Free Cimmerian: A Novel of the Holocaust by Ronald Watkins Page B

he could persuade Max, though he knew it was foolish to take such risks. They spoke only in hushed voices. A few sentences, two or three times a week, was usually all. Max teased him less, cautioned him more.
    “Get that look from your eye, boy. Wolff will eat you up. She’s a Jewess! A whore! Don’t get starry-eyed over the likes of her.”
    But it was hard for him. When he looked into her eyes he saw only kindness. When they were not together he dreamed that he would find peace with her, a solace from this perdition.
    There was no doubting the debilitating influence of this existence on him, and he was as desperate for escape as any prisoner -- with just as little hope. Their mail was censored and even had he wanted he could not write home about this. There was nowhere to turn.
    Peter was very frightened of becoming like the other guards, without pity, without love. He told himself they had always been this way, but knew it was not true in every case. In the two and a half months he had been at the KZ he had seen the men become even more brutal. Partly it was the effect of what they did. Partly it was the depressing war news. Nothing was going right.
    As a youngster he had been taught to be a decent and kind person. His father, in addition to being a pacifist, was also a man of non-violence. This had not been easy during the chaotic years following the Great War, but the habitual street violence had only reinforced his convictions. Even Peter’s years in the Hitler Youth had been tempered by the influence of his parents, especially of his father. He was raised to be a good Christian as well as a devout Catholic.
    So even as he witnessed and did terrible things, Peter struggled to resolved the conflicts within him, to hold aside his kindness and charity so that he would not become utterly the kind of man with whom he stood guard.
    Then on New Year's Eve day he shot a family. When it was over and he was forced to consider what he had done, he could scarcely believe it. It had all happened too fast and his reactions had been so violent, so unthinking.
    Towards noon an overloaded train arrived and the guards ran to their places. He was still in shock over Karl’s death and was considering writing his parents. He could not tell them the truth but he thought even lies would be better than the bureaucratic response they would officially receive. They had come to their graduation and he had met them briefly.
    There was still a queue of naked gypsies snaking into the shower from last night's train when this one arrived. It was numbingly cold and the mist hung over the KZ like a disgusting blanket. The air was acrid, choking with the smoke from the gypsies they were burning.
    News from the Front that day was ambiguous. But they all knew that the Ardennes offensive had failed. The war could not last long now.
    There was a great deal of grumbling from the exhausted men as they manned their posts at the Judenrampe. Peter was dead on his feet and angry at this trainload of material even before they opened the first door. He saw its length with a sinking heart. They would be at it well into the night.
    It was another difficult one. There were a half dozen shootings within the first minute and each time the nexus of cars disgorged onto the ramp there were more shootings. These people just would not learn!
    A family, Polacks from the looks of them, had managed to stay together as the guards were nearing the halfway point. The father held a child, a girl Peter believed, about three years old, in his arms. The mother held an infant. There was another child, a boy about six, clinging to his mother, who had miraculously not been trampled in transit. He knew the mother and children were for the shower, the father looked hearty enough for work. With the war news as it was, Peter remembered thinking, he might even survive.
    Max, who usually worked with him and was quick to do the dirtiest chores, was beating an old couple senseless. He had