The Death of Helena

by Steven Moore

11:03 a.m.

   

  Suddenly, after what seemed like an eternity, the lights went dead. Utter blackness. Seconds later and a terrifying hissing sound filled the room, momentarily silencing the mass. And then the screaming started.

  Clutching my baby even tighter, I automatically knew that the rumours about Auschwitz-Birkenau were true. We were not relocated here to begin new jobs and start new lives. That was a lie. We were at a Nazi Death Camp. And within a few agonizing minutes, every woman and child in that room will have been exterminated, simply because we were Jewish. Turning off the lights was to swallow us beneath a shroud of death.

  11:05 a.m.

   

  I closed my eyes and sat down, pulling Anna down with me. I thought about the family I had lost. My inspirational parents, who had mercifully died in the early days of the ghetto, and did not have to endure the horrors of the last few months. I knew then they were the lucky ones. My loving brother, Jerzy, who along with his wife Marian and their three young children, Lucia, Ester and Samuel, were taken five months before in the first round of the liquidation of Pogordze. Every day I had wondered what had become of them, hoping they were okay. But now, undoubtedly, I knew they were dead.

  My wonderful husband, Jacob, kind, loving and funny. My hero. I had hoped and prayed that he had survived, that we would be reunited after the war was over. But now, just like my brother and his family, I knew that he had not survived. I knew it in my heart and in my soul. I missed him so much, and he would never again hold me in his strong arms.

  I thought about all the friends and neighbors I had known, from back in school to growing up in Krakow, and then university and then the last few months in the ghetto. Strangers had become close friends, extended family, a solidarity that could not be broken had been formed in those difficult months living side by side in our ghetto.

  I prayed for each of them then, all of my lost souls, as I know they had prayed for me.

  And, my beautiful baby daughter, Anna, so precious and precocious. Just five years old. My angel.

  I looked down into her wide, innocent brown eyes for the last time, sitting peacefully on my lap on the bleak, hard floor. She looked back into my eyes and said, “Mama, I don’t feel well. My eyes hurt.” As my heart broke into a thousand pieces, I said softly back to her, “My baby, it’s okay, your mama is here. Go to sleep now, and everything will be all better tomorrow. I promise.” It was the first lie I had ever told her.

  11:09 a.m.

   

  Now, as I lay back on my concrete death bed, my baby in my arms, I ask God why he has forsaken us, so many of his chosen people. No answer comes. I am simply waiting for death to save us, hugging little Anna close, as tight as my arms can hold her so as never to let her go. I hold her with relief that my beautiful baby girl will not die alone.

  11:17 a.m

  …………

  The End

  Thank you so much for taking the time to read my short story. Despite it’s dark theme, if you enjoyed it perhaps you’d be kind enough to leave a review?

  Reviews really are author gold, and every single one counts. I humbly thank you in advance.

  I’ve also published a full length novel, named “I Have Lived Today”

  For a preview, please click to the next page.

  My novel “I Have Lived Today” currently has over 130, ‘5 star’ reviews across Amazon.

  Here’s the synopsis:

  England. 1960s. A cold, harsh autumn. On isolated St. Mary’s Island, an abusive man forces his wife to run for her life. Their son Tristan, young and afraid, also flees the island and sets out into the world to escape his demons and find his mother.

  Hitchhiking beneath the backdrop of a wild and loveless November, Tristan encounters every possible character, from the genuinely kind to the inherently wicked. Beaten, robbed and stripped of even hope, Tristan finds himself on the gritty streets of London’s East End, where everything he thought he knew about life starts to shatter and crumble around him. With all hope seemingly lost, a young boy even questions the futility of life itself. But when he learns that there are others who share his torment and understand his pain, can Tristan find the courage to make it through his darkest hours?

  Tristan's tale is a grim exploration into his own conscience. As he discovers the unique ability of humans to do such heinous things both to themselves and to one another, it's all he can do to keep control as his passage of internal discovery takes one dark turn after another and sends him to the edge.

  You can download a copy of I Have Lived Today by visiting my website, where you can also see what else I’m working on.

  Steven Moore, Author