When I was a Jew

By: Chi Yagami

            It happened so long ago, yet, to commander Uther Schultz, it seemed like it had only happened yesterday. 

            Get that out of your mind, he thought.  Even though he tried to focus his mind on his work, the thought kept swimming to the top of his head and interrupting his other thoughts.  Fine, he said, you can replay yourself, you stupid thought!

            Slowly, as though it was a hippopotamus trapped in a swamp, the event collected itself and demanded his full attention, which he unwillingly gave.  He almost thought he couldn’t remember the date, but then he realized he knew it: November 9, 1938.

            Schultz and his group had been assigned to northern Frankfurt, Germany.  Earlier that day, when Adolf Hitler had been assigning cities, Schultz and his group had been laughing and joking around.  Hitler, spotting them, had been quite furious.

            “Gentlemen, there will be no playing around in this assignment.  As you all know, our Nazi party has been offended.  By who?”

            “The Jews,” everyone answered.

            “And who’s going to get revenge?” he asked.

            “We are!” everyone answered back.

            “Right.  Tonight, we will invade the synagogues and business of Jewish people everywhere.  Are you with me?”

            “Yes sir!”

*****

            That night, Schultz and his party met by a synagogue in northern Frankfurt.  They split up and each went his own way.

            Schultz himself came across a tiny building called Mrs. Mishinzkiz’s Little Trees.  The building was dark and showed no sign of life forms.  He crept around back and groaned.  There was a light on in an upstairs room.  He could hear children’s voices, a boy’s and a girl’s.

            “You promise, that no matter what happens, you’ll always come back for me, David?” the girl was saying.

            “Of course, I promise,” replied the other.  “Zara, you can have my pink shoes; I hate the color pink, and I don’t know why Mummy thought I would like it!”

            “Thank you, David.  I’ll take good care of them.”  Suddenly, Zara screamed.  A man had just jumped though their opened window and grabbed her.

            “Hey,” shouted David, “leave her alone!”  David might have been young, but he knew the meaning of friendship.  He pounced at the man and missed.  The man, who was really Schultz, picked up a storybook and hit the boy hard on the head.  He fell and lay unconscious on the floor.

            Just then, a woman came into the room.  She screamed when she saw a Nazi officer attacking the children.

            “Please,” she begged him, “spare my child and his friend!  Please!”

            “SILENCE!” Schultz commanded.  He’d dealt with this kind of situation before, and Hitler had instructed him to show no mercy.  Slowly, he drew his gun.  It had come down to this: either shoot now, or be shot later.  So he shot.  And when he shot, he never missed.

            “No!” screamed Zara, but Schultz hit her on the head with the book.  He looked around and saw the boy.  He picked him up, deciding to take him along.  If the boy stayed, he would protect his friend and mother, but without him, they wouldn’t survive.

            As he was leaving, the dying woman said, “Please…”

            “Don’t worry, he’s in good hands…” was all that Schultz had said.

*****

            Back at headquarters the next morning, Schultz explained he’d found this German boy with a Jewish mother.  He asked if he could keep him, and Hitler himself granted him permission.

            “I want him to be the finest Nazi in history, so he can see just how cruel the Jews are,” he had said.  But that happened long ago on November 9 – 10, or Kristallnacht, as the people called it.

            Now it was January 12, 1945.  Schultz was able to concentrate on finishing a page in his book, Don’t be Scared; The Ghettos are Comfortable, in which his explained to Jews that ghettos were as comfortable as their own homes.

            “Father, look!”  Schultz turned around and saw his son coming towards him.

            “Great, it fits,” replied Schultz.  “You look just like a Nazi!  I bet you’ll fit right in.” 

            “Are you sure?  Do I really look like a Nazi to you?” Thomas asked.  Thomas had been looking forward to going to a concentration camp his whole life, and today his wish was being granted.  Thomas had grown up knowing all about the Nazi party and its history.  His uncle was the man who started it all, Hitler.  Thomas knew of course that Hitler was not his real uncle but Hitler had insisted that Thomas call him “Uncle Adolf.”  Of course, he’d only met Hitler a few times because Hitler was so busy.

            Thomas had also been taught to despise and hate all Jews.  Every time he saw a Jew on the street, he would glare at them, and today, he would get to choose sixty Jews to be gassed.  He would also be instructed on how to work a gas chamber and crematorium.  Now he looked at his father with excitement in his eyes.

            “I’m ready, father,” he said.  As soon as his father was ready, they left for Auschwitz.

*****

            “Men to the right; women to the left!” shouted an SS guard.  “Ah!” he said seeing commander Schultz.

            “Commander Schultz, we’ve been expecting you.  Young Mister Thomas, I’m delighted to meet you at last!  But, Uther, I thought you wrote that your son was sixteen!  Why, this boy must be around ten!”

            “In my letter, captain Smith, I said that when he is sixteen, he will take my job, but for now, he’s just learning the ropes.”

            “Oh, well then, we’d best get you somewhere, shouldn’t we?  May I have your full name, please?”

            “Thomas David Schultz,” he replied. 

            “Good.  Well then, you may walk around if you’d like, and here,” Smith said, as he handed Thomas a whip, “take this and use it if any Jews try to attack you.”

            “Thank you, sir.”

*****

            Thomas wandered around the camp, looking this way and that.  For a boy of eleven, his heart was already black and cold.  He laughed when a prisoner struggled to survive.  People gave him dirty looks, probably because he was a Nazi.

            In hopes of seizing the outfit, one Jewish man told an SS guard that Thomas was a Jew in disguise trying to escape.  The man was sent to the gas chambers immediately for calling a Nazi “Jew.”

            Thomas began to wander towards the children’s barracks.  He knew that all children were sent to the gas chambers sooner or later, and he decided to poke fun at some people of his own age.

            Many of the older children stopped and stared.  He began to feel tired.  He walked back to the Nazi quarters and laid down on a sofa.  He felt dizzy, and soon he was fast asleep.

            Thomas dreamed that a boy and girl were talking in an old warehouse.  He couldn’t see the room or the children’s faces, only the dark outlines of their figures.  

            “You promise, that no matter what happens, you’ll always come back for me, David?” the girl’s voice said.

                “Of course, I promise,” replied the boy.  “Zara, you can have my pink shoes; I hate the color pink, and I don’t know why Mummy thought I would like it!”

            “Thank you, David.  I’ll take good care of them.”  Suddenly, Thomas heard a high-pitched scream, and then… nothing.

            He woke up in a cold sweat.  Thomas had seen that dream many times before.  He’d never told his father because if he did, he might not get to be a Nazi.

            He decided to go back and laugh at the children who would soon be put to death.  As he approached the barracks, a girl about his own age ran up to him.

            “Are you …  young David Schultz?” she asked.  Thomas was mad.  How dare she ask such a question!  She should be sent to the gas chambers immediately!

            “No.  My name is Thomas Schultz.”

            “Your face…  Let me see your face!”  She lifted his face up with a dirty, scared palm and looked into his face.  Thomas stared back at her.  All around them, people were stopping to watch.  Prisoners had never dared to look into the eyes of a Nazi, but here, the Nazi boy did nothing.

            “It is you!  Oh David, you came back!  You came back!”  Her cries turned into tears as she broke down completely.  Thomas wanted to slap her.  He wanted to hit her with his whip and say, “Die you foolish Jew!  How dare you, you piece of trash, touch my clean suit!  Go to Hell and die, die, die!”  Instead, he did nothing.  There was something about this girl that reminded him of a dream.  Before he could say anything, however, the girl was torn off him and thrown to the ground.  ‘Good,’ Thomas thought.  ‘I hope she gets punished severely.’

            “Are you alright?” the SS guard asked him.  “Yah…” Thomas replied.

            Two other men began dragging the girl away towards the crematorium.

            “Please, David, remember!” the girl cried to him, tears streaming down her face.  “Remember the promise, and your Mummy, and the pair of pink shoes!  God, David, remember the pink shoes!  The shoes!”

            Something pounded against his skull as images floated into his mind.  A girl…  A promise…  A pair of pink shoes…  His shoes…  The dream!

            “ZARA!”

            It was one of those moments when everyone is silent and the only ones in the whole world who seem to be alive are the trees and the wind.  Zara broke free from the guards, and she and David ran towards each other and embraced.

            “I thought I’d never see you again!” she sobbed through her tears.  “I thought the Nazis had taken you away and…”

            “I’m so sorry I didn’t come sooner, but –– ”

            “WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?  PRISONERS GET BACK TO WORK OR YOU’LL ALL DIE!  Now, Thomas –– ” but as soon as commander Schultz saw what was going on, he stopped. 

The whole camp was silent.  No Jew in their right minds would ever, ever have feelings for a Nazi, and they would never even think of kissing one, but Zara didn’t fear David.  She knew David wouldn’t hurt her.

“THOMAS SCHULTZ!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”  David turned around and saw commander Schultz gaping at him.  “You, Jew,” Schultz said to Zara, “How dare you attack a Nazi soldier!  Guards, take her away!  She needs to learn a –– ”

“NO!” David said firmly.

“Thomas, what are you taking about?” asked Schultz.  His own son was sticking up for a Jew!  This filthy, ragged thing!

“I answer not to Thomas.  I remember now.  On that cold November night, when a young boy named David played with a young girl Zara.  A man came through the window, taking the life of a mother, along with a young boy’s memory.  Then he raised that boy to believe that he was a Nazi.  It was a trick.  I’m not your son.  You lied to me.”

“Thomas, you…  you’ve been hypnotized by this Jewish piece of waste!”

“No!  Now let her go!”

“Fine.  I tried to save you from this fate, but you’re trying to get back into it.  Hitler had big plans for you… but you’re disgracing him now.  Oh well…”  

            “I’m not a Nazi!  I know my place!  I belong with them!  I don’t want to be treated any different then them!”

*****

            “You know… you could’ve survived.”

            David stared ahead at the wall.  He could feel the cattle car vibrating as it made its way towards Hell.  Commander Schultz had decided to ship David and Zara on a one-way train to nowhere.  The car was almost empty.  There was no toilet bucket or straw.  Zara was sick with a fever, and David needed the bucket.

            “I wouldn’t leave you again, Zara.  I just found you.”

            “David, how many other people are in here?” asked Zara.

            “Well, there are a few children and several adults.  There’s about

sixteen of us altogether,” David replied.  Zara coughed and then fell asleep.

*****

            When they finally stopped, David looked up with a jerk.  Then he looked around.  Everyone was watching the door.  It opened and several SS guards jumped in.

            “Everybody out,” one of them ordered.  David looked around for Zara. 

            “Don’t worry about anything.  We’ll get those who can’t walk.”

            David didn’t care.  He picked up Zara and got off the train.  David looked around.  They were at a camp, but he couldn’t tell which one.  He saw a sign that bore the words “Work makes you free.”

            “Auschwitz,” David breathed.  He’d learned all about it from commander Schultz.

            Everyone was lining up near a platform.  It seemed that an SS guard at the front was deciding which way the prisoners went.  When it was almost his turn, he woke up Zara and got in front of her.

            “Where…  are we, Dave–David?” Zara asked him.

            “At another camp,” he replied.

            David stepped up onto the platform.  The guard jerked his chin right.  Then Zara got on the platform.  She stared to cough, but caught herself.

            The man’s chin went left.

            “No!  Let me go with her!”  David rushed up to the SS man and pointed at Zara.  “Let me go with her!” 

            “Du?  Lentz?” he asked, snickering.  David nodded.

            “Ja. Lentz,” he said.

            “Jawohl, Lentz, Jude!” the SS guard said.  “Jawohl, Jude, Heil Hitler!”  All the other German officers laughed.

            “David,” Zara said regretfully, “David, I should’ve never said anything to you at the camp.  If I hadn’t, you probably would still be happy.”

            “But, Zara,” David replied, smiling, “I am happy.”

            As they walked towards nowhere with everyone else who’d gone left, they passed a couple with a small boy.  He was wearing a T-shirt and his feet were badly cut up.

            “Here,” said David.  He handed the small boy his pair of shoes that Zara had returned to him on the train.  She’d managed somehow to keep them.

            The little boy took the shoes and put them on.  His parents smiled and mouthed “Thank you” to him.

            They were coming closer to a building that smelled of burnt flesh.  David knew where they were headed, but he didn’t want to frighten Zara, so instead he tried to be cheerful.

            “Zara, beyond that door is a staircase, beyond that staircase is a gate, and beyond that gate is paradise.”  Some people looked at him, and the SS guard was opening the door.  As he and Zara walked though, David whispered to her, “Welcome to the land of the Angels.”

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