Excerpt: Liberate Me

We stood there for an eternity, sub zero statues waiting for orders. No one dared move. It was a cold night and I shivered. My breath clung to the frigid air. Behind me a couple spoke.
"What is this place?"
"I don't know...I can't read the sign from here. Let me get a closer look."
"No!" The first voice hissed. "Don't move!"
The man laughed sarcastically under his breath. "What are they going to do, shoot me?"
And so he began to push past us toward the edge of the cluster.
"Elijah, no!"
"You! Stand still!" This order came from an officer, his eyes followed the man as he ventured out to the edge of the group.
We called for him to come back, quietly, as if we were hoping the officers wouldn't hear us talking but it was like he was deaf.
I turned away quickly and covered my ears just in time to ear the punch of a single gunshot. Heavy mass hit the soft ground with a sickening thump.
I turned my head to see her shaking, her hands covering her mouth. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and her mouth opened like she was going to speak but no words came out.
The officer scanned our faces to see if there was going to be any more trouble before he put away his hand gun and resumed his hands to their normal resting position behind his back.
"You are now in Buchenwald. Let that," his eyes shifted toward the body of the man laying in the mud, "be a warning to all of you. Now run! Run!"
We were forced to run until our bodies ached and our breath wheezed and sputtered. The officers struck out at random. It didn't matter what we looked like or how old we were. We were Jews. To them, we were all vermin.