Nazi Germany: 1939

The living room is quiet. Only the clock on the mantelpiece dares to make a sound, ticking away the seconds as if it is a bomb, counting down to the moment when this will all have to explode. When this dictatorship of terror will be blown apart and scattered into the abyss.

I have to hope it will, anyway. For if not the passage of time and the steady mantra of the clock signals nothing more than the fact that someone, somewhere is another second closer to their death.

There have been so many deaths, so many ends to so many lives, so many photographs which now show ghosts. I glance to the faded image propped up next to the clock, into the eyes of three of those ghosts. My mother, my father, my brother; all just empty pictures. Staring out of eyes full of hope for a future that they will never get to see, a future cruelly extinguished before it even had a chance. For it is only me who is left, only my picture which still shows the likeness of a life. Only me who is forced to watch what is going on beyond the confines of the rectangular piece of glossy paper.

I stare down at my pale, chapped hands, fluttering nervously in my lap. I remember when I used to take great care of my hands, for my mother always said that hands can tell you a lot about a person. I suppose she was right, because now the harsh scars and reddened knuckles paint a vivid picture of my toil over the last few months. Trawling away at any work I have been able to find, scarce because of my slight frame and fragile youth. My smooth skin, a reflection of my previous pride, sacrificed for a few coins and a husk of bread. But that's the price of survival I suppose; real life doesn't care for beauty.

I know, and always knew, that the sensible thing would just be to go along with it all, to pretend to be indoctrinated by the lies like everybody else. After all, I had the means. I was one of the lucky few who knew someone who could change my identity, who could hide me in plain sight. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't choose to leave my photograph empty when my family had fought so hard only to be ripped from theirs.

Besides, it doesn't matter who you are. In a case like this the perspective cannot change the view.

So I chose not to take the opportunity which so many people longed, and still hope, for. I chose to let them come so that I could at least be true to myself and my family when they found me. But it has taken so long. It was hard enough to make the decision not to hide who I am, to stand up for my people, but at least I thought that if I resisted it would all be over quickly. Instead, by some twisted fluke, I have been overlooked for a period of time that I never even dared to think contemplate. I have been allowed to remain in this room which we all used to share, to drink from the China that we all used to drink from, to cushion my footsteps in the faded rug that we all used to tread upon, all while my family were subjected to the cruellest of horrors.

I wish more and more noe that it was not me who was out that day, not me who was spared from the camp. If it had been my brother sent out to get the bread I would most likely be dead by now, just a pile of bones in a mass grave, blissfully numb to the increasing horrors of the living world.

A living world that is closer to hell than anything else.

It makes me sick to see the compliant smiles of my fellow Germans, to watch them salute to him, hail him, worship him. Can they not see his evil? Are they really that blind to what he is doing, to the plans he is hatching behind closed doors? Or are they just scared? Worried that they will be the next to disappear in the night, to fall prey to the ominous Gestapo?

Not that I can really expect them to cause a revolution or anything as fantastical as that. I appreciate the impossibility of the situation. The allies think they are so high and mighty, looking down on us for letting him take power and manipulate so many people. But would they have done any differently? Would the proud British with their gleaming red, white and blue really have resisted the propaganda? Would Uncle Sam really have been able to turn a blind eye to their promises? It is so easy for them to speculate, to scorn Germany for not seeing, for not understanding what he would do. But we saw. We saw everything. And if they had seen, if they had been in our situation, would they have really emerged with a different outcome? I guess I have to hope so. I have to believe that humanity is better than what these past few years have led me to conclude. I have to believe that the allies will win and that Nazism and anything like it will be eradicated forever.

I have to believe because there is nothing else I can do. I am just a cockroach, a murderer, a rapist. I am just part of the vermin that plagues the Aryan race, the scum cowering beneath the dirt on the road. I am just a Jew.

At least, that is what he tells them.

So I must force myself to remain here, to sit tight in the home that has become my prison. To believe. To wait and wait until something happens. Until him and his empire fall or I am killed.

I certainly know which is more likely.

The sad thing is there will be nobody left to remember me. Nobody left to speak of me as the person I am. All four of us will just be forgotten, the photograph burnt or lost, so that even our ghosts will be denied a presence. I will just become one of the many thousands; one of the scores, the hoard, the massacred millions; one of his unfortunate victims. Not that I want fame, I just want people in the future to understand that every single individual among the thousands had a life, friends, family. A future.

Now my only future is the darkness.

So I sit. Waiting in the glaring light of life for the darkness to find me. And, as I wait, the clock continues its accompanying chant, the tick of the second hand matching my fluttering heartbeat.

Outside, as the evening approaches, the daylight slanting in through the gap in my perpetually drawn curtains dims to twilight. Then, almost instantaneously, the noises beneath my rooms begin to start up, drowning out the soft ticking which is my only company during the day. It is always about this time, and I always think that maybe tonight will be my turn. For the Gestapo have always preferred to arrest under the cover of darkness, presumably just to make their actions seem even more fearful.

Consequently, as the sun finally sets, it is almost like a switch has been flicked and the quiet anticipation of the day is instantly swapped for the violent terror of night. I can hear crashes and scuffling in the street below and the click of gun barrels as the SS men prepare to start their nights work.

Stifling my breathing I try to remain as still as possible. The dust sheathed curtains are tightly shut, the aged door barred, yet I know that no matter how steadfast the defences are believed to be, a Gestapo man will always manage to get in if ordered to do so.

Throughout the next two hours, I count 11 gunshots and 15 screams. One, particularly piercing, comes from the arrangement of rubble directly opposite mine. I guess it must have been Franz, he had whispered to me that someone had been eying him suspiciously all week and he had been denied access to the shop on the corner- a sure sign that his Jewish parentage had been discovered.

Even so, it is a shock to hear a gunshot so close and I begin to shake uncontrollably, my legs rocking from side to side as if I am at sea. The coarse old sofa that I am sat on, once a bright scarlet but now faded like a long forgotten blood stain, squeaks ominously beneath me, a warning that the springs are threatening to snap. But as much as I try, I can't manage to still myself. Without the outlet of words, my constant internal fear has manifested itself in the form of nervous spasms which consume me whenever I can't maintain a state of forced outward calm. It is like my body is screaming for release. And unlike a noise it is not a scream that I am able to contain.

However, after the 11th shot, there is a pause in the commotion outside and, in the silence, I manage to regain my composure, crossing my legs beneath me and clenching my fists. I turn my gaze back to the clock; it is nearing the hour of 10. I watch as the hands slowly crawl upwards to lie directly on the number carved into the wood. It is an old clock, originally brought back from England by my grandmother during the golden years, and there is something wise looking in its face, as if it is aware of what is going to happen just a moment before it does.

And it is that which first tells me that they are coming. Just as the clock strikes the hour, I sense a flicker of fear pass over its old wooden face. Then I hear it. The clunk of heavy boots on the staircase, the rattle as the door is tried, the click of a gun barrel.

I don't move from where I am sat but my hands begin to shake again, eyes fixed on the door which bulges from the pressure being exerted on the other side of it. It doesn't take them long to force their way in and, when they do, the door splintering with the force, I am sat ready, me and the sofa springs in utter silence. Waiting.

"Just Jewish scum." The head of the group snarls, staring at me with contempt. "And a weak looking rat at that."

"Yes, she wouldn't be much use in the camps." Another man replies, moving towards me and roughly pulling my unkempt hair until I am forced to stand up.

"Just get rid of it." The third man adds, gesturing to me. Of course, I am the 'it'.

"Fine, but I will do it this time. Don't want any more trouble." The leader barks, making it clear that this is the final ruling on the matter.

And so, my lips tightly shut, still determined not to make a sound, I am thrust up against the mantelpiece, my arm knocking into the photograph causing it to slowly float to the floor. My shoulder blades dig into the shelf behind and my left ear is pressed up against the casing of the clock. Its endless ticking reverberates down my spine. Tick, tick, tick, tick.

A twelfth gunshot.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

[Edited- 4/2/17]