It was December 1st, 1940, and 1 Month prior on November 1st, 1940, my family was killed
and one month before that on October 1st, 1940, I first arrived at the camp. Now it was
December and the snowing started. The Nazi guards were dressed in big furry
coats, and they had hats, scarves and gloves but we Jews were only given an additional
jacket. Due to that, many of us died, we froze to death whilst we worked or we slept
in our cold and empty prison blocks. They didn't even give us any furniture, only a mattress
and a blanket which didn't cover most of our bodies. Luckily, neither I nor Jonah got picked
for the gas chamber on December 1st, but I refused to die without avenging my family, their
death served as an example to me and everyone else, it showed that no matter what you
did in your life or who you were, that high status wouldn't change what toxic gas would do
to a human body. The toxic gas would still kill you; it didn't care whether you were poor or
rich, smart or stupid, big or small, brave or cowardice, female or male, religious or secular
and neither did the Nazis care. I didn't care anymore, I didn't care what other people said, and I
would fight for my freedom despite the opinions of others. I remember this
argument I had with Jonah in our prison blocks.
It was December 5th, and I just finished a brutal day. The routine forced me to wake
up at 4, do roll call for 3 hours, then work from 7 am to 11 pm and only one meal
which barely kept me alive. Anyway, as I was getting prepared to sleep, Jonah came into my
room and startled me. I asked him why he was there, and he said he wanted to have a
conversation. I then asked him if he would get in trouble for being here. He then said he
wasn't scared.
"Well, aren't you the cocky one? Tell me, what do you want to talk about?" I asked
"I realized that we have been working together for a month since your parents died, and
you haven't brought them up once. I know what it's like to lose someone you love, and I
just want to say that you shouldn't bottle these emotions inside, you should tell someone."
He said.
I was weirded out by the fact that he was curious about my mind and not my body. For my
whole life till that point, people only ever wondered about my bodily health but for some
reason he was worried about my mental health
"Listen, man, I'm your friend, you can tell me anything. It's better than bottling your
emotions in and then lashing out at a guard which will just cause you to get executed." He
said.
My curiosity soon turned into sorrow and his talking to me about me was like continuously
adding water to a cup until it started overflowing and the water spewed everywhere. As he
spoke more my heart raced faster with either anger or sorrow, I do not know, I started
looking him dead in the eye with a regretful expression and quivering lip. Then finally, my
emotions couldn't handle being bottled in anymore so they spewed out and I told Jonah the
truth.
"Ever since I lost my parents, I began to go crazy. Every night I have dreams of blood
splattering on me. I hear my screams and Otto's laughs from that day constantly in my
head, I try to not let it affect my work and luckily it doesn't because I refuse to die before I
avenge them. But with every scream I hear, the deeper I fall into this hole, this hole that is
but a figment of my imagination, it doesn't exist, yet I still fall in it, and it is never ending, I
keep going deeper and deeper. The deeper I fall into this hole the more I want to escape, I
want freedom more than anything now. I'm willing to kill every German to achieve freedom.
I believe this 'hole' is the slavery that I am experiencing and the more that I let these
hallucinations control me the more I will never achieve freedom. I just want to be free Jonah,
that's all I want, and I'll do anything for it." I said with tears lightly streaming down my face
onto my mattress.
Jonah's facial expression switched from a saddened person who wants to understand his
friend to a scared person who is looking at a cold-hearted, murderous, beast that is about
to tear everything in its sight.
"That is..." He paused before continuing
"...Insane." He added
"You don't say" I replied with a hopeless tone
"You can't be thinking like a genocidal maniac, I understand your struggles and I want to
help you, but I don't think killing someone else would be the solution." He said.
His words angered me beyond measure. At that point, I was fed up with his pacifist
demeanor and aura. Always acting like an innocent sheep caught in between the mouths
of the wolf and waiting for the Shepherd to rescue him yet he doesn't know that the Shepherd is
out of town, a sheep who is hopelessly waiting for a Shepherd which doesn't exist. Instead of
resisting and trying to escape, it just sits there with a smile thinking about tomorrow which
it will never witness. At least he could let go of life and climb deeper into the wolf's mouth
and die but instead, it just waits like a fool.
"You still don't get it do you Jonah? To be free, death must be involved. Either you kill the
person that's enslaving you and be free or you kill yourself and find freedom in death. And
like I said before I refuse to die without killing Otto Schwarze, I will continue to push
forward and fight, cursed by these hallucinations and this stupid never-ending hole. I will
fight and kill for my freedom" I said with a furious tone
"But killing someone would only make you a slave to guilt! Why not wait for America to
come to rescue us? They'll come one day I'm sure of it! Please Johansen, if you continue
thinking like a genocidal maniac then you'll become a slave to yourself. Jesus said himself:
If you live by the sword you'll die by the sword."
"A slave to myself? A slave to guilt? He is just like Marcus. This is exactly what Marcus told
me." I thought to myself
He was like Marcus. I never mentioned to him anything that Marcus told me, yet he
still said the same thing that Marcus said. I didn't want to accept what he told me, so I
argued back.
"Listen to yourself, Jonah! Slave to Guilt? Slave to Myself? Oh, please Jonah, give me a
break, every day I have to hear you talking about this great America and how they're going
to rescue us. Sorry to burst your bubble Jonah but they won't, and they probably never will
because they don't care about us. If they did then they would've already rescued us, but
they didn't. We are on our own, like lions, we must hunt for our food, not wait to be mouthfed like cubs. We aren't cubs Jonah. We can't wait for someone else to mouthfeed us our
freedom, we must hunt for it. Jonah, stop waiting and start fighting!" I exclaimed
Jonah was left speechless, I just insulted his dreams, I just insulted his purpose in life; to
reach America was his dream and purpose in life and I just insulted it. I immediately
regretted my words. He then stood up and left my room peacefully with a blank facial
expression.
"Maybe I should apologize. I'll do it tomorrow" I thought to myself
I did believe that America wouldn't come to rescue us, but I did believe it was a utopia
and I too wanted to reach it. It was no longer a ridiculous dream to me. Now I did
want to reach America. But not by waiting for it to come to me but by me going to it, and I
would do anything to reach America. I then pondered on these thoughts and went back to
sleep
Suddenly, I was back in that field, the same field where I saw my parents die. Then blood
splattered on me repeatedly and the screams and laughs were echoing in my head. It got to
the point where the blood covered everything and became an ocean and everything else
disappeared. I was in an ocean of blood, I then stood up in the blood and saw a mountain
of skulls in the distance and then I fell and started to drown in the blood. Then I suddenly
woke up covered in sweat. I drank a sip of water before going back to bed. Then I had
another dream, the blood became palpable and in the shape of a man and so did the
screams and laughs. The blood is a dark red colour and the screams and laughs
a light grey. I knew exactly who they were and then my body moved by itself, and I engaged
them in a fight. At first, it seemed like I was winning. I landed punches, kicks, and elbows.
But then suddenly they grew to an immense height, and they started stomping on me. With
each stomp, I could feel my body getting destroyed and smashed. I didn't want it to end like
this, I didn't want these hallucinations to beat me. If these non-existing things can beat me
then how can I expect myself to beat Otto and the Nazi regime.
"I won't die in a place like this!" I screamed as loud as I could. I then suddenly felt a rush of
energy and power coming from my heart and travelling throughout my whole body. I then
pushed their feet off me with my hand and then became a titan myself and I was much
bigger than the palpable blood and screams and laughs. I then picked them both up and
threw them to the ground and I stomped them repeatedly, but they wouldn't die, they only
became smaller and smaller, but they were still there, and I could still feel resistance. I
then saw myself in a third-person view in a flower field with my arms out and a happy
expression. I was shouting:
"This is freedom!"
Then I looked behind me and I saw Jonah, my uncle: David Hirschfeld Berg, A blonde
woman with beautiful green eyes and a lovely smile, a random Nazi guard, my mother and
father and Marcus all running towards me with open arms and big bright smiles. After I
woke up and pondered on the meaning of these dreams.
"What does me drowning in an ocean of blood mean and seeing a mountain of skulls me,
what does me fighting blood, screams and laughs mean and what does my holding my
arms out and running in a flower field alongside those other people mean" I thought to
myself. The funny thing is I didn't even know who that beautiful blonde woman was or who
that random Nazi guard was.
"A Nazi Guard smiling with me and running through a flower field with me? What could this
possibly mean? Why would a Nazi out of all the people in the world run with me?" I asked
myself
Another funny thing is my uncle lost his leg in WW1 during a battle yet in my dream he
had his leg. My father also lost an eye in WW1 yet in my dream he had both his eyes.
Perhaps this dream was a taste of freedom.