The Promise

Chapter 5.

Chapter 5.

November 1943
Auschwitz, Poland

As soon as lunch came Erik raced to the Kommandant's office. Fritz was waiting for him. His office desk was all set up for lunch.

"The one good thing about working here is the rations are above normal," he stated with a smile. "Sit down, Erik, enjoy your meal. I'm sorry I wasn't able to instruct you properly earlier, but I'm sure the others helped you understand what is expected of you here?"

Erik gave a grave nod as he sat down. "I have a couple of questions to ask."

"Ask away, little brother."

"Bauer today mentioned gas chambers. What are those?"

"Chambers that we fill with gas to exterminate unwanted prisoners." Fritz nonchalantly replied as he helped himself to his meal.

"Exterminate as in...well...murder them?"

Fritz let out a laugh. "What words you use, Erik. It's our final solution to the Jew problem. Those Jews and Gypsies are much like vermin and need to be eradicated."

Ruth flashed through Erik's mind.

"We've built large crematoriums to deal with the bodies. It's all very efficient. The ashes are often used as fertilizer. Recycling at its best. It's really the only thing those pests are good for."

The food on his plate suddenly lost its splendor. The conversation had really killed Erik's appetite. And Fritz spoke so calmly about it all, as though killing people by the masses was as normal as brushing your teeth or combing your hair.

"Does it all have to be so...well...brutal?" He asked in a quiet voice at last. "Why do all the guards have to go around beating and starving the prisoners?"

Fritz paused from eating and leaned forward a little. "Are you still this soft after four years of war? You're in the SS now, Erik. Human suffering is nothing to us. It's all just a a means to and end. And anyway, you were a prisoner of war yourself once, it's not like those Soviets were nice to you. Stop fretting. Yes, it's true that this is not your normal prison camp. Most of the inmates who comes here are killed off almost at once. For those who are sent to work it's only a matter of time. Sooner or later they'll all make the journey. We've got no need of them. Think of it this way: we're doing the world a favor. So just do your job and don't over think any of this."

Erik gave a slight nod and said no more. He picked a bit at the food and at last excused himself and stepped outside.

Leaning against the building he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. His thoughts naturally turned to Ruth.

Bauer had said that they would soon be sent to the gas chambers? But how soon was soon? He wondered how long ago she'd been brought here.

"Could I have saved her if I'd deserted earlier and tried to make it to Amsterdam to find her?"

Erik took a long draw on the cigarette.

"What would Father think if he knew I had thoughts like these?"

Ever since Hitler had come to power the government had actively taught the German public how the Jews were the reason for the depression and the suffering. The propaganda had been everywhere, left, right and center.

Erik had watched all his friends turn against the Jews in rapid succession. Things had been so hard since the end of the Great War, people needed someone to blame and so they gladly blamed the Jewish people.

"I might have easily been the same if I Ruth hadn't been in my life." He concluded.

He took another draw. "But how can Fritz be so calm and cool about the brutality here? Just him describing it to me made me sick, and I'm a hardened war veteran. Nobody else seems to mind. Bauer and Johanna even seem to enjoy it. Is there something wrong with me because I think differently?"

Come to think of it, he had always been different. Maybe it was because he'd spent so much time with Oma.

Oma had never liked his father. In her words he was 'a fanaticsl heathen' who didn't know anything when it came to morality or justice. Even Mother had felt that Father was too cold and cruel. Maybe that's why their marriage had fallen apart.

Fritz and Johanna were, in their mindset, very much like Father.

"He never was proud of me though, not until the war started," Erik reminisced as he threw down the cigarette butt and stamped on it. He then lit another one.

"I was too soft, too sensitive, to tender hearted for his liking. And to religious." Erik had to let out a bitter chuckle. "The poor man never understood why I kept going to church with Oma."

Erik glanced up at the sky. It would be nearly three years now since Oma died. Six since his mother had passed away. Twelve since his parents separated and his father had moved to Berlin.

"He always cared for politics more than the family," Erik bitterly remembered. "The same with my brother and sister. Look at them all tucked away nicely far from the war while I was shipped off against my will to the front." The second cigarette butt was thrown down with force and angrily trampled on.

Throughout his adolescence Ruth had always been there for him. She had always supported and encouraged him. Father, Fritz, Johanna, they had never been there. No once.

Well to hell with them all then. Now that he had found Ruth, he would get her out of this horrible place. And he didn't care if she was a Jew. Come hell or high water he would get her out.