Once
So yeah. Chrissi will recognize this, seeing as it was for our project that we turned in this morning. xD I KNOW IT'S CLICHE AND LAME, KTHX. But it sure is nice being able to write these things for fun without having to worry about how cliche we sound. As long as we get a good grade.

Anyway, this was for our World History project on the Holocaust, journal entries from the point of view of a Nazi guard. *shot* I KNOW. But they told us to do it. *points accusingly*

It makes me giggle, though, when I read it. That can't be good.



July 7th, 1941

I finally arrived at the camp earlier today, in the afternoon. There hasn't been very much time for me to take a look around yet, but the one of the first things I noticed was that the people were everywhere, all around me, colorless figures that meandered without any real purpose. What is it that they call this place...Mauthausen? It feels so odd, somehow, even though I have never really left Austria. I've never even left home, really, but everything here is so...different. I'm not sure what to think of it. Stepping out of the train here was an exhilirating experience, like having the breath knocked straight out of my lungs.

The people here, though... They are pouring into the camp by the hundreds -- even thousands, maybe. One of the guards says that it was not always this way, but things have gotten busier over the years. All around me, the Jews toil away. The Fuhrer has always said that the Jews are the reason we as a nation have suffered so much. But the place is so unsanitary, though our own quarters aren't so bad.

Some of the older guards are frightening -- cold, even to me. I wonder what it must be like for the Jews, who live at their mercy. It must be something like obeying the whims of a...a god, so detached that some of these men are. I wonder what it would be like, to be a prisoner here. What it would be like to be crammed into the barracks, living in a place such as this: a place completely devoid of any color. Brown and grey -- that's all there is. Perhaps, after a few weeks, even the sky seems to be overcast, veiled by the dust that seems so prevailent here in the camp.

Hah. Why am I wasting my time thinking about this? These are Jews: they don't deserve to live. They don't deserve our mercy.

But even so, I can't help but wonder...




March 1st, 1943

Things have changed. Around the camp, the atmosphere has tensed to a near-panic; recently, we received the means and orders to exterminate the prisoners in large groups -- thousands at a time. It was taxing at first, but there is no need for us guards to see the bodies of the dead after they're...well...dead, and I try my best to say away from the endless piles of corpses. Let the prisoners take care of their own.

However, I am not sure I am the same person I was two years ago. More and more of my fellow guards have that empty look in their eyes... The prisoners themselves, gaunt and wasted, seem like they have already died: pale ghosts that walk, talk, and sometimes -- but not always -- breathe. When I walk among them, I can feel them watching me. Their gazes are far from benevolent.

Wondering won't do anyone any good, even though I once thought it did. I am one of the their enemies, and while it may be true that I have never harmed any of them directly, I am still one of those who stand around and pretend to laugh as I watch them die. No doubt they would gladly watch me suffer, if I did not hold so much power over them. I have not even touched more than ten of them, ever.

What would happen if the tables were turned? If those Jews somehow found a way to free themselves and become our captors? I shudder to think what would happen if those haunted eyes were let loose upon us. This is bad enough, and there is that quaint smell in the air: it is not a stench, not quite, but it's sickly sweet, with just a hint of death. To remind all of us that this is far from over, perhaps.

Things have changed. I wonder...will they ever be the same again?




August 23rd, 1945

Everything is normal again. Even as I write this, I can't help but be surprised by how much things have returned to the way they once were, before the Jews and before the war. Before Hitler. I am an older, grimmer version of myself -- not necessarily crueler or even different, but accustomed to the horrors of the death camps. I have seen grown men break down and weep for the things we've seen -- and the things we've done. Perhaps first and foremost among these is what we failed to do.

A few months ago, while I had left to take a walk, the Allied soldiers had appeared out of nowhere to free the prisoners, killing the guards who resisted and arresting those who were too shocked to do anything but stand and stare -- or at least that's what I did. The events of that day still remain unclear, as the higher-ups seem to be reluctant to give any information to former Nazis.

Because of this, I am not sure what really happened that day. We were rounded up, locked up for some two weeks, and then released. The officers in charge were not with us. Sometimes, I wonder what happened to them; other times, I realize that it is best not to think about what is over, and many of those officers we are better off without.

Now, I have returned home, where I am welcome. My parents and siblings still tiptoe when they are around me, as if they are afraid to anger a bear. They think I have changed, but have I, really? What do they see in me that is so frightening? Helping out around the flower shop is not as tedious as I once thought it was; soon I will be ready to take over the family business, and there is a young woman about my age who stops by here occasionally.

Things will be better this time around -- I'll make sure of it.