Wednesday, July 20, 2011

"Gehen Nach Links"

Lukas and Janina stood in line together watching the guard at the front. They could only see him either point left or point right.  They could hear women screaming as the men tried to calm them down by telling them it was going to be alright.  It wasn't going to be alright.  That was a lie meant to suppress what reality was really upon this group of people.  The line wrapped around the corner.  People were crying and weeping.  Some even tried to run off but were shot down or beat to death in their attempt to escape. 

They reached the front of the line. The guard looked at them both.  His eyes fixated on Lukas.  Just being in the presence of such evil was overwhelming and cold.  The barrel of the guards Sturmjgewehr 44 pressed against his chest, still warm from shooting a young man moments before.  It was a reminder to Lukas to keep his place.

The guard starred Lukas in the eyes as he pointed to Janina and yelled, "Gehen Nach Links!"  This meant 'to the left' in German.  If you were lucky, the SS would say 'to the right' and you would live while doing hard labor for the Nazis. Your death was postponed by going to the right.

"Janina!" Lukas screamed at the top of his lungs.  "Janina! I love you!"

Lukas was fighting with the guard and smacked the barrel away from his chest. He hugged his little sister and they sobbed together for a moment.  A couple of SS ran over and separated them, each one took a rifle butt to the face.  Janina was knocked out while Lukas fell to the ground face first.  He could see her face through a puff of dirt and dust.  Time stood still.  His thoughts wandered around their childhood.  Playing in the fields of Lublin with his sister.  Laughing as they ran from one field to the next, over the rolling hills and into the tree line to hide from their parents.  He could picture her smiling face as their parents found them hiding in the woods.  They always played hide and seek.  He wished they could play it now.

Lukas was suddenly lifted off the ground by his belt and thrown over to the right where other SS guards pushed him in the right direction.  He looked back only to see Janina being drug by her feet, still unconscious.  He knew that being told 'Geneh nach links' meant that you were going to be executed.  He wept silently that night, as did every one every night.

Up until this day, Lukas and Janina had been living in a Nazi established ghetto run by the Judenrat.  No one was allowed to leave the ghetto.  Once you got there you stayed there.  The Nazis had allowed their father, Norbert, to continue running his craftsman shop.  They had all been promised a better life with constant access to food, shelter, water, and the basic human needs.  What they received was the opposite.

Starting in March of 1942, the Nazis began shipping about 1,500 people a day to death camps.  The population of the ghetto was about 34,000 at this time.  Most were deported to Belzec, another death camp.  Most of them were murdered in the forest before ever reaching the camp.  After slaughtering about 30,000 of the Jews, the remaining four or five thousand were sent to a small ghetto called Majdenek.  This is where Lukas and Janina ended up.  It was a death camp and the final resting place for them all.

Lukas was surprised one day in May of 1943 when he saw their father Norbert walking through the crowd.  He could barely recognize him.  Malnourished and hollow, they stood and hugged each other while the chimneys sent smoke into the morning air.  They stood there half naked and wept.  The occasional gun shot rang out that morning, more so than normal. 

"How many souls do you think have been set free through those stacks?" Norbert nodded his head towards the large brick ovens as he asked the question.

"Just as many as through that building I assume," replied Lukas.  He looked over at the wooden building that had 'Bad und Desinfektion' written on it.  This meant Bath and Disinfection in German.

"I love you son.  This world has become entrenched with evil and hatred. So much that its growing unstoppable yet tolerable by the masses."

"I love you too Dad.  I love you too."

They both wept out loud. 

"I want to see Janina," Lukas said as he feel to his knees.  "I just want to see her face and tell her how much I miss her!  I want to see Mom!" 

Norbert grabbed him up and got him to his feet.  "Son, look around.  Look around at where we are at.  Why?  Why are we here?  We can leave any time.  Any time we want son.  You understand me?"

They looked around.  There were bodies caught in the barbed wire from those that tried to escape or simply just threw themselves onto it to bleed themselves to death.  There were bodies lying in the dirt, covered with flies.  The smell of death was every where.  It stuck in their noses. 

They hugged again and walked to the front of the line.  They stripped off their ragged shorts, standing there naked they walked into the rugged wooden building.

"We're coming home," they both whispered.

They walked in holding hands.


Note from the Author---Lublin served as a German headquarters for the main German effort to exterminate the Jews in occupied Poland. Lublin's Jewish population was forced into the Lublin Ghetto. The majority of the ghetto's inhabitants, about 34,000 people, was deported to the Belzec Death Camp. The remainder were moved to facilities around Majdanek,a large concentration camp established at the outskirts of the city. Most of them were killed by the wars end.

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