Hope

The entire house was tossed upside down. “Pack your things quickly!!” (the SS men were at the door). Here’s the thing alright, this “house” isn’t our home, the Nazis shifted us into the ghettos a few months back. The living conditions are fine. We packed our stuff and my family is ready. The SS men hauled us into this train which looked odd. I remember travelling by the train before, it looked different from this one.

The train that we are getting into right now is so cramped and tight, there’s no space to breathe. I can see my Rabbi, my aunt and uncle, a few of my cousins and a lot of other people I saw in the ghettos. My Ima and my aħ are holding my hands as the train moves. I can’t believe there aren’t any windows in this train! Oh wait, I just found a small hole in the wall. It’s so cold outside and so hot and stuffy on the inside. Are the trees running along with us? The trees look like ghosts; everything on the way seems as if there’s something eerie ahead of us. I remember one of the SS guards claiming that we were going to be placed in better quarters.

We finally reached our destination. As soon as we got out of that horrible ride, we were greeted by ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’(You know what that means right? No? It means ‘Work Makes You Free.’ Although, I wonder what work they were talking about.) The SS commander screamed (they’re always screaming, don’t they get tired?), “Women and kids, here. Men, here,” they separated us into groups. I could hear people crying, I wonder why? Won’t they be able to meet them again? I heard one officer say that we’ll meet our relatives every Sunday. One officer came up to my Ima and asked her if me and my aħ were ‘Zwillinge’ (German for twins), she nodded; they separated us from our Ima, my aħ started crying almost immediately. I wonder why? They said that we could meet each other. Now they were taking my ima away, I could hear the officer talk about taking them to the showers. Oh! And did I tell you about the size of the crowd that she was in? It was an enormous crowd. And they took them to these chambers that had thick black smoke coming from their chimneys, I could hear screams from these chambers too.

As I hinted, me and my aħ are twins and we were standing along with a few more twins, all of us are below the age of 15; there’s this tall man with blue eyes (just like every other German) and he just kept looking at us- those blue eyes, they are one of the deadliest one’s that I’ve seen until now. They gave us golden stars too. The officer took us into the camp, and they led us to our bunks.

I wonder what day it is. Is it Sunday yet? I can’t wait to meet Ima, I have so much to tell her. Guess what, the man with those blue eyes- his name is Dr. Mengele. He gave us toffees and chocolates today. We were taken for a few tests and they asked us so many questions. Later that day, they injected some liquid into me and my twin, I’m not sure what it was. The doctor with the blue eyes claimed it would strengthen us.

My aħ got sick after that shot and I didn’t see him for a week. After that week, they led me into a grim room. The walls were lined up with metal cupboards filled with glass bottles and metal instruments. The room was cold, it had a metal table right in the middle with a huge light right above it. There was a body on the table and a tall man at the end of the table. It didn't take me long to identify the tall man; it was Dr. Mengele. What about the body? I had to get closer, it was my aħ. I couldn’t believe it. How did it happen? (I asked myself). As though Mengele heard my thoughts, he told me that my aħ passed away because of his illness. I took a few steps closer to the metal table. I tried catching aħ’s hand, tried to reassure him or rather tried to disprove the fact that he was dead. Something was shining at the corner of my eye, it was a needle. Dr. Mengele was holding a syringe filled with pink fluid, he grinned at me. He asked me to sit on the table beside my brother, I did as I was told. I was scared, I was looking at aħ, he always supported me when I felt scared, he caught my hands when I needed him. I needed him now, why wasn’t he holding my hand? Why wasn’t he opening his eyes? I wanted to ask Mengele, but instead he asked me something. “Kid, do you want him to catch your hand?”, I nodded. He continued, “you’ll have to take this injection, it’ll go straight into your heart alright? Stay completely still.” I nodded again, all I wanted was to have my brother back. It seemed like Sundays never came on time at the camp because I never saw ima. I do not know how long I’ve been at this place, aħ was the only “home” I’d known.

I took the shot, he pierced it into my chest; it hurt a lot. I felt the world fading away, my vision became a blur. I couldn’t feel my body anymore. Suddenly I could see myself on that table, beside aħ. The doctor lied to me. I was lied to- the entire time.

I remember ima used to talk about heaven and hell. She used to tell us that if we were good kids, we would be near Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I expect to see my brother there too. But just as I crept above the ceiling; I thought, why not look for ima before I travel any further? I roamed the camps, I found so many hungry, bald, thin and weak people. The sight was so disturbing. I couldn’t find ima. Looks like all my “work made me free”; free from my body and free from the struggle of this world. I continued my journey to heaven. Guess whom I found there? My ima and aħ, I am happy that I got reunited with them. We struggled a lot down there and this was the place we needed to be in right now. I felt a sense of peace flood my heart and we smiled at each other and caught each other’s hand.

-Michelle.

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Note:

Dr. Mengele was known as ‘the angel of death’ at Auschwitz. “He was a German SS officer and a physician.”(Contributors to Wikimedia projects, 2007). Aħ, ima and the narrator are imaginary characters. They are based in a jewish setting. Aħ-brother and ima-mother are both hebrew words. I wanted to write something that would fall in the category of ‘historical fiction’. I recently read this book called “The Violinist of Auschwitz” by Ellie Midwood. She had mentioned a set of twins in her book. I wondered how they’d ended up there and I decided that it was going to be the topic of my short story. I have used a few incidents and dialogues from the videos/documentaries I’ve cited below.

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References (cited in APA7 format)

‌ABC News. (2020). David Muir Reports | The Children of Auschwitz: Survivors Return 75 years after Liberation [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr-nPaT8mXE BBC News. (2020, January 23). Auschwitz: How death camp became centre of Nazi Holocaust. BBC News; BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50743973 ‌Biographics. (2018). Josef Mengele: The Angel of Death [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7ssLE3FddY

BuzzFeedVideo. (2017). I Survived The Holocaust Twin Experiments [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdgPAetNY5U&t=2s

Contributors to Wikimedia projects. (2007, February 8). Nazi officer and physician (1911-1979). Wikipedia.org; Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele History.com Editors. (2009, December 15). Auschwitz. HISTORY; HISTORY. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/auschwitz Red Cross visit – The Holocaust Explained: Designed for schools. (1933, June 22). Theholocaustexplained.org. https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-camps/theresienstadt-a-case-study/red-cross-visit/

Reel Truth History Documentaries. (2020). Auschwitz: The Forgotten Evidence | Reel Truth History Documentaries [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_sHed3k8gM&list=WL&index=3 Timeline - World History Documentaries. (2017). Prisoner Number A26188: Henia Bryer (Holocaust Survivor Documentary) | Timeline [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXlbU5ZENy0

Nazi Medical Experiments. (2021). Ushmm.org. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-medical-experiments ‌Yad Vashem. (2009). Twin Holocaust survivors describe arriving at Auschwitz [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWJyjAYyF8E

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The book that inspired me to write this short story: ‌Fawer, A., & Jochen Schwarzer. (2008). Null. Rowohlt Taschenbuch. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55046122-the-violinist-of-auschwitz