Ashes To Dust

by Eden Rose

  The Nazi woman takes out the whip with a sudden flash, the leather bites me on the arm. It’s a quick sting, a sting I did not expect to get.

  Tears burn and pool in my eyes. I try to remember Joan’s words of not allowing the Nazis to see me cry. I wouldn’t dare give them the satisfaction of knowing how much they are trying to break me.

  How much they have broken me.

  She gets closer to my face. I can smell the fresh fruit on her breath with a hint of an alcohol twinge to it. Her full lips brush against my ear as she speaks to me. I want to cower to her. I want to bow down to her in order to prove I’m not the enemy.

  “I will say this once. Only one time. The next time I see you with Stein, I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill you in a way that would make you want to go up in flames. I will destroy everything.”

  She doesn’t say anything more to me as she skips off to go and speak with Milo. I can see the cogs turning in his brain as he looks at me in the middle of the yard with a welt growing on my arm.

  I can feel the heat and the burn from the whip more than I can feel anything else.

  Joan doesn’t allow me to sit in my melancholy state for long. She’s dragging me to the line where we are supposed to wait for food. Normally, I would say I was hungry, but the current events today have me feeling full.

  My stomach feels like a brick has taken residence in the middle of it. I feel a heavy feeling around me, a dark cloud following me to the line where the food is.

  That’s when I smell the stench of whatever they are giving us. My mother used to tell me to be polite and accept whatever is given to me, but this stinks. I couldn’t stand the thought of eating whatever this is.

  It smells as if it were a rotten egg, or something similar.

  My nose squishes up. Joan pulls me closer. “Stop looking at it as if it were gross. I promise you, it’s flavored water. That’s all it is. It’s disgusting, but it’s all you’re going to get.”

  I nod my head. “I’m beginning to realize that.”

  She shrugs. “It’s going to make you feel sick to your stomach. Our stomachs harden after not eating food for so long, then we have to trick it with this garbage. But it’s food, nonetheless.”

  We stand in line until it’s dark time before it’s our turn. What is ladled into my metal cup looks like water with a parsley leaf in it. It’s luke warm, not warm enough to warm my stomach up from the coldness of the camp. There is one piece of leaf floating around the cup illuminated from the flood lights.

  I look at it and my stomach curdles. This is not going to be enough for me eat. This is literal broth of some type.

  Joan nods towards the end of the line where there are more people waiting. “Those people will be lucky to get what is in your cup. Be happy with what you have.”

  I nod. There isn’t much more I can do besides play nice and be the good girl I have always been raised to be.

  My mother would be so proud.

  Chapter Eighteen: Milo

  One of the hardest parts over the past two weeks, have been watching Anya walk through the camp and not talk to her. I know she is suffering from the amount of loss she has gone through, who wouldn’t?

  I can see the light going out of her eyes each time she comes back from her job. This is the most I have seen her throughout our whole marriage and there is nothing I can do.

  I’m just a big piece of shit.

  Thoughts of Anya invade my every waking moment and barrage me in my dreams. No matter what I do, I can’t focus on anything but her and I know I need to get her out of here before it’s too late. It’s only a matter of time before a disease sweeps through her barracks and kills her.

  Even though I’m the doctor’s right hand man, there is very little I could do to save her.

  Speaking of diseases, the woman in the medical facility writhes from pain of the disease that is sweeping the camp. Typhus has managed to bridge the gap from inmates to guards.

  One of our own died from it.

  Our major concern is managing costs. Typhus is curable, but in all actuality, how long will these inmates me alive? With or without the disease, a lot of them are living on borrowed time.

  I hang my head in my hands as I watch the woman on the table toss and turn from Typhus. The woman comes from the same barrack as Anya, making this even worse for me. I can see the red blotches all over her body, making me itch just looking at her.

  She’s either going to be treated or gassed. If she is lucky, she would be treated. However, due to her being in her thirties, she will probably be gassed.

  “How long have you been experiencing these symptoms?” I ask as a routine.

  The woman writhes from being so uncomfortable. “I don’t even know what the symptoms are! My body is numb and has begun to shut down. I’m just going to die.”

  I want to ask her why she even came here, but I don’t. Partly because I know the answer and that is she was made to come here by a guard.

  In order to combat the spreading of the disease, we have to separate the contagious from the working inmates. We have to bring the infected Jews and prisoners to the medical office to make sure they don’t spread anything to the other people.

  She shakes from the disease. “Doctor, it’s only a matter of time. I know my time is up. Can you just kill me? Please.”

  The patient begs for mercy. There is no mercy at Auschwitz.

  I shake my head, feeling my throat clog up with emotions. I feel every ounce of the rejection I give these people. I feel everything even though I know I shouldn’t. It’s not my job to feel for them. It’s my job to ensure nothing is spread and to help the doctor with his experiments.

  It should have been my job to be a husband to my wife.

  My wife who is being infected with Typhus as we speak.

  My eyes glaze over from swallowing all of the emotions that I feel. The woman is going to die. I just don’t know when. I don’t know what the doctor’s plans are for her.

  “You know that’s not how this works,” I advise.

  She cries on the table. “Please.”

  I look down at her. The woman who is suffering so deeply that she is begging for the inevitable death that will surely come with time. The death that would suffocate her and kill her along with hundreds of other Jews.

  I reach behind me to grab a shot of Morphine. She winces thinking I’m going to shoot her up with something more potent. I made an oath to protect my fatherland, but my medical oath is deeper.

  I know without a shadow of doubt, redemption is going to be hard to come across, especially with treating my own wife like a common whore. If I could do one thing to help someone, I should, right?

  I take a shot off the shelf where the Morphine was resting. Popping off the top of the shot, I grab the woman’s boney arm and line up the needle with her vein. Once the needle is injected into her arm, I press down on the syringe.

  The death will come easily. More easily than it would have if she were to have been sent to the gas chambers. Much more than that, this is one less infected person lurking around the camp.

  In a matter of seconds, the woman begins to die mercifully just as she wanted. I have now become a killer.

  “Stein!” The doctor shouts as he strolls into the examining room with a skip in his step.

  He either got laid, or he had a really good meeting with the people who deliver our prescription drugs.

  It could be both, but more than likely one or the other.

  He must see something in my face as he leans over the desk to grab a shot of whiskey for us. I shake my head, I don’t need the mind numbing alcohol to get through this. I need a time machine.

  Did I kill this woman for the simple fact of one less infected person or the fact that she could infect Anya?

  Fuck it. I need my mind numb. The quicker the better.

  I stick my hand out for the glass, the doctor hands it over to me and points over to the girl on the table.

  “Do I want
to know?”

  “Probably should. We have Typhus spreading throughout the camp. We need to get a handle on it. It’s going to get worse as the days blend into months.”

  He nods. “I knew it was going to spread eventually. Especially with the new arrivals happening every day,” he says that part with a smile on his face.

  “Each new transport of inmates, is another batch of Jews who are infecting us!” I almost shout.

  “It sounds as if someone is getting a little too close to the patients.”

  You don’t even know the half of it.

  If the doctor knew my wife was a prisoner here, I would be killed. Ruined. My father and my family would be left to pick up the pieces of my shit-storm that would explode.

  “I wouldn’t say that. I would say I am worried we’re going to get it more than anything else.”

  He isn’t buying it. “Is there something you want to talk to me about? Is there a reason why you’re being such a girl about everything?”

  I almost snap. I almost tell him the truth. It’s at the tip of my tongue.

  But then I remember how many lives are at stake with my secret marriage. Anya would be killed if she is shown any type of mercy. I highly doubt it though.

  They would make an ethnic cleansing example out of it. How Jews are slimy and ruining the Aryan race by convincing us to marry them. I could see it now.

  “I’m just tired,” I reply instead.

  He doesn’t seem convinced. “I’m going to contact the commanders regarding the epidemic, I will let you know what is said. I highly recommend you get your head on straight. Whatever is in your mind that is making you act like half of what you used to, is going to get you hurt. Or killed. You wouldn’t want to know what they do to traitors.”

  Traitors? He thinks I’m a traitor? I’m fucked. It’s true.

  I’m going to die.

  Instead, I grab my bag off the table and leave the medical building with the decaying bodies of the inmates who have undergone the newest experiments.

  I shake my head trying to get rid of the thoughts and sight of seeing them. Nothing works.

  Nothing will get rid of the guilt of knowing I am one of them. How I wanted to be a Nazi to support the Fuhrer so badly that I would allow my wife to be imprisoned? Yes, I’m as bad as everyone else.

  Maybe after a hot shower, I would feel a little better.

  Chapter Nineteen: Anya

  I am dead on my feet after working almost twenty hours at the warehouse knitting clothes for the new Jews who have the privilege to come to this hell hole. I feel badly for each and every one of them.

  I need a shower. I need food. I need water. I need Milo.

  I need to continue to hate him.

  Every night, I think about what it would be like for to come to me. For him to come to the barracks and try to save me.

  Instead, I sit in a row of too many women fighting for enough room to turn over without having someone’s feet in my face. What I wouldn’t give for a couple of inches.

  Just a couple of inches to be able to move without touching someone else. Needless to say, I’m sporting a black eye to go with the welt from the whip two weeks ago.

  No matter how much I push someone to get another space, I lose an inch on the bed. It’s horrible to even call it a bed.

  Someone wiggles and then I feel the sharp kick of a woman who’s feet are directly in my face. The kick is hard and I feel my nose shatter.

  “Ow!” I yell out loud, probably louder than needed.

  “Shut up! I will kill you!”

  “Shut up!”

  “Fucking bitch!”

  “God damn newbee!”

  “You bitch!”

  People yell at me.

  I shake them off as much as possible, but the tears fill my eyes regardless.

  Joan lifts her head up to look at me with disdain. “Are you trying to get killed in here as much as out there?”

  I shake my head. “No! I just got kicked in the nose! My nose is broken.”

  I place a shaky hand on my nose to stop the blood. It doesn’t work. Nothing works!

  “It’s only a matter of time before that rolls off your back,” she advises.

  “It gets easier?” I ask with blood spilling in my mouth.

  She shrugs. “Go back to sleep.”

  I lay in bed with my eyes open and staring at the ceiling. What if I can’t sleep?

  I push the threadbare blanket off me, shove my feet into the shoes I was sleeping on so they didn’t get stolen.

  Within the past two weeks I have been in the seventh layer of hell, I have managed to sleep through crying, sneezing, coughing and others throwing up. It hasn’t gotten easier. I think I have become so numb to everything around me.

  I manage to wiggle out of the cocoon I have been nestled in for a couple of minutes before being kicked. It’s not that it is comfortable, it’s the only way I can get a couple of hours of sleep before my hell begins all over again.

  “If you are not back in ten minutes, I'm coming to get you,” Joan threatens.

  I stumble towards the latrines to relieve myself and gag at the smell. It smells rancid and utterly insulting to all of my senses. I about gag.

  “How are you?” I hear behind me.

  I shake my head. “Its hard to hate you when you are being nice to me,” I utter.

  He chuckles. “My love, I will always do what I can to be nice to you.”

  My eyes well up again. Milo crosses the distance between us, placing his lips on mine. He kisses me gently and yet its passionate.

  Tears spill down my cheeks as I struggle to breathe through my broken nose. I sputter out a breath in hopes of getting oxygen to my brain. It doesn’t work. Instead, I choke on the blood pouring into the back of my throat from my broken nose.

  Milo breaks our kiss to see why I was wincing. He shudders just like I did. “My love. I am so sorry. What happened?”

  I just shrug. “A woman accidentally kicked me in the nose. I think she broke it.”

  He grabs my chin to pull my head to the side to look at it better and he winces. “Damn. It looks bad. It is definitely broken.”

  Broken like everything else in my life.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “You have said that before.”

  Luckily for me, the stench from the latrines is blocked by my nose. That is one good thing about having a broken nose, I guess.

  “Can we not talk about it here?” I ask him.

  The human filth is on my feet and I don’t feel sexy at all. I don’t feel sexy one bit, but being this close to my husband has a way of doing something to me.

  I hear the shuffling of feet as someone makes their way into the latrine. Whomever it is, is loud and boisterous with their boots stomping on the cracked and messy boards that make up our bathroom.

  “What do we have here?” The woman asks.

  I look up and see the same woman who snapped the whip on me. I cower and run from the bathroom. I need to be as far away from her as possible. The woman would surely kill me if she had the ability to do so.

  I shake in my ratted shoes. Who cares if I didn’t go to the bathroom to relieve myself. I run into a skinny person standing outside of the barracks with her arms crossed.

  Shit!

  Another Nazi officer? I’m going to be killed. There’s no other way around this. I’m going to be killed and that’s that.

  At least I got one last kiss from Milo.

  “Anya. Are you kidding me?” Joan barks at me.

  I shake my head. My emotions are already running rampant throughout my heart and brain.

  Joan stares at me as if I was the one who put her in here. “What?”

  “Do you want to tell me why you’re sneaking off in the middle of the night to go see some guard?”

  “You were following me?” I snap.

  “Of course. That is what you do when you worry about your friend.”

  I have had enough. An absolute enough
of being watched, followed, stalked, degraded. I couldn’t help myself. I had to snap.

  “Do you think I like the fact that I married a Nazi? That man, the doctor, happens to be my husband. We got married. We knew each other for a matter of hours and decided to take the plunge. I never expected him to be a Nazi! I also never expected to be a Jewess in the middle of hell, either!” I yell louder than I probably should have.

  But I’m on a role. I couldn’t stop the liquid word vomit from coming out of my mouth even if I wanted to.

  Joan’s eyes are wide. “You didn’t know he was Aryan? He looks like the poster boy for the Aryan race!”

  “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t realize how big of a fuck up I am for continuing to want to be with him? I want to be with him, but I also want to kill him. I want to know if that makes me a race traitor, or whatever. I can’t get through this without some ounce of kindness being shined my way. I need something to show me that human kindness exists!”

  “It doesn’t exist here! Kindness has been shot in the face and thrown into the gas chamber,” she sputters back.

  “I’m starved for human kindness. I need him!”

  “You don’t need anything more than my foot up your ass!”

  “Do you think right now is the time to be doing this?” An older woman asks in German.

  We snap our heads up to look at an elderly Germanic woman holding her side. I’m surprised she’s still alive. There is no way the Nazis would have kept her alive if they knew how old she was.

  I look from the woman back to Joan. It’s not Joan’s fault I’m a floozy who is eager to be touched. It’s also not her fault that I need kindness.

  In all actuality, maybe I just need the generosity of a good friend.

  “I don’t mean to overhear, but a lot of us did, if you keep seeing that man, you’re going to die. You know that, right? All Nazis care about is themselves and wealth. You’re nothing to that man.”

  “I need sleep,” I retort. I’m needing out of this conversation as quickly as possible.

  Joan clucks her tongue then grabs my hand. “You need human interaction, ask me. We have to survive this together. We can’t let them kill us off and not expect any type of retaliation.”