The Lies My Boss Told Me [PG-13]

[Germany]

So...here it is! Or what I have so far, anyway. Bear with me here....I am not the fastest writer.

I did some research on this one for time and setting. For the curious, my information sources can be found here ( list will be updated as needed as I move along, so fellow history enthusiasts can follow my "paper-trail" ):

Overview of Ponary massacres
More detailed information about the Ponary massacres ( including eyewitness accounts )
The Deportation of German Jews (and where they went and what happened to them)
SS ranks
Vilnius ghetto reference site 1
Vilnius ghetto reference site 2


Um...I'm not actually sure if there were any underground tunnels in Ponary in the way I'm portraying, but for the sake of having a story I'm going to say there were.

Also, for the visually curious, I present links to Ludwig's attire and weapons in this piece:

Gray SS uniform
MP35
Walther PPK ( Incidentally, this was also Hitler's pistol of choice, and is the model he killed himself with )
SS ceremonial dagger

You can PM me with any comments you may have, or wait to catch me in the C-box.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

November 28th, 1941
Ponary, Lithuania


The entire city was covered in a soft, thin layer of fine snow. It frosted the boughs of trees and decorated the ground, cars, and rooftops with its crystalline whiteness, shimmering beautifully like millions of tiny diamonds wherever the sun managed to break through the mass of gray-white clouds overhead. Lazy wisps of smoke curled up from chimneys. Birds congregated around feeders or squabbled over treats from the trash and what other sources of food they could find. Cold but not freezing, it was the perfect day for adults to stay indoors and relax with a hot beverage and a good radio program, and for children to get out and make snowmen or have an early winter wonderland adventure.

Yet in Ponary, the children weren’t outside playing and the adults were anything but relaxed.

Well. For the most part. Here and there a few warmly-dressed children could be seen running around outside ruining clean sheets of snow in the acts of horseplay, building snow sculptures, tossing their toys around, climbing trees… doing all the things normal children did. But they were unusually careful not to be too loud, and there were certain adults that they never voluntarily approached.

As for Ponary’s adults…most of them could be found hard at work, or hustling back and forth between buildings with overly serious, gloomy, or nervous countenances. Smiles were rare. Apologies were common. Several people walked the streets with firearms in plain view.

It was the typical scene of a German occupation, and one which Ludwig had seen many times before. His usual pattern was to sweep in to an area with the Wehrmacht and/or Waffen-SS ( technically he belonged to the Wehrmacht, but like some of his compatriots he also held a rank in the Waffen-SS, which was often used alongside or interchangeably with the Wehrmacht ), assist them in destroying any enemy forces present, help secure the area, and start off for the next enemy front immediately. As the living personification of Germany he was endowed with inhuman strength, speed, endurance, healing, and the capacity to survive even the complete annihilation of his human form, so this kept him where he was needed most. Not to mention that few things in life pleased him as much as battles against foes who could actually present him with a challenge: there was such an intoxicating, wild rush of satisfaction, accomplishment, and sheer, undiluted power that came from every victory, especially personal victories won directly against the personified spirits of other nations.

Yes, Germany was used to invading and forcibly occupying. Kalisz, Krakow, Warsaw, Paris…the places he had personally been to were too numerous to count. Sad faces, perpetual fear, dejected spirits…it was to be expected of the civilians. They were in awe of his power. They feared for their lives as well as their livelihoods. As for the German occupiers, they acted mostly with smug superiority, keeping everything under tight control and ruthlessly running affairs as they saw fit. Members of the Heer and SS prowled the streets like vigilant wolves, always on the lookout for rule-breakers and “enemies of the State”.

This was the first time that Ludwig had specifically been to the Ponary/Vilnius region, but already something seemed…amiss. He couldn’t quite place his finger on it…it was more like a feeling in the atmosphere, an unshakable, uncanny, creeping sensation that something was not right. He had arrived only an hour ago, and already he had been informed of an explosion that had happened early this morning underground in what was presumably the storm drainage system. Presumably because a brief investigation had revealed a network of tunnels that seemed suspiciously larger than necessary for purely drainage purposes. The single known man-sized entrance, turned up only an hour and a half ago, had taken hours to find.

Everyone was certain that the tunnels were being used to smuggle people and goods out of the city, or perhaps even to supply secret enemy groups within the city with weapons, ammunition, and explosives. That made exploring and securing them Number One priority. The Oberführer had already selected a unit for that task and had just been in the process of sending them out the door when Ludwig had shown up and immediately taken command of the outfit.

Ludwig could tell from the seemingly frustrated scowls that had appeared on a few of the mens’ faces right then that they were none too thrilled with this arrangement. He honestly had no idea why, as with the exception of Schmitz — whom he had spoken with a few times and who presently seemed happy enough to have him around — he didn’t recall meeting any of them. Maybe they simply didn’t like working directly alongside such high-ranking officers. Maybe they were afraid of what would happen if they made a mistake.

Or maybe, just maybe, they were jealous of the fact that someone who appeared to be no older than twenty-five years old at most had already acquired not only a high rank, but an impressive reputation to go with it.

Didn’t matter.

He was in charge, and they just had to deal with it.

All thirteen of them were briskly walking down the sidewalk of a main street now, Ludwig at the head of the pack. Dressed exclusively in gray trenchcoats with matching SS uniforms complete with hats bearing the fearsome Totenkopf and heavily armed with pistols and submachine guns, he knew they made an intimidating sight. And sure enough every civilian that caught sight of them was shying away and giving them a very wide berth.

Beyond quickly scanning them with his eyes for weapons, explosives, or anything else of a questionable nature, Ludwig paid them little heed. It was good that these people knew their place. That made life easier for everyone, especially them.

“How much further?” he asked once they rounded a corner, breaking the stony silence which had gripped the group since they had started out on the mission.

Hordes of civilians parted before them and tried their best not to stare. One young woman was in such a hurry that she slipped on a patch of ice and went down hard on her arms and knees on the pavement with a muffled cry. No one rushed to help her up.

“Not far,” one of the men directly behind him replied, “just two blocks straight ahead and out into the field a few meters. It’s near a big bluish rock.”

Ludwig’s eyebrow rose. “Bluish?”

“Yes. Sort of.” The man sounded distracted. Ludwig shot a glance over his shoulder and saw him staring at the woman who had slipped with a look of utter disgust. “These people,” he sneered, “they’re all the same.”

The woman was up now, her face wrought with pain, halfway bent over with one arm clutching her side. Somehow, she almost managed to set a record for hobbling into a building.

Ludwig turned his attention back to the path ahead. Squinting at little, he could just make out the off-blue rock his compatriot had been talking about. “I don’t blame them for being frightened,” he admitted, “look at all the weapons we’re carrying. For all they know we could open fire on them at any moment.”

No one had anything to say about that. For some reason, Ludwig found their silence slightly unnerving.

Odd, considering that he was not exactly the talkative type himself.

[Germany]

The remaining five minutes or so to the bluish rock were characterized by more of the same: frightened civilians that scrambled to get out of the Nazis’ way to hide or show that they were harmless rule-abiders, and silent compatriots. Now that they were in the right spot, Ludwig noticed the entrance immediately: a small, crude, rather old-looking manhole cover plugged into the ground. The snow surrounding it had been trampled almost out of existence, and only the most stubborn bits of white powder still clung to the depressions of the cover itself. Temporarily shifting his Maschinenpistole 35 submachine gun to his nondominant hand, Ludwig grasped the cold, dark metal circle with his right and pulled it up, giving silent thanks to the warm black gloves he was wearing. Once he had the lid removed, he tossed it aside to reveal a hole that was just barely big enough for one man at a time to fit down. The rungs of an old iron ladder faded into pitch blackness almost immediately.

“I’ll go first.” Ludwig said starkly, making it perfectly clear that protocol was to be followed in this instance. Not that he expected any of his men to challenge him, really. Leaders traditionally went first, and even if Hitler was willing to deviate from that ( he had to have thrust Ludwig in front of him at least 50 times now whenever he suspected he may be entering a potentially dangerous situation ), Germany wasn’t. Nation or not, powers or not, he would be no less fearless. Prussia hadn’t raised a coward.

It was a good thing he had thought to grab a rifle strap from the supplies room before starting out on this mission, otherwise climbing down a ladder that went down God knew how many meters while holding on to a weapon as large and unwieldy as his submachine gun would have been impossible. He clicked the safety into place, then, thinking twice, commanded his men to do the same. Germans were well-trained, but one could never be too careful. There was a barrage of clicks as the order was carried out.

There.

They were ready.

Carefully, Ludwig descended into the unknown.

It was like dropping down the throat of an icy earthen serpent: the further he went the colder and more dank the air became. But it was not terribly deep; his foot tested air after only twelve meters by his estimate. Already at the bottom? I thought it’d be deeper.

Then again, drainage systems didn’t need to be extremely deep, especially if they weren’t running under a lot of heavy buildings.

“Halte! I have reached the bottom — remain still until further notice.” He made sure his instructions were loud and clear, because in this all-encompassing darkness it would be easy to plow into the man below and cause a rather unpleasant, painful, and embarrassing chain-reaction.

The echoing clinking of boots against iron stopped.

Holding on tightly to a rung with his left hand, Ludwig fished into the pocket of his trenchcoat where his flashlight was kept, felt out the switch, and turned it on before removing it. The darkness was pierced by a steady beam of warm, yellow-tinged light. Half dangling, Ludwig directed it downward. He was relieved, but not surprised, to find safe landing a meter beneath him. The dark, hard-packed earth was glazed over with a sparkling layer of ice.

So far, so good. Black-gloved fingers released their hold on iron, and he allowed himself to drop the rest of the way. No sooner had he hit the ground then he was turning towards the expanse of black before him, the beam of his flashlight playing over cold, gray stone blocks that formed walls that vaulted into a ceiling. Judging by the wear and tear they had accumulated, they had been there for at least a century, if not longer. The tunnel they formed was wide enough for four men to comfortably walk abreast.

The smell was very damp and earthy. Not necessarily bad, but not altogether pleasant, either.

Save for the trickling of still as-of-yet-unseen water, it was very, very quiet.

As quiet as a tomb, Ludwig thought morbidly, a small phantom shiver tingling the back of his neck. Wary blue eyes couldn’t help but to fix on the ceiling, where it was only too easy to imagine all those tons of dirt and rock crashing down on his body and crushing it the way they had the last time he’d been on a similar underground mission back in the first World War.

That cave-in had gotten Prussia, too.

Two nation spirits, crushed under the weight of their own land…how embarrassing. Not to mention the terrible jolt of pain that had occurred right before waking up — dirty, sore, and aching — in a tiny bathroom stall down the hall from where the boss had been holding a conference. As if that weren’t bad enough, the magic that governed such “death trips” must have been on the Allies’ side, because it had decided to place Germany and Prussia in the same stall together; Ludwig had woken up reclining back on a toilet seat with a halfway-slumped-forward Gilbert resting on top of him with his head pressed against the stall door.

To this day, Ludwig could only pray that no one had gotten curious enough to peer over or under the stall before he and Gilbert had had a chance to regain consciousness.

Hopefully the ceiling would hold up this time.

God, I hate being underground.

“Oberstgruppenführer Herrmann, is it safe to come down?” a husky voice called.

Ludwig blinked.

Right.

His men.

He’d almost forgotten about them for a second.

[Germany]

“Ja.” Forcing thoughts of cave-ins and embarrassing predicaments to the back of his mind, he swung back around and aimed the flashlight at the ground beneath the ladder as a courtesy to his company. One by one they dropped down, moved to the side, and took out their own flashlights. Soon all twelve were crowding behind Ludwig in an eager little cluster, lighting the tunnel entrance up like a Christmas Tree.

“Follow me closely and stay alert. Hard telling what we’ll find down here.” His voice, though toned down to a quieter volume than usual to avoid disclosing their identity and location to possible enemies, was no less authoritative.

He was answered with a bunch of silent nods from faces which showed a range of emotions from stoic to optimistic. Weapons were drawn and the safety features clicked off. Some men chose to douse their flashlights for the sake of being able to ready their submachine guns or rifles, while others opted for handguns which only required one hand. There was more clicking as some of these were cocked.

Ludwig himself removed his Walther PPK semi-automatic pistol from the interior of his trenchcoat, switched the safety off, and cocked it. As leader, it was far more important for him to be able to see than let loose a stream of bullets.

A clean-shaven young man who appeared to be in his early twenties spoke up. “Probably just a bunch of Jewish vermin,” he said blithely, one corner of his mouth twitching up in a malevolent smirk, “Nothing we can’t handle.”

Ludwig had to resist the urge to show or voice disapproval. There it was again, that racist, anti-semitic propaganda that Hitler and his government had been forcing down the throats of his citizens: The Jews are backstabbing, conniving, sneaky, power-hungry, anti-German communist subhumans bent on destroying the superior Aryan bloodlines. Hate them. Discriminate against them. Harass, arrest, and deport them over any little thing. Encourage them to leave the country.

Far from hating them, these days Ludwig mostly felt sorry for the Jews. Of all the people in Europe, his boss had decided to level the blame mostly at them for all of Germany’s problems and misfortune, as if they were the most disgusting, vile creatures on earth and the very source of all the filth, lies, and evil in the world. He even went so far as to say that they had orchestrated Germany’s defeat in the first World War.

Utter nonsense. Ludwig had personally known and fought alongside at least a few Jews that he knew of in that war, and all of them had been dedicated, competent soldiers who had served the German armed forces loyally and bravely. One of them, Ber, had been the only true non-country friend he’d had at the time. Grief-stricken and incredibly pissed off, Ludwig had gone out of his way to avenge him when he’d died in combat.

Hitler was wrong. Dead wrong. About everything the Jewish people were and did.

Sadly — and frustratingly — all of Ludwig’s attempts to correct him thus far had been in vain. His boss simply refused to believe, or indeed even to listen to, the words of the very nation he claimed to love so much. Every time he brought it up der Führer immediately commanded his silence and switched the topic, usually after making some kind of stupid remark about how he couldn’t help “sympathizing with the Judeo-Bolshevists” when there were still so many of them within his borders.

“You don’t understand now, but you will someday.” he kept promising, “I’m making you the grandest, mightiest nation on Earth.”

Maybe, but not through the ways you think. For all his faults and crazy ideas, Ludwig had to admit that his boss was building him up into a powerful nation worthy of respect and envy. He was gaining land, power, and influence, and he had Hitler’s government to thank for it; for making him stronger militarily, industrially, and economically. Really, his house had become a wonderful place to live, unless one happened to be Jewish, socialist, communist, lazy, or a believer in individual freedom.

And for these reasons, Ludwig was almost proud to be a Nazi.

Almost.

All of the unjust hatred leveled at the Jews and other innocent minority groups was the one part of Nazi ideology he could never support. It was just…ridiculous. Especially since most — perhaps all —of the allegations against these groups were entirely untrue.

Despite his resolve to show no emotion, the ghost of disappointment shadowed his face as he studied his fellow SS. How he would love to be able to speak his mind and set Clean-Shaven straight...

But no.

If he wanted to remain free and useful to his people he could not very well challenge orders and propaganda originating from Adolf Hitler himself, no matter how wrong his boss was or how strongly he disagreed with him.

Maybe one of these days he would finally be able to convince him to change his policies.

For now he just had to put up with it.

[Germany]

Wordlessly, he turned and led the way into the unknown.

They trekked on in almost perfect silence for the next two or three minutes, the semi-frozen ground muffling their footsteps, the gurgle of slowly-moving water drawing closer. Then all of a sudden the tunnel ended, intersecting with another to form a perfect ‘T’. A small canal ran along the far wall, flowing to the right.

Great. Now which way?

Ludwig shone his light to the left first. Another dark, dirty, and barren passage with the same chilling dampness clinging to earth and stone.

He turned to the right.

This time the golden beam sliced through the blackness to reveal a person standing with his back pressed against the wall less than ten meters away, still and silent as a cemetery. The dark-haired man whirled the instant the light struck him and started racing down the passage like the hounds from Hell were after him.

“Halte!” Ludwig barked, tearing after him, “Halte or we’ll shoot!” His men followed hot on his heels, the combined beams of their flashlights merging with his and making a spotlight which cast his and the fleeing man’s shadows long and dark in front of them.

The man didn’t listen. He didn’t even dignify the command with a backward glance. He just kept running for all he was worth, his long, spindly legs flying beneath him.

You like to live dangerously, don’t you? Ludwig thought, annoyed and insulted that a mere civilian had the nerve to disobey his orders. It was common knowledge to all in the occupied zones that they were to defer to any German officer at any time. This included not running away from them when they were obviously breaking the law or being asked to do something.

But rather than make good on his threat to open fire he simply powered his legs faster, tapping a tiny bit into the supernatural speed he possessed as a nation.

Mr. Disobedient didn’t stand a chance. Ludwig struck him in the back like a falcon hitting a pigeon and pinned him belly-first to the wall with the force of the collision. There was an audible “oomph!” as all the wind was knocked out of the man’s lungs. Thrusting his flashlight deep into one of the pockets of his trenchcoat, Ludwig seized the man’s left shoulder and flung him around to face him, burying the tip of his gun into his chest the moment it was exposed.

A dirt-stained face looked back at him with a dazed expression.

Unyielding blue eyes studied him closely, eager to see just what type of criminal they were dealing with.

The man appeared to be his age, maybe slightly younger. He was a bit on the short side, falling a full twelve to fifteen centimeters short of Ludwig’s 178 centimeters, and his almond-colored skin was a few shades darker than the German’s. His dark eyes were rimmed with red. Fresh blood trickled from his disjointed nose, flowing over the dried dirt-blood mixture that caked his lips and chin. Almost shoulder-length black hair hung from his head in a disheveled, sticky, tangled mop that didn’t look like it had been brushed or washed in weeks. The clothes he wore were little more than disgustingly filthy, torn rags. They were not of a large size, but their wearer was so thin that they hung from his shivering form, and Ludwig instantly wished he had not treated him so roughly — in such a frail, emaciated state, he had probably cracked the poor man’s ribs.

It was then that he noticed that the muzzle of his gun was dead-centered in the middle of the word ‘Jude’ on the yellow six-pointed star patch that the man wore over his left breast.

Ludwig blinked. This was no criminal — it was a grimy, malnourished, injured, half-frozen Jew trying to escape his oppressors. From the looks of it he’d been having a hell of a time, too. He’d probably escaped from the Vilnius work camp — there was a Jewish work camp there, wasn’t there? Ludwig seemed to vaguely remember hearing something about it — and had been on the run ever since, hiding in these tunnels and going for days without eating.

“Ah, it’s a Jew,” the Nazi who had expressed contempt for all non-Germans earlier spoke up, spitting the religious label like an insult, “Looks like Krause was right.”

“See, what did I tell you? Go down in a rat-hole, find rats.” There was an almost sing-song element in Krause’s voice.

Ludwig said nothing. His eyes narrowed just a fraction, and when he stared into the face of the man whose life he held in his hands a frightening shadow darted across his frosty irises.

The Jew had recovered from the shock of being smashed against the wall now. His overly-skinny body still shaking from the cold, he took one look at the gun pressing against his chest and his brown eyes stretched so wide with fear that his captor could see two tiny glowering Ludwigs reflected in them. He began speaking rapidly in a language the blonde didn’t understand, his quiet voice fraught with panic, cringing as far back into the wall as he could.

Ludwig shook his head. “I don’t speak…whatever language that is.”

The Jew squeezed his eyes shut tightly, his bloodied lower lip quivering, half-whispering half-crying what might have been a prayer in his native tongue. Water welled in the corners of his eyes and spilled down his cheeks in cold, dirty tears. It was clear from his actions that he expected to be shot any moment.

His mouth set in a rigid line, Ludwig kept his gun steady and began to frisk him with his free hand, patting him down for weapons and other potentially dangerous or stolen objects. It was extremely doubtful that this starving, trembling, half-dead shadow of a man had anything of the sort on him, but routine procedure was routine procedure, and one could never be too careful.

The Jew whimpered at the treatment, trembling like a Baltic in front of Russia, but wisely offered no resistance.

The search was over less than a minute later.

Ludwig’s frown softened, his fierce blue eyes losing some of their hawklike intensity.

Nothing.

This man had nothing on him, apart from the rags he wore. No guns. No knives. No dynamite or stolen wares.

Not even a flashlight…

Such a minor detail, yet one with huge implications: this man was without a flashlight, or any other light source. He hadn’t had one and extinguished it in an attempt to hide from the Nazis, as Ludwig had assumed. It meant that whatever time he’d spent underground he’d spent in complete darkness. Unless he’d had a flashlight early on and it had run out of power — there was no way of knowing if that was the case.

But even if…

What the hell were you thinking? Ludwig stared with disbelief at the terror-struck young man in front of him. Was he insane?

Sure, the Jews had it rough right now with his boss’s regime, but the work camps were safe-havens where they were at least treated humanely. In Vilnius this man had had access to food, hygiene, health care, and warm clothes. True, he hadn’t been free, but was freedom really so important that it was worth risking a slow, agonizing death by cold and starvation in a pitch-black underground labyrinth for?

The black-haired man was silent now. He continued to shiver with his eyes shut, his face set in a grim cast, his chest heaving, too afraid to so much as twitch a pinkie from the position Ludwig had pushed him into.

It hit like a blast of icy wind — a brief yet powerful urge to pull the trigger and kill the vile, ungrateful vermin cowering front of him. He could hear the shot, feel the kick from the gun and the body sliding down to the ground…

His finger tightened around the trigger…

What the hell are you thinking? What the hell am I thinking?! I don’t kill unarmed, innocent people!

A phantom chill raced up Ludwig’s spine. It had been an impulse urge — one of those sudden unwelcome, usually disturbing thoughts and desires which sometimes streaked through his mind like a shooting star. He knew he would never act on them, only this time…this time he almost had.

He lowered his gun, deeply ashamed and a little frightened by what he had almost done. It was true that Crazy Jew here had broken the law by fleeing the work camp and deliberately ignoring his obligation to obey authority. However, he didn't deserve to die for it. Under normal circumstances his actions would merit some kind of punishment; perhaps a beating and reduced rations and privileges over the next few weeks. However, these were not normal circumstances: this man was already suffering greatly, and in such poor physical condition that any form of punishment would be cruel and potentially lethal.

Not to mention the insanity which was ultimately the cause of his present condition in the first place.

Ludwig turned to his men waiting patiently in the background. All he could see of them were painful bright circles of light. Blinking, he was forced to look away. “He has nothing but the clothes on his back,” he announced, “I’m going to try to interrogate him. See if he knows anything about the explosion this morning.”

The others’ expressions were hidden behind a wall of lights, but it was easy for Ludwig to envision them looking on in silent approval. Hopefully someone would be able to assist if the language barrier became an issue.

Having made his intentions clear, Ludwig turned his sights back on his sanity-challenged prisoner. The man still had his eyes closed, so he gave him a few gentle taps on the shoulder. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

Crazy Jew’s eyelids flew open. Fear-ridden eyes peered at him from beneath a thin film of water.

Slowly, he shook his head.

Ludwig sighed. This was going to be tough.

He went down the list of languages he knew, each time asking his Jewish captive if he could speak it and moving on when he received a negative response. French, Italian, Dutch…the man didn’t know any of them.

Thwarted at every attempt, in the end he shifted to Shaykomay, the language of nation spirits “And of course you don’t speak this.” He was talking to himself now, more out of frustration than hope that the man would actually know the language. Very few humans spoke Shaykomay: countries were extremely picky about who they taught it to, only sharing it with close friends or at the orders of their bosses.

So it came as absolutely no surprise when the man responded to the statement with a frown and a puzzled look.

Naturally, Ludwig thought irritably, if you had a nation friend, you would have never wound up in this predicament in the first place. Unless that friend was Poland or Latvia. Then you might have.

The Jew must have sensed he was trying to help, because he spoke up again in his own language loud and clear, a faint hope kindling in his eyes.

“Does anyone know what that language is?” Ludwig turned his head towards his men again, this time shielding his eyes with his hand and blinkingly staring off to the side.

“Hebrew, I believe.”

“Do you speak it?”

“Nein.”

“Do any of you speak it?”

There was a brief silence, then “Oberstgruppenführer, why would any of us know Hebrew?” a gruff voice said, and Ludwig could tell by the slightly annoyed intonation in his voice that he was having a bit of difficultly keeping his tone respectful, “It isn’t worth learning.”

Ludwig felt his patience waning. He gestured to Crazy Jew with his PPK, causing the other man to tense up. “It sure would come in handy now!”

Silence.

Typical.

Receiving no answer, he reached up and lightly massaged his forehead, his fingers shifting a few stray wisps of blonde hair back under his hat. His eyes closed briefly against the bright light.

Well, his men could be of no help in the language department, so there was only one thing left to do with Crazy Jew. Turning his attention back the quivering human being in front of him, he grabbed his right arm and pulled him towards his subordinates.

The man was very cooperative, moving on his own accord.

Ludwig gave him a subtle nod to show he appreciated this, but the Jew was facing the lights, and he knew he had probably missed it.

“Take him back to the work camp,” he commanded, tossing his captive into the nearest officer once they were close enough.

The man seized Crazy Jew’s arm immediately.

A bit more roughly than he had to.

There’s no need for that.

He’d better make sure his orders were loud and clear, otherwise there was a very real chance that his officer might beat the poor man to death. Some men were just violent by nature, and when they were in a position of authority they let the power go to their heads. He himself knew first-hand how easy it was to get carried away, to get caught up in the fervor of the moment and kill someone without meaning to. It could happen lightning-fast, too — all it took was the right blow to the right area. Regrettable, but accidents did happen.

He raised his voice, suddenly not caring if enemies heard, his tone firm and imposing. “He is not to be punished, understand? He’s half dead as it is, and probably insane. Harmless and defenseless.”

Now that he was behind the lights, he could make out his fellow Nazis’ faces again. Most of them wore the same stern, no-nonsense expressions he was used to seeing on them, but a few were giving him strange looks, as though they couldn’t fathom showing someone mercy.

The man holding Crazy Jew nodded seriously, his cold eyes pinning Ludwig’s. “It will be done at once.”

“Oberstgruppenführer, with your permission, I would like to assist Schwarz.” Krause's lip curled in a thin smile.

Ludwig considered. Normally he would have reservations about sending a known Jew-hater along with the pair, but now that he thought about it two men did provide added security, and damn, the clock was ticking if they wanted to catch any nearby enemies before they could either run off or mount an offensive. There was simply no time to stand there and play a guessing game of ‘who’s the most moral‘. Especially since, at the moment, none of this particular SS unit seemed that moral, with the possible exception of Schmitz, who at the moment might as well have been a statue carved in stone in the corner.

Odd. Ludwig didn’t know Schmitz all that well, but in all of their interactions thus far he had been livelier. Happier.

“Permission granted.” he relinquished, giving Krause a hard look. “Remember my orders. He is to be treated civilly.”

Krause nodded. “Understood.”

[Germany]

Unfortunately, Crazy Jew had no way of knowing that he’d just been pardoned by a general. He continued to stare at the nation spirit in mute, saddened horror. Then Schwarz turned him around, and he shot Ludwig one last pleading look over his shoulder before being led away, Krause keeping pace at his other side.

Ludwig watched them disappear around the corner before issuing his next command. “Let’s go. Half of you that way,” he pointed his gun up over his mens’ heads to indicate the direction behind them, “half of you with me. We’ll meet up back here in two hours. These tunnels can’t be that intricate. Check every nook and cranny.”

“Yes Sir!” Most of the ten remaining men managed perfect unison. One of them even saluted.

Ludwig figured the one that had saluted was probably his second-in-command. Good. You can lead the other unit.

With a curt nod he turned, retrieved his flashlight, and headed down the path from which Crazy Jew had come. The familiar yellow beam fell over the same bland scenery as before: large, old stones and tunneled, hard-packed earth. He walked with hurried steps, his keen eyes lancing as far ahead as they could, missing nothing.

After a few moments of shuffling and a bit of obvious confusion as to who was to go where, five men followed him.

________________________________________________________

An hour in, and three things were glaringly obvious to Ludwig: 1) this underground tunnel system was intricate — in fact, it was very intricate — 2) its purpose was definitely not primarily storm drainage, and 3) he and his men would be very fortunate indeed if they managed to reach the agreed upon meeting place within the next hour. The tunnel he’d picked had ended in another ‘T’ after only ten minutes’ walk, and ever since he and his stony little group had had walked past the entrances to no less than half a dozen intersecting tunnels. So far they had discovered two relatively small secret rooms whose tiny crawlspace entrances had been carefully hidden; several alcoves in the walls that were just big enough to accommodate a person or two who needed to duck into hiding at a moment’s notice; the decomposing or skeletal remains of a few cats, mice, rats, and other, unidentifiable animals; a few old wrappers and other such garbage; black soot and scorch-marks from ancient torches on some of the walls and ceilings; and — most tantalizing of all — the faint, fresh imprints of human feet in places where the soil was a little softer or wetter than usual.

There could be no question about it: this was a regular underground labyrinth, and it had been designed and built for smuggling even before its current use for that purpose.

That…was complicating matters.

Where the hell is this blast site hiding? Though he had been gifted with inhuman endurance, Ludwig lacked the patience to match. It felt like they had hiked halfway to Siberia exploring, and he was getting tired of wandering down so many dark, cold passages that all looked the same, and, frustratingly, finding only the occasional scant evidence of recent human occupation, most of which had probably come from Crazy Jew in his insane travels or people who had worked their way out days ago.

At the very least they should be coming across a freshly-collapsed room or tunnel any moment now. Hell, they should have found it already, unless…unless they had somehow gotten turned around, and were wandering in circles?

No. Ludwig refused to believe that; he had kept them on as straight a course as possible, mapping the tunnels out in his head and keeping track of their position mentally. True, he had only a rough idea of how far from their starting point they were, but the passages themselves and their current position were as clear to him as if he were staring at the drawings on a sheet of paper spread out in front of him.

As he walked, his eyes beginning to glaze over from a complete lack of anything interesting or out-of-the-ordinary to look at, he went over the directions again in his head, just to be sure he had them memorized. Let’s see…up from the area where we captured Crazy Jew, to the left at the next ‘T’, up three tunnel intersections, to the right at the next ‘T’, up a tunnel — or was that up two tunnels? He frowned, trying to remember. Wait a minute. Didn’t we backtrack down one of the tunnels we initially passed when faced with a dead-end?

Yes.

Yes they had.

But that didn’t come until after the right at the ‘T’ and up two tunnels — yes, it was definitely two tunnels — and…

The sound of running shoes hitting half-frozen, solid earth brought his thoughts to a screeching halt.

Aha!

They’d found someone!

About time.

Barely had he set foot into the new tunnel ( it was the branching point of another ‘T’ ) then he was whirling from right to left, the beam of his flashlight a flying line of light that flashed over the right-hand passage just long enough for the jagged, uneven outline of a wall of earth and stone to be imprinted into his mind along with a peculiar shape lying at its base. Before he had a chance to make sense of these images he was facing the opposite direction, his light falling on a pair of fleeing human forms. One was wearing a striped outfit that looked rather like pajamas or a prison uniform, the other was dressed normally enough. That was all Ludwig had time to process before his men came fully to life and dashed out in front of him, giving chase with the zeal of a pack of hunting dogs set on a deer.

“Halte!” one of them barked, his cold voice echoing throughout the tunnel, “Halte or we’ll open fire!”

“Non-fatal shots!” Ludwig was quick to remind his party. Energized and excited, he started after them. “Remember, we need to interrogate them!”

“Please! Help me!”

So weak as to be barely audible, it was a miracle that Ludwig heard the desperate cry through all the commotion going on further down the passage. But he did, and it was enough to freeze him mid-stride.

It was definitely a woman’s voice.

It came together in a rush of clarity: the cave-in, the shape at its base…

Ludwig pivoted on his foot and shot off in the opposite direction, the angry shouts of his men growing weaker in his ears. It took him only a few seconds to reach the base of the collapsed tunnel, where he came to an abrupt stop.

There, lying on the ground amidst a mess of dirt and broken stone, half hidden by a few large chunks of earth, was a young woman. She was flat on her stomach, her head tilted away from the cave-in. One arm was tucked under her, the other rested out in front of her face. A massive boulder pinned her legs from the knees down, preventing her from escaping or even moving into a more comfortable position. Her light-colored clothes were encrusted with dirt, and, in places, grime and dried mud. A deep blotch of red staining the back of her shirt drew Ludwig’s eyes to the bullet-hole there.

Poor thing. Ludwig’s heart went out to the woman. She was hurt pretty badly, and he could all too well imagine the pain she was in, having himself been through as much and so, so much worse in the past.

But the suffering he had underwent wasn’t the same, and he knew it. He was a country: wounds that would be fatal on a human only slowed him down, weakened him. His body could sustain several gunshots before falling or failing him — so long as none of those shots were to his head or face — and the speed at which he healed would be called ‘miraculous’ by most humans. He felt pain just as intensely as any human, yes, but unlike them he had the luxury of knowing that it would all be better soon: that the agony would be short-lived and he would not suffer any massive long-term negative effects from it. All nation spirits were like that. The magic that governed them had blessed them with phoenix-like resurrection: no matter how badly they were injured, their human forms would completely regenerate upon vanishing and reappearing next to their bosses following a false ‘death’. They wouldn’t necessarily feel fine after that, and indeed, cuts, scars, and bruises could still remain ( especially if the physical areas they represented and were symbiotically linked to had suffered ), but the big stuff — broken bones, missing limbs, charred flesh, etc. — all of that would be fixed.

This woman…even with the best medical care from this point onward, she would never again enjoy the same quality of life she had had prior receiving these injuries. The damage the bullet had done tearing through muscle and soft tissue — possibly hitting bone — might never fully heal, and could potentially create additional health problems later on down the line. The earth-encrusted boulder pinning her legs had probably crushed them beyond the point where they could be saved. After tonight she would be permanently wheel-chair bound.

If she survived.

And that was a big if.

For the first time, Ludwig noticed the smell of blood hanging in the air. It wasn’t particularly strong or overpowering, but it spelled bad news for the woman who had lost it.

“Miss?” His voice was a tad softer than usual, both in volume and tone. Genuine concern flickered across his features as he moved his beam over the messy sea of long, dark brown hair that hid the woman’s face from view. All he could make out was her nose and a sliver of her lips.

No reaction. The woman continued to lie there completely motionless, the perfect semblance of a corpse.

Ludwig frowned; hopefully he was not too late. Fumbling for a moment with his flashlight, he clicked the safety on his PPK back into place and returned the weapon to its usual spot inside his trenchcoat. Then he transferred the flashlight to his right hand and knelt down on one knee.

You look familiar…

Now that he was closer, he was struck with the feeling he had seen this lady before, though he couldn’t for life of him remember where. Perhaps she had been one of the many nameless faces he’d passed by in a crowd or on a street corner somewhere?

He reached out with his left and shook her shoulder gently. “Miss? Are you still alive?”

To his delight, he got an answer.

“Yes. Barely.” The woman’s voice was weak from pain and exhaustion. “Please…help...”

In his seventy years of life as a nation, Ludwig had witnessed plenty of similar sights and had heard the exact same plea spoken many times before. Several years of combat and experience on the battlefront had long since numbed him to the sight and smell of blood: to the sight of dead, mutilated bodies and grotesquely wounded, dying men. Terrible injuries and agonizingly painful deaths were an unavoidable and inevitable fact of war. He felt sorrow whenever his own people suffered and died, and he directly contributed to the suffering and deaths of the enemy. He was used to the emotionally-charged last words of men who would never return home to their families, who just wanted someone to carry their message home and to spend their last moments on Earth in the presence of friendly company.

Yet it wasn’t the same with this woman. Somehow her words were more desperate; they penetrated more deeply. Gazing upon her like this, seeing her trapped, wounded, and utterly helpless, Ludwig was overcome with a strong urge to help and protect her. He wasn’t sure whether it was because she was female, someone who felt familiar, or something more. Perhaps it was all of those.

What he was sure of right then was that he would do everything he could for her

He opened his mouth to reply-

RATTATTATTATTATTAT!

-and was cut off by a storm of gunfire echoing deafeningly throughout the labyrinth. Someone was firing a submachine gun.

Looked like fleeing duo had chosen not to be cooperative. How very unfortunate for them.

Two seconds later the gunfire ceased. From far off Ludwig heard one of his men shouting questions in the background — something about terrorists, explosives, and enemies of the state — and he sounded quite pissed, but the blonde general couldn’t be bothered with any of that right now.

“Stay completely still,” he instructed the brunette, speaking just loudly enough to be heard, “I’m going to get you out from under this rock.”

[Germany]

The woman remained silent. If she had not gone unconscious, she was likely in too much pain to talk or perhaps even think coherently.

Ludwig sprang to his feet and wedged his light nice and taut into a crevice in the debris-wall, fixing the beam on the giant rock smashing the woman’s legs. Now that he had a steady light source and both of his hands were free, he moved over to stand in front of the boulder and placed a hand on either side of it.

For the love of God, I hope no one sees this. he prayed silently. What he was about to do was not something he would normally risk doing with conscious humans in such close proximity, but this was a special circumstance. This woman needed help now if she were to have any chance at all of survival, and Ludwig was the only one present with the power help her.

The lump of rock and earth was huge — it definitely weighed at least a ton, perhaps as much as two.

His strength the strength of many men, the country picked it up with ease and tossed it behind him.

Just as he’d expected, the woman’s legs were thoroughly crushed, the ground beneath them dark with blood. Her pants covered up the mess of exposed tendons, muscle, bone, and raw tissue that lay beneath the surface.

Ludwig stood staring at her for a moment in silent pity, unsure of what to do next. It was all very nice and well that he had gotten the boulder off her legs, but now that that enormous pressure was gone the bleeding would intensify to the point where she would die within minutes without immediate and serious medical care and equipment. Hell, it may already be too late to save her: with her gunshot wound and all the blood she had already lost, it was actually kind of surprising she had lasted this long.

“You’re…very kind.” Her words were barely more than a whisper.

Ludwig’s eyebrows rose in mild surprise; he didn’t know what he’d been expecting the woman to say next, but it hadn’t been that.

A fragile smile almost made it to his lips.

Almost.

To most people he was just another fearsome high-ranking Nazi officer: humorless, hard-ass, and cruel. Most of the time he didn’t mind giving this impression — fear had a way of keeping people in line, which was better for everyone in the longrun — but it always felt good when people recognized that he was not some cold-hearted stone golem completely void of all tender emotions and incapable of showing kindness or mercy.

Hopefully she hadn’t seen his Herculean feat with the boulder. If she had he was going to have to convince her that pain and shock had caused her to hallucinate. Shouldn’t be too hard in her current frame of mind.

No, the hardest part by far was still deciding what to do next. He’d seen these types of wounds before. He knew what to expect. Traveling at a human speed, and having to navigate these tunnels, there was no way he could get her to a doctor in time. Even running at nation speed he may not make it in time, and then there was also the matter of the woman’s severely injured body being able to withstand his swift and jerky movements. In trying to save her, he’d probably end up killing her.

Yet she was doomed anyway if he didn’t at least try.

And what of his men? It would be highly irregular and irresponsible of him to just abandon them without a word.

I can tell them where I’m going and why. The thought made him flinch. That was not going to look good on his record. He was in charge of this outfit. People would ask why he couldn’t just send a few subordinates to carry the woman to the hospital.

“Ludwig…”

You know my name?! Ludwig’s heart skipped a beat, his eyes widening noticeably with surprise.

“I’m dying.”

Without delay he walked over to the woman’s head, knelt down on one knee in front of her face, and tossed his MP-35 comfortably to the side. Gingerly, he reached out and cleared her hair away from her face, pushing it up over her head.

The light wasn’t the best for seeing clearly, but the face looking back at him was definitely familiar.

“Rivka?!” he gasped “How…why…?” The words wouldn’t come to him.

Rivka Goldberger co-owned and worked at a small general store in Berlin. A store at which Ludwig had been a regular customer prior to the war thanks to its close proximity to his house. She was a sweet, kind-hearted woman who had always had a warm smile and a friendly word to offer him, even on his grumpiest days when his facial expression had probably indicated that he was ready to kill a small child. He didn’t know her on a personal level, but he had gotten used to seeing her around, and had even had a few brief conversational exchanges with her, mostly about baking and cooking.

She was young — probably in her mid-to-late-twenties by now — and pretty, and Ludwig had thought about asking her out a few times for a semi-date, but had decided against it for various complicated and vaguely-confusing reasons. It was just as well: he later learned that she was married with a kid or two.

So much for that.

This was the first time he’d seen her in somewhere in the neighborhood of three years.

He wanted so badly to say something to soothe her torment — to lift her hopes and give her the strength and stamina she needed to survive the trip to the hospital — but the words wouldn’t come. They crumbled and dissolved in his mind before they ever made it to his vocal chords.

She was right.

She was dying.

To pretend anything else was foolish and insulting.

What could he possibly say to make that better? He wasn’t good at these things. He never had been. His fingers brushed delicately over the dirt-dusted almond skin of her cheek.

“You’re freezing.” The words tumbled out of his mouth before he knew it. Not the most suave or helpful statement, but at least it was better than following up her bleak observation with ‘I know’ or ‘Yes. You are.’, which were the first things that had come to mind. Still kneeling, he reached over his left shoulder, grabbed the strap of his Maschinenpistole, and pulled it over his head. Now that the weapon was no longer tethered to his body, he cast it gently off to the side. Quickly, he began undoing the buttons on the uppermost part of his trenchcoat ( the lower ones were already undone for quick access to his PPK ). “Here. This should help. At least…a little.” She was going to die anyway, but perhaps his coat could offer her some small measure of comfort before she passed on.

The sounds of his men moving around in the background reached his ears. They were on their way back now. He wished they weren’t.

Finishing with the buttons, he moved on to his belt.

“Ludwig…I…I want to ask you to promise me something.” Rivka sounded so tired.

“Sure,” Ludwig said without missing a beat, glad for the opportunity to be more helpful to his acquaintance/friend in her final moments, “Just tell me what it is and I’ll do it.” He took his coat off and spread it over the frail, broken body laid out before him, careful to keep the pistole and dagger hidden within away from tender spots.

Rivka took a deep breath. When she next spoke, her voice was the strongest it had been since Ludwig had found her today. “In the Vilnius ghetto are my two children. A son, age five, and a daughter, age seven. Their…” her voice began to cut out again.

Ludwig put his other knee and his hands down and leaned in closer. Through dim, shadowy light he was just able to make out the sorrowful brown eyes which gazed into his. He listened intently, blocking out all other sounds.

After a momentary pause to replenish her strength, Rivka continued. “…names are Arik and Nessa…Goldberger. Please…save them. Take them…far from here.”

Ludwig blinked. “Save them? Save them from what? Are they in danger?”

The lights of five additional flashlights fell on them from behind. Ludwig’s shadow blotted out Rivka’s face.

Damn. Why couldn’t we be alone? The presence of his men right here, right now, in a somewhat sentimental moment when Rivka was trying to tell him something important irked him. He could always order them off…

No. Such a move would make him look suspicious, and questions and an air of distrust were not something he wanted to deal with right now.

“You…don’t know?” There was an element of awe in the brunette’s voice, like she could not believe that she knew something he didn’t.

“Of course I don’t know,” Ludwig said reflexively, a flare of annoyance coloring his tone. He regretted it instantly. I shouldn’t have said that. “I mean…” he sighed, dropping his gaze to the ground. Not that he could see her expression anyway — or she his — it just somehow felt more comfortable. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. Go on.”

“You…honestly don’t know what’s…happening to us?” More awe.

“Who is ‘us’?” Ludwig asked, growing more and more frustrated in spite of his good intentions, “Germans?” Come to think of it, just what the hell are you doing in Lithuania, anyway?

To his knowledge, Rivka could not speak Lithuanian. Of course, that counted for little because he didn’t know her all that well — she may well speak ten languages, all of them fluently — but it was odd that she should be so far out of her home country.

Perhaps she had been vacationing when something had gone horribly wrong?

He dismissed the idea quickly. No one in their right mind vacationed in a military occupied zone.

No, something else was at play here.

Then the question that had been silently lurking in the back of his mind and bothering him ever since he had learned Rivka’s identity surfaced: why was Rivka here here, as in, in this underground network of tunnels? Had she had something to do with the explosion? If so, why?

It was all so confusing. What the hell is going on here?!

His subordinates had caught up with him now. Without a word they clustered behind him, close enough to hear most — if not all — of what was being said, but still keeping a respectful distance. One of them — the man Ludwig had taken for his defacto second-in-command — came up and stood a few feet off to his superior’s side, shining his flashlight right into Rivka’s eyes.

Rivka blinked and put her arm over her face.

Ludwig resisted the urge to immediately climb back to his feet and rise to his full height. It felt really awkward being down on his hands and knees like this in front of his men, but he wanted to be sure he heard whatever Rivka was about to tell him.

[Germany]

“Jews.” The word was half-whispered. Rivka’s thin arm remained motionless in front of her face, hiding it entirely from view.

“I didn’t know you were a Jew.” Ludwig admitted, though he wasn’t all that surprised. His Jewish population had started to decline in recent years with the Nazi party’s rise to power and would only continue to do so, but they were still not so rare within his borders that it would be unheard of for a non-Jew to encounter at least one at work or on the way to the store or whatever in the course of a normal day.

But Rivka’s revelation did shed some light onto the mystery. Suddenly she and her family winding up in Lithuania made a whole lot more sense.

He stopped staring at the ground and looked into her face; or at least, he would have been looking into her face if her arm were not in the way. His next words were firm, yet not lacking in compassion. “Yes, I know what’s happening to the Jews. Your homes and businesses are being seized and you’re being deported to work camps by the thousands.” He drew a breath, wishing like crazy that they were alone right now. “And if that’s what happened to you and your family, I’m sorry. If your children are in danger I’ll do everything in my power to help, but you must understand that I am bound by the responsibilities of an Oberstgruppenführer and my military pledge-”

“Ludwig! They’re killing us!” The sheer amount of raw fear, melancholy, and above all urgency permeating those few simple words was staggering, especially for a dying woman whose voice had been little more than a trembling whisper only moments before.

“Killing you?” Ludwig repeated in a tone of incredulity, his own voice far quieter than usual. His right hand instinctively shot out and grabbed his Maschinenpistole.

Rivka continued, her voice again weak and stilted. “They…march us to pits…make us undress…line us up…shoot us in.” Her voice cracked. “Men, women…even children and infants…beaten brutally…shot.” She lifted her arm up the tiniest bit and inhaled deeply, fighting back sobs. “My husband…was killed on arrival here. Now my children are next…”

“Who’s doing this?” Ludwig asked, even though deep down he already knew the answer. It was a stupid question. But he had to hear it himself, had to hear her say it.

“The SS Einsatzgruppen.”

A subtle look of horror flickered over Ludwig’s face. “But I’m with the SS, and I don’t do that!” He was trying to comfort Rivka, though the effect was somewhat muffled by his own doubts and fears.

My god…

War was war and civilian casualties were an inevitable part of that. Enemy targets had to be bombed and attacked, regardless of who might be in the way and what their intentions were. Misidentification and misunderstandings happened. Sometimes innocent bystanders were in the wrong place at the wrong time and there was no way to get to the enemy without seriously wounding or killing them. This Ludwig accepted. But systematically killing innocent, harmless civilians purely because of their religious beliefs was downright evil, not to mention a waste of ammunition.

They must have done something, he reasoned, but he quickly realized that he was scraping the bottom of the barrel for justification. What could children and infants possibly have done to deserve being shot to death?

“And I’ve never even heard of the Einsatzgruppen.”

“Really? That’s surprising .” The cold, firm voice belonged to the man standing next to him.

Ludwig rose off his hands and whirled on his fellow Nazis. He was careful to keep his submachinegun pointed at the ground in a nonthreatening posture; it would not do to be taken for a dangerous traitor and shot full of holes.

Damn, that light was blindingly bright. He blinked painfully as he brought a hand up to shield his eyes.

Defacto Second-In-Command continued speaking. “You’re with an Einsatzgruppe right now.” He sounded amused, in a restrained, twisted way.

Slowly, Ludwig climbed to his feet. “Is it true?” he asked point-blankly once he was again standing at full height. He squinted under his hand and tried to catch a glimpse of the other man’s face through the glare. “Did you march a number of Jews to the edge of some pits, make them undress, line them up and shoot them?” His volume and tone made it clear that he expected a straight-up, no-nonsense answer right away.

And that is exactly what he got.

“Ja.”

Spoken without the faintest shred of regret or remorse. So casual, in fact, that the man may just as well have been confessing to the slaughter of a bunch of pigs for an upcoming feast.

Ludwig physically flinched, his mouth opening slightly and his brows creasing as disbelief swept his features. No! They can’t have…they wouldn’t…

Yet they had.

It made too much sense.

It made too much damn sense.

All the pieces of the puzzle were coming together swiftly all at once and interlocking to create a horrifyingly brutal, ugly picture: why the Jews were so jumpy and nervous lately, why they were doing crazy things, why his men were behaving the way they were…the more Ludwig learned, the more he wished he didn’t know.

Yet he couldn’t help it. He had to know more.

“How…how many?” he almost whispered. His own voice sounded like a stranger’s to him; so strangled and helpless. He hated it.

“In total? Around fifty-thousand, I’d say, since the Vilnius cleansing started. We take them a few hundred at a time.”

“We’d do more if we could,” another voice — this one younger — pitched in, his words dripping with frustrated dismay, “but we’ll get them all soon enough. Soon all of the Baltic states will be Jew-free.”

Now that his eyes had adjusted to the lighting as well as they were going to, Ludwig gazed upon the still-heavily-shadowed outlines of his fellow Germans with increasing revulsion, his mouth still ever-so-slightly agape, his expression the perfect cocktail of shocked disgust touched by sorrow. But another emotion quickly flared up within him, this one much more familiar and comfortable.

“How could you do this?” he demanded angrily, glaring poison at Defacto Second before turning his attention to the rest of his men, “How could you DO this?! All of you?” His booming voice carried like thunder throughout the tunnel. If there was one thing the Nazi nation was good at, it was making himself heard. Several men gave a start; one even took a few steps back. “Have you no conscience?! These are civilians you’re rounding up and slaughtering like animals. Harmless civilians!”

“They’re Jews,” Defacto Second shot acidly, “Hardly harmless. They are a threat to the well-being and purity of the German nation — an inferior, dirty race of communists bent on our destruction. They need to die. All of them. We have been killing them by the masses for more than a year now, under the direct orders of Heydrich and Himmler and with the blessings of the Führer himself. Everyone knows this. Everyone but you, it seems. My god Herrmann, how did you make it so far being so naïve? You’re an Oberstgruppenführer and one of Hitler’s elite guard. How could you possibly not know?”

[Germany]

“I knew Hitler was using the Jews as a scapegoat for Deutschland’s problems,” Ludwig returned hotly, having long since grown accustomed to referring to himself in the third person when not in the company of other countries or those in the know, “I knew they were being victimized. Stripped of their rights. Attacked. Exiled to work camps. But this…” He paused momentarily, drawing a breath that he didn’t really need, his mind racing ninety kilometers a minute as he watched his compatriots closely for any move that would betray even the inkling of an attack.

One of the thoughts that had been whirling around at the back of his mind for the past several seconds was that Rivka’s kids were in serious danger; now that that had just been thrust into the front of his mind, and he realized that if his men opened fire on him he would almost certainly not be able to kill or incapacitate all five of them before they sent him to Hitler. The passage was too narrow and confined, the lights were all being focused directly on him making it difficult to see, and everyone had a firearm at the ready. He had years of combat experience and physical training plus the strength, speed, and durability of a powerful country-spirit at his disposal, and that did even the playing field more, but he was still at a disadvantage. Just like a regular human, a single shot to the head or heart could instantly ‘kill’ him. And if he ‘died’ here Rivka’s children were doomed — the way that crazy Führer of his operated, it could be weeks or even months before he was able to get back to Ponary. True, there was always a chance he could get back in plenty of time, but that outcome relied too heavily upon unknown variables for his liking.

All of this contemplation took place in the space of only two or three seconds.

No, he would not risk Rivka’s children.

As much as he hated it, he was going to have to watch how he expressed his disapproval and revulsion. At least for now, it was best to appeal to logic.

When he next spoke there was a subtle angry tremor to his words, “…I didn’t know that they were being mass-murdered purely for being Jewish. Men, women, and children. Even if they’re everything we’ve been led to believe, even if they deserve it, it’s still a massive waste of ammunition, money, and manhours deliberately massacring a bunch of unarmed people who never raise a hand against us.”

“They’ve done far worse,” Defacto Second threw back cynically, “To us and to Deutschland-”

“Children have?”

“Age is irrelevant. A rat is a rat the second it’s born. Even if that rat is taken from its rat parents and raised by humans it remains a rat.” Defacto Second’s voice took on a sneering, thoroughly disgusted quality. “The entire Jewish race is naturally dirty, underhanded, treacherous, evil. Why treat them as anything better than the lying, filth-spreading pieces of shit they are? They-”

“Evil?!” Ludwig echoed in a strong tone of disbelief, “We’re the ones killing them! Not the other way around!” It was amazing just how hypocritical and illogical this man’s argument was. God, I didn’t know it was this bad…

“Where do you get off getting up on a moral high-horse, Herrmann?” another Nazi spat, “You kill people all the time.”

“Yes, but there’s a difference between killing armed men before they have the chance to kill you and your comrades and ruthlessly slaughtering subjugated, unarmed civilians who are only trying to survive.”

“Calling them ‘civilians’ is being far too kind to them,” Defacto Second said cuttingly, shifting his weight just enough to make Ludwig’s already-tense muscles tighten all the more. Though his face was half-cloaked in shadow, what was visible of it was austere and hateful. He truly, passionately believed what he was saying. “The more I talk to you the more you sound like a Jew-lover; a traitorous Jew-lover.”

The threatening semi-accusation triggered Ludwig’s fight-or-flight instinct, and he came dangerously close to lifting his Maschinenpistole and opening fire right then and there. The only thing that stopped him was the fact that Defacto Second remained motionless save for his breathing, and he didn’t hear or see guns being raised.

Perhaps it was their respect for the chain of command holding them back. Perhaps it was doubt, or even fear.

Whatever the reason, all five of them seemed hesitant to out-and-out attack or try to arrest Ludwig, and the blonde nation had to wonder which they would ultimately choose if they did perceive him as a traitor.

Would they arrest him and bring him to trial, which would be standard procedure?

Or would they shoot him where he stood out of disgust and convenience?

Either way it was infuriating, and the stagnant, icy air of the tunnel was not enough to keep Ludwig’s cheeks from heating with rage. ME, a traitor?! What an utterly ridiculous concept. If only they knew.

Of course, they had no way of knowing what he was or what he was capable of; to them he was just another German: an Oberstgruppenführer with a perhaps suspiciously-impressive track-record for his apparent age, yes, but human.

“I’m not a Jew-lover,” Ludwig vehemently clarified, and he was telling the truth, “but I don’t hate them either. When I look at her over there — ” he nodded his head towards Rivka without taking his eyes or attention off his men, “I don’t see a Jew, but a German. I know this woman. Up until recently she lived in Berlin. She committed none of the crimes the Jews have been accused of.” He narrowed his eyes dangerously at Defacto Second. “And if I were you, I would be very careful whom I accused of treachery.”

It was a very real threat; already Ludwig was entertaining serious thoughts of murdering this particularly insubordinate subordinate. All he needed was the right opportunity, preferably without witnesses. Then Defacto Second would quite literally — and painfully — learn what it was like to be an enemy of the state.

[Germany]

Defacto Second went quiet. While his posture remained rock-solid and unafraid, his breaths seemed to come a little quicker, and Ludwig could almost feel the apprehension radiating from him: almost hear the other man’s heart thundering in his chest.

He’d frightened him.

For a few tense moments, an icy silence gripped the tunnel as both parties regarded each other.

It was Ludwig who broke it, and while his voice remained strong it lacked much of the angry, menacing quality it had had only moments ago. “I know I was not alone in being taught to take orders without question, but sometimes you have to ask questions, especially when you’re ordered to kill so many unarmed civilians. The Jews are trying to tear us down, the Jews want to destroy Deutschland…how do we know this? Because der Führer said so and he’s the one with all the power? Because it’s easier to follow orders and kill little children alongside their mothers when we see them as vermin instead of humans? Because everyone else is doing it?” He shook his head, disgusted. “This is wrong. I will continue to honor my military pledge and loyally serve my country no matter what happens, but I am going to have a word with the German high command about this, including Hitler. Even if it doesn’t do me any good, even if I am punished.” He shot a quick, solemn glance to Rivka, who was probably already dead by now. “Someone I know is dying. Leave us. I’ll meet up with you at the place where you killed those other two and we will discuss what you learned from them there. Morality aside, our top priority remains securing the area.”

“Yes, Oberstgruppenführer.” Defacto Second sounded subdued. He turned around and started back for the bodies, the other four following him.

Ludwig watched them go until their footsteps diminished to the point where they were inaudible and their lights vanished out of sight around the corner far ahead. As much as he wanted to be able to trust his own people, sometimes he just couldn’t. With two young lives on the line he couldn’t afford to be shot now, whether it killed him or not.

Once he was satisfied that he was out of the earshot of his men and that they could not rush back without him hearing them in enough time to react, he turned again to Rivka and knelt beside her head. “Rivka?” He reached out with his right hand and moved her arm away from her face.

Her eyes were closed, her cheeks colorless.

Ludwig frowned, somber acceptance settling over his features. Gently, he shook her shoulder. “Still alive?”

Damn. I really wanted to tell you —

Rivka’s eyes fluttered open. “Barely.” she murmured, her voice so weak and far away that if the single word hadn’t been such a direct answer to his question Ludwig would have wondered whether or not she grasped he was there. The brown eyes which had once held so much warmth and friendliness were now dull and glazed over — almost empty.

Ludwig knew that look all too well. He leaned in closer until his mouth was almost touching her ear, his breath warm against cold flesh. “I promise.” he half-whispered. Then he pulled away, gave her cheek a quick kiss, and took his coat back.

Save for the sounds of his activities, there was an exceptionally eerie, cold silence as he shifted his weapons around, buttoned his coat back up, and retrieved his flashlight. When he next checked on Rivka, he shone the light directly into her eyes.

No reaction: her pupils were unnaturally wide, still, and completely empty.

She was dead.

Ludwig regarded her sadly for a moment, then turned and walked back towards his men. Rest in peace, Rivka. I’ll rescue your children, if they’re still alive.

It was a promise he made to himself as well as his friend.

[Germany]

The small subset of an Einsatzgruppe Ludwig had unwittingly taken lead of hadn’t been able to learn anything useful from their victims, but as luck would have it they had found the site of the original explosion almost immediately thereafter. It was a massive pile of earth and rubble fully blocking part of a tunnel — the black residue and shocked rocks were impossible to miss. After the location had been noted and the area searched for more people, weapons, and any other supplies — none of which were found — they had started back for the agreed-upon meeting place, where the other team was already waiting.

The other team hadn’t run into any actual people, but they had found a few undetonated explosives, a few rounds of 9mm ammunition, garbage, and signs of recent, small-scale human activity.

No one was certain who had orchestrated and executed the explosion. The most likely culprits were, of course, rebellious Lithuanians and Jews, but that raised the question of how they had managed to get their hands on weapons and explosives and sneak them into a secret underground tunnel system when the German forces kept everything and everyone under such careful surveillance. As everything of interest that had been found was of a recognizably German origin, it was unlikely these items had been smuggled in from outside Ponary, although that would always remain a possibility until proven otherwise. Most of Ludwig’s company felt that it had been an inside job — that a traitorous Lithuanian officer, or perhaps even a German officer — had supplied a band of rebels with explosives, weapons, and ammunition and helped them evade detection and capture.

Why the explosion had occurred was another matter. There were only two logical possibilities: either the perpetrators had been deliberately trying to undermine some buildings and/or create a diversion for some purpose, or they knew a great deal about the layout of the tunnel labyrinth and were trying to unblock an important path that had caved in over the years, probably with the aim of escaping Ponary.

If the latter was true, they had failed miserably. They had used way too strong of a charge; not only had their target tunnel collapsed in completely, but the force of the blast had rippled through the ground and shaken the entire area like a small earthquake, causing cave-ins like the one that had crushed Rivka.

Personally, Ludwig leaned heavily towards the idea that it was a band of desperate Jews trying to escape Ponary. Whether they’d managed to steal the items they’d acquired on their own or had had inside help, whomever had set the blast obviously had had very little knowledge of explosives.

And what of Rivka? What had she been doing down in the tunnels, when her children were alone in a ghetto in Vilnius? How was it that her husband had been killed on arrival, but she hadn’t?

There was a small clue to the last in the fact that she’d been shot…perhaps that had happened during a bold escape? If it had, there had to have been more than one Nazi present. Wounded like that, how had she managed to move fast enough to get away from them and hide underground?

Disturbing. So many unanswered questions.

There was no doubt in Ludwig’s mind that Rivka had had a true mother’s love for her children; he couldn’t envision her abandoning them even if she had managed to escape Ponary. No — the poor thing had probably been trying to make it to Vilnius where she would free them if she could and share their fate if she couldn’t.

It was very admirable and selfless, yet at the same time completely heartwrenching.

Now she was dead, and her children’s last hope for survival rested on the shoulders of an SS Nazi.

The midday sun had broken through the clouds by the time they climbed up those last few hard, icy rungs, and Ludwig was forced to shield his eyes from the glare almost before he’d cleared the hole.

It was warmer up here in spite of the occasional wind-gusts, and the fresh air was a revitalizing gift after hours of walking through stagnant, earthen tunnels where everything smelled like frozen mud at best and rancid meat at worst. After everyone was up and all the equipment and evidence had been settled into carrying-friendly, sane positions, he walked with his men to the command center and made his report. Immediately afterward he excused himself from the Einsatgruppe and started for Vilnius in a readily-borrowed military vehicle.

Vilnius…it’d been nearly a year since he’d last been through Lithunania’s capitol. He didn’t recall having seen any ghettos then, but surely they’d be much harder to miss now, especially if massive amounts of Jews were being forced to live there and wear those eye-catching yellow star patches.

All he had to do was keep an eye out for a bunch of Jews living in crowded conditions.

Or ask around.

The latter would yield better results, but then, he didn’t want too many people getting interested in his business, especially since he doubted that what he was about to do was legal under Hitler’s regime.

But then, if der Führer would frown on his playing hero to a pair of Jewish children, he would be spitting mad if he knew what the spirit of his country had done last year.

Last year, Ludwig had saved the life of a Russian scout. A true enemy, not an imagined one like the Jews.

Driving onward over snow-dusted roads towards Vilnius, he couldn’t help but to recall that particular incidence.

The boy had been no older than 18 at most, and had somehow managed to shoot himself in the leg and wind up all alone way out in the snowy wilderness. He’d been completely terrified when Ludwig, out on his own solo scouting mission, had come across him and leveled his gun at him before he had a chance to reach for his. But since the half-frozen, lonely ‘comrade’ had been profoundly incompetent, too wounded to walk, and way out in the left field in his search for the German camp, Ludwig hadn’t seen any harm in letting him go. His initial plan had been to simply confiscate his weapons and continue on his way, but then it had dawned on him that no, leaving the boy to slowly succumb to his injuries in freezing weather would be far more cruel than shooting him in the head and putting him out of his misery. And if he was going to take him prisoner he might as well kill him right then and there because that was essentially an agonizing death sentence with his men.

So he had turned back around, prepared to do a mercy killing. But the boy had gazed up at him with such sorrowful, impossibly large, teary eyes and pleaded desperately in his native tongue ( at least it had sounded like pleading ), and, well, Ludwig just hadn’t had the heart to go through with it.

Long story short, he’d ended up continuing his search for the Russian camp with Comrade slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. When he’d finally found it he’d dumped the kid off at a respectable distance, fired a few shots in the air to alert his enemies that there was something they should investigate, and then ran off.

Comrade had been very, very fortunate.

The situation was different with Rivka’s children, but the concept was the same — the rules dictated that he should take a course of action that did not sit well at all with his conscience.

And, as usual, for all the fuss tried-and-true by-the-book die-hard-rule-enthusiast Ludwig Herrmann put up about not breaking rules and punishing those who did — for as religiously as he followed them on a day-to-day basis — in the end there were some circumstances where he himself broke them. Because the only thing worse than deliberate rule-breaking was deliberate cruelty.

Or so he told himself, on those few rare occasions when he allowed himself to think about the matter. Today wasn’t one of them.

At a distance of ten kilometers he reached the edge of larger Vilnius in minutes. From there it was a simple matter to prove his identity to the guards and drive right on in to the heart of the city unmolested. It was one of the perks of being a fairly well-known Oberstgruppenführer — subordinates rarely asked his business, especially if they were as far down the chain of command as Oberschütze. Of course, in the event that someone did happen to ask, he could offer any reason he wanted for why he was there and they would readily accept it.

Now that he was in, it was time to locate the ghetto and find those kids.

For the first fifteen minutes or so driving around the snow-dusted city, he didn’t see any tell-tale signs of a ghetto, Jewish or otherwise. The streets were bustling with Lithuanians and Germans going about their day-to-day, keeping busy with work and chores. Just as in Ponary, everyone had somewhere important to be or something important to do. The people that stayed outside were either patrolling or doing work that required them to be outside, such as cleaning windows or fixing vehicles. Not even children were dawdling.

Good. That’s proper. Discipline, order, and people being productive. But where the hell is this ghetto supposed to be?

No one in his line of sight was wearing the Jew star. Going slowly, he turned a fresh corner and a few of his fellow SS saluted him as he went by. Ludwig acknowledged them with a serious, curt nod, but did not return the favor.

This was frustrating.

He was about to roll down the window and ask the next German he saw when he noticed that the line of houses he was passing now looked very peculiar. The doors and windows were boarded up tightly with heavy strips of wood, secure enough to keep even mice out. No smoke rose from the chimneys. Everything about these houses had a rather desolate, gloomy air about it.

That feeling of wrongness he’d experienced in Ponary came back with a vengeance, and he knew he’d found the ghetto. The houses were boarded up to keep the Jews in.

But how do I get in? No sooner had he thought this than he spotted the entrance: a thick, sturdily-built wooden barrier, about three meters tall, with a single large door cut in a strategic place. The door was shut and probably locked. Two armed SS guards stood vigilant directly beside it while several of the local Lithuanian militia and German soldiers alike either patrolled the perimeter or kept watch from out the second-floor windows of houses across the street.

Ludwig parked alongside the curb right in front of them and got out.

“Heil Hitler!” the two guards greeted at once in unison, clicking their boots together and standing taller, more erect, and more proudly than before with their right arms extended up and straight out in front of them and their eyes fixed respectfully on Ludwig’s.

All of the nearby soldiers, both German and Lithuanian, stopped dead in their stride and mimicked the gesture, saluting Ludwig respectfully but silently.

Ludwig returned the salute in both action and words, the slight irritation that twitched at the corner of his mouth disguised by rigid authority. That whole heiling-the-Führer-by-name-as-an-official-form-of-greeting-and-farewell hadn’t been so bad right at first when it was a new, different, and powerful way to show loyalty to Hitler and the Nazi ideals, but after the first few weeks it grew increasingly tiresome to praise a boss who wasn’t even around to enjoy hearing it. Not only that, it helped keep the Führer up on his godly pedestal, which probably wasn’t healthy considering his already-inflated ego and very ungodly human flaws and limitations.

Why couldn’t they change it to Heil Deutschland? That would make far more sense, and show a greater degree of patriotism. Bosses came and went inside of decades or centuries, but countries were capable of lasting a very long time by human standards.

Now that protocol was satisfied, Ludwig approached his men readily and paused a stride away from them. His eyes ticked up briefly to the two big white boards of wood nailed above the entrance that bore writing in all of the relevant languages labeling the the enclosure as a Jewish ghetto and outlining a few hard-and-fast rules before returning to his compatriots.

“I need in there.” he announced flatly, noticing with quiet pride the way they stared in admiration at his military decorations and rank insignia, “Open the door for me.”

“Jawohl!”

Bright-eyed and obedient, the guards couldn’t move fast enough. One retrieved his keys immediately and set himself on the lock while the other anxiously watched him work. The moment the door was unlocked the latter immediately pushed it inward and, stepping inside the ghetto, held it open for Ludwig.

The blonde nation gave them an appreciative nod and entered.

_______________________________________

Oberschütze = One rank above the lowest rank in the Wehrmacht. Equivalent to U.S. Private 1st Class.

Jawohl = Translates to "Yes sir!" when used in a military context.

[Germany]

The first thing Ludwig noticed about the ghetto was that it was crowded: human beings swarmed over the streets and all open areas like clouds of insects. Most were hard at work; the tiny fraction that looked to have been resting jumped to their feet and made haste busying themselves the moment they happened to catch sight of him.

The next thing he noticed were the clothes: relatively few people were wearing anything that was both clean and untorn. Most of them walked around in filthy rags, or, if not outright rags, age-wearied garments that looked as though they had been worn daily without laundering for well over a week. Less than half had anything that passed for a decent coat; they packed on extra clothing or wrapped blankets around themselves to keep warm. All wore the yellow star over their left breast.

“Do you need anything, Oberstgruppenführer?” The guard who had opened the door for Ludwig stood with his back pressed against it, still holding it open, his posture disciplined and attentive. He regarded his superior curiously, no doubt wondering why he was here and what he meant to do inside the ghetto.

“I’m looking for someone,” Ludwig replied flatly, “two someones, actually.”

“Someones who are…specific?”

“Ja.”

By now most of the Jews in the immediate vicinity had noticed their visitor: they kept him in the corners of their eyes without looking directly at him, warily and hurriedly going about their business. They were working very hard now — harder than they had been only moments before.

Although no one had told him specifically, Ludwig knew at once that their lives depended on keeping busy and remaining productive, especially when in the presence of the SS. It was as obvious as day in the light of everything he had just learned. Survival of the fittest. Keep the most useful as slave-labor and exterminate the rest.

Something inside him flinched. It was a cruel system, but also very efficient, he had to admit. It kept unproductive people from sucking up resources that could be better put to use elsewhere and kept the frightened survivors at optimum productivity.

“In that case, I’ll get Gens for you. He knows just about everyone in the ghetto.” The guard was only too eager to help.

Ludwig turned to dismiss him with an appreciative nod, but he was already gone, the big wooden door slamming loudly behind him. There were no sounds of the door being re-locked, but then the ghetto was bustling with activity — it would be easy to miss. Not that the blue-eyed nation was at all worried about getting trapped in here.

He started forward, passing a multi-housing complex and coming into an open area that might once have been a paved courtyard, a wide intersection, or a site cleared for some other purpose — it was hard to tell now with all the people milling about. With a guide already enroute he’d be sure not to wander too far from the front gate, but what harm could a little solo exploration do? He’d never been in this kind of a work camp before, and he was naturally curious as to how bad the Jews in here really had it.

Turned out, they had it pretty bad. Most of them — not all, but most — were malnourished and in various stages of starvation. Their clothes hung off them, their bones showed too well under their skin. They appeared to have only limited access to soap and running water, and for the most part lacked the items necessary for basic hygiene, even hairbrushes and toothbrushes. Everywhere he turned he saw sallow faces cut with deep lines, dark rings under bloodshot eyes. So many of them didn’t have warm enough attire…their whole bodies shivered under whatever they were wearing, their teeth chattering as they worked outside or raced from building to building. Whenever Ludwig got too close to any of them silent terror would fall over their faces and drive them to strive extra hard to look busy doing something very important.

In his haste, one man tripped over a rock and dropped the boxes he was carrying, sending empty tin cans everywhere. No one helped him pick them up; indeed, none of his fellow Jews even looked at him. Ludwig merely watched as, wide-eyed and frantic, the man scrambled to pick the cans up and put them back in the boxes, his head darting up every few seconds to check on Ludwig, probably to reassure himself that the Nazi wasn’t about to shoot him.

Ludwig didn’t so much as twitch a finger. Though the intense gaze and the harsh, no-nonsense expression he wore suggested otherwise, he didn’t plan on doing Can Man any harm. I’m not going to punish you, he thought dryly, Though in the future you will want to avoid accidents like this in front of the SS.

Can Man finished recovering the cans in record time and dashed into an adjacent building, sparing only one nervous backward glance.

For the first time, Ludwig noticed that the quiet chatter that had rustled through the ghetto only minutes ago had died down to a few occasional hurried whispers. No one made eye-contact with him. No one dared.

They were suffering greatly.

Suffering more greatly than the Jews who were taken to Ponary, because at least those Jews had a relatively quick death to look forward to. Better to be killed outright than worked literally to death under abominable conditions, freezing, starving, watching your loved ones die slowly before your very eyes…

My god, it just keeps getting worse. His heart ached, the stark sorrow of the ghetto seeping into him like posion, troubling his thoughts.

How could his people go through with this? Slave-labor was one thing, but to make the slaves suffer like this when killing them would be far kinder….for what? To save on resources? Because their immediate future read ‘death’ anyway, so why not exploit them to the fullest before killing them?

Something cold caught in his chest at the realization that he’d just hit the nail on the head. Jews had no place in Hitler’s regime. It didn’t matter how hard they worked or how much ass they kissed: every single person here was going to be used for all he or she was worth and then killed. Ruthless efficiency. Torture and kill the hated ‘enemy’ while simultaneously profiting at their expense.

To anti-semites, it was righteous justice.

To Ludwig Herrmann, spirit of Germany, it was anything but.

If only Hitler’s lies were true…if only they really did deserve this…

Ludwig had never been a huge fan of torture — especially prolonged torture on this scale — but it would not be so bad if only his so-called enemies actually were his enemies; if they were all the things his boss and the other Nazis made them out to be, if so many of them weren’t his own damn people.

But even though the vast majority of the prisoners in this particular labor setup were not Germans, his heart was not so closed-up that he couldn’t feel compassion for them. It was not quite the same kind of compassion that he felt for his own people, but it was close. He hated to see them suffer.

Over ten minutes had elapsed since he had wandered away from the main entrance. Frustrated, he was just about to head back and see what was holding his guide up when he saw a man bounding towards him, everyone making way for him as though he were a projectile parting water.

“Oberstgruppenführer! Oberstgruppenführer Herrmann!” He rushed up to the Nazi, smiling in a faintly fearful way, his dark eyes alive with excitement.

Ludwig looked him over. He was in his mid-thirties or early forties with a receding hairline and short, dark hair. The yellow star decorated his chest, but unlike most of his fellow Jews he was not thin to the point of emaciation and wore cleaner, newer attire that included a warm coat. His relatively well-kept appearance indicated that he had more regular access to hygienic necessities.

He dipped into a quick, respectful bow. “Jacob Gens at your service.”

“Gens,” Ludwig repeated, committing the name to memory just in case it proved useful in the future. “I take it you are in a position of authority in these parts?”

Gens straightened. “As much authority as one such as me is permitted to have. I am head of the Jewish Ghetto Police.”

In other words, you have no real authority at all, except over those waiting to die. Ludwig thought disdainfully, but said nothing.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Herr Herrmann. It isn’t often that a German general visits Vilnius.” One of his eyes twitched, and Ludwig saw that he was staring at his Maschinenpistole. But then his gaze lifted quickly, and now his eyes seemed to catch on one of the Nazi’s uniform decorations. “I see you are with the SS as well.”

Though it was still overly friendly, now Gens’s voice carried a slow, subdued sorrow, so subtle that Ludwig — who had never been all that adept at reading people — would have missed it if he hadn’t been expecting it. Like any Jew in his position would, Gens was expecting the worst.

Ludwig cut to the chase. “I’m looking for two children; a five-year-old-boy, and a seven-year-old girl. Surname Goldberger.”

Gens tilted his head pensively. “Goldberger,” he repeated quietly, “Goldberger….that’s a very common surname. How long ago did they arrive?”

Damn. Two horrible truths hit Ludwig right then: 1), he didn’t know how long ago Rivka and her children had arrived, or if they had even arrived together, and 2 ), he had already forgotten the kids’ first names, which was going to make things a hell of a lot more difficult.

They couldn’t have been here for long, he reasoned, Rivka didn’t act like it, and she wouldn’t have waited long before going to them.

“Not long. Maybe a couple of weeks.” He frowned, uncertain.

This was just a guess. An educated guess, but still.

He continued, “Their names escape me at the moment, but I am sure I would recognize them if I heard them again. Their mother’s name was Rivka Goldberger. She came from Berlin.”

Gens blinked, his own face becoming uncertain. “Berlin? We don’t get many German Jews here — mostly Lithuanians and Poles. I don’t remember a Rivka Goldberger, but then I deal with so many names every day it’s quite possible she simply slipped my mind.” As fast as it had come, his uncertainty was swept away by a weak smile. “Of course, I would be delighted to help you search for these children. The ghetto is big to walk around in, but I know it like the back of my hand.”

Ludwig nodded seriously. “Good. The quicker the better.” Then, considering, he added, “Are the children confined to any one place?”

“Not generally, especially children as young as these Goldbergers you’re after. They wander around doing what they can to remain obedient and useful.” Gens turned and started forward. “I’ll lead, if it is alright with you?” His tone and voice were very pleasant, almost cheerful.

“Naturally,” Ludwig replied, annoyed and a little surprised that the man had bothered asking his permission when it was so painfully clear that that was the only arrangement that made a shred of sense. The Jew broke into a brisk walk, and he followed, keeping to his side and slightly behind. Overhead, the sun peered out from behind soapy clouds.

“It will help to ask around,” Gens said presently, “Would you like me to translate for you?”

“Ja. I do speak other languages, but not Lithuanian, or Polish, or Hebrew.”

Gens got to work immediately questioning the ghetto residents, who seemed to regard him with almost as much fear and respect as they did Ludwig. No one on the street they were on knew where the Goldberger children were; Gens’s questions were met with bewilderment, blank expressions, and sad eyes. People shook their heads and talked back and forth, keeping always a wary eye on Ludwig, and pointed down other streets, naming others whom they thought might know. So onwards to these others they went, following up each new lead as it came to them .

The deeper he journeyed into the heart of the ghetto, the more Ludwig saw, and the more he wished he hadn’t seen.

My god…

It was like trekking into the outer realm of a frozen Hell.

Vilnius’s Jews were even worse off than he had initially supposed: everyone was so utterly exhausted, cold, broken-spirited, spent, and completely miserable. Starvation was rampant — a few people were literally not much more than animate skeletons with taught, sickly skin stretched drum-tight over frail bones, their almost lifeless eyes sunken in, their teeth and fingers yellowed, their hair falling out, their expressions glazed and far away as they huddled together for warmth or painstakingly forced themselves to work until they literally fell where they stood, never to rise again. Men, women, tiny children…age didn’t matter. They squabbled over the smallest bits of food that did not look fit for human consumption. Drank questionable water.

Ludwig didn’t like looking at them. At first he tried his best to shut them out, focus on Gens and only Gens, make them fleeting, blurry ghosts in the dark edges of his peripheral like he usually did when confronted with human suffering.

But then he realized with a terrible jolt that he could not shut them out — not when he was looking for two of them — and so he kept his own search alongside Gens’s, inspecting each age-range-appropriate child closely for some sign that it was one of the ones he was looking for. But the sad truth was that he could only guess as to what Rivka’s children looked like based on what their mother looked like, and each time he asked Gens confirmed that no, the child was not a Goldberger.

More searching.

More black, gritty images to add to the bank of bad, heartbreaking memories.

Bloated, grossly disfigured, discolored, frost-bitten corpses lay piled off to the sides in some of the streets they passed, dead for days from the smell and appearance of them. Their clothes had long since been scavenged by their freezing brethren. The entire ghetto stank of death, decay, and other unpleasant smells, though some places were worse than others.

There were no old people — indeed, no one looked much over the age of forty, at most —— and it was obvious why. Of course the elderly would have succumbed first…if they ever made it here in the first place.

Cold.

Merciless.

They had been searching for about half an hour when Ludwig asked “How long has it been like this?”

“Hm?” Gens stopped for a moment and turned to face him, a gentle confusion dawning on him. “Forgive me, but I am not sure what you are asking. How long has what been like what?” His voice was strangely calm and casual.

“The ghetto,” Ludwig elaborated, his voice softening ever so slightly, his face an indifferent mask that concealed his emotions, “Has it always been this bad?”

Gens regarded him quizzically, staring into his intense blue eyes as though he were searching for Rivka’s children in them, his posture and mannerisms reminding the German of a nervous songbird that wasn’t certain as to whether or not it had glimpsed danger. “What do you mean by ‘bad’?” he asked carefully, plainly afraid of jumping to the wrong conclusion.

“The starvation, the crowded conditions, lack of sanitation, people freezing and dying in the streets.” Ludwig gestured to a small pile of corpses, most of them children and young mothers. “I’ve seen less suffering and brutality on the Russian front.”

Gens nodded solemnly, and for the first time Ludwig saw a bit of the mask he wore slip to reveal a hint of inky sorrow that probably welled much deeper. “It used to be worse,” he almost whispered, his eyes ticking off to the sides every few seconds while he spoke, scanning the nearby vicinity like nervous radar, “There used to be twice as many people packed into this ghetto. Months ago there was another ghetto across from this one that housed another ten thousand or so people. The small ghetto, Ghetto Two. But that was merely a holding place for everyone surplus and unfit, and it was completely liquidated by the end of October. This ghetto is for workers with permits and their families. Well…what members of their families they are allowed to take with them.”

Ludwig looked away, his gaze coming to rest on the side of building. This is wrong. he thought, over and over again, overcome with a mild case of surreal shock. He closed his eyes and began breathing a little more deeply than usual, ignoring the stench and the way the icy air burned his nostrils and bit into his exposed flesh.

Everything changed.

The noise of languages he didn’t understand being spoken became the lively chatter of joyous songbirds. The gray sky exploded into the brilliant brightness of a perfect cloudless day. He could almost feel the warmth of the sun on him, all but smell the unbelievably sweet, mouth-watering scent of apples and berries floating on the lazy summer breeze. The tart, delicious taste of applewine lingered on his lips. Warm, yellowed grass crunched pleasantly beneath his bare feet.

He was the North German Confederation again, back on the day of his birth, frolicking in a beautiful apple orchard for the sheer joy of being alive, every moment more magical than the one before.

Prussia was there too: his dear, beloved brother, although he had not known that the strong white-haired nation with the human alias of Gilbert Beilschmidt was his brother at the time.

“I want to be a great nation someday too!” His voice was a child’s in his mind, full of hope, innocence, vitality, and the unadulterated dreams of endless possibilities, “I’ll grow up into a big, strong knight, and we can save our people together! Evildoers will know better than to mess with me!”

Beaming, laughing, swelling with pride, brotherly love, and tipsy happiness, Prussia had supported him one hundred percent. "I'd bet my whole army on it, kid!"

I failed. I can’t protect my people. Instead of vanquishing evildoers, I serve them.

The coldness rushed back like wind borne of a hurricane and hit him in the face like a truck. The warm, golden memory shrivled up like a photograph thrown into a fire.

He felt something hard and vaguely warm in his fingers, and when he opened his eyes he realized he was holding the little iron cross that was attached to the necklace he’d worn since before the Great War. He rubbed the piece of metal between his thumb and forefinger, feeling its every contour, echoing the actions of Prussia decades ago.

“It’s shiny, isn’t it?” Gilbert’s bright, cheerful words rang out through the darkness across space and time.

Ludwig held his own iron cross up in order to see it better, a muted sorrow touching his face.

No. It was losing all its shine. He kept it well-polished as his brother had taught him, and visibly it didn’t look much different, but still, somehow, it seemed less lustrous now than it had ever before.

He let it fall back against his chest. Lowering his head, he exhaled a long, deep sigh.

Then a fire flared up from somewhere within him, swift and fierce, traveling up his body and shining out his eyes. He turned to face Gens with steely determination, his stare acid-clear and unyielding, his face once again hard and strong.

Gens, street-smart as always, had paused and allowed him to have his moment in uninterrupted silence. He stood patiently at a respectful distance, looking back at Ludwig with a mixture of professional composure, cordiality, and curiosity tinted with sadness and wonder.

“We will find them,” Ludwig said savagely, his voice as powerful as if he were commanding fate itself, “if I have to turn this ghetto inside-out.” He locked eyes with Gens and started a trembling behind the other man’s eyes. “Gens! I am running out of patience. Start everyone searching — tell them I’ll start a random head-count reduction program if they don’t.” He reached into his trenchcoat and withdrew his PPK, deftly removing the safety and cocking it.

I wont, but they don’t know that.

He hated having to frighten these people even more like this, but desperate times called for desperate measures. If they were still alive, Rivka’s children were living on borrowed time; he had to find them before the Einsatzgruppen did. If they were not still alive he wanted to learn as quickly as possible so he could leave this depressing hellhole and put it far behind him.

_______________________________________________

A/N: Whew! Long installment!

Jacob Gens is a real-life historical figure who really did serve as head of the Jewish Police of the Vilnius ghetto at the time this story takes place. Read more about him [/i]here ( Warning, his story is tragic and depressing ).

Many thanks to our Prussia for letting me borrow her Prussia for a flashback cameo! The memories described are from Mein Norddeutscher Bund.

[Germany]

“Jawohl!” Gens was animated, all too eager to comply with the rather frightening request. Off to the sides and all around, people went deathly still, staring in silent horror at the Nazi. A little girl started to cry somewhere and her mother clapped a hand over her mouth, hushing her to be quiet. “But first, may I ask, do these children have any living relatives here? A father? An uncle? An adult brother or sister? Anyone?”

Ludwig frowned. “I don’t think so. Their parents are both dead. If they have any other relatives here, I don’t know about them.”

It was Gen’s turn to frown. “We must hurry then — if they’re not already at Ponary, they’ll be there very soon. Unclaimed orphans are always sent there first opportunity.”

Scheiße. Ludwig pointed his weapon at Gens. “What the hell are you waiting for?!” he snapped, “Get to it!”

The gun was probably unnecessary, but it sure sped things up. Gens whirled on the nearest group of people and began shouting something in first Lithuanian, then Polish. He gestured to Ludwig as he spoke, and the German heard his name. He also heard the name ‘Goldberger’.

At once everyone dropped what they were doing and flew into a frenzy of activity. Fear ran rampant in their eyes as well as their voices as they immediately began looking around and questioning everyone they knew. Gens must have told them to spread the message, because they rushed into buildings and emerged with many more people of almost every age present who joined in the hunt with just as much vigor and passion. Several of them cast a nervous eye to Ludwig: in particular, Ludwig’s weapons.

“This way! We have a lead.”

Gens broke into a run and Ludwig followed close behind. They had barely gone half a block’s length when the Jew halted in front of a tired, world-weary woman who appeared to be in her thirties. She had been walking towards them with intent, but when she spoke her voice lacked the energy and enthusiasm her legs had had.

Gens started speaking to her in rapid-fire Lithuanian.

The exchange was brief. When it had finished Gens turned to his Nazi superior with a glum expression. “The train to Ponary arrived ahead of schedule. It’ll be leaving any minute now.”

“Scheiße!” This time the word slipped out in a desperate, urgent hiss. “Which way to the train station?! How far?”

Gens’s finger shot out in a diagonal direction, the view obstructed by people and buildings. “That way. Three blocks over at the barrier. You can’t miss it if you keep heading that way and keep close to the barrier.”

That was all Ludwig needed to hear. He shot off like a rocket without so much as a backward glance, his gun held sideways up against his chest. I hope I’m not too late, he thought frantically, his heart pumping faster, his legs flying under him. He tapped into as much of his supernatural speed as he dared, focusing his sharp vision and his complete attention only on his goal, the path, and the obstacles in his way. Everything else was unimportant.

Even running nowhere near his top speed, he was still going fast enough that most of the people in his way didn’t have time to move. He threaded his way through as many of them as he could, lashing out with his arms and knocking aside the rest.

Pleasantly, it took less time than he had imagined to cover three congested blocks going at what felt like a slow jog, and following Gens’s instructions he found the ghetto’s exit rather easily. The big wooden doors were closed; Ludwig pushed against them and confirmed his suspicion that they were locked from the outside. No guards were in sight.

Damn! Deeply annoyed at having to feign human limitations in a time like this, the nation thrust his PPK skyward and fired a couple of shots at the clouds. “It’s Oberstgruppenführer Herrmann!” he shouted loudly “LET ME OUT!”

Movement on the outside, the scratch of metal against wood. The moment the first gap appeared between the doors Ludwig shoved them open, almost knocking the Nazis on the other side down on their asses in his haste.

There was the train, sitting motionless on the tracks. Loads of people were crammed shoulder-to-shoulder inside the ventilated boxcars like cattle. Save for some hushed conversation and whimpering, they were pretty quiet and subdued. A light snow began to fall; some of them reached out with cupped hands to catch it.

Ludwig relaxed a little. The train was still here.

Now to find the children…

The two SS guards who had opened the doors for him respectfully heiled him in Hitler’s name, but at that very moment Ludwig looked to his left and caught sight of something happening a little ways down the platform that made him forget all about formalities.

What appeared to be the last group of Jews chosen for slaughter in Ponary today was being herded into an open boxcar by about half a dozen armed Lithuanian soldiers. As Ludwig watched, one of the Lithuanians — a young man around the age of eighteen — turned and brutally kicked a small boy in the stomach, sending him flying into the side of a brick house.

What the hell?!

Snarling savagely in his native tongue, the Lithuanian dove for the winded child and grabbed him up by the ankles.

Close by the the spectacle, a little girl screamed. She was grabbed and silenced immediately by the hand of another Lithuanian soldier.

In a sickening, jaded flash Ludwig knew what the man intended to do — he was going to swing the boy headfirst into the brick wall, breaking his neck, cracking his skull, and shattering his little face.

Not while I’m here. Ludwig’s eyes narrowed with cold, deadly precision. He lifted the PPK and took aim.

The Lithuanian shuffled the struggling boy into a more comfortable position for himself and made ready to swing, but he never got the chance. A bullet tore through the side of his head above his ear, its report ringing loud and clear through the still winter air. He dropped where he stood like a sack of bricks, falling over on one side with the child landing on top of him.

Got you. Ludwig thought smugly, relieved. He’d had years of experience and practice with firearms, and he knew objectively that he was a pretty good marksman — easily as good as most snipers — but anything could have gone wrong, and if he had been even a little off the mark this heroic rescue could have turned into a tragedy.

The line of Jews moving into the boxcar stopped, and the soldiers stopped paying attention to them. A deathly near-silence fell over the platform as everyone registered what had happened, their eyes shifting rapidly between Ludwig, who, with his weapon still raised and pointed, stood out as the obvious source of the gunshot, and the fresh corpse laying on the ground.

“Woo! Nice shot, Oberstgruppenführer.” one of the SS guards cheered.

“Wait…that wasn’t a Jew.” The second guard was a little more perceptive than his comrade.

Ludwig didn’t bother looking at either of them. “I need that boy for questioning.” he explained tersely, letting his arm drop to his side and lighting off towards the gathering. It was all the explanation subordinates needed, and true to form they did not ask questions. Not that they likely cared about the reason behind why a non-German had been killed anyway, whether he happened to be Jewish or not.

The remaining Lithuanian soldiers sure cared though. All five lowered their weapons, straightened their backs, and saluted Ludwig with the highest degree of respect as he approached, their faces crisp, attentive, and anxious.

The little girl who had screamed earlier was free now. She rushed over to the boy, pulled him off the dead man, and helped him sit up.

Ludwig slowed to a normal walk, studying the children intently as he rapidly closed the distance between himself and them. When he’d fired the gun moments ago, his only thought had been to save an innocent boy a lot of pain. It hadn’t occurred to him right then in that particular moment in time that the boy looked about five years old, the girl about seven…

Please be Rivka’s! He couldn’t help himself; his pulse quickened along with his pace, his hopes and excitement climbing. A quick scan of the assemblage told him that these two were the only children present, which immediately struck him as odd, but promising. Hadn’t Gens said German Jews weren’t usually sent to this particular ghetto? Perhaps there had been some confusion at some point which had delayed their trip to the killing grounds.

The girl child shivered as he neared and clutched the boy close to her chest, her arms wrapped around him protectively. Ludwig stopped directly in front of them and looked down, his boots almost touching the boy’s legs.

[Germany]

They were definitely the right ages. The girl had naturally curly, copper-tinted light brown hair that fell limply past her shoulders. Her eyes were dark, but not brown-dark — probably hazel. As far as little girls went she appeared to have a medium build, but even in a sitting position with the boy covering much of her front it was obvious that she was underweight. She wore a white button-up blouse and a plain, cornflower-blue skirt. The boy propped up against her chest was breathing heavily, his whole body trembling violently with pain and quiet sobs. He was bundled up in a little brown jacket bearing the yellow star, his eyes shut tightly, tears streaming down cheeks that were far too lacking in baby-fat. His messy hair was almost the same shade of dark brown as Rivka’s. Both children were incredibly filthy, and there was hardly a square inch on either of them that wasn’t caked with dirt, mud, or some staining substance.

Poor little things. Ludwig really hoped these were the children he was looking for; he hated looking into the sad faces of freezing, starving, suffering children and having to move on without helping them because they weren’t Rivka’s and he couldn’t very well go around saving every Jewish child in the area.

“You two. State your surnames.” In spite of his intentions, his voice was no softer and his tone no less severe than if he were grilling a pair of enemy POWs who had just killed one of his men. It was deliberate — as much as he wanted to help these children, it would not do to be caught comforting them. People were watching and word spread fast, particulary as it pertained to German-Jew relations and possible ‘Bolshevik sympathizers’ inside the SS. Now that he’d raised a few eyebrows within an Einsatzgruppe he would have to be more careful than ever about everything he said and did in public.

The girl recoiled and pulled the boy even more tightly up against her chest, as though she thought doing so would somehow help protect him from the Nazi general.

Ludwig thought it was cute, touching, and sad all at once.

“Goldberger,” the girl replied just loudly enough to be heard, her fear-ridden eyes fixed anxiously on Ludwig, “We’re both Goldbergers. Brother and sister.”

“And your first names?” Ludwig demanded, his hopes rising along with his spirits.

“I’m Nessa. My brother’s name is Arik.”

“Your mother is Rivka, right?” Yes! Those names DO sound familiar! By this point Ludwig was damn sure they were the ones, but a little confirmation never hurt. He suppressed the relief that begged to express itself on his features, pushed it down firmly behind a mask of stern authority.

Nessa nodded, the fear in her eyes deepening and mixing with sorrow. “Yes.” she almost whispered, as though she were somehow able to sense that something horrible had happened to her mother.

“Momma’s alright, is she?” Arik choked out weakly in between sobs. He opened his eyes and glanced with morbid curiosity to the corpse of his would-be killer.

Ludwig didn’t answer him. Instead he turned to the Lithuanian soldiers, so motionless and silent they could have passed for wax models if not for the subtle rising and falling of their chests and the movement of their eyes. Their expressions, however, were anything but relaxed or indifferent. Ironically, the downtrodden, weaponless Jews seemed less apprehensive than they were.

Courage at its finest. No wonder Lithuania was always getting conquered — his people had even less backbone than he did.

“I need these,” Ludwig announced flatly, leaving no room for argument, and although he made no gestures in their direction it was obvious to anyone that he was talking about the children, “Carry on without them.”

One of the Lithuanians gave a curt nod and saluted again. “As you command, Oberstgruppenführer.” His accent was startlingly thick. He turned and grunted what sounded like a command in Lithuanian to his comrades, and they picked up where they had left off herding their human cargo into the boxcars. However, there was an air of anxiety about them now, and they kept a wary eye on not only Ludwig, but the two SS guards stationed at the ghetto’s exit.

The Jews, for their part, seemed no more concerned than they had initially been, which was understandable since it didn’t matter to them who was forcing them into the train so long as they were being forced in there. They stepped up into the boxcar and crowded in like a bunch of obedient sheep. For people enroute to immediate death they were pretty calm and accepting about it.

Ludwig wondered if they knew what was in store for them at Ponary, whether they expected to be mass-murdered or merely thought they were being transported to another area for work. Not that it mattered, really. In the end their fate would be the same regardless of what they believed.

Such gloomy thoughts in mind, he turned his attention back to Arik and Nessa. The others were doomed, but these two…these two he could save.

Maybe.

I’m going to have to find you two a nice home far, far away from here. he thought as he stared into Nessa’s eyes, causing her to flinch a little, That’s going to be easier said than done.

There would be time to worry about that later.

Right now he needed to get these kids into safer quarters, cleaned up, and fed.

Returning the handgun to its place in his inner coat, he bent down without a word and slid an arm underneath Arik.

Nessa didn’t like that. “Please! Please don’t hurt my brother!” she begged desperately in a small, innocent voice, keeping her arms wound tightly around Arik in a deathgrip.

His right arm still under the boy, Ludwig used his left to gently — at least, he hoped gently — pull Nessa’s arms free, literally feeling no resistance even though the girl was putting everything she had into it. Biting the bullet and forcing himself to ignore all the filth coating the child, he scooped Arik up and pressed him against his chest, scooting him up into a comfortable position where his throat and chin rested snugly on his left shoulder.

There. He couldn’t do anything about the child’s immense stomach pain, but he could keep him from having to walk. That would make him a little more comfortable, at least.

He moved up alongside Nessa, who lowered her head and stared at the ground, glittering snowflakes falling into her hair and clinging to it like a delicate shroud.

“Nessa,” Though his voice was as firm as his expression, it wasn’t particularly cold or menacing, “Get up and grab my arm. Don’t let go of it whatever you do. We’re going for a walk.”

Nessa looked up and blinked, processing. “A walk? A walk to where?” She climbed to her feet and did as she had been instructed, grabbing the sleeve of Ludwig’s trenchcoat at his elbow, right below the swastika armband.

“My place.” Ludwig answered succinctly, then, noticing a potential problem added, “Arik, don’t move too much — my Maschinenpistole’s hanging under you and I don’t want it dropped, damaged, or accidentally going off. Understand?”

[Germany]

Arik made a noise that sounded something like the whimpering moan of a puppy that had just been jostled into an uncomfortable position. “Ja.” he answered weakly, moving an arm up around Ludwig’s neck.

The Nazi shifted his arm into a more comfortable position underneath the boy, taking care not to disturb the Maschinenpistole too much. The safety was on, but one could never be too careful. He wanted to put his right hand over Arik’s back for extra support and security, but he knew how that would look to his comrades. As it was they were going to have questions, namely what possible business a Wehrmacht-SS general could have with a pair of Jewish children destined for the Ponary pits. They wouldn’t dare ask him about it, of course — not directly — but the more anti-semitic he appeared, the better.

A glance in their direction reassured Ludwig that the Lithuanians weren’t trying anything low, sneaky, and ultimately suicidal: they were still heavily engrossed in the task at hand.

Feeling that it was safe enough to turn his back on them, he broke into a brisk walk back towards the ghetto exit, shooting another glance — this one lightning-quick — over his shoulder after the first few steps just to make doubly sure.

His stride quickly proved to be too much for Nessa, who had to jog a little to keep up. “Ehp! You’re going too fast!”

“Deal with it.”

Whatever didn’t kill her would only make her stronger.

Nessa dealt with it, or at least kept her complaints to herself. At one point Ludwig felt her slip on a patch of ice that had frozen into a slight dip in the concrete, but her grip on him kept her from going down and skinning her knee. They kept moving.

The guards stared at the kids with a cool, calculating curiosity as they approached.

“Adler! Brandt! It’s Hauptmann! Open the gates!”

The loud, booming voice from the other side of the barrier-wall made the two men jump. Just as they had with Ludwig, they at once set upon the task of unlocking and opening the gates.

Hauptmann? The verging-irritated-scowl that Ludwig wore as a neutral expression deepened and turned more genuine. From the way Adler and Brandt were reacting this Hauptmann was someone they knew well, almost certainly a superior.

He and the children reached the gates just as they were pulled open. A man in a gray uniform and matching trenchcoat stepped out. Adler and Brandt gave him the usual greeting, to which he responded with an abrupt salute. Just beyond him, still fully within the confines of the ghetto and looking more anxious than ever, stood Gens.

Having dispensed the pleasantries, Hauptmann took a few more steps forward, allowing the guards to hastily close and re-lock the gates behind him. His eyes snapped onto Ludwig. “Ah, Oberstgruppenführer Herrmann. I heard you were in the area. A pleasure to meet you.”

His tone was cheerful enough, but there was something in his voice that Ludwig didn’t like. He felt Nessa’s grip on his arm tighten.

Tempting as it was, he avoided looking at her. “Pleasure’s mine,” he said, though he was not able to fake delight as well as some of his men.

Hauptmann advanced on them, his eyes harsh and gray as hailstones. Everything about him gave an air of strength and authority; his cheeks were hard, his jaw firm and well-set, his neck lean and strong. He was taller than Ludwig, and appeared to be somewhere in his late thirties or early forties. Wisps of honey-blonde hair — the exact same shade as Ludwig’s — poked out from under his hat.

He stopped in front of the other Nazi, his posture straight and vaguely menacing. A subtle frown troubled his countenance as he studied first Arik, then Nessa.

It was then that Ludwig noticed that there was something different about his uniform. His right-side collar patch was plain black without insignia, as was his cuffband. His shoulderboards were patterned differently than the SS, and in a poisonous shade of green…

His eyes jumped immediately to Hauptmann’s lower left sleeve, where his suspicions were confirmed. Sure enough, there was the white “SD” inside the diamond-shaped black patch.

Oh great. The Gestapo. What a nuisance.

The Gestapo were Hitler’s secret police, though these days they were a badly-kept secret. Originally they’d all worked undercover dressed as ordinary civilians, but after one too many accidents involving plain-clothes Gestapo being misidentified and shot by the Wehrmacht they’d been ordered to wear the gray SS uniforms while in occupied territories.

Gray SS uniforms with slight alterations, the most noticeable being the addition of the “SD” diamond and the lack of the “SS” collar runes.

As a specialized part of the intelligence agency, it was the Gestapo’s job to stick their noses as deeply into everyone’s business as they could in an effort to ferret out traitors, spies, and underground resistance operations. They also helped the Kripo handle everyday lawbreakers, but their primary task was to gather as much information about potentially dangerous or suspicious activity as they could and react accordingly. This included performing searches, interrogating people, eavesdropping, spying, making arrests, filing reports, confiscating illegal and illegally-acquired items, and even on-the-spot executions. They were hyper-alert to their surroundings and very thorough: the shakiest rumor out of a child’s mouth or the slightest deviation of anyone or anything from the ordinary could launch them into a full-scale investigation.

Ordinarily, that was a good thing, and Ludwig was proud of their slyness, efficiency, by-the-book methodology, and dedication to duty. They zealously protected the interests of the Reich as well as the safety and stability of German forces stationed all over Europe.

However, just this once he found himself wishing they were a little worse at their jobs. Hauptmann’s being here was no coincidence. No, someone on that damn Einsatzgruppe had reported him as a suspicious character; it had to be Defacto Second.

The thought was infuriating. Once he’d taken care of these kids that bloodthirsty, insubordinate asshole was going straight to the Russian front. He’d make sure of it. There he would at least be useful, and if he happened to die in the line of duty, so much the better.

“I see you’ve stopped a pair of Jewish children from getting on the train.” Hauptmann noted almost casually in that same too-cheerful tone, smiling thinly as he met Ludwig’s gaze. “Have something else in mind for them?”

Clever.

Framing his questions as friendly curiosity allowed him to probe a superior without coming off as insubordinate or accusing.

“I do.” Unyielding blue eyes locked with steely gray. Technically, barring overt and indisputable acts of treachery, Ludwig was not required to explain himself to the Gestapo. Odds were excellent that Hitler and his highest-ranking subordinates had not ordered an investigation on him: what would the point be when they already knew his biggest secret? Yet it would not do to create even more suspicion, so a coverup was needed.

Right now.

Anything but the truth would work.

“They’re needed for questioning. And, you know.” Ludwig jerked his head slightly to the right, implying a shared, unsaid understanding between adults that couldn’t be brought out into the open and discussed in the presence of children.

Mild confusion played across Hauptmann’s face. He wasn’t getting the drift. “I do?”

Ludwig gave a curt nod. “Top secret. I can’t say more in their presence.”

“But they’re just children,” Hauptmann’s curiosity was too much for him. “Surely they don’t speak German…”

“They do. They’re from Germany. Berlin.”

Hauptmann’s frustration was evident. He regarded his Oberstgruppenführer quizzically, and Ludwig could practically see the wheels turning in his head. “German Jews?” he mused, “Not many get sent here. Their parents must have been important.”

“Are important,” Ludwig pretended to correct, boosting Arik up a little more when the child squirmed in his grasp, “As important as the explosion that happened beneath Ponary this morning. You know where this is heading.” Hurry up and pick up on the fact that I’m using them as bait to capture their free and troublesome parents.

A satisfied, knowing smirk came to Hauptmann’s face. He had indeed caught on. “I see. Anything I can help you with?”

“Nein.”

Hauptman looked disappointed. “Are you sure? These matters are usually handled by the Gestapo, after all. A little unusual that an Oberstgruppenführer such as yourself would take the time to bother with such trifling affairs.”

“I’m bothering because I want to,” Ludwig said frankly, and his stare was powerful medicine, “I know the woman involved. I’ll have an easier time getting her and her husband where I want them, trust me.”

Hauptmann nodded in defeat. “Fair enough.”

That settled, Ludwig turned his attention to the guards, who had been quietly watching and listening the whole time. “Open the gate back up.”

[Germany]

Saving the children from a cruel end at Ponary had been only half the battle. Now that he had them in his custody, it fell upon Ludwig to take care of these two little lives, to procure them adequate food, warm clothing, regular access to hygiene, and a safe place to stay. Equally-if-not-more-importantly, he had to protect them from all who would harm them, especially his own men.

Luckily for Arik and Nessa, he was a very powerful man, both socially and physically. So long he managed to keep their staying with him low-key and explained in ways that minimized suspicion, he figured he had a fairly decent chance of arranging a trip for them out of Lithuania and into the hands of a caring relative or motherly stranger living in far away lands. But there was still plenty of room for things to go tragically wrong. One little slip-up was all it took, and should Hitler get too antsy to speed up his arrival to Berlin the situation was going to get a hell of a lot more complicated regardless. As it was the Führer had told him to hurry. Considering that he could in fact appear by him instantly if he so chose by committing suicide — something which he hated doing, but nonetheless had as a viable option if he could find a private place to do it — he may already be taking too long. Of course, he had no way of knowing for sure if his boss had meant for him to use that rather undesirable method of transportation — Hitler knew better than to outright command him to kill himself when others could be listening in — but he wouldn’t put it past him.

The trek back through the Vilnius ghetto was just as miserable as the trip into it had been. Once again reducing the people in his field of vision to faceless, featureless, expressionless ghosts engaged in various nondescript activities in the background, Ludwig guided the children through as swiftly as he could, carrying Arik the whole way and slowing down only for a few seconds at a time to give Nessa a chance to catch her breath. Once or twice morbid curiosity prompted him to look down at the girl’s face to gain some insight into how she might be feeling and reacting to the sights and sounds around her.

Her expression was…hard to describe. Sad acceptance beset with worry was the best way to explain it. She was clearly upset, but nothing seemed to shock or surprise her.

Made sense, considering that she and her brother had spent at least the last couple of weeks living here. They’d probably been through a lot in that time, seen and experienced things no child should ever have to see or experience.

At last they were out and walking freely along the footpaths. By now the snow had stopped falling and a few of the clouds had burned off, leaving the sun high and unobscured in afternoon the sky. Nonetheless an icy chill still hung in the air, and Nessa was pale and shivering by the time they reached Ludwig’s vehicle.

The blonde nation loaded them both in the front seat with him. They were silent as tombs the entire half hour or so he drove around the streets of Vilnius trying to figure out where the best place to lodge for the night would be. Arik had fallen asleep with his head on his sister’s lap under five minutes into the drive — Ludwig suspected he’d been sleeping in his arms for most of the time he’d been carrying him through the ghetto, too — and Nessa was probably either too frightened, too tired, or too overwhelmed to feel that talkative. She spent most of the trip leaning languidly against her door with a subdued, faraway look on her face, occasionally staring at her unlikely rescuer but averting her gaze whenever those intense blue eyes happened to glance her way.

Finally Ludwig decided on a small hotel located far enough away from all the main sites of interest to afford them a greater measure of privacy, yet close enough to a few stores to make shopping for necessities quick and easy. The receptionist at the front desk had been surprised to see two young children with him — two young Jewish children at that, as he could not remove the yellow stars without making all three of them look fishy — but he bought the story of them being needed for interrogation under special circumstances, and after Ludwig proved his identity, paid the fee, and signed in the ledger they were set up with a room.

Room 12, to be exact. Located all the way at the end of the corridor on the first floor, to the left.

This time Arik was going to have to walk. Ludwig had to keep up the façade of heartless SS Oberstgruppenführer, and anyway the boy’s stomach had to be feeling a little better by now. A little mild exercise would do him good.

“March.”

“Mhhm?” Arik groaned groggily, looking up at the Nazi with confused, sleep-ridden green eyes.

Ludwig caught his gaze and held it in his own, rigid authority burning strongly behind frosty blue irises.

“He wants us to start walking.” Nessa explained hurriedly, a tremor of fear in her voice as she took her little brother by the wrist and pulled him towards the main corridor, “This way.”

“Take the lead,” Ludwig instructed her, “Room Twelve, all the way down. I’ll follow behind.”

Following behind better enabled him to watch and protect the children; his PPK was on standby in his inner coat, and he was fully prepared to use it lethally — even against his own officers — if he had to. In all likelihood the need wouldn’t arise, but it was far better to be safe than sorry, especially where the Einsatzgruppen and rumors of his possible betrayal were concerned. At this point Ludwig wouldn’t put anything past them.

Of course, he would never tell Arik and Nessa that he would kill to keep them safe. The more they believed his little charade of being just another ruthless asshole was real the more convincing it would be. Fear was the healthiest thing in the world for them right now.

Nessa uttered something that sounded like a weak ‘Yes sir’ and started down the hallway at what for her probably qualified as a brisk pace.

Arik was barely able to keep up.

That Lithuanian must have kicked him harder than I thought. Poor little guy. Ludwig resisted the temptation to pick him up and carry him again. They had such a short way to go — surely he could make it that far.

He could.

They reached their room without running into anyone along the way. Ludwig keyed open the lock and herded his two young charges inside. When everyone was in he shut the door solidly behind them and locked it.

Then he switched on the light and had a look around.

The main room was just as bare and Spartan as he expected, but slightly larger. Bare off-white walls halted at a thin tan carpet that covered the whole floor except a square patch to the immediate left where a small, round wooden table sat surrounded by four modest chairs. A queen-sized bed hugged the far right-hand corner of the room; a more child-fitting full-size version ran along the wall to the far left. The door to the bathroom faced the smaller bed. Apart from the garbage can flanking the table-and-chairs corner, the only other furnishings were a medium-sized nightstand situated near the head of the larger bed and the radio that sat atop it. Everything was flawlessly, immaculately clean, and the beds were made with military-precision. A faint scent of cleaners lingered in the air.

Not bad. Not bad at all. Ludwig liked the clean environment and simple layout. It kept things orderly and efficient, reminded him of his own orderly and efficient forever sparkling-clean home. Shelter secured. Now on to the next order of business, washing these…

“Are…are y-you going t-to…sh-shoot us?” Arik’s voice was so small, his question so innocent and heartrending.

Jolted out of his thoughts, Ludwig looked down to see him staring up at him searchingly with impossibly large green eyes, his face ashen beneath a grimy mask of dirt and dried tears. Bedraggled, frightened, worried, and confused, he looked like a like a neglected little lost lamb who had just found shelter from a thunderstorm in the den of a wolf.

“Arik!” Nessa admonished quickly, stepping in front of her brother. Fear glistened wetly in her eyes as she also met Ludwig’s gaze. “P-”

Ludwig cut her off abruptly. “Nein.” Though his overall expression was stern and serious, subtle little hints of compassion nonetheless flickered about his features, accumulating around his eyes and the corners of his mouth. “Not if you do exactly as I say.”

Spoken like a true asshole.

He was only pretending, but his own words disgusted him, made him flinch inside.

The conditional nature of the stark statement drained what little color the children had left in their faces. Arik seemed to shrink behind his sister. Nessa swallowed nervously and looked down at the floor.

“You want us to tell you about our parents, don’t you?” she half-whispered, her voice despairing and utterly lost.

It was heartbreaking — she’d already lost contact with her parents, and now she was afraid of losing them permanently before she ever got a chance to see them again.

Sadder still, she never would see them again.

A dirty dagger of guilt slashed Ludwig’s heart; even though he personally had not been responsible for their deaths, he still felt the blood of Arik and Nessa’s parents warm and staining on his hands. He was a Nazi despite his aversion to genocide, a willing slave of the Führer. Sure, he wasn’t out there helping his compatriots slaughter Jews, but by fighting on the frontlines he was simultaneously protecting their ability to do it and acquiring new areas in which they could do it.

“Nein. Not yet.” He’d eventually have to break the news to them, but it was better to wait until after they were cleaned, clothed in fresh garments, and fed. It’d make things so much easier. “The first thing I want you both do to is take a bath.”

Arik’s whole face lit up. “A bath?” he trilled, “With warm water, and…and soap?”

Ludwig nodded. “Of course. It’d be hard to wash you up otherwise.”

Beaming, Arik turned to Nessa. “Hear that, Sis? We get to take a bath!”

Nessa smiled at him frailly before turning back to Ludwig, bowing her head and keeping her body-language deferential. “We’re ready, Herr Herrmann.”