My Heart Is Buried In Venice -Joe Liebgott

Thirteen

"Yeah, now that you mentioned it except of course there's no snow. We got warm grub in our bellies and the trees aren't fucking exploding from Krauts. But yeah other than that it's a lot like Bastogne." George complained.

"Right?" Frank looked around.
I looked up at Joe as he started humming a song.

"What's going on in your mind there hun?" I asked him.

"Just thinking about when we'll get to live happily ever after." He shrugged.

"I can't wait to go home with you," I sighed pushing some hair from my face.

"I can't wait to show you all my favorite places," he giggled.

"It sure is quiet," O'Keefe spoke up.

"Yeah except for the two love birds over there chattering away about how perfect their life's going to be." Luz lit a cigarette, we all stopped looking around then continued slowly.
We all felt some sense of paranoia, we came to an opening in the woods. We all froze as we saw tall fences with people who looked like walking corpses looking out of them.

"Shit," I mumbled.

"Here I'll go tell Nix," Frank spoke up.

"Me and Maggie are coming to," Joe said as we ran after Frank.

   
       "You seen Foley?" I asked a soldier as I was out of breath from running. He shook his head, I sighed looking around for an officer. Frank ran around like a chicken with his head cut off.

"What's the matter?" Winters asked us catching Frank's attention.

"We found something, we were out on patrol and we came across this," winters cut him off.

"What, what, what, what? Frank, what is it?" He asked as we all stopped.

"I don't know sir," Frank shook his head.
We all climbed into a truck as they went to check it out. Joe played with my hair the whole way back to where we were talking about. Frank pointed to the place we were talking about. I jumped out of the truck as it stopped and followed Nix and Winters to the gate. Joe stayed out with the other guys.

We looked around at all the people who looked like they were ready to fall over an die any moment. They were all so skinny and looked hopeless. They opened the gates and told the people to stay back.
We walked in and the people all looked so thankful for our arrival. Some started hugging soldiers, I frowned as a man came over and spoke to me in German. I didn't understand a word he was saying.

"It's gonna be okay," was all I could say. I wandered over to Winters and Nix as a man tried to speak to them in German. None of us understood.

"God damn it, who do we have that speaks," Nix stopped and looked at me, "Protch go get your boyfriend we need him up here." I nodded and held my helmet as I ran through the people and solider.

"Liebgott?" I called into the crowd of men, "Liebgott?" I got into an opening and saw him.

"What's up Maggie?" He walked over.

"Nix and Winters need you up at the front," I looked at him and I followed him as we ran up to where they were standing. He stopped looking around at everyone, he took his helmet off and I took it from him.
He put his arm around me as the man spoke to Joe.
"He said the Guards left this morning sir," Joe turned from the man to Winters.

"They burned some of the huts first with the prisoners still in them sir, alive." He sighed.

"Jesus Christ," Nix murmured. My heart skipped a beat thinking about what these people had been through.

"Some of the prisoners who tried to stop them. Some of them were killed. They didn't have enough ammo for all the prisoners so." He stopped and looked back at the man who was visibly shaking. I turned my head into Joe's chest.
"They killed as many as they could," he put his arm around me.
"Before they left the camp, they locked the gates behind them and headed south." Joe finished and kissed my head.

"Someone in town must have told them we were coming," Nix sighed.

"Yeah I think so," Joe nodded. I looked back up at the men.

"Will you ask him what kind of camp this is?" Winters looked at Joe, "Um what uh. Why are they here?" Joe spoke to the man in German.

"He says it's a work camp for? I'm not sure what that word means sir? Uh, unwanted disliked maybe?" Joe guessed.

"Criminals?" Winters asked.

"I don't think criminals, sir." Joe sighed and asked the man more questions.

"Doctors, musicians, tailors, clerks, farmers, intellectuals. I mean normal people." Joe sighed, the man said something and I felt Joe's heart skip a beat.

"They're Jews..." Joe frowned and bit his lip, "Poles and Gypsies." The man said some other things before he began to cry. I sniffed and wiped my eyes.

"Liebgott?" Nix looked at him.

"The women's camp is at the next railroad stop," Joe sighed and watched as the man walked away crying.
I sniffed looking around, everyone in here were just people. People that were Jewish, just like me and Joe.

"This could've been us," I mumbled before breaking down. Joe grabbed me and embraced me tightly as I cried into his chest. Joe ran his fingers through my hair.

"Maggie sh, let's go out to the trucks you can help them okay?" He tried coaxing me, I nodded and looked up at my boyfriend. He held my hand as we walked out of the camp and to the trucks.
More trucks pulled up with food and water and we helped distribute it to the people.