Erik finally let his emotions take over and started crying when he was sure Emma left. Everything she had said had grated at him. Her comments about what Schmidt, or Shaw, or whatever his name really was had done to him not only made him angry, they had brought back waves of painful emotions for him: grief, terror, shame, horror, and pain. Erik suspected that had been her goal. And she dared accuse him of not being able to speak rationally. She was the one intentionally using emotional arguments, messing with him like that.
It was incredibly rare for Erik to cry. The guards in Auschwitz had never allowed it. The guards likely would have disobeyed Schmidt's orders to keep Erik alive if he had shed a tear. Even if they wouldn't have, Erik didn't know Schmidt had given those orders until Emma mentioned it. Had Schmidt really done that? Emma didn't really have a motivation to make that up. She knew it didn't make him sound that much better in Erik's mind. A heartless telepath like Emma would have used her powers to come up with a much better lie.
And it made sense. Erik had never allowed himself to think about it, but anyone else in his position would have been killed. Most of the children his age had been sent straight to the gas chambers. Of the ones who weren't, none except him were Sonderkommandos. He usually didn't allow himself to think about this. Though it had been years since he had actually been in the camps, the grief and fear that came with the memories still felt so fresh. Grief for those who had died around him, and fear that he would be next.
Being a Sonderkommando was a different kind of hell from the experience of the others in the camps. On the one hand, they had more food and better clothes and conditions than the other prisoners. The hell they experienced was psychological more than it was physical. It had been their job to dispose of the dead. They had to move bodies from the gas chambers to the ovens. Erik had to fight against the self-loathing urge in him that wanted to know how many people there had been. Schmidt had to have ordered the guards not to kill him. Most Sonderkommnados were killed every once in a while. Erik lost track of time in there, but he knew it happened in a pattern. He hated those memories more than anything Schmidt had done to him. And now he knew it was Schmidt who let him be placed into that unit. Though Schmidt's order may have saved his life, he would never be as thankful as Emma implied he should be.
He cried and cried, those memories flashing through his mind. And then came the memories of Schmidt. He saw his mother die. He saw the blades and the operating table. He fought to stop himself from dwelling on the specifics of what had been done to him. The words "mad scientist" didn't fit here. "Evil tormenter" seemed more appropriate. Whether or not it was true that Schmidt had intentionally spared his life, Erik didn't care. Though Erik felt differently now, he had spent every day in the camps wondering whether it would have been better if the guards sent him to the gas chambers or if Schmidt finally did something to him that killed him.
Anyone who truly cared about mutants ahead of himself would have let a mutant child free instead of subjecting him to that brutal torture or to life in the camps. How could Emma see that madman's point of view? She must have been as twisted as he had been. Right? Or was he the only one who felt Schmidt had been unreasonable? After all, Emma had one solid point: he hadn't been a true Nazi. It didn't forgive his actions. Nothing would be good enough to forgive his actions. But Erik knew his point about Emma being a blond with blue eyes had been a cheap shot. Schmidt had been cruel, cold, and downright evil, but he hadn't truly singled out Jews. He went with what was convenient. He reminded Erik of that every time he had called him into that terrible office.
"Remember this, Erik. I'm not doing this to hurt you. The guards want to hurt you. They're foolish. They think you're inferior because you're Jewish. I do not care about all of that. I think they are the inferior ones. They are inferior to you. You are the future, not them. I've been waiting so long to find someone like you. Someone different like you. Someone better like you. A Jew, a Gypsy, that didn't matter. I just wanted someone like you. I've had other prisoners here, but none as special as you. Erik, I hope someday you'll see how all this fun I'm having is really for your own good. Now be a good boy or I'll have to tell the guards you were disobedient. And you wouldn't want that, would you?"
Erik still had those words memorized. Schmidt said that before their second "experiment." Erik cringed at the thought and nearly became sick thinking of that man's words. Schmidt had been a barbaric tormenter. But he had also made a point of saying that the Nazi ideals of perfection were meaningless. In a twisted way, Schmidt had been the first man Erik had encountered in a long time that didn't care that he was Jewish. Even Erik admitted he agreed with Shaw's policies on mutants. Perhaps that's what drew Emma to him. Perhaps she understood his policies and used her cold-heartedness to look past his evil actions. Maybe that was the case. Could he forgive her for accepting that man? He realized he may have to, in order to defeat the greater enemy. No matter how much he disliked Emma, she wasn't the enemy. It was people who, like the Nazis, couldn't see past their mutation. The two of them had a common enemy. Erik would have to accept that Emma wasn't evil. Cold and willing to be cruel? Yes. But he had to admit she had been different from Shaw. She may have loved him, but she had been different from him. He only cared about himself. She cared about all mutants. That's how Shaw got her on his side. Erik decided perhaps he could also use that good quality in an otherwise heartless woman.