Captured

CHAPTER 2

We just sat, froze, staring at the door counting down the seconds until the intruders would open the door and descend down the metal stairs and find us. We prayed to god that they weren’t Nazis but even if they weren’t they would surely turn us in to them if they found us. What did we ever do to anyone to deserve this? Were we not just normal people who lived life taking it for granted not knowing or caring that at any moment someone could come and take it away from us like we didn’t deserve it.  So why us? Why were we separated from the world and treated like scum. No, I think scum was treated better than us. We were not even above animals.

I remember a few months before we moved here; I was sat talking to my then best friend Lischa when her brother, Daniel, had pulled her away from me without explanation. As they went I heard him hiss to her

“Didn’t mama say not to talk to their kind?”

So now we were a kind? Daniel who I had been close to was now saying I wasn’t allowed to be classed as human. The same Daniel who I shared my first and only kiss just last year? How had Hitler turned those closest to us against us?

The outer door opened harshly snapping me out of my reverie. Our attention was now at the inner door as we heard the footsteps of heavy leather boots coming down the stairs. We held our breaths, says silent prayers, as they turned the knob. We breathed a sigh of relief as we realised the door was locked but our relief quickly turned back to horror as they started banging on the door viciously until it fell down with a heavy thud, exposing them to us.

In front of us stood 3 soldiers with hard menacing faces. Slowly they started pacing around us intimidatingly like a predator does its prey.

Two of the soldiers were dressed alike in a yellow military button up shirt with a yellow tie. On each of the men’s shirts was a pocket. The men wore puffy black leather trousers which were worn high and in them their shirts were tucked in in a strict and authoritive manner.

The other man looked of higher status compared to the two other men. He wore a dark mint green militarily button up shirt with two pockets on each side. A black, thin belt was tied around his waist making him look even more menacing. His shirt hung over his black trousers but not in a messy way.

All three men had leather black long boots that held in the leg of each of their trouser legs. On their left arms they had an orange bang with a white circle in the middle which held the swastika which identified them as Hitler’s Nazis. The guns helped too.

“Look what we found here,” the green shirted man sneered in thick German, his face twisted as if he’d smelt something bad.  “Get up!”

Quickly we obeyed. Not because he told us to but because he, and his minions, were pointing their guns at us. It was hard to stand for me and mama as we were holding papa up as he could not stand himself. Out of nowhere, he started to cough uncontrollably no matter how much he tried.

“Shut him up!” green barked at us as if we could control papa with the snap of our fingers.

Mama tried to soothe him to no avail. Papa just couldn’t stop coughing and the green man started growing impatient. He nodded to the yellow shirted man at his left who took out his gun and aimed at papa.

Everything went painfully slow as he pulled the trigger and the bullet exploded out of the gun penetrating papa’s skull and re-emerging from the back of his head. Instinctively, mama and I jumped away from papa letting him drop to the floor with a soft thud. Mama let out an unearthly scream as she saw papa fell down.  Timmy stood rooted to the spot frozen with fear. A yellow liquid escaped from his shorts running down his pale sun deprived legs. I tried to run to papa but my legs felt like they were being held down my 80kg of solid concrete.

“Let’s go!” green said walking up the stairs as if nothing had happened.

Reluctantly we followed him up the stairs; again, not because we’d been told to, but because we were at gun point. I felt my father’s murderer’s gun, still hot, pressing on my back as I walked up the stairs.

END OF FLASHBACK

I thought hard about how we’d got caught. How did us three, minus the two yellow men and their carnivorous dogs who kept eying me hungrily, get into the back of this truck going Lord knows where. Oh I hope Frau Alice is alright

Speaking of Frau Alice, had she been the one to do this to us? No surely not, I thought to myself. But the more I thought about it, the more I became unsure of my answer. There was quite a lot of money rewarded to whoever could help capture us “filthy” Jews and we all knew that Frau Alice could really use the money. What with her 5 children and husband sick in the hospital and all. The money would have surely been helpful to her.

Oh God, how could I think so ill of Frau Alice. After all she’d done for us how could I think that she’d willingly hand in her best friend and her family to murderers. But really if you think about it; money can make a person do stupid things.