I have seen her again today. She always sits on the bench under the big oak tree below eternal orange skies every afternoon. She often carries a book to read. Sometimes, she pauses reading and fishes a handkerchief inside her purse to wipe her tears. On other times, she giggles every now and then, with her eyes sparkling along the leaves that fall down on her. I never skip going to this abandoned playground every Thursday afternoon just to see her beautiful face. She has Russian eyes and Caucasian complexion, but her beauty is something that springs genuinely from Polish valleys. I have been here watching over her for over a year now since we migrated here in Poland. I know every single thing about her. There is however one big problem. I don’t exist in her small world.

                I have seen him again today. I always go to this abandoned playground every Thursday afternoon just like how my father used to bring me here when he talks about a danger I could never understand as a toddler. This guy reminds me of my father. Every time I hear footsteps after few minutes of reading my book, I know that this lad who speaks German is here again. His right eye that slowly peeks in my direction, behind this old shattered wall in front of me, is the only eye that sees the real me. He saw all the times when the stories on the book made me cry. He saw all the colors of the hankies I brought every single week. He saw all the times I laughed and I know that he laughed at me as well. He has glossy hair unlike any other normal guy in town. He likes wearing a cap and a khaki jacket. I never really saw his whole face. I wonder if he is German because of the inscription on the military cap he often wears. For over a year of staying behind that wall waiting for me to finish reading my book, I feel like he is guarding me. I am glad that he exists in my small world.

February 3, 1941

                This week, she has been acting strange. She doesn’t seem to start reading a book now. She did not even bring one. She had already been crying when I saw her walk in and sit down. There is something unexplainable with the sound of her sobbing. It is not like what I heard before. This sound speaks of unanswered prayers and lost love. She couldn’t be abandoned by her parents, could she? It’s too unlikely for an innocent lady like her to have menacing problems. I remember this feeling. It is like what I felt when we left Germany because my father said that Poland would be safer. It pained me to leave my own country. My mother’s siblings and their children are here to be with us but my father is preoccupied with serving our nation. I can never understand why my father and his pals in the military have to be violent. I don’t get why they kill other people, especially the Jews. Some of my Jewish classmates were forced to stop schooling. Their parents, lawyers and doctors among others, were dismissed from German civil service. My mother also said that Jews are enigmatic, mythical, and sinful forces that play a disturbing role in human existence. Jews, as she also said, are the reasons why Germany lost a war in 1918. It was a custom for us pure Germans to believe in that. I am left with no reasons to hold on to.   I take a long breath and start thinking deeper. Is this the right time to go to this woman and talk to her? I want to know her name. I want to tell her that she has a friend who has been clandestinely watching over her. I do not have other friends here but I cannot go to her either because of the very reason why I kept silent all this time. I am afraid that she doesn’t speak German. We would not understand each other. With that, we never would.

                 When will my father come back? News this noon made me cry. My friend said that some people in Belarus were killed by invaders. All males were shot immediately. Women and children drowned in the swamps because they were driven out there by aggressors. I pray to God that my mother be safe and away from these attacks. It has almost been two years since she went back to Belarus to get her younger brothers with their respective families and bring them here in Poland. Father has almost run out of reasons to answer my younger sisters’ endless questions about our mother’s homecoming. Life has been a misery. My father asked me to stay here and never go back to the ghetto again. He asked me to stay here and wait until he comes back. What if my relatives were attacked and taken to those “evil” places as the rumors say in the ghetto?  I am trembling with fear and anxiety over something I have asked myself for so long. Why do they want to kill us Jews when what we only do is live our lives normally? Why do many people believe that Jews are not human and that we use magic to appear like ordinary people? Why do Christians blame us for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ? Why do they encourage pogroms, anti-Jewish mob attacks that spare no single Jew in the scene? I am only left with the excruciating pain that makes me weep way down deep. Will the world ever be fair? I hear noise as that guy behind that shattered wall moves. I want to talk to him right now. I want to tell him all my frustrations. I just want someone to listen to the backstories of this agony. Would this guy even care to listen? Or to speak? Can he speak Polish as well aside from German? If he doesn’t, it would still be fine. I just need someone to sit here beside me. Even for just a short moment.

                        I finally made up my mind. This is the time I always feared but I also dream very often. With the slightest strength I have left, I now stand up and take few steps that could change my life forever. Time seems to stop. I wish it does. I pray this that this moment will last. I can see her now, just perfectly in front of me. We are only eight yards away from each other. Her face is still buried in her palms as she continues lamenting her loneliness. One footstep and this could be the start of a fantasy. I take another step. This could be the chance for a fairy tale. “Sarah, where are you?” I hear an anxious and stern voice speaking in Polish. She refrains from crying and quickly searches for the voice. I hurry back and hide behind the shattered wall. “Papa”, she says as she tightly caresses the tall man with beard and with eyeglasses but in ragged striped shirt. In a scared voice, the man answered, “We are not safe anymore. Everyone in the ghetto will be brought to the camps. I’ll first go fetch your sister and cousins first.” I never understand a single Polish word from what he just said but I can sense the uneasiness and dread spreading all over the abandoned playground. A sound of rage surfaces like thunder. I cover my ears and look at both of them. Her father takes her by the hand and they start running fast. This must be something. Sarah, this must be something.

                        I finally hear the voice I have long waited to hear. Papa comes in haste with his eyes swollen and his clothes all torn. He is now saying words that seem to stop my heartbeat. He says we are no longer safe. We will be brought to the evil camps. Our time has finally come. That guy behind that wall, I never even had a chance to see his face. I will leave this playground. I will leave him. I may never have a chance to come back again. In no time, bullets start cracking in the skies. Instead of looking up, I start crying then I embrace my father again. He tightly does the same thing to me. “God will guide us”, he whispers in order to comfort me. When the firing slows down, my father takes my hand and pulls me. We both know that lives are at stake in the minutes to come. We then start running for our lives. This must be something. This could be the end of everything.

                The next series of events falls like a frightful slide show for the senses. She runs fast with her father. I follow them quick. When they reach the streets, her father whispers something to her. He points a space between two small homes few blocks on the left. She paces quick to that space her father pointed and heads somewhere I cannot see from here. I stand behind a closed store with broken glasses on the pavement. Later, I see people, crying, restless and disheartened people, running fast in almost all directions. Bullets are fired again and they are now louder than before. I secure myself in a large wooden stall near me. The lady’s father seems to be looking for some people as he paces back and forth along the stampede of people. Those people are Jews, I suppose. Some military men must be coming. I see a kid left behind by his mother and is crying out loud not far from me. I decide to go out of the stall to take the child away from the streets but when I call his attention, a bullet from nowhere takes him down. Blood spills over the roadway and people even get more terrified and screaming. This is my first actual death encounter. Startled, I do not even notice people with guns coming in. They are in brown suits, with unforgiving faces, and familiar caps. Those caps! It’s the cap I am wearing right now, the cap my father gave me. Germans! My own people are killing these innocent people in this town of Auschwitz. My own people!

                The pounding of my heart makes it hard for me to think of something peaceful as father and I reach the streets. I almost let go of my purse along the way. I see many people coming from all directions. “You’ll find an underground staircase at the back of the Jewelry Store of Mr. Heine. Light the lamp on the small room there below and wait for me. Run! ”, father’s words are crystal clear but I refuse to follow him. He grips my shoulders tighter and without a word, I just run away to where he pointed. While I run toward the block, I recognize the people who are coming. They are just like me and my family – frightened and deprived Jews. I promise myself not to look back anymore. The first bullet is fired. I stop and pace back to see what is happening on the streets. There is blood in the sidewalk and the people are now rushing without direction. The firing gets worse and the blend of the noises of the people’s commotion and the never-ending bullets is horrendous. I see my father earnestly looking for my relatives. When he halts in my direction, we both see German military men walking in. He signals by waving his hand. I know what he means. With little faith, I continue heading to the underground room of Mr. Heine. Tears sway away with the wind while I run fast. I cannot bear anymore that this town of Oswiecim will lose all guiltless and harmless Jews. Poland will lose all these people. My own people!

                While the German military is busy on driving out people, I run fast to where she ran a moment ago. Some Jews are already on their knees but the military men do not see my movements. This narrow space is long, cold and dark. I wonder where this will lead me. After few minutes, I hear the sound of chains falling on the ground after a loud burst of the closing of a wooden door. The echo is still fresh and I see a dead end near. However, I do not see her. Is she inside this down below? She must be inside.

                I feel like someone is following me. There are extra noises other than my own footsteps. There! I finally see the wooden door with chains that are not tied. I hurry opening it and immediately go down the stairs. I need to slow down because there is not a single light in the room. When I finally touch the lamp after a minute of blind searching, I twist the trigger of the lamp then it lights up. There is a couch with a cabinet behind full of books and old photographs. I take a deep breath and bury my face in the couch as I lay down. The events today are not that easy to forget. I need to calm myself. When I take a long deep breath again, I hear the door slam once more. I tremble with fear to see who is coming. I slowly walk toward the lamp to turn it off. But before I do so, he is already there standing.

                After my final step down the stair, she is already standing near the lamp that illuminates the room. She bows her head down.  “Fur angst haben”, I tell her not to be afraid of me. She heads to the couch and bury her face with her hands. I speak as I point myself, “Michael, Michael”. I hope she understands. She looks at me now still trembling. She points herself as well, “Sarah, Sarah”. I hold her hands to comfort her. Why does she seem to know who I am? Did she know all along that I have been there with her in the abandoned playground? She lets go of my grip and searches for her purse. She fishes something inside and hands it to me. It is a photograph – my father’s photograph! I thought I lost this photograph that I always put in my pocket. There! She knew it all along! She found out that I have been with her during those Thursday afternoons. She knew it since then! Despite all the horrors moments ago, being with this lady is something that is very comforting. We start acting like we have been friends for a long time. I hold her in my arms. She leans her head down on my shoulders. This moment now feels like forever.

                So it’s the guy from the abandoned playground. I feel relieved but I still bow down my head. I do not know what to say to him. He speaks in German now. I believe he said that he is harmless. I cannot stay standing for long. My knees are still trembling. I head back to the couch and close my eyes. “Michael, Michael”, he says while he points himself. So he is Michael. He is that guy who used to guard me back there in that old playground. I remember the photograph that he left there once. I was going home when I passed by the shattered wall and found it. It is a photograph of someone from the German military. Even if I fear the Germans, this guy is worth all the tolerance for his case. I believed that it is his father’s photo. I get it from my purse and hand it back to him. He looks very surprised. I thought he would be mad but he is now wearing a smile. A smile! I never even saw a single smile or a smallest avail of happiness today. Michael widens his arm and starts rubbing my back. This is what I used to feel back when I was a child, crying my pain away with my father. I lean down my head to his shoulders. I feel like I am home. Few minutes later, violent knocks on the door above disrupted our silence. Thereafter, a body of a man rolled down the stairs. Boom! I see my father’s left eye shot and his entire body all drenched in his own blood. I hurry to wake him up. I shout his name out loud but he just doesn’t breathe anymore. My tears and his blood are already mixing on the floor. Another footsteps in the stairs then I first see boots, bloodstained pants and a pistol. When I look at the man’s face, I easily recognize his eyes. He is the same man in the photograph I handed to Michael a while ago. There’s no mistaking it! I turn my back and see Michael crawling towards me with a blank facial expression. When he reaches out to me, another bullet was shot. Another blood spilled over the floor. I feel like the room is turning into dark again. Did they turn the lamp off just like how they ended the lives I always treasure?

                “Papa!” I called my father aloud when he pulled the trigger of his pistol. I feel like the room is turning into dark. Did somebody turn the lamp off just like how they ended the lives that are treasured? Or is there even a single life in this world worth taking away?#