front and the transparent poster with lights behind? Well, half the ones in town have that nauseating Kaufhof ad which has the glowing happy family sitting around a Christmas tree, looking at all the crap they bought at Kaufhof and telling themselves how wonderful they are, because they bought it all at Kaufhof. It makes you sick. WH: It does. So damn hypocritical. As if you could buy Christmas. Personally I blame the Americans for this. HH: So anyhow, this woman is standing there, obviously wounded. So I said to Wilf that we'd better do something. WH: So I got out of the car, and walked over to them. The girl was about 20 or so, and she looked as if she were in shock. The man she was with was older, and was clearly a drunk. He was trying to hold her up and pull her away, but she wouldn't listen to him. I told him that my wife was a nurse, and I guided her over to my car. Int: What kind of car was it? WH: A BMW 733i. Brand new as of last Tuesday. Int: Are you in the habit of picking up derelicts late at night? WH: Just what are you implying? Int: It seems a bit odd that you would go picking up derelicts in an expensive car like that at midnight. You being in the CSU and all. WH: The woman was hurt. There was no-one else around, and no other cars. It was the right thing to do. Unlike Mr Schuler, I am not in the habit of picking up prostitutes and fucking them. HH: Nor am I. Int: It was a necessary question. WH: Like hell it was. HH: Wilfrid. WH: Why don't you just let us get on with what happened? Int: Very well. What happened next? WH: I guided her into the back seat of the car, to sit down. Hanna had a look at her left wrist, which was cut up badly. I sat the man down in the front seat, as it looked like he could not stand. I got into the drivers seat, so I could take her to the hospital. HH: She was lucky. She had not opened a vein or an artery, but there were deep cuts, and there may have been some tendon damage, since her left hand had curled up like this [gestures]. I asked her which hand she wrote with, and she said left. I told Wilf we had to get her to a hospital. Int: Did you ask them their names? HH: Yes, but they didn't respond. After that, things just moved too fast to ask again. WH: So I started the car, and she started yelling, "No hospital, no hospital", just like little Hans had done when we were going to take him to the hospital to have his tonsils removed. HH: She wasn't in shock from the wound, it was something else. She may have been a drug user. When we mentioned the hospital it brought her around very quickly. WH: So I asked Hanna what was wrong, and suddenly the girl whips out this bloody great hunting knife out of her pants, and puts it against my cheek. Then she says "No hospital" again. HH: It was a big steel hunting knife, with a blade about nine inches long. It brought back some bad memories, and I started to panic, as I was not used to seeing my husband threatened in this way. Int: So how did you get cut? You didn't take her to the hospital. WH: That's not exactly true. I was not going to give in to this, and I drove off towards the hospital. I decided to call her bluff. HH: I believe that your exact words were, "You stupid little addict, I'm taking you there anyways." You drove off pretty quickly. WH: With you and her screaming at me. Then she cut me, along the cheek [gestures]. Int: Did you stop? WH: No. I sped up. HH: Then she started cutting his neck. I grabbed her arm, but then she was on top of me. Then he stopped. She said to me "I came that close to killing him", indicating a very small distance with her finger and thumb. Then she turned to him and said, "If this car moves again, I'll kill her, then you." He didn't try that again. If you look at the wound in his neck, you can see that she just missed the right carotid artery. Int: What about the man? WH: He didn't say anything. He just sat there. After we stopped, he turned and looked at me, and I was bleeding all over the place. Then he threw up all over the dashboard and the gearshift. HH: Then she asked if one of us was a doctor, since she saw my black leather bag in the back seat. I said that I was a nurse. She told me to sew her wound up. I said I was too upset. I couldn't stop shaking, and I would need some brandy. I looked in my bag, and I found it was gone. WH: I had been upset about the CSU meeting. HH: Wilfrid! WH: Sorry, dear. HH: Wilfrid, I have told you never to use that! WH: I'm really very sorry. I was quite upset. HH: You were upset? You didn't have to use that drunkard's cheap rum to steady your nerves. Did you notice that he drank from it between the time he threw up and the time he gave it to me? I certainly did. WH: Oh. Sorry. Int: If we could... HH: Shut up. Just write. So after I had the rum and vomit cocktail, my nerves calmed down a bit, and I was able to sew her up. Int: In the car? HH: I cleaned the wound with some dishwashing detergent that I had in the trunk, and then I sewed it up with a needle and thread from the mending kit in my purse. I sterilised the needle with the drunkard's Bic lighter. Int: That is hardly standard procedure. HH: I have worked as a nurse in Burundi and in Mozambique. I have been in far more danger than this and survived it. I was just upset because I had never seen anyone in my family threatened like that. WH: It's true. She used to patch up soldiers just like that. HH: I told her that she had some tendon damage, and that she might lose the use of her hand if she didn't get some surgery done very fast. She responded by slashing the back of my husbands seat open with that knife. So I sewed her up. Int: With an anaesthetic? HH: No, she wouldn't take it. She kept the knife to Wilf's throat the whole time that I had a needle in my hand. Int: While you were sewing her up? WH: Yes. She had the knife at my throat the whole time. Steady as a rock. Sometimes she inhaled hard, but the knife never twitched. I could see her eyes in the mirror. She never took her eyes off the sewing. If I had seen the look in her eyes, I don't think I would have called her bluff. HH: When I had finished, she put the knife away, and then dragged the man, who had fallen asleep, out of the car, and onto the pavement. Then she turned to me and said, "get the fuck out of here, and thank you very much". I had to get Wilfrid out of the front seat because he was going into shock, then I drove all the way here. WH: Final total. One public humiliation, 24 stitches, and a new car full of blood and vomit. Int: So your not going to try this again. WH: Of course we will. Only if we see her again, I may want to mace her first. Then she can travel to the hospital in the trunk.