The Soul of the Unbroken

by Derrick Quick

  I looked around and his place was a mess. Clothes were thrown everywhere, shelves were thrown open, and suitcases were lying on the floor. “Hans what are you doing? Are you going somewhere or something?” He seemed frantic and without even looking up from his packing he said, “They want me to join the Wehrmacht, Eloy. Some soldiers came by yesterday and said I have been selected to serve the Fuhrer, but I can’t do it. I do not want to die fighting for that lunatic. So I’m leaving.” I couldn’t believe it. “What do you mean you’re leaving, you will get in so much trouble for not showing up to serve in the military. Besides, where will you go? You can’t leave the country. When they see your papers they will know you are deserting!”

  “Eloy, I have it all figured out, don’t worry. My friend lives on a farm out in the country. She said I can live in her basement. They have this small little room that is closed off from the rest of the house so nobody will find me there.” I still didn’t understand. Why would he want to go live in someone's basement? “Hans, that won’t work, they will find you, besides what will you do for work? How will you eat, you can’t possibly just sit in that room all day!” Hans quickly explained to me that they would feed him as long as he worked on the farm during the day and if soldiers ever showed up he could hide down in the room or in the woods that were next to the farm and he wouldn’t get caught. I was still very worried about Hans even after his reassurances, but I knew I couldn’t change his mind. Ditching the military was a serious crime, but at least he wouldn’t die in the war. I stayed with Hans a little while longer, but when he was finished packing I decided to trudge back to my lonely room at my uncle’s house. It was getting dark so I had to hurry because my uncle would be mad I got home so late.

  I left his building and started running down the brick alleyway that was next to it. I knew I had to go to the left so I took the next available street and as I was rounding corner all of a sudden I smacked straight into someone and a basket of flowers flew everywhere. I was knocked onto my butt and so were they. After the first wave of shock from the collision I looked up and realized it was Eliza! She was very angry at first looking at the carnage of her once beautiful flowers, but then her eyes met mine and she smiled a little bit. I was at a loss for words. I have been waiting to see this girl again for so long and then I slam into her and send her flowers flying. Not the best way to get love to blossom if you ask me. “Hi, Eliza I uh I didn’t mean to knock your flowers everywhere. Sorry about that.” She just smiled back and responded, “That’s alright, you can make it up to me by going with me to get some more flowers.” I didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation. Then I stood up and took her hand to help her off the ground. The instant her hand touched mine I felt warm and at peace. Her delicate hand was so soft and warm to the touch. I didn’t ever want to let it go but I decided it would be weird to hold her hand after knocking her to the ground, so I reluctantly let it go.

  As we were walking to the shop I realized I should be mad at her, she left me sitting in the park that night and I haven’t seen her since. She probably even deserved to get her flowers knocked to the ground. The more I thought about it the more angry I became. She thinks she can pretend to like me and then when I go to meet her she doesn’t show up! With the anger building inside I finally just asked her, “Why didn’t you show at the park that night? I sat there forever and you never showed up.” Her smile faded and she seemed genuinely ashamed. “I’m so sorry about that. I went to leave and my father caught me. He said I wasn’t allowed to be out that late with the way things have been going lately.” I was pretty puzzled. “What do you mean by that? The way things have been going?” She looked at me like I was a dummy, like I had lived under a rock, which apparently I did. “You know, the way people are making Jewish people out to be monsters. They hate us more and more every day… Wait you do know I am Jewish right?” I felt dumb, I guess I had seen the papers and heard people talk around the shop, especially my uncle, but I just never paid attention to it because it wasn’t really affecting me all that much. My whole family was German, we worked in the shop with mostly German customers. My life really hadn’t changed at all. I didn’t ever stop to think about what it must be like for Jewish people. “I’m sorry Eliza, I guess I just never realized…” Just then we made it to the floral shop and it was way different than I expected. We walked through the door and there were flowers everywhere. They were lining the walls, there were rows of them up and down the shop. It was such an amazing display of every color imaginable. It also smelled so good, my nose probably had the best day of it’s life. I never thought I would have fun buying flowers but it was a blast. We picked out the best, most vibrant flowers, and smelled them every time. Eliza was so amazing as well. I never really was able to talk to girls before, but with her, the words just started flowing out. She was even smiling most of the time so I must have been doing pretty good. We talked about our childhoods, what we liked and didn’t like, and we even talked about my parents, but I didn’t feel so sad having her there with me to talk about it. The time flew by and unfortunately, she had her flowers in no time at all. I paid for them since I ruined the last bunch, and we left to walk across town back to her house. Her house was a few blocks down, which made the walk go by way too fast. When we came upon her house I saw how big it was. Her house was amazing. It was a big 2 story house made of brick. There were two porches to walk out on, one on each floor. There were two great big columns on either side holding up the porch, and the walkway leading up to it was lined with beautiful flowers of every color imaginable.

  As we got to her house I worked up the courage to ask her if she would like to hang out with me again. “Eliza, I thought today was really fun. I was hoping maybe you would want to hang out again, without a crash meeting?” Luckily she accepted my invitation. “I would love to. We could meet tomorrow if you would like, and I promise I will come this time, no matter what.” We decided to meet at 1 the next afternoon. The whole way home I was beaming. I knew I had met the girl of my dreams, and she actually liked me back. I was elated, and nothing could bring me down.

  Chapter 4

  1938

  The next few months flew by way faster than I ever thought possible. Eliza and I hung out every single day, and she quickly became the love of my life. We liked all of the same foods, most of the same activities, and we just always had a blast when we were together. There was only one looming problem that we could never get away from… She was Jewish and I was pure German, the perfect looking citizen that Hitler was looking for. This made it very difficult for us to see each other in public because things had just grown increasingly worse around the city. People had begun to despise Jews more and more every day.

  When Eliza and I were together, people would look at us in disgust, shops wouldn’t let us in sometimes, and one person went so far as to spit at us while we were walking down the street. I never knew it could be so bad, and it was only getting worse. This was proven one night in November of nineteen thirty-eight. After a German diplomat was shot by a Jewish teenager everyone had the excuse they needed to go after Jews. Eliza and I had been together all day but it was time for her to go home. I walked her back to her house and nothing seemed out of the ordinary at that time. I was just walking up to my uncle’s house when all of a sudden I heard a ruckus. I could hear people shouting around the block so I quickly ran over to look. A few teenagers were standing over an older gentleman, hurling slurs at him and were kicking while he was on the ground. Then they all picked him up off of the ground and threw him through a shop window. I was frozen in place with the utter shock of what just happened. The group of teenagers started laughing and then they turned and jogged away whooping and shouting with joy. My brain suddenly snapped back into place and I ran over to the gentleman. He looked like he would be the same age as my grandpa, with white hair and fragile bones.

  He was laying on the floor, but luckily he was still alright. He looked up when he saw me coming, “No, please! I didn’t do anything
! I was just closing my shop for the night!” He thought I was coming to beat him up even more. “Sir, I’m not gonna hurt you, I came to see if you were alright. I just saw what happened.” He slowly pulled himself up from the floor; scrapes and cuts littered his hands and face. “I think I’m okay, I..I just need to get home to my family, to make sure they are okay.” I helped him out of the store and took a glance back at the building. It was a restaurant that I went to a couple of times with my family when we came to visit my uncle. I knew a Jewish man owned it, and back then, that was never a problem. Now people have gone crazy.

  I walked him back to his home as fast as his old legs would hobble. On the way there it was like the war had hit the streets. There was broken glass everywhere, people were laying on the ground moaning with pain, even more frightening, some were completely silent. Some buildings were on fire, people were screaming. It was something out of a nightmare. We came around another corner and saw that same group of teenagers painting “Death to the Jews” on another building. Might heart jumped in my chest and I immediately steered the man back in the other direction. It took us quite a long time to get back to his building because we had to get around so many fires and away from groups of the Jewish hating germans. After I saw him get into his building safely, a horrific realization came to me. Eliza was probably in trouble, and with all that I had seen who knows what could have happened to her and her father was a doctor so a lot of people knew of their family. I had to get there and make sure she was okay. I took off as fast I could, tearing through the streets. Luckily nobody was coming after me that night since I was german so I was able to pass through the streets without any problem. I came to her father’s office building, or I should say where the office building used to stand because there was nothing left but flames and rubble. My heart leaped into my throat, and I couldn’t breathe. I had to get to her as fast as I could. So I took off again sprinting the whole way to her house.

  After an eternity I reached the house, and to my immense relief, the house looked untouched. I slowed my pace down as I reached the front door and knocked on it. I waited a little while and there was no answer, so I knocked again, “Eliza, open up it’s me!” There was still no answer, so I finally just turned the handle and opened the door. Walking inside I started noticing something didn’t seem right. It was so quiet inside, not even the sound of chatter, or music or anything. There was food still on plates at the dinner table, the fireplace was lit, the lights were on but there was nobody inside. “Hello! Eliza!” Still no answer. I continued to search the house from room to room, scouring it from top to bottom, waiting for any sign of where they were. I spent over an hour searching the place over and over again, but could not find anybody. Finally, I gave up. I figured their family must have left when the chaos started, to get somewhere safer. I walked through the front door and back into the chaos. I took a left out of her house and started walking down the street. I was about halfway back home when I witnessed something I will never forget. That same group of teenagers from before, all perfect Aryans to Hitler, were standing around a little kid, poking him with a stick that was glowing red with embers at the end. The boy was probably only six years old or so, he had dark brown hair and a long sharp nose.“Haha stupid little Jew boy, does that hurt?” Then they held the stick on his arm and the poor boy let out a shriek, from the pain of his flesh being burned. I couldn’t take it any longer. I ran right up to the group, and they all turned to look at me and the teenager with the burning stick said, “You almost missed the fun, we were about to teach this kid a lesson.” Then he reached his arm out to hand me the stick. This idiot thought I was coming to join in on the crazy excursion to hurt people.

  I took the stick, and without thinking I whacked that stupid smirk right off the teenager’s face. The stick connected perfectly with his cheek whipping his head to the side and sending spittle flying. Then he fell to the ground in a heap unmoving. Then I started wildly swinging at the rest of the teenagers too, and I realized I was screaming too. “Get out of here you crazy jerks!” Their eyes filled with fear of the crazy kid flailing a burning stick in their face, and they all turned and ran. The little boy was still standing behind me when I was done. “Are you okay? How is your arm?” The little boy didn’t even respond he just ran up and hugged me. “It’s okay now. Do you want me to take you home?” He nodded yes, so I took his hand and off we went.

  We kept to the shadows so nobody else would see us and harass us. We weaved through the streets, ducked behind garbage and rubble, and slunk our way across town. We finally got to where he said he lived but the building was crumbled to the ground. I had no idea what to do. I had nowhere to take this kid and I couldn’t bring him home because my uncle would go nuts. We couldn’t just stay standing in the street so I just picked a direction and hoped an idea would pop in my head.

  We walked down the street for a while, but I knew we couldn’t just walk in a straight path forever. I decided to take a random turn to the right deeper into the Jewish neighborhood, hoping something better would come to mind. I was going to ask an adult for help, but it was a ghost town. If a building was not broken into or burning, it was completely dark and silent. There didn’t seem to be a single soul in sight. This part of town was going to be no help. We turned around and decided to see if another section of the Jewish neighborhood would be a little more useful. Long story short… it wasn’t. There was so much loud chaos earlier in the night, but now it was nothing but an eerie silence. The little boy started to cry, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I almost wanted to cry too. I never thought I would witness such things in my life.

  I plopped down on the nearest step and just stared into space trying to process it all. The boy sat next to me and rested his head on my shoulder. He looked completely exhausted, and that's exactly how I felt too. I closed my eyes for just one second because they just felt so heavy, and the next thing I knew I was jolted awake by a thunderous crash. The building down the street had just started tumbling to the ground, the blaze of the fire finally too much to handle. The boy was somehow still sleeping so I scooped him up and left to find a safer place to go. He was surprisingly easy to carry because he was so thin and light. I just picked a direction and started walking.

  After about ten minutes of walking I heard some voices. I couldn’t make out what they were saying so I crept a little closer as they were just around the corner. I didn’t want to call out in case they were on a rampage to hurt more Jewish people like the other groups that were out this late. I kneeled behind a trash can with the boy still in my arms. The voice I heard was a woman that was hysterical and speaking in between sobs. “We..we ha... have to find hi...him he could be hurt!” She was being calmed by a gentleman that I assumed was her husband. “It’s going to be okay dear. We will find him. He is probably just hiding because scared from all of the chaos.” She didn’t seem convinced. “But you saw how people were acting tonight! If they saw a little Jewish boy wandering the streets alone, they probably took him, or hurt him!” I was about to turn around and walk the other way when I suddenly came to the realization that these people were probably looking for the boy I had in my arms.

  I jumped up and ran around the corner. The couple, now startled by my sudden appearance from around the corner, turned to me with fear in their eyes, and they were getting ready to run when they saw me carrying the boy, and let out a little gasp. “Abram!” She ran over and took the boy. Then she fell to her knees and sobbed. “Are you okay!” The boy finally woke from his sleep, and the moment he saw his mother he started crying too. He wrapped her up in a hug and didn’t let go for a very long time. When he finally did, he turned and pointed at me, “This man saved me from a group of mean people! They kept poking me and laughing, but this man came and beat them up for me!”

  The mother noticed the burns on the boy’s arms and started crying even harder. “H-how could they d-do that to a little b-boy for no reason!” The father bent down and gave his son a hug as well. Then he
got up and came over to me shake my hand. “Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to us.” He didn’t wait for me to say anything, he turned around and walked over to his wife and helped her to her feet. He took the boy from her arms and they walked away leaving me standing alone in the darkness, wondering where I was and how I was going to get home.

  I started wandering the streets aimlessly once again trying to find something familiar. The sun was already starting to come back up and I was so tired. I had been out all night helping people, and I just wanted to lie down, close my eyes, and get some much needed sleep. I took random turns down streets, walked countless blocks, and finally I saw something that caught my eye. The storefront ahead looked sort of familiar, but it was so broken and crumbling it was hard to tell. I went over to it and peeked inside. I noticed a bunch of flower petals strewn about and then it clicked! I was at the flower shop where I went with Eliza that day. It was right down the street from Hans’ old apartment. I finally knew how I was going to get home!

  I turned around to leave the flower shop when I was whacked straight in the face with something hard. My head snapped back, and I fell backward, tripped over the doorway and landed on my back with my head bouncing off the hard flower shop floor. I immediately grimaced and grabbed the back of my head. It was throbbing so bad I could hardly think. My face hurt really bad too, especially my nose which was now dripping blood like a fountain pours water. It reminded me of the time Hans and I had the fight right before our parents died. “Haha, how does it feel Jew lover!” I opened my eyes and sat up, and there in front of me was a teenager with a bruised cheek and a nasty burn that went from the side of his mouth, back to his ear. My head was messed up, but I somehow put two and two together and figured out It was that jerk that was picking on the little boy earlier in the night. The one I hit with the stick. I just couldn’t catch a break tonight.