For weeks I have experienced more pain and witnessed more murders than man, woman, or child should ever have to bear. Carrying the dead from the gas chambers to the mass graves that are being filled at a faster rate than they can be dug has left the stench of death clinging to my threadbare clothes. But worse than the beatings, starvation, and killings is the lace of hope and will to fight back. It seems as though the warmth of the sun is directly connected to the spirit of the people. And each day it grows colder and colder. I know that if something is not done to uplift my fellow Jews the internal war that each individual is desperately fighting will soon be over. And if these wars are not won, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that none of these people will ever regain their sense of pride and self-worth.
As the round-faced guard approaches me I am frozen with fear that he has somehow found out about the message that has been spreading around the camp and that I am the one responsible. because this message is dangerous to our captors for it gives us hope. The message is so simple and yet so powerful.
It is no secret that the Americans are fighting to free us, we have seen the airplanes fly over with heir symbol. and we hear the bombs being dropped, each time growing louder and louder. Now we can feel the vibrations underneath our feet. The message, my message, has spread like wildfire from one end of the camp to the other, leaving a trail of hope. And hope alone is our most powerful weapon. the Nazis cannot defeat it with guns, beatings, bombs, or even death. I am afraid but I am also proud because whether or not I have been discovered as the one who started this uncontrollable, unquenchable thirst for freedom. The Jews in this camp will not have their fight, their pride beaten out of them ever again. Of this, I am sure.
The guard comes toe to toe with me and I know that I will be killed in front of the camp before the day is over, in an attempt to squash the hope out of the camp. But as I see this in the guards eyes the guard can see in mine that it will do no good, that a light has been lit that will never be blown out again. The guard lets out a long, slow breath in my face and I can smell the greed, hate, and violence wash over me. All the guard can see when he looks at me is an insignificant Jew. To him I am a waste of life. But the message that has breathed the breath of life into this camp resounds strongly within me.
"Time to come with me." the guard rumbles.
I look him square in the eyes and proudly say "I will come with you and meet my death, but your effort to dampen the souls of these people comes to little, to late."
The mud squelches beneath my cold bare feet as I begin the long trek to the front of teh camp where every prisoner has been gathered. The air crackles with conflicting emotions. Emotions of freedom that looms on the horizon, but even with this new-found hope the shoulders of my companions sag under the weight of what is to come.
As all the guards turn towards me in unison I keep my head held high with pride and I whisper my last goodbyes. The silence of the night is shattered by the sounds of guns being fired, of bullets biting into flesh. But I feel no pain as I open my eyes. The shots were fired; the shots that are still ringing in my ears didn't send hot lead pouring into my body and they have not been fired by the guards. But by the Americans. The camp is consumed by shouts of joy, relief, and above all else laughter. And it seems and though freedom was closer than anyone could have ever imagined because we are free. We are free, at last.
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