Vile, despicable, vulgar; these are just some of the words that are used to describe us.
Despite the similarities between the rest of humanity and us, we are mere animals to everyone but our own kind. I can't help but wonder if this is what life was meant to be like... Being contained, kept in cages, relying on others to keep you alive. But this thought is one of the last things on my mind right now, because at the moment everything is changing. The times we thought were bad are progressively getting worse, and if something doesn't prevent the future from taking it's course... Then we are all going to die.
But before my death prevails, I would like to tell you some important details about myself.
One, my name is Elizabeth Liebermann.
Some may argue that names are unimportant, foolish even. But just to keep me sane, just to stop myself from falling into death with nothing but a black chasm of despair burning inside me -- I want to know that my name is somewhere. That someone remembers me.
Two, I have 3 days left before I am proclaimed nothing but another dead corpse to pile amongst the numbers.
But nobody cares, do they? I am classified as a horrendous, disgusting being to you people, I wouldn't understand it if you showed some sympathy, because you're all the same, aren't you? Heartless creatures. And because of this reason, my life is going to come up short and amount to nothing.
Finally, and possibly the sole cause of being labeled as nothing more but a flea ridden dog to be put down -- I am a Jew.
So there we are. You practically know everything about me, don't you? Well, the important things about me anyways. But there is more to this woman that just a few scrawny statements. I have a story to tell you, and it starts in the shabby, run-down old house on the corner of Eichel Street -- where they came to take us away.
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Thump... Thump... Thump...
The door shook with the force of the blows. Everyone inside of the cramp, dilapidated, rat-infested house froze; nobody ever knocked on that door. Nobody even glanced at that door. Up until then it seemed as if it were just a prop in a theatrical play, but now the harsh reality was that it was a wall... A wall that was crumbling down around us -- in an instant it had taken away what had once been some kind of future for the household.
Thump, thump, THUMP!
The knocking on the door rapidly became louder, angrier; causing the flimsy door to shake and shudder. Someone was going to have to stop this racket; or else the stranger was going to end up bringing the whole house down. So finally -- with shaky hands and a woozy stride -- the man of the house, an old, gaunt looking man known as Ellis or my father shuffled towards the door and slid back the dead bolt.
At that moment, everything seemed to go into undeniably relentless chaos - And I stood back and watched. One minute Ellis was upright and staring at the intruders in silent inquisition, but with a flick of the wrist and a gunshot, he was falling… Falling… Falling backwards, until he slammed into the ground with a sickening crack -- already gone from this world and onto the next. The blood from the bullet wound slowly started to seep down into the floorboards, staining our sanity along with the creaky wood.
There was another gunshot. More blood, more sobbing companions, more disaster. These were the sounds that I would soon learn to block from my mind, but what would surround me every day for the rest of my short-lived life. But at this moment, I allowed one blood curdling scream to escape my dry, cracked lips.
The uniformed men marched over the dead body and came towards us; clasping our arms behind our backs, muffling our cries with a choking piece of cloth, slowly filing us out the door - disrupting everything that we had ever known.
I didn't say anything, though. I did as asked -- and for this? I got nothing in return. I saw this as a good thing. 'Nothing' is better than the something that these men would give.
All I could hear by then was the cursing, the sharp orders, the malicious chuckles that they passed our way. As I looked around at the catastrophic street that I called home, I did not know that this would be the last time that I would get to see it. If I had, then maybe I would have spent a few more seconds admiring its sentimental beauty. Although it wasn't a pretty site, for most of the buildings were broken shells of what they used to be and most of the greenery was dead and gone, it was my childhood playground.
I kept my head down as we got into the lifelessly cold truck. There was no point in glancing at the other people in there with me -- all I would see is their pain and misery glaring back at me. So instead I concentrated on trying to stay standing in the overly full compartment of the vehicle.
This proved unsuccessful, as by the time that the 3 hour journey was completed I had fallen around four times; each time knocking the breath from me, but still I did not speak.
No one made a sound as we were shoved out of the truck, onto the unforgiving ground and were made to stand. We had arrived at our new home, the last place that I would ever see before death. The Fuhrer's men jolted us with their guns, and at one point I saw the flash of a swastika as a solider swung down the heaving gun clasped in his hands and bashed it against a young woman's head. She cried out and fell as he began to shout a stream of curses at her; all this for looking him in the eyes.
After that, nobody said a word as we were pushed into one of many barn-like structures. They stripped us of our clothing and gave us worn looking, grey shapes that they called our 'uniforms'. As I pulled on the uncomfortable shirt and itchy, grey trousers, some questions were starting to form in my head.
Where were we? When do we get to go home? Why are we here?
The truth is that these are questions that never got to be asked. For as you may have guessed, yes, I am a 'mute' -- as you put it. I haven't spoken a word in my life, just the one scream I let out only a few hours ago. In a way, I guess that it makes life exceedingly more interesting; it's as if I am the audience and you are the actors.
I often wonder how life would be like if I did speak. Would it make a difference? Of course it would. The real question is if that difference would make things better or worse.
After we had dawned our clothing, the men that we had quickly grown to fear steered our group outside. The ground bit at our barefeet as we walked along its dusty trail. There were no scenic views or extravagant greenery around here -- just grass as far as the eye could see. Although the sky was another thing to tell you about; it was such a vast sea of blue that looked so pure that it was hard to look at. But look, I did. That was, until we were shoved inside of the next building.
This one was smaller than the last, with only an uncomfortable looking slab of rock which served as some kind of bench, and a small table which held all kinds of scary looking tools... I supposed that we, the people who stood and waited for their turn in line, were what compensated for the lack of furniture.
I watched as another girl who looked about my age was pushed down onto the slab roughly, but then averted my eyes as I saw what the sadistic looking tools were used for. I winced as I heard the screams of each and every victim, praying to avoid the inevitable.
A sleazy, tawdry man came up behind me with the needle in hand and shoved me down onto the slab, spreading my legs. I shut my eyes and gritted my teeth as he procceeded with his experiment, nearly passing out from the pain. I let out another scream, echoing the ones from the others who had gone through the very same as me before the men in uniform clasped their hands over my mouth. When "Dr. Clauberg", if I heard it right, was finished, he pushed me off the table roughly for the next slave to have their turn. Whimpering, I trudged behind the others that had gone before me out of the room, falling only a few times. We were lead into some sort of yard filled with wheelbarrows, wood, hammers, nails and other things of those sorts.
The soldiers ordered us to work and so we did. Apparently we were going to build another structure not unlike the other two. I picked up a wheelbarrow and filled it with wood, following after the others to the site that they wanted us to build at.
So we worked on this structure for 4 weeks straight, getting the maximum of 5 hours of sleep a night and living off barely enough food to keep us alive. By the fourth week, I felt so weak and tired that I could barely move. It felt like my feet were weighed down by a ton of bricks and my lower region was swollen and in pain. For this slow and clumsy pace -- We were punished. Each time I went to work, I was whipped or kicked violently with steel toed boots until I bled.
This punishment was what forced a scream of pain from my lips, forced me to make a sound for the third time since I've been here. It was now that I realized that I was never getting out of here, that this was my fate. And this thought was so concrete, so real, that it turned me into nothing but a soulless being. I had no more daydreams, no more happy thoughts to get my through the day. All that I could do was... Be. Living became something I dreaded -- I longed for the day to come when I'd die, when I would be released from the hellish place.
I cried in the night - as did others. I cried for my family, knowing I'd never see them again and knowing that they were going through the exact same thing. From the age of 3, I was living in that dilapidated house. It was filled with my family; siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles... I didn't make the effort to get to know them. I was in my world and they were in theirs. Of course, I knew their names -- but only because of overhearing them in conversations. Conversations that I was never part of.
16 years old now and I would still have been living in that house -- if only it weren't for this madness. My life had been neutral up until this point. There were happy times; when I would look out at the street below and watch birds flittering about. And there would be sad times; where I would just stop and think for a moment about what would happen in the future.
My tears were of hopelessness, because everything revolved around this place now; around the place that you monsters created, this prison that I had been forcefully taken to. I wish that everything would just stop!
And it did stop. On the 26th of April, 1936 -- my wish would come true.
The soldiers that had been the bane of my existence for the last month or two pushed and shoved us into a new structure - which was strange for them, because we had been following the same schedule from the day that we had arrived here. I wondered why it would be any different today. They made us strip and said we were going to go into some kind of 'shower' as a reward for our work, but praise didn't exist here; rewards were a myth to these people.
They shoved us into a closed off room and slammed the door shut. I closed my eyes and waited for the water to come and somehow wash away all the misery and pain that I was, for it to make me forget. But it never came. In fact, the only thing that did was a flash of purple fire and the sound of shouts and screams. The mysterious chemical that had fallen from above was slowly burning away my skin, choking me from the inside. It was killing me. I coughed and spluttered, trying to breath - it didn't help. So I abandoned the thought of living - of attempting to savor my last few breaths. Instead, I slumped to the ground in defeat, a smile plastered on my lips as the tatters of my worthless life ebbed away.
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The truth is that I was glad to die that day- in fact; it was the happiest day of my life.