Night Fell, Morning Rose

Helga knew what to search for. There were always women that thought they could hide. She knew to search under every bed and behind any object. She used her rifle’s muzzle to move objects and probe blankets. She knew this group of women was going to be exterminated. They did not have enough work and new shipments arrived frequently. The orders were strict and clear. All excess women were to be eliminated. She walked through the barracks officiously. The entire building stank badly as the conditions were very poor. Many beds were covered with vomit and other bodily fluids. Helga had to hold her nose. She showed no expression while she dutifully examined the barracks for hidden women. She suddenly stopped. A woman sat on a corner bed. She had obviously been crying as her eyes were red and puffed. But this was not the reason Helga stopped. On the woman’s lap sat a small child looking at her with curiosity. The woman was rocking the child in her arms, probably to soothe the child. The boy was enjoying it. The image was so incongruous with the world of Auschwitz that Helga froze for a moment. The image was one encountered in a park back in Berlin, not in a concentration camp. In Auschwitz, everyone knew that babies and children were eliminated first. How did this child manage to survive? Helga thought for a second. How had the mother managed to keep him here with her? As she searched for words and raised her Mauser, the woman looked at her and started to speak. “I tried to calm him so he’d be quiet...but I don’t know what got into him today. He would not let me leave his sight. Maybe the past three weeks when I was with him all the time caused him to be like that...” Then she looked at Helga. “And then maybe he is just done with this life...” She looked at little Isaac with love, her eyes full of tears. “I cannot blame him...” Helga lowered her rifle. Something in this woman captivated her – haunted her. Maybe it was her knowledge that the woman and child were soon to die, or maybe it was something else, something in her nature long repressed. The fact was that Helga stood there and listened. “See?” Julia continued, wiping her eyes and nose. “I hid him for almost two years in Dachau. There he learned to be quiet and remain under my bed during the day until I returned. When we were taken here, I managed to hide him and he was really good.” She paused for a few seconds and hugged her child. “Well, until today... He was quiet during the day and played alone in the little area I created for him.” Helga looked at the pieces of rotten wood that the woman had assembled around her bed as her son’s refuge. He could not stand on his feet there, only sit or crawl. Helga noticed a small cloth that probably was a blanket. A large roach was crawling on it. Helga blinked in shock. The mother continued to rock her child. Helga looked at her and saw her desperation. She saw her powerful but hopeless desire to protect her baby, to the end. She saw that she was beyond this now, accepting the fact that after so many years she had failed to protect him and he would be killed soon. She saw that the child, as with all the children this age she had seen, was not aware his fate was sealed. By giving his mother trouble this gray morning, he would be taken way and killed. Of course he was not aware of this. Or is he? she wondered. They say that young children sense what is going on around them. Why did this woman tell me her story? She is not a friend. “My name is Julia and this is Isaac.” Helga still could not find words. “I am sorry I bothered you with my story. I tried my best today, but I have failed.” She smiled bitterly. “Without even knowing what he had caused, little Isaac will have to die now...” She looked at him as tears streamed down her cheeks. Then she turned to Helga, looking at her intensely. “How can you do these things to people?” She had lost hope for herself and her son and was now searching for answers that had long troubled her. “I really would love to know how you live with yourself watching German soldiers killing children, old people, women and everyone else.” She wiped her face with her filthy shirt. “How can you not see that we are humans, living people, who yesterday were your neighbors, your colleagues, your friends...” Helga could not say a word. “But even beyond this,” she continued, “I see horrible things done here to people, especially Jews. You kill them; you are murdering them in cold blood. Old people, young, children and babies... Are babies your enemy also? Do you really believe that these babies and children are doing evil to you and your people? These children do not even know where they are or what is happening...” Her voice broke and she looked at Helga without saying anything else. Helga sat on one of the bunks, her face still expressionless. She looked at Julia’s face and could not think straight. Visions of what she had experienced flashed before her eyes. The systematic murders, the tortures, the evil propaganda about the Jews corrupting Germany, and the desensitization she had gone through. She had remained silent and accepting of everything. She was a quiet follower, never saying a word, even when she witnessed horrifying scenes as part of her SS training, such as simply shooting Jews one by one. She continued her life, went home and told her parents about her achievements, contributions and the great service she was providing her country. When she told them what she once saw, her father said, “War has costs. We all have to make sacrifices...” She looked at him without comprehending how he could say this. She knew they were human beings, but according to his thinking they were not. Deep inside her, in places she rarely ventured to go, she could never understand how the Nazis could do this to other humans. But her place in life left no choice. The mind has an amazing capacity to hide things inside, pushing them into the furthest and darkest corner of the mind. It was a useful self-defense mechanism and so Helga kept shoving all this to that back corner. Now all of these memories were coming to the fore and she realized the enormity of the crimes they were committing. They were exterminating humans like animals – worse, like insects. They were killing babies and children, but for what reason? What justification can there be for murdering children? Every time she witnessed a murder, she blinked nervously. It was an unconscious tick. She took it all in without the capability to take it out. Her entire soul resisted these actions, despised them and never wanted any part of them, but she was duty-bound to stand by and watch and sometimes even help in the actions. In jolting flashbacks she remembered the evening when she went back to her apartment outside the camp and could not sleep well the entire night due to the nightmares that kept waking her. She saw men, women and children walking by her, in and endless stream, looking at her silently and wondering why – looking to her for an answer. When she tried to speak, she woke up as though suffocating. She functioned silently during the day in the camp as her soul cried out to her every night. Her silence broke now as she realized at once what was going on and her role in it. All of her body started to tremble and her rifle fell to the floorboards. She held her head in both hands and opened her mouth to scream but no sound would come out. She tried to shriek in horror but could not. Her entire being convulsed with the ghastly realization of the truth: they were cold-blooded murderers and she was one of the cold-blooded murderers. She sat on the bed and moved her head from side to side, as though saying, “No, I did not do this... I was only... Nicht schuldig...(not guilty)