The Camp

I stood there, naked on the molding concrete, with all of the other men. The room was cold, as everything was around here, and I could feel my body shaking. In the dim luminescence, I looked around, noticing the other men shiver, a sick dance to the silence. I think that was the worst part of the place. The silence was a surrender of ourselves, but we had no choice.

Again, I looked at the men beside me. Some of them had confused expressions on their faces. I'd have laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation had it not been so serious. Here we were, maybe fifty men, naked and packed together in filthy shower stalls, our bodies aching for the simplicity of warm water.

But we had been standing there for a long time, my legs were numb from my feel to my knees. A few of the men in the lines near me were whispering in French, or maybe English, I'm not sure which.

The devils guarded the exit with their nine millimeter incantations. They told jokes demeaning the Jews, that is to say, most of us in here. Their laughter was bitter and loud and it caused my ears to itch. They were oblivious to the whispers around me.

The whispers got louder as more lost men joined in the discussion. By this time, I was pretty sure they were speaking in English. I couldn't make out what they were saying, I don't speak English. As the conversation continued, more of the spoken words were German and I started to piece together what they were saying.

These men were just as confused as I was, wondering why we were in a shower with no water. Most of them thought it was another cruel joke to further make us feel inhuman. I figured they were probably correct, but fearing the devils at the exit, I kept my mouth shut. I stared at my feet, which were still shivering, this time with rage rather than cold.

"Halt den Mund!" The bald devil yelled at us. "I'll shoot you all!" I watched him as he made his way down the lines, pointing his gun at our backs. The other devil, with the moustache, stayed at his post by the door, laughing. The bald devil noticed my head turned towards him and he stepped closer to me.

"What the fuck are you staring at?" the bald devil screamed, spitting in my face as he spoke. Before I had the opportunity to respond, the cold metal of his gun struck my eye and I fell backwards. He laughed and called to "Gustav". The moustached devil came up to me and kicked me in the ribs. The bald devil inserted a key in the hole at my shower and turned it. Instantly, a freezing water drenched my bloody body. The Nazi devils continued to beat me, eventually lifting me up and throwing me in the dirt outside.

Some time later, the sounds of screaming woke me, and I was in excrutiating pain. The screaming was not unusual in the Camp. I wanted to run away, but I was unable to move. I focused my eyes and the same devils who beat me were standing less than three yards away, facing the door to the showers. They were joking again and I listened to their conversation. I didn't understand what they were talking about until the moustached devil mentioned something about gas. I finally put it together. There were no showers. It wasn't a joke, like we thought, it was a death chamber.

The bald devil looked at me and I closed my swollen eyes to feign unconciousness. He approached me and kicked me in my stomach with his steel-toed boots. Instantly, I coiled into a fetal position and began to dry heave. With the lack of food at the Camp, I wasn't surprised that I was unable to vomit.

I laid in that position for awhile, but didn't receive any more blows to my body. When I looked up, the devils were gone. There were no longer screams coming from the shower room. At that moment I was thankful for those two Nazis. I may have been lying naked and bloody in the mud, but I was alive.

It took all of the remaining strength in me to do so, but I stood up and made my way to the barracks they numerically placed me in. It was empty, the men had either been sent to work or killed. I climbed onto the lowest bed, which had previously been occupied by a man called Johann Schenck. He was in the shower room with me, I assumed him to be dead.

I cried for the first time since I had been taken to the Camp. I cried not only for the pain I was in, but for the pain I knew my wife, my daughters, and my son had to be in. I also cried for the loss of them. I knew I would never see them again. When I regained some composure, and my body stopped shaking with sobs, I said a prayer for Lena and Emilie and Niklas, begging God to protect them. I then said a prayer for Adelle, that God may not make her suffer at the hands of these Nazi devils. By this time I was in tears again, and I begged the Great Lord to let me die.

I must have fallen asleep, because the door to the barracks crunched open. It was dark outside and I was unable to see who was there until he was inside. It was the moustached devil who beat me earlier. He grabbed the sheet covering my bruised body and ripped it from me. He looked at my eyes and said nothing. Instead, he threw cloth at me. It was a shirt and nearly swallowed my small frame, but I put it on anyways. He clenched the collar and led me outside.

We walked a long way, but in the dark I was not sure where he was taking me. It was strangely quiet and I knew it would be the night of my death. My head spun with horrible ideas of what the moustached devil would do to me, but still I remained silent. The Nazi devil made no noise, save for the sound of his breathing, which was all I could see, glittering in the cold moonlight.

We approached a gate and the devil looked behind him, almost anxiously. He unlocked the gate and turned me so I was facing him, this time staring into my eyes for several minutes. My heartbeat throbbed in my chest and in my ears and it was as if I could even taste it. This had to be the end.

Just as he was turning away from me, I could sense a fear in him and I didn't understand. He pushed me through the gate and I fell into the street, just staring up at him. "Rennen!" He screamed at me as if I were stupid.

And I ran.