Those memories, they are the coals that shield my heart from frost.
The old man nodded. “There’s a saying, ‘Death hath a thousand doors to let out life; I shall find one.’ We all have a door that waits. I know that. I accept it. But the children. That’s what I struggle with.
She must have been a nurse. She looked a few years older than me. Pretty. Naturally pretty, the type that’s still attractive, even more so, when she’s filthy.
We the survivors are not the true witnesses. The true witnesses, those in possession of the unspeakable truth, are the drowned, the dead, the disappeared. – Primo Levi.
Silence has a voice of its own.
You see, fear is a hunter. It encircles us when we are unarmed and least expect it. And then we are forced to make decisions.
But unlike Mama, I would not go to heaven. My secrets padlocked the gates. I’d be a torn kite stuck in the dead branches of a tree, unable to fly.
My arm began moving, turning the invisible crank of Death’s music box. Somewhere inside, I didn’t want the melody to end.
Through hardship to the stars.
I clung to books and words because, unlike people, they’d never abandon me.
He doesn’t carry the disease of fear.” “It’s easy to be fearless when you have nothing to lose,” says Julia.
Terror was out there. And it chased us.
I didn’t need his criticism. I carried enough guilt on my own. I had done everything wrong. I had the highest marks in school but couldn’t master common sense.
More than ten thousand people had been on board the Gustloff. The gruesome details of the sinking would be reported in every world newspaper. The tragedy would be studied for years, become legendary.
And there Emilia rests. She is safe. She is loved. Affectionately, Clara Christensen.
Some were desperate to remember and others were desperate to forget.
Papa said scientists speculated that from the moon, the earth looked blue. That night I believed it. I would draw it blue and heavy with tears.
The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is the deadliest disaster in maritime history, with losses dwarfing the death tolls of the famous ships Titanic and Lusitania. Yet remarkably, most people have never heard of it. On January 30, 1945, four torpedoes waited in the belly of Soviet submarine S-13.
Perhaps tomorrow I would actually put pen to paper.
And so I confess, dear Padre, that I feel confused. Fuga is gone. Taken by a bullet. I should feel guilty and full of fear. But somehow, I feel more connected to my friend and more proud of him than ever. Fuga never compromised. He never apologized for who or what he was. His difficult past was not a burden to him but an inspiration.