The Little Jew

It had been snowing for the past three days. The burning smell made it worse. Heinrïch, who was a newly trained officer inspired, by Hitler's words to fight till his death, was angry about the fact that instead of being able to fight at the frontier, he was stuck at Aüschwïtz. The smell of the burned Jews, the cold and the stupid officers made him despise every moment at the concentration camp. He had the worst job to do, to check the Jews' chambers.

There was also a child in the camp, Vlad who was just a 7-year-old boy whose parents had been captured when the Germans had invaded Poland. They were told to leave their belongings and were put on a train to be brought here. On arriving their heads were shaved and they had been given striped clothes which were both smelly and dirty. Vlad, that day was unable to understand the situation and was sad because both his parents couldn't be found anywhere. He cried in his bed that night while trying to sleep as he couldn't find them.

The next morning Heinrïch stormed into the Jews' chamber and shouted at them to wake up. He then told all the soldiers that he had ordered to come with him to inspect the Jews chambers to search their beds and pick the diseased Jews out to send them to the gas chamber. They did as he told them to and reported back to him but one of them was holding a child by a arm who was screaming and crying for help. Heinrïch, irritated by the child, kicked Vlad until then the child stopped screaming. The only sound that could be heard was a slow and soft whimpering like an animal's.

The soldiers left the chamber and Vlad was left lying on the ground in the cold. The other prisoners present in the room helped the child to a bed. They had no medicine to apply to the child's bruises, no water to quench the child's thirst. Vlad could not speak but only moan. He was brought some food by the others who sneaked it in from the canteen and were able to pass undetected from the soldiers who watched the Jews while they had their daily meal.

Heïnrïch felt ashamed and disgusted for his actions and thought to himself " This is not the reason I joined the army". He wanted to help the child but how could he? The child was a Jew, he was a German. He thought about it for a while. Then he waited for the night.

While trying to sleep, Vlad heard the door opening and got alarmed. Scared, he looked towards the door. The man who had kicked him was coming towards him but he had something in his hand. The man came and picked the helpless child up and unbuttoned Vlad's shirt and applied an ointment on his bruises and bandaged him. The child felt better after being bandaged and slept peacefully.

The next morning the commanding officer of the camp ordered all the prisoners to assemble on the main ground of the concentration camp to conduct the weekly inspection of the Jews. The prisoners assembled without uttering a word and one of them was Vlad who was glancing at all the faces of the prisoners with the hope of finding his parents. He quietly then stood in the line of the prisoners.

The commanding officer ordered the soldiers to inspect each of the Jews one by one. The Jews were checked for lice and for any other sicknesses. Due to the cold, most of them were already sick and were pulled away from the line and put in a certain group with other sick people. Heinrïch stood beside the commanding officer and was overlooking the inspection when a child was brought to the commanding officer. The child was bandaged, and it could be easily spotted as it bulged out and made his chest look uneven. The commanding officer, asked the child in fluent German " Who helped you?". Vlad, who only understood the Polish language looked blankly at the commanding officer.

The officer unholstered his revolver and shot the child in the head. He shouted in German " This will happen to you if you even try to help these pigs". Agitated, and in his rage Heinrïch removed his revolver and shot the commanding officer six times in the head. The soldiers witnessing the incident opened fire on Heinrïch. He fell to the ground with around 27 bullets in his body.

There was a little child standing in the crowd of Jews. He was not bothered by what had unfolded in front of him. The Little Jew had already seen too much blood.