Chasing Colours

5. Demonstration

Soon after Hitler was appointed the Chancellor of Germany, many concentration camps were established across the state. The SA, the SS, the police, and local civilian authorities organized numerous detention camps to incarcerate real and perceived political opponents of Nazi policy. The first concentration camp was set up in Dachau in 1933. Through the years, concentration camps sprouted like mushrooms across the nation. These camps became a base for torture, starvation and forced labor. The public was to be told that these camps were reformation centers where the people to be kept segregated from the Aryans. The conditions that followed were not a piece of necessary information.

The Jews remained the major victims in these camps later followed by the others categorized as "unwanted" by the state such as Romani people, mentally handicapped, political opponents and many more.

The Jew inhabited ghettos became areas of extreme poverty swarming with disease and starvation. The police showed no mercy at their execution. They were treated as vermins who had to be completely eliminated to in order to bring about a state of purity.

(Edith)

Sitting near my bedroom window, I watched airy snowflakes kiss the earth. The evening sky gave way for sparkling stars and for the moon stand with all its glory. The street below was buzzing like the humming of a swarm of bees.

Ingrid came running into my room, wearing her Nazi youth uniform calling me out to the street where a demonstration on Hitler's power and Nazi propaganda was to be held. They did this once in a while to gain more and more supporters.

I got up with a sigh and wearing my dark coat, I went out to the street along with my mother.

The audiences lined both sides of the street leaving a wide space in between for the Nazi youth to march ahead. My eyes darted towards the officials who stood with their hands clenched to fists at their sides and the red Nazi flag with its swastika waving proudly high in the sky, at the podium. The demonstration started with the German youth taking the pledge with their heads held high with pride. One of the officials spoke to the masses with his eyes devoid of emotions. He spoke of the justice and the opponents of the justice that deserved to be sacrificed for us to be happy.

He called the Jews, killers of Christ and as those who had taken away everything that belonged to us, Germans. Christ has blessed us with a chance to redeem ourselves by destroying that evil, he said. When he concluded, he was met with rounds of applause and screams from the audiences showing their hatred for the Jews and their support for Hitler as if he was some messenger of God.

This Jewish problem had become increasingly more serious in the past few months. A countless number of them had fled the country, some had gone into hiding and those who remained were dragged to the ghettos and later deported to the concentration camps. My father rarely spoke of the concentration camps. He said they were a place of rehabilitation and resurrection. Although deep within, I wished to know the horrifying truth that he was being forced to lie about.

The demonstration was over as quickly as it had started and I went back home as quietly as I had come. The thought of the camps and the deaths occurring was bothering me even more than before. Suddenly I was brought out of my thoughts as I felt a someone run into me. I winced in pain and looked up to see a blushing Gunter who was rubbing the back of his neck and murmuring a hundred apologies.

He probably wasn't out of his childhood trance yet.

I gave him a weak smile and assuring him that it was alright, I continued my way home.

I silently slurped my peas soup and made my way to bed. I looked at Ingrid in the bed beside mine, sleeping soundly. It was going to be another sleepless night for me.