No Leaves In Autumn

Due to the coming winter, it was colder outside than usual. We were well into September now, and yet not a single dead leaf could be found anywhere. After all, there were no trees; only dead bodies and barracks filled with dying ones. Such thoughts likely never occurred in the men around me, who shivered in their ranks as they awaited further orders. To them, life was nothing more than their next bowl of soup and their next breathe. Anything before either was forgotten, and anything after was unimportant. Some of those men would soon be on their way to the factories, others to the quarries. Others still were undoubtedly on the way to their deaths. Hell, some of them would probably be dead before tomorrow.

I watched the men closely as the soldiers marched them away from the field. They were my companions, my brothers. I knew not one tenth of them, but it did not matter to me; we were all in this together.

As the Kapo of the block, I did not have to go work with the others, although I was still a prisoner myself. I had received the job simply because I was the oldest one of the prisoners, and had never given the guards any trouble. Some might have even said I was lucky, never having to work the same as the other prisoners, but there was no luck in the concentration camps. There was no luck for any of us.

I walked slowly back to the barracks and headed into the “sick barrack” to check on the prisoners from my block who were unable to go out and work today. What I found was, as always, a nightmare. There were over fifty people laying on the cots, the floor, and on each other; all extremely sick and incapable of moving. There were men throwing up in the corner, and relieving themselves in their beds. Other men simply lay groaning all around, starving and aching at their cores. The smell was horrible. I noticed dejectedly that less than half of the people I had tended to only yesterday were still in the room. The others were probably already ash by now.

There was a Kapo from another block in the room already. He was mercilessly beating on an old man who lay on the ground in the fetal position, attempting to minimize the blows. He glanced up at me, smiling, as if he was looking for approval. I suddenly wanted to rush over and punch the other Kapo as hard as I could; to kill him for his unwanted cruelty to another human being. And for what? What had that sick old man ever done to deserve such a beating? Exist?

Instead, I resigned myself to kneeling down and whispering to the man nearest to me. He was leaning against the wall near the entrance looking starved and feverish. I asked him if he needed anything, and he whispered hoarsely back for some water. I clipped off the small canteen I carried with me just for such purposes and poured a few drops into his mouth. Such a small deed seemed to give him an immense satisfaction, and I suddenly wished that I could bring a whole bucket of soup to him and pour it down his throat, so that I could appease at least one of his pains. But alas, I could not, and after another few minutes of tending to the man I moved on to another patient, and another, until many hours had passed and I felt the need to return to my office. I looked over to where the other Kapo had left the old man he had been beating on for dead. I had rushed to the old man’s side, but it had been too late. One day, I vowed, I would avenge that man. I would avenge all of us.

Without a single goodbye, I departed from my horrible daily ritual, staring at the ground, replaying the image of all those sick people in my mind over and over again. I was so deep in thought that I suddenly ran into the back of one of the camp’s guards. Jolted from my thoughts, I regained consciousness of my surroundings right as the man pointed his gun in my face and started yelling.

I looked at his face, and for a brief second, locked eyes with the furious guard. In that second, a deep channel of hatred formed between us. I hated him because of his deeds and lack of compassion, and he hated me for who I was, for being a Jew, and nothing more. But in that instant, I was not able to tell who hated the other more, and I realized that if I was the one holding the gun, I would not think twice about shooting the guard.

And even after I escaped the guard’s wrath, and returned safely back to my office, I could not shake our interaction from my mind. If I’d been able too, I would have killed him. This sent my mind reeling, for I am not an angry man, nor a vengeful one. For the next couple hours, incredibly difficult questions floated in and out of my mind, each one with an answer more frightening than the last. Had the horrors around me finally reduced me to having the simple mindset of kill or be killed? Who is worse: a man that will kill another man because he’s told too, or a man that will kill another man because he wants to? If you had another chance, would you kill the guard?

I wrestled with my self in this way for long after the men I watched over returned from their days work. While we ate our soup, I questioned my deepest being, and I did not sleep at all that night, as question after question assaulted my conscious mind, forcing me to reevaluate myself and my beliefs. And the next day, I had come to one conclusion:

I would like another chance.