Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 3 2018 | Page 38

The War in my Heart
French International School, Bansal, Urvi - 12
M
y name is Fritz Godfrey and I am the unluckiest boy alive. It all happened in 1939. I was
a young boy of seven. I lived with my mother, two sisters, brother, and Aunt Dina, who had
come to live with us after my father had gone to war and died tragically; a hero's death, they
said. We all missed him terribly, but other than that, life wasn’t bad. My mother and Aunt Dina would give
me a hard look if I did something wrong, but it was always tempered with a hint of amusement on their
faces. They were happy simply to be alive.
Everyone was content. Until they came. The Nazis. That day is the only one I remember clearly from my
childhood. They told us we were one of the lucky villages. All the people in the villages around us had been
slaughtered. Not one survivor.
They took my brother and I along with some other children—the ones that looked strong. When they
picked us, my mother's stoic face crumpled. She sobbed uncontrollably. She begged them to take her
instead, pleaded them to spare us. I was young. Too young to witness what was going to happen.
They shot her. They shot my mother. The one who would feed me every day; the one who would carry
me to bed when I was too tired to walk up the stairs; the one who would look after me when I was sick and
tend to my scrapes and wounds. I sank to my knees, and like the pathetic little boy I was, who didn’t even
try to stop them killing my mother, I cried, tears streaming down my face, hatred flooding my heart. The
man who killed my mother, laughed. He turned to me and saw my face. For a moment, I saw him
hesitate—as if he feared my anger—but it was brief. I was trembling with fear, all the while; the tears an
uncontrollable river cascading downwards.
The man grabbed my hand roughly, then put my finger on the trigger of his gun.
“Who should we kill next,” he rasped.
“No!” I exclaimed, “Please. Nobody else.”
I glanced at my family, cowering in fear. A mistake on my part that I would regret forever.
“So, this is your family…” the man drawled.
He gestured to his men to prise my eyelids open. I yelled, I kicked, I struggled, but their iron grip held my
eyelids open steadfastly. The man told me that it was so I could see it when I killed my family. He put his
finger on mine and pulled the trigger.
I watched my sister Elisa fall to the floor. Then her twin Erika, and finally, my Aunt Dina.
“He didn’t even try to stop him.” the villagers’ eyes seemed to say. “Fritz Godfrey is a coward who killed
his own family," they looked accusingly. The entire village gawked, gasped and glared at me, and as the
lifeless, limp bodies lay on the ground, the red liquid trickled through the grass towards my shoes. I thought
my heart would explode. It was too much to bear.
After what seemed like hours, they let go of me and herded all the children on the first train to Chalbor.
They called it the Gates of Death. It was the worst place on Earth. We woke up at 3:00 every morning and
made weapons until 10:00, when we were to have breakfast. Whoever grumbled, was late, or was caught
talking ill about Hitler or another Nazi was sent to the torture chamber. For some, death didn't come easily.
If you didn’t die of pain or blood loss, you were killed in front of the camp.