Peter Leonard - Voices of the Dead

Harry looked at the raggedy figures pressed around him, shifting to the sway of the truck. Glanced the other way through an opening in the tarp at the guards following them in two kubelwagens , four men in each. As they wound their way through the trees the guards would disappear from view. Harry’s father told him to jump off the truck.

“You have to do it,” his father said.

“I want to stay with you.”

“In a few minutes there will be nothing left of me, or any of us. Save yourself.”

Harry hugged his father, waited for the right opportunity, slipped through the tarp and over the rear gate, dropped to the ground and rolled into the trees. He heard the motorcade drive by, got up and ran, following the sounds of the truck engine.

SS guards with machine guns herded the prisoners through the woods to a clearing. He could see dirt piled up on the other side of a pit that looked long and deep.

Harry was so afraid he was sick to his stomach, body shaking, could hardly breathe. The prisoners stood side by side at the edge of the pit, twelve to fifteen at a time. When a whistle sounded SS guards walked up behind the Jews and shot them point blank, blowing their heads apart. Harry would jump when he heard a volley of gunfire. Some of the SS guards laughed, making fun of each other for getting blood and brains on their uniforms.

His father was in the second group. This time a young SS officer in a black uniform walked behind the prisoners and sprayed them with machine-gun fire, the velocity of the rounds blowing them into the pit. The SS man was grinning, enjoying himself.

“That’s how you kill Jews,” he said.

A third group was brought into position. He could hear moans and screams coming from a few who were still alive. A rabbi wrapped in a prayer shawl said, “‘Comfort ye, comfort ye‚ my people.’” A guard knocked him unconscious with the butt of his rifle, and dragged him to the mass grave.

Trucks dropped off groups of Jews and went back for more — fifty people at a time. They were led to the pit and shot. Harry had seen the Nazis do terrible things, beating and humiliating Jews on the streets of Munich, and even murdering them at the camp but nothing like this.

The young SS officer started passing out bottles of schnapps while the killing continued. When the last transport arrived many of the Nazis were drunk. His mother was with a group from the women’s camp, led to the pit and shot like the others. Harry was numb, couldn’t watch. Closed his eyes and heard the shots. When it was over, the SS guards, twenty killers, stood around talking and laughing, drinking schnapps, smoking. Someone was playing an accordion. Others were taking photographs. It was festive now, lighthearted, a party after murdering almost six hundred innocent people.

He saw two guards walk past him into the woods, and decided to get out of there as fast as he could. He was moving, crouching behind a tree when a rifle shot blew off a chunk of bark next to his head. Felt it sting his face and stopped. One of the guards had seen him and was coming toward him with his rifle.

“Look what I found,” the Nazi said, bringing Harry to the pit. “A hiding Jew.”

The SS officer who’d shot his father whipped Harry across the face with his riding crop. “What should we do with the little kike?”

“Let him go,” a guard holding a bottle of schnapps said.

“Are you drunk?” another guard said.

“If not, I soon will be.” He brought the bottle to his mouth and took a big drink.

The men standing around the pit laughed. The SS officer placed the barrel of his pistol against Harry’s temple. Harry closed his eyes, expecting the blast. But it didn’t come.

“Sir, you’ll get Jew blood on your uniform,” a guard said.

“You have a better idea?”

The guard standing next to the SS officer stepped over and drove the butt of his rifle into the side of the Harry’s face. Harry staggered and the guard pushed him into the pit. He landed on top of bodies, burrowing between a dead woman and an old man, hearing gunshots above him before he passed out.

Harry opened his eyes. It was completely dark. He was having trouble breathing. Something was in his nose and throat choking him. It was in his eyes too and all over him, and he now realized he was in the pit, covered with dirt, the weight of it and the corpses, heavy, pressing down on him. He could hear moans and cries from people who were still alive. Pushed his way through bodies, clawed his way through the layer of earth, feeling the cool night air, spitting dirt out of his mouth, wiping it out of his eyes, taking deep breaths.

Harry climbed out and saw the bodies of others lying on the ground where they’d fallen and died. The scene so surreal, was it a dream? He scanned the woods and saw a girl running, disappearing into the trees. So at least two of them had survived.

The sky was overcast. No stars or moon. Harry followed tire tracks through the woods to the road. One way went to Dachau and the other to Munich. He walked along the side of the road for a couple kilometers until he heard dogs barking in the distance, and followed the sounds to a farm, fields of crops that had been harvested. Beyond the fields he could see lights on in a house, and next to it the dark shape of a barn.

Harry waited till the lights went out before crawling three hundred meters across the fields, resting now, leaning against the back wall of the house. He could see windows open on the second-floor rooms above him. The dogs were on the other side of the house, barking occasionally, but they hadn’t seen him or caught his scent. He moved around the house, looked in the kitchen window, saw a loaf of bread on the counter.

He came to a door, turned the handle, opened it and heard the hinges squeak, slipped into a hallway. He stopped and listened, didn’t hear anything, moved into the kitchen, picked up the bread, tore off a piece and ate it.

Behind him he heard the twin hammers of a double-barrel shotgun being cocked. “You know what this is?” a man’s voice said in German.

“I’m starving,” Harry said. “I just need something to eat.”

“Turn around.”

He did, and saw a big man holding the gun at his waist, barrel pointed at Harry’s chest.

“Uli, put down the gun. He is a boy,” a woman said, coming in the room. She was short and wide, blond hair pulled back in a braid.

The man cradled the barrel over his left arm like a bird hunter. “He is a thief.”

She turned on the light, looking at Harry in his striped, dirt-caked, bloodstained uniform, shaking her head.

“Look at him,” the woman said to her husband. “He is from the camp. My God, what did they do to you?”

Harry was wondering where to begin.

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen.” He was big for his age, already five foot nine, but skinny after meager rations for six months.

“Where are your parents?”

“Dead.”

She came across the room, eyes fixed on him, put her arms around him, pulled his skinny frame against her heavy bosom, holding him. Harry looking over her shoulder at the husband, wondering what he was thinking.

The woman released him and opened a drawer, took out a towel, wet it under the faucet and touched his face. It was cool and felt good on his swollen cheek. She washed his face, rinsed the towel and washed it again. She took him to the table and sat him in a chair. Served him chicken and dumplings, bread and milk. The husband telling her in hushed tones that helping a Jew could get them killed. The woman, whose name was Margot Schmidt, telling him to go to bed, she was going to look after the boy. She sat with him while he ate. Told him to slow down, there was no hurry, he could have as much as he wanted.