Hope

Buchenwald 

Concentration Camp 

December 1944

Many hours have passed. Milo and Fritz still stand in the courtyard — their punishment: the brutality of being still. One might imagine that standing for hours in one spot isn’t as terrible as it sounds, but after a while, the body has a hard time taking it. 

If it weren’t for the threat of being shot, Milo knows he would’ve probably given up hours ago. The threat of being shot, and the sake of the boy, of course. Fritz had been so ready to just let himself die earlier, but now as he eagerly listens to more of Milo’s story, he has a purpose to continue on. Stories, Milo thinks, one of the most primal things that makes us human. Everything else can be taken away — rights, dignity, even life — but stories remain as long as there are those who are willing to listen. 

“Leah had a way of putting others at ease,” he goes on, about his dance with his old friend. His love. He tries to blink away the wetness that comes to his eyes when he recalls it. “I … I think that was when I realized that she really was beautiful.” He closes his eyes. Maybe, just maybe, if he wishes hard enough, he could be back there again, all those years ago. 

“Milo?” Fritz asks, bringing him back to consciousness again. “Are you alright?”

“Hm? Oh, yes … I’m fine.” 

“Ugh!”

At the sound of the voice, both Fritz and Milo flinch. It’s the tall guard. The one with the white-blond hair and the cold, blue eyes. The one who Milo had “disrespected” the other day.

“You two are still alive?” the guard laments as he walks over to face them. “That’s unfortunate.” 

Fritz remains silent while Milo simply glares at him.

The guard smirks. “I’m here to let you know your punishment is over and to escort your pathetic arses to the mess hall.”

Fritz drops, his knees hitting the slushy ground with a splat. He cowers, and his shoulders shake as he cries in silent relief. Milo, on the other hand, remains defiantly standing. The guard just laughs. 

“You know what’s really funny?” He glances toward the nearest guard tower. “They told the sentry to release you an hour ago when his shift was up, but I decided to take over for him … just to watch the two of you stand here for a little while longer.”

Fritz looks up from the ground in sudden outrage. “An hour ago!?” Despite his best efforts to stop them, angry tears begin to stream down his face. 

Milo notices Fritz’s clenched fists and steps over to him. He places a hand on his shoulder. “Fritz … let’s go.” 

Milo helps the boy up, and they both limp after the guard. As Milo supports Fritz in his walking, Fritz continues to sob furiously.

“I would just kill him if I could,” he whispers, staring daggers into the guard’s back.

“Don’t worry,” Milo replies. “They’ll all get what’s coming to them.”

“I hope I’m alive to see it.”

“You will be.”

*  *  *
The mess hall is crowded as ever — rows of plain tables filled with prisoners sitting elbow to elbow as they eat. Among them, Milo and Fritz sit huddled over their watery soup. As Fritz stirs his around, he suddenly laughs.

“I can actually see meat in it this time,” he rejoices. “And a carrot! I got a carrot!”

Sure enough, bobbing on the surface of the fetid-looking liquid is one sad slice of carrot. Fritz looks as if he might start crying again, but this time, for joy. Milo places a hand on his shoulder. He gets up from his seat, holding his own empty bowl.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells Fritz. “I’ve got to return my bowl real quick.”

Milo makes his way over to a counter where a prisoner who works in the mess is collecting all the dishes. He is a middle-aged man with dark eyes and tattered wire-rimmed glasses, and Milo has seen him many times before in the months that he’s been here, but this is the first time the man speaks to him. 

“You are the one they punished for speaking up for that boy, aren’t you?” The man’s voice is quiet, but has a sense of urgency.

Milo hesitates, uncertain of whether or not he wants to get involved with whatever the man is trying to do. Even though the man’s patch indicates he’s a political prisoner, for all Milo knows, he could still be in with the guards and the kapos. Something in the back of Milo’s mind makes him reconsider though. “The word’s really gotten around, hasn't it,” he replies. 

The man leans forward. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard the guards babbling about the Americans’ advance.”

Milo scoffs a bit. It’s all the guards can seem to talk about as of late — the fact that Germany is losing the war on both fronts. They don’t discuss it too openly, more so in nervous whispers, but Milo is observant and has tried to gather as much information as he can.

“Sure, a little,” he says casually. “What of it?”

“Since the Allies have taken back France, it seems that Belgium and the Netherlands are next. Then …” The man leans a little closer “…there’s nothing to stop them from marching into Germany … and finding us…”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“A bit of hope is in order, and — I suppose — a bit of resistance. I hear tell that sort of thing is a specialty of yours.”

Milo’s eyes narrow. “Maybe it is,” he admits. 

The man nods his head toward the table where Fritz sits. “What about the boy?”

“I don’t know. He’s a deserter from the Wehrmacht, and he’s been brainwashed most his life to serve the Führer.” Milo pauses, considering all the things he has  told Fritz about the truth, and how he still wants to hear the story about why Milo would become a traitor. He thinks about earlier — Fritz’s rage about the guard relishing in their misery. “But I see a lot of anger in him over their betrayal in sending him here,” he says.

“Anger is good.” The bespectacled man smiles. “We should all be angry. All of Germany has been betrayed by them.”

Milo nods, exchanging a meaningful look with the man.

“Keep your eyes and your ears open.”

“I always do,” Milo says.

The next morning comes, just as all the mornings before it, early and unwelcome way before the sunrise. Milo leans over to shake Fritz awake, but he doesn’t respond. Milo shakes him harder only to be met with a groan.

“Come on, Fritz, it’s time to get up.”

The boy groans more and tries to move, but it seems that he can’t. Milo places the back of his hand against Fritz’s forehead, the same way his mother used to do for him when he’d been sick as a child. Fritz’s forehead is clammy and feverish. 

“Oh, no,” Milo utters under his breath. 

There is shuffling as other prisoners throughout the barracks begin to wake up. Then the sounds of the guards’ boots stomping. It’s the tall blond guard again, along with his dark-haired partner, the dog handler. 

“Rise and shine, you Schweinehunde!” the tall guard shouts as he pounds on the bunks while passing them. 

The other prisoners are well along their way of getting up and filing out of the barracks, but Milo remains, kneeling next to Fritz as he lies motionless in the very bottom bunk where they’d crammed in the night before. He worries that if he leaves Fritz in this state, it will be the last time he ever sees him alive. 

Milo can feel the presence of the tall guard as he steps behind him, but he doesn’t move. 

“Ugh … you again,” the guard says. “This is getting exhausting.”

Milo looks over his shoulder to frown at him.

With a snarl, the guard rips Milo up off the ground by his arm. “Get up! It’s time to get to work.” The guard notices Milo’s distraught glance back at Fritz. He laughs wickedly. “Don’t fret. He’ll stay here with all the other sick ones, and maybe if you’re lucky, he’ll still be alive when you get back. I doubt it, though.”

The guard continues laughing at the thought of this as he drags Milo past the other guard, whose dog fights against the chain around its neck. Milo can feel the shepherd’s hot breath at his ankles as it tries to bite him. He attempts to catch one last glimpse back at Fritz, but it’s no use, as he is shoved out the door and into the cold, dark morning air. 

After eating quickly, Milo rushes from the mess hall back to the barracks. The night is dark, the sky black with clouds as another cold front rolls in. Milo’s heart pounds and he prays that Fritz is still alive when he gets back. He holds three carrot slices salvaged from this evening’s soup. They feel slimy and mushy in his hand. 

Finally, he makes it back to the barracks to find Fritz still lying in the bottom bunk where he was before. It looks as if he has scarcely moved, and Milo’s heart sinks. He kneels down, patting Fritz’s shoulder with his free hand. Fritz’s eyes flutter open, and relief washes over Milo. 

“Fritz,” he says. “I wasn’t supposed to, but I brought you some food from the mess.”

“You did?” Fritz smiles softly. “What is it?”

“Just three pieces of soggy carrot I picked out of my soup. It was the only thing in it, but at least it’s something.” 

Fritz chuckles. “I love carrots … thank you.”

Milo opens his hand to give the carrots to Fritz, who eats them slowly. “Are you feeling any better?” he asks him.

“A little.” 

Milo hunches down, grimacing at the soreness in his body as he crawls into the bunk to lie down too.

“What did they make you do today?” Fritz asks.

“Shovel out more ice, snow, and mud. And that one guard was there the entire time.”

“Ugh … I hate him.” Fritz sighs in an attempt to quell the loathing he feels. The two of them lay there for a while, listening as everyone around continues to chatter indistinctly. 

“I’ve been thinking about something for a bit,” Fritz says eventually, after he’s finished his last carrot slice. “In your story — when you say you were friends with Jews, that’s really true?”

Milo leans over to glance at him, curiosity in his green eyes. “Yeah, of course.” 

“It didn’t make you nervous — with how they are and all?”

“What do you mean by that?”

Fritz nervously wrings his hands. “I mean — like — how everyone says they’re liars, and cheaters, and that all they care about is money —”

Milo interrupts Fritz with a scoff and a shake of his head. “Those are just lies made up by people who’re afraid of anyone different than them.”

For a long moment Fritz stares at Milo before looking back down and continuing his awkward fidgeting.

“Fritz, have you ever even known someone who is Jewish?” Milo stares over at him pointedly. 

Fritz shrugs. “No, I suppose not. The town I grew up in is small. We didn’t have any — any of them around. I guess there were lots in Cologne, but we hardly ever went into the city unless we had to.”

“Then all you know is what hateful people have told you to think.”

Fritz gulps, filled suddenly with shame. “I guess you’re right. I think the only Jews I’ve seen are some of the prisoners here — you know, with the star patches.”

They fall silent again, while Fritz thinks about what Milo has said, and Milo wonders if anything about his story has even gotten through to him. But he decides some of it must have, because it isn’t long before Fritz is asking about it again. 

“I know it’s a little late,” he says, “but do you think we could continue with more of your story?”

“Sure. What part was I telling you about again?”

“I think you were about to dance with Leah.”

“Oh yes.” A soft smile comes to Milo’s lips. “Yes, I was.”