Undying Love, Brian Hesse [historical books to read .TXT] 📗

            A few months after Sarah’s murder, someone broke into the very supply house she was traveling to now. At least that was the excuse Hans gave for the bloodbath that ensued. He gathered twenty random people from the surrounding neighborhood and lined them up for all to see. Going down the line from front, he shot every fifth person. Without speaking, he walked along the rear of the line and shot an additional ten people.

Anastazja could still see the faces of the dead and, the horrified shaking survivors of the rampage.

She walked into the building and immediately grabbed a pair of rusted hedge clippers still deadly with a sharp point on each of the blade. Her work lifting artillery shells gave her the needed confidence that the dull blades of the clippers would poke out several inches from the back of his fat throat. She was sickened at the thought of being ravaged by any man other than her Aleksander. She was especially sickened at the thought of being touched by the fat Hans Gruber with his small beady rat eyes and double chin touching her face. Hans walked into the building just a few short moments after she grabbed the nearest weapon. He closed the door with his back towards her saying, “Are you ready my dear for Hans?”

At the very moment Hans turned his oversized frame toward her with such zeal that Anastazja could see his rolls of fat jiggling under his pristine uniform, she lunged forward and planted the double blades into his throat. She penetrated his neck but not as deep as she planned. Hans reached out and grabbed her by the throat and squeezed with a surprising amount of force. The gap between them was too close to take another stab at him. He squeezed tighter as his face turned whit and blood poured from below his Adams apple. She felt the world begin to spin, and then blur. My God, he is going to kill me first, she thought, as the face of her Aleksander flashed across her mind. Just as darkness crept slowly across her vision, she felt the vice like grip of his pudgy clammy hands release. With a load thud, Hans fell to the floor knocking over several shovels and gardening shears. Anastazja felt a wave of panic as she imagined SS guards breaking down the door and dragging her to the gallows. Her panic grew as she considered the inevitable retribution for innocent ghetto citizens. But this was her only way out and she knew that casualties were inevitable. She was determined to make it to Auschwitz, the land of better food and work that will set one free. She no longer worried about being recognized by other guards. Hans the pig was the only one who examined me so closely, she thought.

That night, Anastazja sewed a yellow Jewish star on her tattered coat, cut her hair short, and waited for the inevitable transport to the place referred to Auschwitz.

Train Ride to Hell

  On January 20, 1942, a group of high ranking Nazi officials, headed by Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Nazi SD (Security Service) began laying the final plans of the Jewish extermination. The meeting included bureaucrats, doctors of law and economics and, of course, SS personnel directly tasked with the round up and transportation of Jews to various extermination camps throughout occupied Poland. Heydrich made clear that the primary goal was the eventual death of every living man, woman, and child of Jewish heritage, however, some would work to death as slaves of the German Reich. After years of discussing sterilization and deportation as an option of expelling the Jews, Nazi policy quickly shifted to complete extermination of an estimated eleven million Jews worldwide. Members of the conference were still under the illusion that Germany, that Hitler, would conquer the world, despite proof that the German army (Wehrmacht) was bogged down in the frozen hell of Russia. History repeats itself and, those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat history. Hitler did not learn from Napoleons mistake of attacking Russia with over extended supply lines. Even until his eventual suicide under the Reich chancellery in 1945, Hitler’s illusion of ultimate victory would infect leaders around him like the black death creeping across Asia and Europe, infecting victims with indiscriminate horror.

  One of the men in attendance at the meeting was an efficient, cold, and ruthless beuracrat, Adolf Eichmann. His area of expertise was the establishment of a complex railroad system dedicated specifically to the transportation of human material to feed the meat grinder of the extermination camp system. As German soldiers froze to death in clothing made for warmer weather, and starved to death from lack of adequate food, badly needed trains were being used to send the innocent to their inevitable death at places such as Auschwitz.

    Anastazja struggled to fill her lungs to full capacity with the stale air of the boxcar, thick with the smell of unwashed bodies, human waste, and death. Each time she attempted to fill her lungs with the foul air of the car, her lungs were forced to stop half way causing a burning sensation to pierce her chest and then travel to her back. She exhaled as slowly as possible as if trying to savor every miniscule amount of air because, as she feared deep within her soul, that breathing may cease at any moment. She consoled herself by remembering that each mile away from the Lodz ghetto brought her further from the hangman’s noose. She was also plagued by a stabbing guilt by the thought of those who died in retaliation for the death of Hans Gruber. Even as she was forced into boxcar number three by the ghetto police, mainly comprised of Jews with a talent for survival, she could hear the round ups of dozens of innocent people targeted for hanging within the ghetto walls.

    “But I am alive,” she stated softly, wearily, unconsciously aloud.

    “Yes, you are my lovely,” she heard a male voice close enough to feel his hot breath against her small frozen ear. She was now consciously aware of a masculine form pressed close against the backside of her body. She was aware that women and, no doubt some men, would be victims of sexual assault before their destination was reached. In desperate situations, when life seems at its end, people tend to slowly, or quickly, succumb to animalistic behaviors. Anastazja pushed as hard as she could against the pile of standing bodies to her front. Through grunts, moans, curses, and cries, she pushed with every ounce of strength she had in her malnourished body. The car had no windows for ventilation, and the amount of people crammed into the car caused a thick darkness only broken occasionally by a ray of light streaming through a hole or crack in the wooden walls. As she pushed with her head bent as low as possible, looking up occasionally for some point of reference, she spotted a tiny ray of light a few feet to her front.

            “I got you dear,” came a voice somewhere to her immediate front. The voice was soft and feminine, reminding her of Sara’s voice. She felt a small bony hand grab her own and pull her closer to the ray of light, like an angel guiding her toward the only place of peace in a dark lonely world.

            “Hello dear, my name is Abigayle Goldberg, originally from Lodz.”

            “I am Anastazja,” so glad to meet you. Anastazja and Abigayle were pressed tightly against each other until their faces almost touched. Their arms were pinned tightly against their sides making proper introductions impossible.

            “I had to leave my spot,” began Anastazja. There was a man a little too close for comfort,”

            “Was he good looking,” laughed Abigayle. “Sorry dear, I am just teasing,” she stated as she looked at the embarrassment on Anastazjas face. “It’s just that I have not been with a man for quite some time. My husband was killed the first day that the city was being turned into a prison. He was shot in the head by a young SS officer. I do not even know the reason. All I remember is the look on the young boy’s face after the killing. He had an emotionless expression, as though he just killed a mouse he caught in his kitchen pantry.”

            Anastazja replied, “Or a rat invading the God given land promised to the Germans.”

            “Whatever do you mean my new friend.”

            “I read Mein Kampf at the University long before the invasion. You know, the book written by Adolf Hitler. My Aleksander, showed me the book one day at the school. Hitler made no secret of his plans for invasion, enslavement, and subjugation of the Jews.”

            “I wish that book was made more available to young peasant girls and boys in Poland. But then again, would we have paid it any attention? Would we have been able to do anything about it anyway?

            Anastazja remained silent and considered this question. Could anyone have stopped Hitler in the late twenties before his party reached popularity? Is there such a thing as destiny that cannot be changed, but must run its sometimes-terrible course? The book itself, in her and all the professor’s opinions, was a book of gibberish. The disorganized rantings of a maniac dutifully dictated by a fellow madman, Deputy Fuhrer, Rudolf Hess. The book was written as Hitler sat in Landsburg prison for a failed attempt at overthrowing the government. Who would believe such surreal dreams of an unemployed paper hanger and failed artist? These questions kept Anastazja occupied as the train made its way the seventy-four miles to Warsaw. The German guards at the Lodz Radegast train station made clear the destination of her train. They were to travel to Warsaw ghetto to pick up more Jews and then on to Auschwitz, and the promise of work, better food, and improved living conditions.  

            The trip to Warsaw was anything but expedient. The train seemed to stop frequently, sometimes for hours, as the occupants were not permitted to exit. The doors were bolted shut from the outside, as people suffocated, died of thirst, or succumbed to dysentery and pneumonia. Anastazja drifted slowly off into a deep unconsciousness as the train finally reached its destination, just outside the Warsaw ghetto. She dreamed of Sara lying on the ground as Hans Gruber stood over her bloody corpse laughing and smiling at Anastazja with eyes as black and cold as a snake. She dreamt of killing Gruber, feeling the shears slide through his wobbling neck like a knife slicing effortlessly through hot butter. However, in her dreams, unlike reality, he begged for his life through loud gurgling sounds as his cold blood filled his throat. Finally, she dreamed of Aleksander in the days before the war. They would secretly meet and hold each other closely as the world around them simply melted away.

            Anastazja was awoken by the loud clank of the boxcar’s door sliding open with force. She struggled to open her eyes as a bright searchlight pierced the now open doorway of the car. She strained her ear to hear the commands of the SS guards on the train station platform, and over the loud barking and vicious snarls of the German Shepherds. She reached her destination. She was at Auschwitz concentration camp.

Hell on Earth

  In April of 1940, Reichsfurher, Heinrich Himmler ordered the construction of Auschwitz concentration, located West of Krakow Poland. The camp’s main purpose was the mass murder of as many Jews, Poles, gypsies, homosexuals, and other deemed undesirables, as the gas chambers could churn out. Auschwitz was broken down to three interconnected camps. Camp one housed prisoners, and was the main site of medical experiment selection. Prisoners selected for medical experimentation would undergo every type of torture and degradation in the name of the advancement