people happy, and this war, this hateful war, had destroyed him.
Jürgen was in combat in Northern Africa, under Rommel, the Desert Fox. He was eventually captured by the British, but lives on to this day.
Klaus was the most successful. His devotion to the Nazi ideals propelled him to high rank. I was somewhere below him, going wherever he was sent. I was lucky, as I had not faced the prospect of killing others yet. In fact, it was not until the summer of 1942 that I was forced into battle. I did, however, feel guilty for all that I had seen. All of the destruction, and what had I done? Nothing. Gunter was a hero, standing up against this disgusting reality. I remained a bystander, saving my own skin at the expense of so many others.
Eventually, however, I was removed from my post as a medic and thrust into combat. In Warsaw, there was an uprising in the Jewish Ghetto of the city. We were sent in to crush it. I watched as the German army rolled into Warsaw. I saw the starving, dying population that had been ravaged by war. I saw the walls of the ghetto, caging a group of people like farm animals. It was terrifying, not least because this mission was headed by Klaus, a man I had once called my friend. We arrived at the battle scene to see destruction. There seemed to be only a few Poles left fighting. They were heroic, holding back the Germans for a month. They knew that this was the end. In the middle of no-man’s- land, a piano was standing alone. The building around it had
been destroyed, and debris littered the ground between the courageous and the hateful.
We expected them to make the first move, so we waited. There was a calm in the
inevitable storm, ready to be set off by a singular action. For what seemed like hours, there was a
standstill. Eventually, a man from the ghetto army stepped forward. He was young, with bright,
tired eyes. Slowly, he approached the piano. Rifle on his back, he began to play: