The Americans are coming

Dachau,Southern Germany,28th April,1945.

There is a rumour that Obersturmbannfuhrer Heinrich Weiter, the Chief Commander of the KZ concentration camp had already fled. Understurmfuhrer Eduard Wicker is second-in-command and today was not the best day of his life. His personal dilemma was an addition to the general confusion which was running riots. His instincts told him to run.But where? The allied forces were everywhere. They were entirely surrounded. And again abandonment of one's duty was high treason and he was no traitor.

Eduard Wicker was born into a rich family in Munich in the year 1902.He was still a child when Germany was defeated by the allied armies in the First World War. He lost his father to the Great War and his family lost its wealth to the economic depression which followed as an aftermath to Germany's defeat. He could not understand why they had to have soup and bread , both for lunch and supper. He was had to forgo his education and went to work in a factory. One day he saw the grocer feeling up his mother before he handed over the extra loaf of bread. The grocer was dead after a few days and that was the first murder he had committed.

National socialism was popular among all the youngsters and he was no exception. So it came as no surprise to his family that he enrolled in the SS. Ruthlessness and lack of compassion helped raise him to the rank of Untersturmfuhrer. He had been stationed at the Dachau concentration camp for about an year now.

Lack of sleep led to deep thought. In the beginning of the war, he was in a state of conflict. He could kill, he knew that. But why? His father always use to say that the only war that mattered was the war within oneself. He knew his course of action, he just needed a motive. Then he thought ," Who wouldn't want to conquer the world?It seems like such a heroic idea" and muffled the voices in his head. Now he thought that there is nothing heroic about the savagery it had demanded of him. Victory and conscience do not go hand in hand anyway.But all the sacrifices made in the name of victory will go unrewarded.

"We played the game of war with our souls at stake and lost.And losers have no right to the future . All they have is the past and the past was such a waste," he thought.

He then lay on his bed waiting, for the Americans are coming.

There is a rumour that Obersturmbannfuhrer Heinrich Weiter , the Chief Commander of the KG had already fled. Anna Weisenberg would become twenty years old the next day and today was supposed to be the best day in her life for word is that the allied armies had arrived and their victory is inevitable."Was it?" she asked herself ."Well, it does really matter now, " she told herself back. She washing the clothes by the tap, trying hard to get rid of the lice. She couldn't help but notice the absence of the guard who was always stationed beside the tap, distributing water as miserly as it was his own blood."Maybe the rumours are true," she thought.

Anna was born a Jew and there was nothing she could do about it. Anna's father always told her she could be whatever she wanted. But then she couldn't 'not' be a Jew,could she? Her mother died during childbirth and her father raised her. He was a religious man and every ritual of the Shabbat was observed rigorously in her house. This was all till they came and the horror began.

Her aunt's family was evacuated from their house and came to live with them.The lady next door went to buy groceries and never came back." What is wrong with being a Jew, Papa?" Anna asked her father. Her father assured her that nothing was wrong and everything will be alright. But nothing was alright. Her father was one among the many who were killed in a synagogue during the prayer time . That was the day she started blaming God for everything.

She washed the clothes and returned to the cell which she shared with five other people.Mrs.Stern was trying to put young Isaac to sleep."We might be free after all," she said without a trace of emotion in her voice. "Freedom...freedom is no redemption at this point in her life," she thought."Survival was foremost until now and the extremity of the situation left no scope for any other thought. When freedom is curtailed, so are feelings. When the burden of trying not to get killed in the next few hours lifts off one's chest, one regains the ability to feel things...feel the loss of family, the loss of a body part, the loss of identity.With these realizations sets in a mind numbing pain."

"Fear can induce the will to survive but pain underscores the futility of that very survival.She was a survivor and survivors needed to forget the past. All she has, is a future and the future is so hopeless,"she thought.

Then she lay on the floor waiting, for the Americans are coming.