Dear Stranger,
Today it's Adolf Hitler's birthday.
You must be wondering why I am telling this. There is only one reason why I am.
The world outside is celebrating. I hear cheers, I see children my age in beige Hitler uniforms, I hear people chanting, and I see the blood red flags mounted outside.
Yet, there is always one thing they all have in common—they wish to rot the Jews. They wish to kill and burn them with their bare hands. They wish to humiliate all of us and send us where we belong—in death camps.
This year the celebrations were more minimal, I suppose, than the one at the beginning of the Kanzlei. That's what Herr Steiner said. But it is still awful all the same.
The Steiner's left us alone for the celebrations so they wouldn't cause any suspicion, as you all know they're Nazis.
I don't like saying that word these dreadful days. It tastes bitter and disgusting. One day, I will make sure I never say Nazi again. I will dissect it and burn it like they do to us, and let it fly into the air.
And if I could, I would burn the Führer down, too. I would put him through all the ghettos and camps. I would teach him what it means to be a Jude. What it means to survive. What it means to live in fear. What it means to have the whole world against us. And I will make him suffer, just like he made us suffer.
Maybe I sound like a beast. I don't mind. They say Jews are the worst forms of beasts there are. Am I not doing my job?
—Etta
YOU ARE READING
The Sound of Silence
Historical Fiction"God had given us a miracle, and I wasn't sure there would be one next." Winter 1942, one of the coldest years in history. Hans Steiner, a man of his late thirties, looks through the iron fence, through the hollow eyes that follow him, and to the as...
