Escape

Escape

By Todd Chesterman

Gunter stared miserably through the barbed wire at the still-smoldering wreck of the Panzer. It had been hit two days ago by an English Typhoon as he’d lain right at this spot, praying with a religious fervor that had surprised him. The screams of the crew as they roasted inside their steel coffin had horribly amplified their agonies like some monstrous Brazen Bull performing for the God of War himself.

They had lost. That much had been obvious for months now. Even the increasingly shrill voice of the propaganda heralds had fallen silent. The Glorious Thousand Year Reich would not even last half of his own lifetime. Not that he’d ever really believed that it would. He’d joined the Party in the halcyon days of the late Thirties. The first time he’d ever ventured outside of his hometown had been to attend one of those glorious rallies at Nuremburg. The torchlight, the pageantry and the intoxicating vision of the great Fuhrer had been like a drug to his younger self. He’d been swept up in that roaring tide of optimism and had Sieg Heiled along with the rest. Even though he’d seen enough of life to be believing politicians.

For a few years though, it had seemed as if they might make it. With the wild success of the war in Europe, many were seeing a way out of the grueling poverty of the 20’s and 30’s. Germany was great again and life was good. His party membership had secured him a cushy posting at a tank factory in a sleepy town near Stuttgart. He may even have made some of the parts for that smoking wreck beyond the perimeter fence.

He’d even fallen in love. Eva was a raven- haired beauty with dark eyes, pale skin and a curvaceous body that belonged in a renaissance painting. Gunter had no doubt that she’d have never looked twice at him if it hadn’t been for the lack of available men due to the war. He was certainly no Aryan superman. But after a chance encounter where he’d fixed a puncture on her bicycle, she’d accepted his invitation to dinner and after a few weeks had moved into his small cottage. They’d shared some years of love and laughter and found a haven from the worsening news of the war in each other’s arms.

Nearly two years ago he’d arrived home from work to find her gone. No note. Just gone. He knew what had happened as well as he knew the futility of questioning it. The pieces of his broken heart littered the rooms of his cottage which he attempted to wash away with cheap vodka and black-market morphine but only succeeded in covering the place in empty bottles, syringes and the scent of despair.

Life had passed in a haze, he’d barely noticed the news reports, reduced rations and extended curfews. Nothing seemed as bleak as living without his Eva. The world had already gone to shit. He never bothered to join the rest of the town in gathering in the air raid shelters, preferring to stagger around his tiny backyard screaming at the Allied bombers to “get it fucking right this time” and drop one on his head. He howled along with the sirens as the AA guns sent their tracers skyward.

Three months ago, he’d pedaled his bike up to the gates of the flaming wreckage of his former workplace to be greeted by an SS Hauptmann who’d wordlessly handed him a sheet of yellowed paper and turned him away with a flick of his eyes. He’d read the hastily typed orders before the chill rain had dissolved the cheap paper. Riding shakily home, he’d stuffed a few clothes and treasured possessions into a duffel bag, left the door unlocked behind him and headed to the train station and his new posting in Hell.

All his cynicism and depression had done little to prepare him for the horrors that awaited him in Treblinka. The numbness of morphine was nothing compared to the realization that this death-machine even existed and had been conceived and built by his own countrymen. Or that he was now part of it. Nothing seemed real anymore. The industrial homicide, the casual brutality and demonic bureaucracy of the place seemed like something out of a Dante novel rather than a product of his beloved country. He simply could not fathom how this piece of hell had been allowed to come into existence. Where was the Golden Dream of the Reich? Where, the Great German People? Where was God?

He felt as if reality itself no longer applied. Standing over the shuffling skeletons that it was his job to escort to the afterlife, his very soul seemed to die along with every batch of prisoners he had to lock into the disgusting chambers, with the foul chemical stench of Zyklon B infesting his skull. There was no possible meaning to life in a place like this. Just a clipboard and a checklist and a void where “Gunter Schmidt” used to be.

Sleepless nights in his bunk were spent devising plan after plan of how to escape this maze of terror only for the cold grey light of morning to force him onto the anvil of surety that all exits had been sealed with the ruthless efficiency of minds too terrible to contemplate. Every day simultaneously took no time and lasted forever, stripping him of his own humanity and sense of self as he was slowly ground, hammered and shaped into just another part of this factory of horror.

“SCHMIDT!!” a grating, high pitched scream of a voice snapped him out of his reverie. Turning and inwardly sighing at the same time, Gunter saw the familiar, hated figure of Oberleutnant Volker stomping toward him. Volker was in his usual state of near-apoplexy, veins writhing across his forehead.

“Shit.” Gunter muttered as he stubbed his cigarette out on his bootheel and stored the butt in his packet. “Yes Volker, what is it.” He asked as the diminutive officer came within spitting distance.

“You will address me as sir!” the boy’s scream punished Gunter’s eardrums. All of seventeen years old and five foot five, the Oberleutnant had a prodigious overbite, small rodent-like eyes, a severe case of acne and a nose as crooked as a country lane. A shining example of the Master Race.

“You are to report to Hut 5 for prisoner escort! Immediately!”

Gunter’s protest died on his lips. He’d already been on duty for 13 hours and had very much been looking forward to returning to the warmth of his barracks and drinking himself into unconsciousness with a bottle of homemade vodka. The thought of prisoner escort duty churned his empty stomach. Arguing with an ex-Hitler Youth fanatic like Volker was, however, an exercise in futility. Inside this little prick’s mind, the Great Aryan Empire stood, poised for Ultimate Victory against the Subhuman Races. Small details (like everything around him) would never change this rigid conviction and even the slightest hint of dissent was to be ruthlessly crushed. The Propaganda Sirens had been singing to the boy his whole life and nothing but the kiss of Death herself would break the spell.

So, Gunter waved a salute and began the long, miserable trek down to Hut 5, Volker’s screeching prodding him along like a rabid sheepdog.

When they reached the assembly area Gunter’s litany of woes was silenced by the sight of the huddled prisoners and the thought of what was about to happen to this latest batch of starving stick-figures. He may be trapped in a nightmare and have an upcoming date with a Russian firing squad but today these people were to feed the appetite of the murderous beast that had once been his country.

And they were people. Individuals who’d lived their various lives before being snatched up by the Demon of Ideals. He knew that the other guards had managed the trick of no longer seeing them as human. True believers like Volker had never seen them as anything but vermin but Gunter saw each one of them and each one branded him a murderer. Sometimes he wished he could be like Volker, just to escape the crushing guilt and the haunted dreams. He shivered from far more than just the cold.

The cold sun finally lifted above the grey pines as they made their approach to the extermination chamber. The prisoners were silent and seemed almost eager to enter that reeking tomb. As they passed the gates one of them, a woman clutching a bundle of rags to her chest stumbled and fell at Gunter’s feet. He automatically reached down and grabbed one bony shoulder and hauled her to her feet. It took almost no effort, she was so light, already a ghost. Her eyes flickered up toward him.

The world stopped. Gunter’s free hand shot to the heart-shaped locket he kept in his uniform pocket, but he didn’t have to open it to see the photograph within, he’d studied it every night and day for months.

“Eva?” he could manage no more than a whisper, but the woman’s eyes cleared as she looked at him and her mouth hung open.

“Gunter?” the voice that had once sung so sweetly as she prepared dinner in their little cottage was now broken and raspy. The body that he’d worshipped was stripped down to lose skin and the jet-black flowing hair was now a patchy stubble. But it was Eva! His beautiful Eva!

They stared at each other, not able to believe, unable to deny what they saw. Their eyes reached in and found each other’s hearts, matching keys to the same lock.

A weak phlegmy cough came from the rags in Eva’s arms. Gunter dragged his gaze down to see an infant child, too weak to turn its head as it blinked its eyes open. He briefly wondered if a Russian sniper had tagged him with a headshot, the shock of seeing his own eyes peering back at him was like an explosion in his mind as understanding punched its way in.

Instinct possessed him and he unthinkingly snatched up Eva and the child, his child. He began to run, not with any direction, only away. He must escape. They must escape. He did not hear Volker screaming at his back, nor the crack of the rifles. The bullet that shattered his shin only registered as a sense of shock as he tried to step only to find himself lying on his back staring at the washed-out sky. A rifle butt appeared, faster than thought, and crashed him into darkness.

He returned to his body, seeing concrete sweeping before him. His arms were tightly held as he was dragged along and then dumped face-first on the ground. The pain was too great to even be felt as he rolled on his back. He heard the familiar dread sound of the gas chamber doors closing.

“Gunter!” Eva’ face came into view in the weak light, and he felt her press against his chest and heard the weak cry of his infant son. He wrapped his arms tightly around them both as the acrid stench of gas filled his nostrils. Trying to make reassuring sounds as the coughing began.

He smiled for the first time in forever. He had smuggled the most outlawed of contraband into this Hell. Love, pure love. They had won. The frustrated roar of demons filled the air as this little family made their escape.

T.G. Chesterman