A Good Nazi? by David Canford

Author:David Canford [Canford, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-05-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Torsten took him down the side of the building, out of sight of the watchtower and its rotating searchlight.

“They’re going to march you to Auschwitz before the Russians get here. Those that don’t die on the way, they’ll kill when they get there. I’m on duty tonight. I’m going to cut a hole in the fence, over there.” He pointed to the spot. “When the guard up in the tower with me takes a break, I’ll switch the searchlight off temporarily. You’ll have a chance to get out. Go East, the Russians can’t be far away. Take as many with you as you can.”

“You know they’ll kill you for this.”

“They won’t know I did it.”

Jozef walked away a little, but then turned.

“Thank you.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for. You were a true friend. I let you down. Now get back in before anyone sees us.”

When Jozef had gone, Torsten double checked no one else was in the vicinity and once the beam of light had passed, he raced over to the fence and cut the lowest line of barbed wire in two places.

That evening he stood up in the watch tower, waiting. It was well gone midnight until the guard he was with excused himself for a few minutes. Once he was out of sight, Torsten shut off the beam.

He hoped Jozef was ready to go. He didn’t intend to leave if off for long. If the other guard came out before he put it back on, saying the spotlight had malfunctioned would sound extremely suspicious once any escape was discovered.

Torsten could only wait a few minutes. They would just have to be quick. He rubbed his clammy palms together, counting the seconds.

Right. Time to turn it back on. The beam was just passing the opening in the fence as he did so. Torsten thought he could see people still queuing to get under, but the beam moved on. When it reached that point again, there was nothing to see.

He smiled. Surely he’d done it. Freed Jozef and hopefully many more.

At the early morning briefing, he stood to attention with the other guards as his brother gave orders. They were moving out that very morning.

At roll call no one from Jozef’s hut emerged. Franz was enraged.

“Get them out. Now!”

Two female guards hurried over. Torsten saw Franz had taken out his pistol, doubtless determined

to shoot those who remained for being late.

Moments later the two women returned holding a man under his arms and dragging him along. He was clearly too sick to walk unaided.

“They’ve all gone apart from this one,” said one of the women.

“What do you mean they’ve gone?”

“Their beds are empty.”

“What happened?” Franz demanded of the man.

He said nothing.

“You will answer me!”

He hit his head with his pistol. The man’s forehead began bleeding from the gash inflicted and his head flopped forward. Franz shot him and the women let him fall to the ground as though they had accidentally picked up a piece of dog shit.

“Excuse me, sir.”

A nervous voice spoke up from the rank of prisoners.

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