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Authors: Jason Fields
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changed. Aaron gasped and nearly fell to the ground as the breath rushed out of him. Thanks to his thick coat and the half dozen other layers he was wearing, the blow was cushioned substantially.
“Raus! Schnell!” the German shouted again.
Out! Move it!
There was no more time for questions. Gersh immediately started hobbling out the door. Aaron gathered himself and followed, quickly overtaking the wounded man.
They joined a thin trickle of others exiting the front door out onto Breslaw Street. A German officer glanced at each person as they exited the building and motioned them toward one of two piles of Jews. Aaron was sent to the right. When Gersh limped out the door, his foot pointing at an unnatural angle, he was sent left.
It soon became obvious to people in both groups how they had been divided.
On the left were the injured, sick, deranged or mentally incompetent. Some lay on the ground in stretchers, having been borne out by orderlies. Others were holding their wounds, were obviously feverish or, more commonly, had their own shit covering their gowns because of dysentery. No one was dressed for the cold, though a few had managed to grab the soiled blankets off their beds.
The other group — a much smaller gathering — was somewhat better off, though they hadn’t been given much time to grab warm clothes, either. All of the people in Aaron’s group were relatively healthy, if emaciated, with no outward signs of mental defect or insanity. No obvious wounds or disease. Mainly they seemed to be doctors and visitors rather than patients or inmates.
Both groups were lined up in front of the hospital. Open vehicles with machine guns mounted on their backs had joined the black sedans that Aaron had seen on his way into Breslaw.
A needle-sharp man wearing a black greatcoat was inspecting each of the sick and wounded. He had the air of a schoolmaster and a red, white and black armband. Every patient received individual attention and the schoolmaster called out notes to the giant who had confronted Aaron in the doorway of the hospital earlier. Clausewitz, Aaron remembered. In turn, the big man passed along the comments to his own aide-de-camp who followed behind them both with a notebook, carefully capturing every thought.
The ominous inspection was endured by the patients until one man, who had appeared catatonic, broke free and ran. It was as unexpected as a figure in a photograph taking life. It took an eternal fraction of a second for the rest of the world to catch up. And then it did all at once.
Aaron’s gaze tracked the fleeing man just a few steps before blood bloomed on the back of the patient’s whitish gown. It seemed to Aaron that he saw the wound even before he heard the pistol shot. He looked for the source of the bullet and saw the schoolmaster, steady hand on the grip of a Walther P38, smoke rising from its barrel.
The patients began to scream.
With a sigh and a signal to Clausewitz, the schoolmaster walked back to the line of German vehicles. Clausewitz nodded his head to one of the soldiers dressed in gray. The soldier, an officer, raised a black-gloved hand. A beat, and then he dropped it again.
The machine guns began to spit.
Chapter 6
B ullets ripped apart men and women; the sick and the mad; the holy fools and the simple souls. It was a leaden rain that became a torrent.
An impossible amount of time passed but the barrage didn’t stop. Aaron began to believe it would never stop. The booming rattle of gunfire returned Aaron to the trenches outside Warsaw as the Germans advanced on the city. Then, it had presaged the earthquake of tanks that would crush Polish independence. Now, it spoke of immediate death, unadulterated by hope.
Aaron waited to be killed along with everyone else. He did nothing. He didn’t make a run at the guards. He didn’t scream. He didn’t even try to duck down out of the way. As a gendarme, he’d been trained to take action, to protect people, but as the
“Raus! Schnell!” the German shouted again.
Out! Move it!
There was no more time for questions. Gersh immediately started hobbling out the door. Aaron gathered himself and followed, quickly overtaking the wounded man.
They joined a thin trickle of others exiting the front door out onto Breslaw Street. A German officer glanced at each person as they exited the building and motioned them toward one of two piles of Jews. Aaron was sent to the right. When Gersh limped out the door, his foot pointing at an unnatural angle, he was sent left.
It soon became obvious to people in both groups how they had been divided.
On the left were the injured, sick, deranged or mentally incompetent. Some lay on the ground in stretchers, having been borne out by orderlies. Others were holding their wounds, were obviously feverish or, more commonly, had their own shit covering their gowns because of dysentery. No one was dressed for the cold, though a few had managed to grab the soiled blankets off their beds.
The other group — a much smaller gathering — was somewhat better off, though they hadn’t been given much time to grab warm clothes, either. All of the people in Aaron’s group were relatively healthy, if emaciated, with no outward signs of mental defect or insanity. No obvious wounds or disease. Mainly they seemed to be doctors and visitors rather than patients or inmates.
Both groups were lined up in front of the hospital. Open vehicles with machine guns mounted on their backs had joined the black sedans that Aaron had seen on his way into Breslaw.
A needle-sharp man wearing a black greatcoat was inspecting each of the sick and wounded. He had the air of a schoolmaster and a red, white and black armband. Every patient received individual attention and the schoolmaster called out notes to the giant who had confronted Aaron in the doorway of the hospital earlier. Clausewitz, Aaron remembered. In turn, the big man passed along the comments to his own aide-de-camp who followed behind them both with a notebook, carefully capturing every thought.
The ominous inspection was endured by the patients until one man, who had appeared catatonic, broke free and ran. It was as unexpected as a figure in a photograph taking life. It took an eternal fraction of a second for the rest of the world to catch up. And then it did all at once.
Aaron’s gaze tracked the fleeing man just a few steps before blood bloomed on the back of the patient’s whitish gown. It seemed to Aaron that he saw the wound even before he heard the pistol shot. He looked for the source of the bullet and saw the schoolmaster, steady hand on the grip of a Walther P38, smoke rising from its barrel.
The patients began to scream.
With a sigh and a signal to Clausewitz, the schoolmaster walked back to the line of German vehicles. Clausewitz nodded his head to one of the soldiers dressed in gray. The soldier, an officer, raised a black-gloved hand. A beat, and then he dropped it again.
The machine guns began to spit.
Chapter 6
B ullets ripped apart men and women; the sick and the mad; the holy fools and the simple souls. It was a leaden rain that became a torrent.
An impossible amount of time passed but the barrage didn’t stop. Aaron began to believe it would never stop. The booming rattle of gunfire returned Aaron to the trenches outside Warsaw as the Germans advanced on the city. Then, it had presaged the earthquake of tanks that would crush Polish independence. Now, it spoke of immediate death, unadulterated by hope.
Aaron waited to be killed along with everyone else. He did nothing. He didn’t make a run at the guards. He didn’t scream. He didn’t even try to duck down out of the way. As a gendarme, he’d been trained to take action, to protect people, but as the
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