Secrets

War chickens

The Germans had pulled their troops back and Europe was finally free. Everyone felled relieved but just as many had suffered from loses. Their houses had been bombed, their family members had died or they had survived concentration camps and now had to live with the scars. 

Many people just wanted to live in peace including me. I just wanted everything to get back to normal and maybe I could start at school soon. My family had survived the war and so had our house. We had survived on charity and from a local farmer who bred chickens. He provided us with eggs and meat and my dad worked for him in return. I never knew what my dad was actually doing at the farm. Before the war my dad had been a lawyer and he was never the handy type. I asked my stepmother why we couldn't visit dad on the farm and she told me it was tough work and he did not need a child around. I found it very unfair but one day my dad had a day off and told me he could take me to the farm. 

My first impression was that the farmer was a very unclean man. The dead chickens hang with no head from the ceiling and was surrounded by flies. The ground was covered in dirt and the hay was deep littered, meaning it was hiding deep layers of chicken feces underneath. It was disgusting but I did not dare to say anything as my dad would lose his job if I did. 

I wanted to pet the chickens and stepped on something covered in the hay. It cracked. I moved my foot and looked down. It was a skull. A human skull. I screamed and jumped a side. The chickens freaked out and flew out of the barn. The farmer laughed at me with his decaying teeth. "Do you know what that is little lady?" he asked. I shook my head. "A rat that did not deserve to live anymore. German soldier. There are quiet a few around and what's better to use them for than food for the chickens?" he smiled insanely. "They are humans! They are people!" I kept screaming over and over again. "Your morals!" my stepmom said and hit my cheek. "They are Germans. They are nazi's we do not need them!" "They are not all bad!" I cried. I remember my friend Billie. He was a German soldier, just 19 and he had taught me so much. I was just 5 the first time I met him and I had been told Germans were monsters but he was not and neither were his friends. They had had no other choice than join the war. Billie was shot in the leg and dragged away by Russian soldiers. I don't know what happened to him but now 5 years later I was standing in a chicken barn with dead soldiers used for chicken food and now I understood that Billie had been killed. 

"Look at this one!" the farmer laughed and shot at a pile of hay "this one is still sweating!" he laughed and through the hay I could see a human silhouette, blood and sweat piled down his face and now the hay fled away with his sweat and I saw the tears in his eyes and his mouth which was stitched together. 

I ran away. I was going to take care of my self from now one and I would never ever eat chicken ever again!