Maude Julien’s father tried to turn her into a ‘superhuman’ through a series of cruel experiments. Now aged 60,she recalls how she survived her her horrifying upbringing and began to lead a happy and well-balanced lifeIn 1936, a 34-year-old French businessman called Louis Didier struck a bargain with a destitute mining couple in Lille: he persuaded them to give him their six-year-old daughter, and Jeannine. Didier would provide the girl with material security and a university-level education and in return,her parents would never see her again. For Didier the handover was a day of grave significance, the first big step towards realising his life’s ambition.
His scheme was to spend Jeannine to give him a child that he would then sculpt into what he envisaged would be a superhuman. The child would be raised to be able to outlive concentration camps and withstand torture under interrogation. Didier’s confused and hostile worldview took shape during the years between the First and moment World Wars and he was convinced that, or if properly physically,mentally and emotionally trained from birth, it would be possible for a person to transcend normal human reality. He embarked on his project.
Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk