Shadow of the Swastika

I awake in the morning to the dim golden light in the east and a faint breeze blowing through the window. My eyes open slowly, and I smile as I come face-to-face with a sleeping blonde male, whose arms still encompass me protectively, as though I am a precious treasure. His precious treasure.

I move to kiss his cheek, but he has obviously sensed that I was watching him, and he moved his face at the last minute so my lips made contact with his. He laughs lightly, a pleasant, low hum in his throat.

“You were awake!” I cannot hide a smile as I smack his chest playfully.

“Mmm, good morning to you, too.” Terji chuckles, taking the opportunity to give me that cheek kiss that was previously meant for him.

A few minutes pass before I eventually move to wriggle out of his grip to attempt getting out of bed, but he pulls me back down and holds me to his chest.

“Terji,” I nudge him with a sing-song voice, “Come on, we have to get ready.”

He whines like a child and buries his face in the back of my neck. “No we don’t,” he drags the last word out in a moan. “We have the day off today, remember?”

A day off from work? A day off of slave labor? A day off from shovels and digging holes and blistered hands? A day off of Hell? It was almost too good to be true.

But, surprisingly enough, he is right. The Gestapo have passed by our bunk and informed us that we are a part of the so called “lucky few” who have earned a work-free day today, but not to take it for granted. Then he leaves and goes to another cabin.

I feel as though I can touch the clouds.

Terji nuzzles my neck, causing me to laugh lightly; his nose tickles. “See?” he retorts with the tone of voice of a know-it-all. “We don’t have to do anything today. Stay with me.”
On a day like this… or any day, for that matter, how could I say no?

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The day passed on uneventful, for the most part. I didn’t want to be seen by the other prisoners as they were forced to work as hard as Terji and I have had to for so long. I couldn’t be spotted. Jealousy is a fearful emotion.

I am brought out of my reverie by a sound outside of the cabin, and discover it to be Terji rummaging through a garbage can. Strange, to say the least, but I was curious to learn the real reason. It obviously wasn’t for food, that much was certain. He wasn’t giving me any signs as to being overly sick, either. So the question on my mind was… why?

As if answering my unvoiced statement, his upper body emerged from the can, his hands holding several sheets of crumpled, ripped paper. I wasn’t given any time to ask anything, for he took my hand and dragged me back inside the cabin.

“Just hush for a moment,” he told me in a whisper. “You have to see this.”

See what? What was he talking about? Was it important, or even crucial? The way he was acting certainly portrayed it as that.

It wasn’t until the two of us were sitting cross-legged on his bunk before he all but shoved one of the papers in front of my face. And right in the center was the symbol that sent fear through my entire being.

The Swastika.

Immediately, I covered my eyes and shoved the paper away. “Don’t make me look at that, Terji!” I almost squeaked; my voice was so borderline high.

He took my hand and placed the paper with that symbol back in front of me. “Just trust me on this, Kalle. This is big. You need to know about this.”

As much as I was afraid of that Swastika, I trusted him.

Avoiding laying my eyes on said symbol, I discovered that the paper was covered in notes, which at first looked like nothing more than chicken scratch next to typed-out text. The text was in English, the writing in German. And what I read surprised me to no end.

The Swastika, the symbol the Germans and Gestapo were using as a symbol of power and fear, actually originated in India, and truthfully, was supposed to mean peace and eternity.

“So then… why use it as something of the opposite?” I managed to form the words after a long silence. “They’re destroying the real meaning of it.”

All Terji could do was shrug half-heartedly. “That’s what got me,” he replied. “Maybe they obscured the message behind it?”

“That’s got to be one reason.”

He took the paper from my hands, and for probably the second time, read over the notes and text. “It makes sense to me.”

I ran my fingers through my hair while the male across from me scratched his head. I had heard of people misinterpreting symbols and other things before, but never to something this extreme. What was the motive for changing the Swastika’s meaning to something completely different?
And what would become of it in the future?

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I soon found out that what the Gestapo officer said to us earlier yesterday about not taking a free day for granted was the truth- he simply wanted us to “save our energy” so we would be able to march for ten miles from the crack of dawn until sunrise.

Was he trying to kill us quicker?

Normally their nature would force us to endure torture for as long as possible, making our deaths slow and painful. With this, it seemed as though they were granting us a quick one.

To think, having this walk to go through. And after all the lack of mercy killings…

For fear of being torn apart, Terji and I walk next to each other, but resist the urge to hold hands. They cannot know about the relationship between us. It would mean immediate separation.

I cannot bear to be away from him. So for our sake, we must put up an image of being no more than two people who have ended up sharing a bunkhouse.

Terji fights the urge to look at me even out of the corner of his eye. He wants me to stay next to him. He wants me to be safe.

But through what will happen on this roughly called “journey”, I cannot promise anything. Only the fact that I will remain in this camp.

But if it means staying with him, I will walk until sunrise. I will walk to the ends of the Earth and break every bone in my body if it means I am still with Terji.

That is one promise I will keep with my life.

“March, maggots!” I hear the commanding voice and a gunshot, signaling for us to move. Some of us even have to be pushed to start walking- literally.

I bite my lip hard enough to where it bleeds as my bone-thin legs start moving forward, step by agonizing step. Terji follows at my side, always one step behind me to catch me in case I fall over backwards, or one step in front of me if I stumbled face-first. The other campers, even the Gestapo, don’t take it as anything important or suspicious to watch for.

When their eyes were taken off of us, the blonde caught up with me and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “I can’t shake the feeling of how dangerous this is. How long is it until sunrise, anyway?”
I allowed my eyes to gaze up from under my bangs to see a dim light on the horizon. It was approaching, but not fast enough.

I let out a shaky breath, sneezing and wiping my nose on my sleeve. “Too long for us,” I murmured. “We still have to keep going.” I raised my head up as best as I could and continued to walk.

Terji and I were some of the last people still in the group. Out of the thirty people that were woken up this morning, nineteen of them had been shot. Only eleven remained.

And if we weren’t careful, we could be next.

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