The Soul of the Unbroken

by Derrick Quick

  "Hans if I stay here one more day while people are dying out there fighting for us, and for what we believe in, I may as well be dead! I am going back to the city and I am fighting for our freedom! You can come with me or you can stay here and be scared for the rest of your life." I didn't wait for a response, I just went down into the basement and started packing a bag and prepared to leave. I just about had my bag packed when I heard the creak of the ladder and turned to see Hans coming down. He just grabbed a bag for himself and started packing. There were no words needed, I knew he would be with me every step of the way.

  We left in the morning, making sure to camouflage the cabin so we could come back to it later if we needed. "Eloy, are you sure you want to do this?"

  "Yes. If I don't do something I will go crazy." Hans nodded, and with that, we started off on our journey. The way to the cabin took us a whole night of hiking, with me helping Hans along. Now that it was daylight and Hans was healthy, I was hoping we could cut that time in half. We were about thirty yards from the cabin when all of a sudden Hans stopped. “Wait, I just thought of something.” He turned and started walking back to the cabin. “Seriously Hans, we haven’t made it more than thirty yards and you are already turning around.” Hans didn’t say anything back to me he just kept walking. I wasn’t going to follow him. If he holed himself up in that cabin again, I was going to leave and come back for him after the war was over with. I continued to watch Hans make his way back to the cabin, and when he was just about to the door, he didn’t go inside.

  He picked up a large branch that broke off into many pieces like a rake. Then he used it to brush the snow and cover up our tracks. I let out a laugh, “Haha, you are a genius, Hans! Where in the world did you think of that.” Hans looked up at me grinning, “I didn’t want anyone else finding our spot and eating all my food.” I couldn’t believe it, Hans always had something up his sleeve. When he got back to me I picked up my own branch to drag behind and cover up my tracks, and off we went deep into the woods, to try and make our way back to society.

  After about an hour of hiking and hearing nothing but the crunching of our footsteps, we heard some noises. We stopped in our tracks and listened. It was the sound of people talking, and having a conversation. Afraid that it was soldiers, we crouched into a bush to stay hidden. Then we propped the snow-covered branches over ourselves to ensure we couldn’t be seen. Being extra careful we crept closer and noticed a group of men around a fire. They weren't wearing any military uniforms, which was good, but we still weren't sure they were safe enough for us to make ourselves known. We decided just to listen to what they were talking about and see if it would help us decide what to do next.

  What seemed to be the head of the group, and the oldest one there spoke, “Hurry up and finish your lunches, we need to keep moving before it gets too dark.” The other men around the fire groaned, and one of them responded, “What's the rush? We have plenty of time to make it to Berlin. It’s not like the war is going to be over today.” This clearly infuriated the older gentleman and he spoke sternly, and with authority. “We are in a rush because Hitler's army gets stronger every day. We are in a rush because my homeland was invaded, and my family was taken from me. We are in a rush because I am going to kill that bastard and stop this war before any more innocent children are killed! Now hurry up or you will be left behind.” Seemingly ashamed of himself, the younger soldier put his head down and continued to attack his food. If this guy wanted to kill Hitler, he was on our side which meant we didn’t have to be hiding in this bush.

  I looked at Hans, and he nodded in agreement, thinking the same thing I was. We each stood up at the same time revealing ourselves to the group of men. Instantly they all whipped out guns and aimed them directly at us. The oldest one spoke first, “Who the hell are you?” I didn’t know what to say and was shocked into silence, but luckily Hans spoke up. “We are members of a local resistance in Berlin, we were staying in a cabin out here, and we are now making our way back to Berlin.” They didn’t seem to believe us at all, one of them said, “Really, a couple of young, perfect German kids like yourself are working in the resistance. Yea, right.” Then he turned to their leader, “I think they are a couple of spies, we should kill them.”

  The leader didn’t respond to him, but instead kept his focus on us. “You are in the resistance, huh? Then may I ask what you are doing way out here. You obviously aren’t resisting very much at the moment now are you.” This time I responded for Hans, “My brother here, was captured by the Gestapo, he was held as a prisoner, but I broke him out before he was sent to a labor camp. We were hiding out while he recovered from wounds suffered at the hands of some Nazi soldiers.”

  The old man shook his head up and down, “Interesting. Let’s say I did believe you, would you be able to lead us to Berlin and direct us to the leader of the resistance their?” I thought about Aldo for the first time and realized he was captured when Hans was, so there may not be a resistance to go back to. Hans said, “Sir, when I was captured, I was with the leader of our group, so he is either in a prison somewhere, or in the ground I’m afraid.” The old man let out a big hearty laugh at that, “The hell he is, I have been communicating with him for months! So now I know you two are liars, and you will die.” Then he turned to the other men and nodded, “Go ahead boys, take them out.” They raised their guns and aimed. “WAIT! Were you communicating with a man named Aldo? That’s who we were working with, if he is alive then he must have escaped!” The old man turned to us with a raised eyebrow and signaled his men to put down their guns, “You two know Aldo?”

  “Yes, as I said we were working with him, and living with him. He knows us well.” The old man thought it over for a moment and then decided to believe us. “Okay you two can stay alive, and you will help us reach Aldo. If we get to him and he says he does not know you, then you die.” Hans and I let out a big sigh of relief at being allowed to live. We just had to make it to Aldo, and hope it was the same Aldo that we left a few months ago. Then the man introduced us to the rest of the group, “This is our resistance, this is Jakub, that is Aleksander, over there is Eryk, this man is Konrad, and I am Viktor.” Then Hans introduced us to them, and we sat down for a moment while they finished eating, in preparation for our walk back to Berlin.

  While we were sitting we asked Viktor where he was from. He said, “My homeland is Poland, the same as these other fools.” Poland wasn’t too far from here, but why would someone from Poland want to come straight into Nazi territory. I asked him, “If you are from Poland, why would you want to come here?” He looked up from his food, “Well my friend, Poland is in bad shape. The Nazis have taken over everything, and they are killing so many people. They killed everyone in my family, but spared me because I looked like a good workhorse, unfortunately for them, I am no workhorse. I escaped and decided I would have to kill Hitler myself, to stop this war. That is why I am here.” I was naive enough to think the biggest problems had been here in Berlin, when in fact things were terrible everywhere. The group finished up eating and gathered all of their things. Then Hans and I lead the group into the direction of Berlin.

  We had been walking for quite a while in silence, when Viktor spoke up, “Why are you two fighting Hitler. You are the exact type of Germans he wants, you would have no trouble living life, and instead, you risk everything by fighting against him.” Hans spoke first, “I was selected to serve, and I did not want to die in another country, fighting for someone evil, with evil ideals.” Viktor pondered it for a moment and nodded without saying anything, then he turned and looked at me waiting for me to speak up. I gave in and told him, “They took someone from me, actually they took everything from me, and I hate every single Nazi for it, and will not stop until they have crumbled to the ground.” Viktor raised his eyebrows at me, “You speak with fire in your heart, you will make a great soldier.” I was proud that he thought I could make a great soldier, but I didn’t know why. I hardly even knew this man, but for some
reason, his recognition meant a lot to me.

  After walking for a few more hours we finally started to make it to the edge of the forest, and Berlin was in our sights. We were right by the railroad tracks, where I rescued Hans from, and had a bit of a flashback to that night. It was the second time I had to kill someone, and I still thought about it all the time. I was hoping that I could forget about it soon, but I didn’t know when that would happen. Viktor spoke up again, “Okay, you two actually brought us to Berlin so you are not dead yet. Now you have to help us find this Aldo.” I quickly responded, “We don’t know where he is at, he definitely isn’t in the same spot he was before. You communicated with him, where did he say he was?” Jakub spoke up this time, “He said he was in an apartment on the east side of town. He said we could stay in an empty apartment next door to him.” Then Konrad pulled out a piece of paper that had the address on it and showed it to Hans and I. One look at it and we realized it was the same apartment that Hans had lived in previously.

  It was easy enough to get to,if you could walk the streets, but sneaking five Polish refugees there was an entirely different story. “We are going to have to wait here until dark before we try to get there, there will be way too many soldiers to get there in daylight.” They all agreed so we walked deeper into the woods to be more discreet and then set up a small camp to wait until dark.

  We decided not to make a fire because it would draw attention to us, so we sat there in the cold shivering until darkness arrived. The time went by unbelievably slow but eventually, darkness arrived. We got up and made our way to the edge of the forest. We scoped out the city and didn’t see any soldiers around so we darted to the nearest alleyway and stayed in the shadows. We made it to the end of the alley and look around the corner. There were some soldiers down the block, but they had their backs turned so we sprinted across the street into the next alley, then stopped and waited to hear any footsteps. We didn’t hear any so we proceeded in the direction of the apartment. We took a right at the next block, then a left, another right, and at last we had the apartment in our sights.

  We were getting ready to make a break for the building when all of a sudden we heard a commotion behind us. We turned around and saw a group of Hitler youth soldiers walk into the alley we were in. They looked up and saw us standing there and they froze. We froze.

  We were having a bit of a standoff when the leader of their group, raised a whistle to his lips and blew, letting out the high pitched screech. We were caught. I didn’t know what we were going to do, if we ran they would follow, and soon a whole group of real soldiers would be showing up to arrest us and send us off to a labor camp. I was about to suggest we take off and try to lose the kids in amongst the city when Viktor and the other Polish men pulled out their guns and fired upon the kids.

  I watched as the bullets hit them, knocking them back and dropping them to the ground. I was waiting for them to get up, but they were unmoving. How could he do that? They were only kids! I was filled with horror. I had felt bad enough when soldiers were killed, but killing kids was a whole new level of awfulness. I was frozen in place staring at their lifeless bodies, hoping that they would get up. Then I heard shouting. Viktor was yelling at me, “Come, or we are going to leave you behind!” They all started running away, but I couldn’t get my legs to move. Then Hans grabbed me by the arm and yanked me away. I had no choice, but to follow.

  We sprinted across the street, but we knew we couldn’t go into the apartment. There would be searches in the whole area, and we didn’t want to compromise the rest of the resistance by getting Aldo caught again. We ran right past the apartment building and just kept running. A few minutes, and many blocks later, we came to an old decrepit building. We tried the door, and it was unlocked. We all filed in and locked the door behind us. Looking around I noticed this building must have been an old school because there were desks, broken and falling apart lining the walls. There was a big chalkboard on the wall and some books laying on the floor. We found a stairway and followed them down into a basement area, that had a boiler room. We decided it was the best place to hide, and set up our little home for the night.

  The others seemed unfazed and they fell asleep pretty quickly. Hans and I, on the other hand, were haunted by images of those kids falling to the ground and were unable to sleep. I was afraid to even close my eyes because I didn’t want to see them again. While I was awake I heard soldiers running past, looking for us, and I sat there waiting for them to break down the door and come down here for us any minute, but luckily they just ran past. I eventually drifted off into a fitful sleep, in the early hours of the morning. When I woke up, the others were all awake and shuffling about the room or playing cards, trying to pass the time. I sat up and looked at them, and I was so ashamed to be near them. They killed kids without a second thought. Viktor must have saw the anger in my face and said, “Do we have a problem?” I shook my head in disgust, “No there’s no problem, except for the fact that you are a bunch of kid murdering scum.” Viktor broke into a grin, “Haha that is what you are angry about. You are a fool. If we did not kill them they would get us killed. Us versus them, who do you choose. Easy choice. I choose to live, and if I have to kill a few future Nazis, fine.” He didn’t let me say anything else and just went back to playing cards with the others. I couldn’t believe him. He could kill someone with so little thought. Maybe Hans and I should leave them tonight.

  I asked Hans, “Can you believe what they did? I don’t think we can trust them anymore. We should leave.” Hans thought about it for a moment and then sighed, “Eloy, I just don’t think there was any other choice. We could have gotten caught, and I cannot be caught again. They did what was needed to be done.” I was baffled, “Hans are you joking? Those were kids, they had their whole lives to live!” Hans responded, “What about all of the kids that have been killed by Nazis already Eloy! We are helping a good cause, we are going to stop them and save so many more kids than the few that died last night.” I could tell that Hans wasn’t going to change his mind so I dropped the subject and decided that if Hans was going to stay, then so was I.

  Hans joined them in their game of cards, but I couldn’t bear to engage in any activity with them after what they did. I went and sat over in the corner waiting for us to leave when Eryk came over and sat by me. “What is your name again?”

  “My name is Eloy.” I responded, wondering why he was bothering me. “Eloy, you should not hold feelings of anger towards us, or to Viktor.” This guy was seriously bothering me to tell me not to be mad at child murderers. “Why shouldn’t I be angry with you guys? You killed kids!” Eryk looked down for a moment and then spoke. “We have been through more than you can imagine. Viktor watched as Nazis, shot his wife and kids, for no reason at all. Aleksander saw his kids get hung from a tree. Konrad’s parents were sent to gas chambers and never came back out. We have all witnessed the most atrocious things, so we no longer feel sadness for anyone that wears a swastika. If you don’t like it that’s fine, but we have the same goals, and we need each other,”

  I thought about it for a moment, and I knew what they went through had to have been awful. At least I didn’t have to see Eliza murdered before my eyes. She could still be alive. I decided not to forgive what they had done, but I did decide to forget it because we were working on the same side, and their ruthlessness would be useful. “Okay, fine.” I said to Eryk. He got back up and went back to playing cards. I didn’t want to sit alone any longer so I went over and plaid as well.

  Playing cards made the time go pretty quick and soon the sun had set. It was time for us to make our way top Aldo. We went upstairs and checked the windows. We didn’t see any Nazi soldiers so we quietly unlocked the door, and made our way out into the street. We still did not see anyone in the vicinity, so we took we made our way down the alleyway, and out to the main street. We looked both ways down the street so we quickly sprinted across the street and down into another back alleyway. We were only a couple of
blocks away from our destination so it wouldn’t be too hard to make it there. We kept taking turns and weaving our way through the alleys until we saw the building. Then we made a run for it.

  We got to the door without being spotted and made our way inside. It looked just as I remembered the building looking when Hans was there. There was a big staircase, apartments, on all sides, and a weird musty smell that seemed to radiate from the walls. We climbed the stairs and knocked on the apartment that was supposed to be Aldo’s. Someone came to the door, but did not open it. “Who’s there?” Hans was excited to see Aldo again and said, “It’s me, Hans open up!” The voice on the other side of the door responded, “Hans? I don’t know a Hans.” Hans seemed shocked, “What do you mean you don’t know me. Aldo and I started the resistance together. I lived with him. How can he not know me.” The door swung open fast and on the other side of it was a young gentleman, around my age, that had brown hair, buzzed super short, and small eyes that darted around quickly. “Sorry about that, we need to be extra careful on who we open doors too.” We all stepped inside and there in front of us was Aldo, sitting in a chair, reading over some papers.

  He looked up and saw us and a smile crept onto his face. “My friends! You are alive!” He got up and walked towards us, and I noticed he had a slight limp, which he didn’t have before. Hans and Aldo shared a hug, and Hans said, “We were both caught, how did you get away?” Aldo responded, “Well my friend I used to be pretty light on my feet. I broke free from their chains and made a run for it. I found myself in an old barn, hiding from them when all of a sudden the barn was hit with a bomb and it blew it to pieces. It was the perfect hiding spot because they thought I died in there but I did not. All I got from that day was this,” he rolled up his pants to reveal a very deep, gruesome scar, running the length of his shin.