A Soldier’s Tale

Jacqueline Harrett

I stand alone by the railway track. This place is desolate, hushed as a deaf man’s world. Even the birds have deserted. This is the end of the line but no trains come here now. The tracks are rusted, dirty brown where once they gleamed. No engines screech through the mist. No swirl of grey smoke into the pewter skies. That was in the beginning, but no longer. Days, weeks, years have passed. I have lost track of time. It no longer matters. Things were different then. I was a soldier of the Reich and this is my tale.

I joined up when I was sixteen. I was tall for my age so I lied and no-one checked or questioned too closely. It was all for the Fatherland. I was proud to wear my uniform and ignored my mother’s tears and father’s silence when I left. My little sister wept and asked who would help her to dig the potatoes or milk the cow and I laughed, full of the joy of going off to war. This was my freedom. I gave no thought to their grief only the glory to come. I was strong; I could run fast and shoot a rifle better than many of my friends. I was sure I would be posted to the front line and itched for the splendour of war. How foolish were those boyhood dreams. No glory for me. Instead I was sent here to be a guard at the camp.

‘Easy job,’ the commandant bellowed. ‘They show any sign of insolence or disobedience then shoot. Dirty Jews.’ He spat on the floor.

He was right. It was easy, at first. Trains rattled into the station, belched steam and disgorged their cargo. Men, women and children tumbled out of carriages, bewildered, blinking in the light. Silent. With them came the smell – fetid and ripe with fear. I ignored it all. I held my chin high and my gun higher – proud to be serving the Fatherland. They shuffled from the railway track into the camp where we took everything from them. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t see them as people but as animals, worse than animals. It was, after all, for the glory of the Fatherland.

Then, the girl came. Usually the Jews kept their eyes averted but she was different. She stepped from the train, filthy and ragged; her yellow star displayed clearly, her long brown hair loose around her shoulders. She stopped and stared at me until, aware of her scrutiny, I looked back. Her gaze was disdainful. She inspected me from head to toe and then back again, as if she was superior. She reminded me of my little sister. Then she stared right into my eyes. I recognised something in that look and felt shame creeping into my thoughts. I blushed, much to my annoyance. This was a war but were these creatures the enemy? How did killing them serve the Fatherland? For the first time I questioned the purpose of my task but I was a soldier, trained to obey. I did not dare to falter or question aloud. My thoughts had to be kept secret, locked deep inside my head. I dared not acknowledge these doubts, even to myself. I was a soldier of the Reich but I could not avert my eyes from hers.

‘Magda,’ someone hissed and she turned her head and moved to join the others. The spell was broken. She was herded off to the women’s compound although she was only a child, eleven or twelve perhaps.

After that Magda seemed to be everywhere I looked. Her hair was cut off and she wore the striped pyjamas of the camp but I would have known her anywhere. Her eyes seemed to follow me, reproaching, filling me with guilt. She was the same age as my little sister. She was hungry. They were all hungry. I started to think about what we were doing to these innocents. I could see my little sister’s face and wondered how she would feel in this place.

We had supplies. We were fed and given rations, meagre enough but more than the Jews who faded into skeletons in front of us. Many died before they reached the gas chambers. I shall never know why Magda had an effect on me. It felt unnatural. Her eyes searched my innermost thoughts and formed some strange telepathy. It was unreal and made me restless in my sleep, sometimes waking in a sweat imagining Magda pointing at me. As the days went on I could almost feel her hunger so when I thought no one was watching I would drop some bread or other scraps near her. Magda never acknowledged the food and I was careful not to say anything in case someone spotted me. We never spoke.

As the weeks passed she grew thinner, gaunt and pale. Her eyes seemed to be too large for her face. The cold was biting and even the heavy uniform did not stop it seeping into my bones. I wondered how she survived. I was desperate to help her and in my desperation I became careless. I was caught about to pass bread through the wire to her. I knew I was in trouble when the commandant demanded to see me.

‘Guterman,’ the commandant almost whispered. He was at his most dangerous when he was controlled. I expected to be severely punished, beaten perhaps or even shot for fraternising with the enemy. I held my breath, wondering what was to follow.

‘It seems Guterman, that you want to be closer to the filthy Jews. Is that right?’ A spray of spit accompanied his question.

‘Nein, Herr Commandant. It was an error. It won’t happen again, sir.’ My heart was beating so loudly it was rivalling the clock on the wall.

He smiled, showing a gap where he had lost a front tooth. ‘I think Guterman, you need to see what happens to vermin. You are assigned to guard the chambers. You can take the little Jews to be gassed and see what happens to enemies of the Fatherland. Now, out, before I change my mind and have you thrown in there yourself.

‘Heil Hitler!’

‘Heil Hitler!’

I staggered out of the commandant’s office, my head reeling. Relief at not being executed was mingled with horror. Guard duty at the chambers was something discussed in quarters. Some of the guards spoke little about it but their faces betrayed the strain, while others boasted about how many ‘stinking Jews’ had been exterminated. It reminded me of my father talking about rat-catching on the farm and keeping the pests under control. There were rumours about what happened to the bodies, and the smells of human flesh as they were processed were stronger close to the chambers. The air was often pungent with the smoke from the incinerators. Those days at the gas chamber were the worst of my life. I prayed every night to be taken to the front line to die with honour. There was no honour in this herding of the old and ill, women and children into the death pits. I closed my eyes, ears and mind to these horrors and had to remind myself daily that it was all for the glory of the Fatherland. Screams filled my sleep and the smells seeped into my uniform, which made eating difficult. I longed to be back in my home and the arms of my mother. I wanted to be a child again, before the war, before hatred had filled our country and before my innocence had been lost.

The day Magda went into the chamber was my last. She gazed at me with understanding and nodded slightly, almost smiling as she went to her death as quietly as she had lived her short life. Her courage and acceptance of her fate made me shake uncontrollably. The other guards looked at me with pity.

I lay awake all night, haunted by the sight of her as she walked almost with pride, and without fear, to her death. I had a vision of my little sister entering the gas chamber and shuddered. Realisation hit me. There was no glory in this game of soldiers. I thought of the shame of my father and the pain of my mother but I knew what I had to do. There was no other way, no other solution for my pain.

In the morning, I washed and dressed as usual. I brushed my uniform and polished my boots until they shone. I was no longer the naïve young boy of sixteen with idealistic thoughts of war. Two years had passed and I was a man and ready to act like a man of honour. I couldn’t eat. The porridge felt like lumps of chalk in my mouth. I was sweating, despite the cold. Chin high, I marched to the central square, a soldier of the Reich. Trembling, I put my gun to my head.

I stand alone by the railway track, for all eternity.