Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Allowed - Aloud (01/05/23)
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TITLE: And We Will Win | Previous Challenge Entry
By Hannah Gaudette
01/12/23 -
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Burn the books. Shun the Jews. Be Hitler’s youth.
Why does it hurt so much to be German now? Is this what we stand for?
My Mutter and Vater don’t teach us to hate. Why should the leader of our country?
I leave the street before the man is done speaking. I want to go home, to tell my vater of what I’ve heard. It is too heavy on my heart to bear it alone.
Snow is tumbling in dainty flakes around our apartment. The calm scene contradicts the raucous crowd I left. I step inside to the welcoming embrace of a warm home, a family that is together.
My Mutter has set a table with a stew made from whatever she could piece together.
I look up into my Vater’s face. His strong features are grim. “Did you . . . hear?” I ask. “About the speech?”
“Yes. Hitler is calling for the youth to join his movement.”
“He is smart to do so,” my Mutter calls from where she stands over the stove. “It is the children who direct our country’s future.”
Those angry children will direct our future? That scares me as much as anything else.
“But there is more, Lina.”
I look up into Vater’s grave eyes. “What?”
“Otto has been conscripted.”
What? Otto? My dear, dear Bruder? This cannot happen. “But . . . he can’t go and fight for those murderers.”
“Lina,” my Mutter scolds. “Careful what you say.”
“But we must speak the truth!” I cry.
“Nein, Lina.” Vater takes me gently by the shoulders. “Sometimes . . . we must not. No good will come from it.”
“But-”
“Listen to me. You wish to speak against what Hitler is doing. That is brave - and foolish. You cannot silence a lion, meine Tochter.”
“But if no one speaks, he might never be stopped.” Tears press into my eyes. “And Otto . . .” I know he shares my fear for Otto. “Vater, bitte. We must do something.”
“Nein, Lina, we must not. We will not.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Six months later, Otto’s body is returned to us, to be buried near the lake he used to love. Vater is silent. Mutter cries. I rage. Hitler did this. The Wehrmacht did this.
I slip into Otto’s old room when my Vater turns out the last light. I find his paper and pen. With a savage heart, I write. I spill my anger, my vengeance, and all the truth I was not allowed to speak. When it’s finished, I feel as though I’ve complied every crime I know committed by the Fuhrer. I’ve purged myself.
But only I will ever read it.
Unless . . .
A thrill of fear races through me.
I pick up my pen once more. With a racing heart, I make copy after copy of my forbidden notes. I whisper the crimes aloud as I write them, the spoken word freeing me.
There. They are done. And I will place them in every mailbox, set them on every post, rain them from every window until this war is over and Otto’s spirit avenged.
I know my Vater fears for my safety. But my safety is secondary.
Victory is paramount.
Und wir werden gewinnen.
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