Familiar Faces

Tamara and I walked until we reached the town of Grdnov. There were many injured people there, and so Tamara and I told one man that we would help, that we had been with a medical unit before.

Later, the man, named Captain Gebhardt strode up to us. He was very grateful for our help, and offered us food.

Outside of the town, there was fighting going on. One troop of young German soldiers began marching out, and its leader caught my eye. An all too familiar face was there. Dobelmann. He showed no sign of recognition, even if he did realize who I was.

As they were heading away, I called out, "Jakob!" I wanted to know if he were still alive. Most people ignored me, but one face, that was twisted and ruined stared back at me.

I and Tamara left on a train later with the injured people. Many others had been left behind, which did not seem fair. As we went along, more passengers came on. But Tamara and I left. We walked away into the woods.

We walked on some streets, where we were attacked by American soldiers who didn't know who we were. When they realized that we were "just kids" they took us to a hospital. But someone told me Tamara, a bundle on the ground was dead.

Later, in the hospital, I learned that I lost my arm. I still thought Tamara was dead, until she came up and visited me while I was getting better. She contacted my family and told them I was still alive, and I received a letter from them.

Truth

When Tamara and I woke up the next morning, she wanted to know how I had managed to get us free. Seeing no way out of the question, and trusting her, I told her my whole story, how I ended up pretending to be Alexandr.

When I was done, she seemed confused. She said she didn't know me, and she didn't understand how I would care so much for Russian veterans, and how I killed two Germans to protect two Russians. She didn't understand that I didn't see a difference.

Tamara slowly began to get sick, and we continued along on our journey. We stopped by farms, and asked where we were but most didn't trust us because they were Germans and we wore Russian clothes.

Eventually, we came across a town where we met an old German woman. Feeling as if we could trust her, we told her our story. She saw Tamara was sick and called someone to come help.

Somehow, while we stayed at Elena's, the woman's, house, Tamara and I grew very close to each other. We kissed one night.

The next night, the three of us were talking when we heard faint explosions. Tamara and I fled the town when we saw the Russians coming, and they obliterated the town.

Deaths

I grew close to Tamara. I would always be around her, especially helping her with medical stuff. But as I was talking to her one time, I learned that her father had died when she was much younger and all she had was a brother.

A few days later, she was holding a letter and she looked as if she had been crying. She told me her brother had died too.

But on the bright side for me, in a way, she had no boyfriend. The one everyone thought was her boyfriend happened to be her brother.

For a long time after that, Tamara wouldn't focus and she seemed lost. Then, Zoya slapped her and explained to her that she must concentrate, and slowly, Tamara became her normal self again.

I went to where she lived, with Zoya to pick her up. But while I was there, boiling water fell on my arm, and I screamed in pain, in German. Tamara was standing there then, and she panicked, not knowing who I was. She could tell I spoke German, but she kept quiet and didn't tell anyone anything.

Another inspection took place that day, and me and another person, Mikhos, were declared recovered and we were to be sent back to war.

Tamara came on the bus with us, and so did Zoya. Suddenly grenades hit the bus, and we scrambled out and started running in the forest. We lost Zoya and Mikhos, and out of the whole bus, only me, Tamara, and Sergo were left.

We, because of Sergo, decided to go to America. I knew it wouldn't be possible, we even had an ocean to cross to do that, but just to please him we said yes. We walked for a long time, then were attacked by Germans. There, Sergo left us, and Tamara and I were on our own.

The only reason we got free from them was because I spoke in German to them. Again, Tamara was frightened and she didn't know what to think of me. But she listened to me, and we got out safely.

Tamara

Days later, I learned that there was going to be an inspection. They would look for imposters, and soldiers who are laying in the hospital when they are well enough to go back to the fighting.

They did not come to me, though they made a huge scene of the other people that they did check. The rest of us watched, and when one man got a medal he didn't want, Tamara, a nurse was the only one who listened to him and took it off.

Tamara was really pretty and I had a crush on her. She knew I did, and many other soldiers did too. The doctors removed my abdominal bandaging, and Tamara helped. She talked to me a little, although she supposedly had a boyfriend.

Nikolai's legs were infected, and they both had to be removed. While, I was slowly beginning to walk again, I felt guilty about him not being able to.

Every now and then I would show signs of my coming out of amnesia, mostly because I would slip and make a mistake sometimes. I got a letter from Alexandr's parents, which made me feel guilty because I'd given them a false hope that their son was alive.

Tamara saw me read the letter and she saw that I was upset. When I told her, "I'm nobody," she said that to her I'm not nobody, which left me pondering what she meant about that, because maybe she might have the same feelings for me as I have for her.

Russian

When I awoke, there were many German and Russian bodies strewn around me. They were all dead. Realizing, I as on Russian ground, I switched clothes with a dead Russian soldier and pretended I was from their army.

I was really badly injured, so I was moved to this hospital. I met a few other soldiers, and when I didn't know how to respond to who I am, I came up with the lie that I had amnesia.

I met Nikolai Michailovich, who was much older than me. He talked to me a lot, and he seemed like a father to me.

When a nurse came and began speaking to me, she called me Alexandr, and we learned that the boy who's uniform I had taken, his name was Alexandr Dukhanov. So now I had to pretend to be him.

The hospital only had two doctors, and so we were all taken care of by the nurses. There were Zoya, Katerina, Lina, Marusia, and Tamara. Tamara was the only one with dark brown hair.

I didn't like being called Alexandr, because that wasn't who I really was. So Nikolai made up a name for me. X. He would always call be X, and I preferred that name too.

Hals and Oskar

The next morning we were in the trenches when a few blasts came. Hals died, and Dobelmann wouldn't let me grieve for him. We fought, just shooting, when the Russians all finally left.

When the fighting ended, we didn't get much time to calm down. Not long after, a full assault was launched. They were much stronger, and much more frightening. Many soldiers fled. Oskar tried to run, but was shot by many bullets.

I continued shooting, but wound up getting thrown on the ground and injured really badly. I barely looked up to see a tank rolling over me.

Another Day

The next morning, very early, we were repairing the things that had been damaged from the day before. It was long and tiring work. Finally, when I went back to the bunker, someone came in and asked for me. I pulled on a sweater and followed him.

He took me to where many Russion prisoners were gathered. I was needed because they wanted me to ask them questions and translate what they said. And if they refused, a gun was held to their heads.

Around the afternoon, we gathered at the trenches. Another group was relieved when we came, and they left. The trenches were incredibly littered and smelled bad. Dobelmann began explaining what to do in the trenches, and was upset when he found out we didn't know how to work the machines.

Jakob tried to show off and attempted to explain one, but said it wrong. Dobelmann was horrified, and it was rather amusing when Jakob's face turned red.

In the evening, we ate and talked about Dobelmann. Then we went back into the trenches and slept. I awoke to the artillery barrages. Everyone around me was terrified.

A boy named Willi complained of his hand hurting, and when we checked it, we saw it had been blown off. That scared us, but at least it was over.

The Bunker

Dobelmann gave us each these packs, which we wore on our backs. Soon we were carrying seventy pounds each on our backs.

We trudged to the battalion at Tarnapool, which was extremely tiring. Especially since we were going uphill. Finally when we reached their, our group was split up in two, and we went to our bunkers. The veterans we met there were very rude and they complained about how they were sent a bunch of teenagers.

At least Jakob and Oskar were with me in my bunker, although Hals was not, who regarded me as the best person in his life. The veterans seemed to continuously mock us, and consider us with contempt.

We were served food, but soon felt nauseous when we discovered that we had been eating rat meat. The other veterans seemed to find this another place to mock us so they all laughed loudly.

Then, when we decided to take the beds, I sat on one. The veterans quickly regarded me in a way that wasn't very good and explained the whole story of the bed's last owner's death. He said that maybe we'll get "lucky" and die quickly.

Dobelmann and Others

Well, I'll get right into this. The next day, we reached Gryuskow, Poland. We lugged our belongings off the train, then walked to a factory like place and went inside for food. Inside there were Jews, marked by the Star of David sewn on their striped clothes. Their heads were all shaven, and their condition horrified me.

They served us food, and when I thanked one girl, she attempted to smile. After that, my appetite was lost, but I sat down to eat joined by Jakob and a boy named Oskar. We ate in complete silence, and thought about the Jews.

Another soldier said they were criminals, and that the other Jews were "relocated somewhere else where they were treated better, but Jakob, Oskar, and I were fairly certain that they were not, and that we were the criminals.

Later, after eating more, we went outside with ammunition. In our group, a man named Dobelmann was our platoon leader.

He was missing one ear, and the other ear was only half there, and he had many scars on his face. It scared me. He looked at each of us, and delivered a speech on how he is here to help us in the war. Then, an officer came and told us about what we are supposed to do.

There was one boy, who was the only one of all of us who did not seem afraid of war. He kept going on and on about how he liked it. The rest of us were all fearful and anticipating our death.

I also met another boy, whom I sat next to kept asking stupid questions, that when I answered, he didn't even understand. Eventually I started ignoring him. But then machine gun fires poured down on us, and we all scrambled out of the truck.

We tried to fire at the planes overhead, but I didn't get the chance to, and then they left. Many dead bodies were on the ground and among them was the boy who I ignored. I felt very guilty afterward. At least Oskar and Jakob were still alive.

I befriended a boy named Hals, because he had gotten hurt and I helped him. Then, we all went back in the truck and continued on, the seriously wounded gone to a church to heal.

Later, we started shooting a man, and then killed him and another man and a child. Some of us were horrified, but Dobelmann said that the kid was trying to kill us, so we had to kill him first.


~Erik

New beginnings

At sixteen years of age, on March 21, 1944, I found myself aboard a train packed with other teenagers now a part of the German army. My uniform had blood on it, and I realized that they would not put effort into getting new ones, just when one died they were passed on.

None of the other boys were alike to me in any way, other than the fact we were all teenagers taken away to be fighting soon enough. We were all afraid then. I was told so many times that only my country mattered, my life could be put on hold.

The war was mainly between Russia and Germany. And I was born half German because of my father. And my mother's side made me half Russian. I could speak both languages, although since I lived in Germany I was more fluent in that.

Britain, America, and Russia all attacked us, and rather than being the ones to fear, we were the ones losing strength.

Anyway, I found myself in a train, sitting tight with another boy named Jakob. He spoke a lot, none of what I really cared to hear, but we became fast friends. He told me of his life, but I only said what was necessary. I wasn't really in much of a mood to speak, I guess.

When Jakob got up, a veteran with two fingers on his hand took a seat next to me and told me horror stories about the war and what he had been through. I wasn't really up for it before, but after hearing that I definitely was not very keen to go to war after.

After that, when he stood up again, Jakob sat back down next to me and we sat in silence. It wasn't until we saw a wooden cart flooded with corpses that either of us said a word.


~Erik