Shadow of the Swastika

Times have gotten so desperate in the camp that even the food supply has begun to go scarce. I received more food on a daily basis when I first got here than I do now. And even despite being one of the- surprisingly- strongest ones still remaining, I am fed extremely little. And I am not the only one. Terji isn’t doing much better, either.
I am finally sick enough to the point where I throw up my breakfast after only ten minutes of finishing it. My companion is prepared for this; he has brought the trash can from the back of the bunk inside so I can “hide the evidence or my weakness”, as he puts it. In comfort, he rubs my back and strokes my hair.
Looking up at the sky later in the day, I notice the familiar dark clouds rolling in that symbolize a coming storm. The Gestapo move quick to take care of business beforehand. By the time thirty more people have been pushed into a cremation chamber, it belches smoke five minutes later, just in time. Already I can see the droplets falling.
Brown eyes stare into my back as the faintest hint of a smile forms on my face. Oh, how I miss the rain. I used to dance in the rain when I was a free woman. The feeling of my once long hair sticking to my soaking clothes as I ran in circles, laughing giddily with childish delight, was a favorite memory.
But alas, I am imprisoned, and they are now what they simply are. Only memories, and nothing more.
As I turn to meet Terji’s gaze, he motions with his head out to the rain-soaked ground.
I fight the urge to smile as I step towards him. He does not even try to hide his own as he places one hand around my waist and leads me out towards the open ground. Gently he places his calloused hand in mine and he steps forwards.
"Terji," I begin to protest, but he places a finger to my lips to silence me, as I did to him so long ago when we first met. His eyes meet mine. Then gently, slowly, he draws me into his arms, and we begin to dance. Twirling, slow at first, then faster and faster, we spin together as one. I raise my eyes up to the sky, and the rain splashes against my forehead. Those images of freedom rush back in a flood of familiar memories. He takes both of my hands, and, slipping in the mud and splashing through the puddles on the ground, we dance. The smile that I tried to hide bursts out, and I start to laugh.
Then it is over as soon as it had started. Panting and dripping, Terji pulls me again into his embrace. Tenderly, he pushes the bangs that the rain has plastered to my forehead out of the way, and kisses me, once on the forehead, and once on the lips.
A kiss is a strange thing. For in that moment, his gentleness and passion surge into one, and I am left breathless. He pulls away and gazes once more into my eyes, and I am lost in his.
"Hey now!" A gritty voice breaks into our thoughts and rough hands separate us. "What do you think you're doing? Get to work, you filthy maggots!" The Gestapo shoves me between the shoulder blades towards the nearest building, and I fall to my knees in the mud. Terji tries to go to me, and is rewarded with a backhand across the face. He hisses through his teeth with the pain, and I stumble as I start to get up from the mud. A click stops me where I am, and I look up to see the barrel of a handgun leveled at my head.
Terji steps forward to my defense, and the soldier swings his weapon over to point at him instead. My heart beats so hard that it is ready to explode. "I should shoot both of you down now!" he says coldly. "You scum don't deserve to walk the face of the planet." Terji continues towards him. The soldier points his gun at me again, and Terji stops. Frozen with fear, I stay kneeling in the mud.
Oh God, this is the end.
"Don't-"
"Don't what? Shoot her?" The Gestapo keeps his weapon leveled at my head. "I can do what I like with her."
Terji starts to rush to me, but the Gestapo walks calmly over and places the barrel of the gun against my temple. "Take one more step and she dies." The ring of cold metal against my head keeps me even from breathing. Terji stops, then takes a step back.
"Good." I turn my eyes upwards and look at the Gestapo. His eyes burn with hate. I am surprisingly calm. Have I been so resolved to my fate already? Deep, hidden underneath the hate in his eyes, I see a glimmer of something else. A lust for blood?
No... it is deeper.
"Now," the Gestapo continues, his gun never leaving my head, "kneel."
Terji doesn't take his eyes off me as he slowly lowers himself into the mud. He is on his knees only feet away from me.
"P-Please…" Terji stammers. The Gestapo looks at him oddly, and gives him half a smirk.
"Please?" he repeats. He stares down at his gun, then back at Terji. "Begging now?" I look at him again, then to Terji. His eyes are wide with fear for me. "I hate beggars." The Gestapo pulls the trigger.
Click.
It was empty.
The breath that fear had held back in me comes out in shuddering gasps. The soldier laughs and puts the gun away, then walks over to Terji, who starts to scramble out of the mud. The Gestapo kicks him in the stomach and he doubles over.
As he walks away, he calls over his shoulder, "Remember this lesson. We can kill you, or we can let you live."
I watch his back as he saunters through the rain. He looks barely as old as I am. And he's a killer already? Waiting until he's gone, I stumble to my feet and rush to Terji, who groans and tries to bring the air back into his lungs.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” My voice, as soft as it is, shakes in fear. He could have been killed trying to save me.
He smiles. Weakly, but it is still a smile nonetheless. “I had to,” he breathes, running a hand through his short, dark blonde locks of hair. “You mean the world to me, Kalle. I couldn’t afford to watch your life be put in jeopardy.”
I gingerly press my lips to his forehead. It was a relief to know that even through all the madness and chaos happening in this one place in the world, there was still some faith in humanity. There were still some people who cared.

---

Since my end of the camp is not forced to be sent to work until another two hours, I spend the time nestled in my bunk, staring out the makeshift window, the Swastika papers at my feet. The mystery surrounding them still lingers, along with the fact that Terji and I are the only ones in the camp- prisoner wise- who really know about this.
Gingerly picking the sheet up with the symbol’s true information on it, my eyes scan over it once more. ‘Peace’; that’s the word that still stands out the most. It’s the splotch of white on a canvas of black and grey. The most noticeable thing.
I mouth the word to myself, then slowly whisper it aloud. It sounds so foreign. More than likely due to the fact that there is no peace where I am. Where we all are. It doesn’t exist, so the meaning of the word, much less the sound of it, is so unnatural now.
I can only wonder if I will even know the truth behind that word ever again.

---

Chink. Chink. Chink. Each prisoner’s shovel makes an identical noise as it digs into the soggy ground. Once more, we are to bend over backwards and carve out a series of pits in the ground. This time is different from the last several times, as we are to be by ourselves. No one around us but our shovels and our piece of land and dirt.
I send a quick glance to Terji, who has been placed some yards away from me. His eyes meet mine only briefly, but it is enough for me to regain strength to push on. I turn back down to the outline carved in the ground. A rectangular shape which will soon be dug out into yet another pit; approximately ten feet deep. I am barely one third of the way down.
There’s no denying the fact that these pits will become makeshift graves for the prisoners who were shot on sight. Or anything similar to that.
As I move to plant my shovel further down into the dirt, a sharp pain flows through my arm and I am forced to let go of the tool’s handle. I knew it was a huge mistake the moment I did it, for not two seconds after, I am surrounded by three Gestapo officers. They stare me down, sizing me up like I am an ant compared to their elevated status.
“We didn’t ask you to stop digging,” one of them sneered at me through gritted teeth. “Injured or not, you will pick up that damn shovel, and you will keep digging until we tell you to stop.”
I refused to say ‘no‘. I refused say ‘I can’t’. I refused to say ‘I won’t’. Though while I did that, I also didn’t say anything whatsoever. I just stood there, my lips pursed together. The same Gestapo jabbed me in the shoulder with his index and middle fingers, causing me to fall back.
“Did you hear me, you worthless maggot? Pick up that damn shovel and keep digging right now!” he snapped.
What I did next, I now would think twice about doing if I had the chance to take it back, for it ultimately sealed my demise and altered my fate dramatically.
I stood my ground, looked right into the soldier’s eyes, and spat in his face.
What happened right after that was nothing short of horrifyingly painful. All three Gestapo struck me in the face until my face was tinged red from their handprints, then each of them raised a leg and planted their foot right in my stomach, watching me double over in pain. One of them grabbed me by the hair- what little of it was there- and pulled me back up onto my knees, spitting a string of insults in my ear.
With one eye open from this ordeal, I could make out the form of Terji slowing down his digging, keeping a worried eye on me.
The soldier had stopped screaming in my ear, but still kept a painful grip on my hair, shaking me with the hand that was holding my head. “What do you have to say for yourself now?” he screamed at me.
From my position, I looked up from the tops of my eyelids and met his gaze, finally whispering through gritted teeth, “Fuck you.”
And that did it.
What in reality was not even half a second almost seemed like it took forever. The Gestapo lifted his leg and slammed his foot into the middle of my chest. Right then and there, I felt a sharp pain accompanied by an ear-splitting crack. I fell to the ground in a heap, screaming in pain and holding my side with both arms. After giving me another swift kick to the same side, the three soldiers walked off, leaving me lying in the fetal position in the dirt.
Immediately after the Gestapo were gone, Terji threw his shovel to the ground and ran over to me; scooping me into his arms as gingerly as possible and taking me right back to the bunkhouse.
He’d managed to lay me down quite gently on the top cot, staring me in the eyes and stroking my face as he knelt above me. “Where does it hurt the most?” he tried to hold back the obvious anger in his voice.
I pointed to the middle-left part of my side, to which he lifted up my shirt and slowly, tenderly, traced his fingers along the now black and blue area, to which I let out a small whine and gritted my teeth with a sharp hiss.
I saw the fire flash in his eyes. “Those bastards broke your ribs,” he growled.
It took only two seconds before Terji started to move off of me and make his way down the ladder, but I was able to grab his wrist and pull him back to me, despite the pain I was in. Once more, his eyes locked with mine. I traced a finger down his face, stopping at the crease of his lips. “Don’t do anything that could get yourself killed,” I whispered in a shaky voice. “Please, Terji…”
A nod after some seconds of silence reassured me, but even after he pressed a long, lingering kiss to my mouth, I knew for a fact that Terji would never forgive those soldiers for what they had done to me.
And neither would I.