Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Liberation (05/02/24)
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TITLE: He Died For ME? | Previous Challenge Entry
By Lois Eaton
05/02/24 -
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We never thought this could be. Hitler dead? He would live forever! He was God.
I loved being a Nazi. Life was an adventure. I was strong so did well. I laughed at the weaklings who didn’t. I was the best.
Then REAL fighting started. Victory after victory. Glory!
But shadows appeared – to be kept secret.
Like the look on that Jewish girl’s face when I shot her parents. On a whim I let her live.
And that time we destroyed an entire village. The smell of blood never left me. I pushed aside the look on a father’s face when he stood in front of his family, taking the bullets meant for them. Why did he do that? Surely he knew he was less than human?
My loyalty was rewarded.
I was sent as a guard to the camps. If less loyal I would have been sent to the Russian front, and died. A glorious death – yes. But it was good to know I would live. I kept those thoughts to myself. Mind you, I was surrounded by death in the camps. Those Jews and criminals kept proving their inferiority by dying just from hunger and occasional beatings!
Life was great. We ate so well! Hitler appreciated us, making sure we were cared for.
But my health deteriorated.
It started with dreams. Soon I was scared to sleep. The faces of the people I had killed passed before me, crying out to God. I had been so proud of my military record. Why was I now ashamed?
I had no-one to talk with. I did not dare to let my weakness show.
Sometimes I heard others cry out in their sleep and knew they were struggling also.
There was one face that came every night. Why her? If she had been a brave warrior it would not have been so bad. But she was a weakling. A Jew lover! I even remember her name – as though she mattered. Betsy Ten Boom. Dutch. I was mostly guarding the men, so did not see her much. But this one time she had been beaten. I don’t know why. There did not have to be a reason. We beat them just for fun. But her face! I realised she felt sorry for us. For us – the master race? The chosen of God? Beloved of Hitler? The victors?
Insanity. The sooner she died the better. We did not need her.
So why was I haunted by her?
She had a sister, Corrie, in the camp. (I had checked the records). Betsy died, but Corrie was released before that dreadful day when we ran for our lives.
Yes – we – the lords of the world – destined to rule for one thousand years – ran for our lives. You cannot imagine my horror. So why did I think I deserved suffering? I obeyed orders. Nothing more. Innocent.
The dreams haunted me. Soon I dreamed the flames of hell, while people of the camps laughed at me.
Not Betsy. She still felt sorry for me. I tried to kill her in my dreams. But couldn’t. I was helpless. She had the power.
Defeated by a decrepit old woman, who refuse to stop feeling sorry for me!
I felt she had prayed for me. For ME?
Life dragged on.
Then one day a voice from Heaven spoke.
“Jesus is a Jew.”
That shut me up.
Days later, scrounging for food, I found a Bible. I read it. Hitler had been my God. I lost my God. But now I found there was a God infinitely greater than Hitler.
So painful! With renewed force, my sins haunted me. I was so evil God Himself could not love me. Doomed.
But then I saw Jesus. Dying for ME. I thought I would die. How I longed to go back in time and do things differently. I would have died, branded a traitor. But I would have died peacefully.
I will never understand His love. But I accepted it, throwing myself at His feet, offering myself as a sacrifice, expecting him to kill me. Instead He lifted me up, told me that He forgave me, and loved me, and that He had work for me to do. I cried for days. Then I stopped. Time to get busy. My Lord and Saviour had work for me to do.
I met Corrie a few days later – but that is another story.
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I applaud your imagination on handling the topic.
It evokes shock, horror, sorrow, and finally repentance and freedom.
Wow.
I love your ending sentence, leaving the reader hanging, wanting to hear more. And I can imagine where that "another story" might go, considering what Corrie has written herself.
Good job on your writing skills! I hope you place high on this one.
Congratulations! Well-deserved!