A.N. This one… I'm just not sure. I went to the Holocaust Museum yesterday to commemorate the 68th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Someone asked one of the speakers how he went through life without developing prejudices against the Germans, and this is based around his answer. This fic is dedicated to the 11-17 million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, peoples with disabilities, ethnic minorities, and other political and religious opponents of the Nazis who lost their lives in the Holocaust.
He wasn't sure how it happened. One minute Magneto was discussing with a young girl the reasons why she, with her ability to manipulate plants, was so much better than the humans that she lived with, when a line of fiery pain raced down the side of his head. Raven almost leapt forward to defend him, but Magneto waved her off. After all, the young mutant girl still loved the humans, no matter how flawed they were. Instead, he focused his attention on the man who had struck him. His appearance was rather normal—a man of about 40 years of age, long brown hair, tanned skin. However, every part of him was bristled and angry, and his clear blue eyes glared at Magneto with an almost tangible fury.
"You are better than they are," the man said with a sneer. "You are stronger. You are more powerful. They are nothing to you. They do not deserve to live. Those were the statements that lead to the Nazis and the Holocaust."
Instantly, the Brotherhood hissed in fear and warning. But the damage had already been done. Magneto leapt to his feet, his own eyes flashing in rage. He tossed his helmet from his head in a rage, uncaring of where it landed. In his mind were scenes of death and destruction. A buckling metal gate. Eins. Zwei. Drei. Walking skeletons. A young boy hanged for the crime of trying to take an extra slice of bread. People fearing soldiers so much that they did not recognise salvation when it came. Doctors staring at him with horror and pity. And so many of the Nazi members, of the German people, claiming innocence. 'We did not believe.' 'We did not know.' And more and more frequently: 'It did not happen'.
Magneto didn't realise that he had torn the sleave to his shirt until the cool breeze brushed over his skin, forcing goose pimples to the surface. "Look," he hissed at the man who dared to compare him to the Nazis. He knew what he was showing them—6 digits that he was forced to see every day. 912803. His number that allowed the Nazis to track him like a common criminal.
"Look," he repeated, baring his arm. "You think you know what the Nazis did? Well, I experienced it first-hand. You have no right to compare me to them! You may have seen the pictures, but I suffered at their hands!" The Brotherhood looked at him in pity, the mutant girl and her mother looking at him in wary fear. But the man was simply rolling up his shirt sleeve. And there it was, tattooed in the same place: Z175296. The man simply replied to Magneto's speech with a quiet, "So did I."
Magneto felt winded as he sat down in shock. The man sat across from him, and the pair simply looked at each other. Magneto couldn't stop the flow of shocked thoughts running through his mind: 'He has a Z at the front of his tattoo. He's a Zigeuner, a gypsy. I remember seeing gypsies in the work camps. They were called 'work shy', and if the work didn't get done, they got beaten. But why is a gypsy defending the people who have hurt us?'
"Because we are supposed to be better than them," the gypsy said in answer to Magneto's unasked question. At Magneto's look of surprise, the gypsy let out with a harsh laugh. "It's safe to say that Doctor Schmitt would have been very interested in me." He tapped his head, and Magneto found himself wishing that he had not thrown his helmet away in a fit of rage. Again, the gypsy laughed harshly. "Don't worry," he said. "My skills are not good enough to change minds or even to hold people immobile. All I can do is read your surface thoughts. But you wanted to know why I do not seek revenge?"
"My clan and I were Polish gypsies, horse-traders mostly. It was a good life—quiet, peaceful, and often hard work. This is why I find it so funny that we were accused of being work-shy—anyone who's ever tried to stand outside in the middle of a storm, calming a herd of terrified horses while your father fixes a wheel on the carriage would never call themselves work-shy. But I digress. We were captured near the border of Belarus and Poland, and sent to Treblinka. My entire clan was slaughtered—gassed, shot, beaten to death. The only reason why I was able to survive was that I found a small grove of pine trees. The inner bark of the pine tree is a decent supplement to a meal, and I was able to survive until liberation."
"When that day came, I was so angry, so resentful. There was a guard being watched by some soldiers. He had struck me the day before with his stick—I cannot remember why. Maybe I was too slow for his tastes; maybe he did not think I was doing my share. Maybe he had no reason. All that mattered was that he had hit me, and now he was defenceless. I was going to kill him. I would have killed him with my bare hands, purely out of anger. The soldiers would not have stopped me. They didn't stop the looting of supplies, the beatings or the murders of the guards. In fact, if someone was too weak to take revenge on a guard who had hurt them, the soldiers would often hurt the guards for them. Yes, no one would have cared if I had taken the rifle from one of the soldiers, and put a bullet through that Nazi's head.
"But I was stopped by a rabbi. He was one of the rabbis who had kept their faith, and who the other inmates still respected—regardless of whether they were Jewish or not. He turned to me and said, 'You cannot kill this man. You must not let yourself become like them, murdering and killing people because of where they come from or what they act like. You must remain innocent, for the day when we are all judged.'" The gypsy leant back in his chair with a sigh.
"I let the Nazi go," he confessed with a smile. "I kept my innocence in that dreadful ascent from Hell into Purgatory. I have built a new life for myself, with a wife and children. I have forgiven." At this, the gypsy fixed Magneto with a stare. "You have suffered greatly at the hands of the Nazis," he said softly. "But you have suffered no worse than any other man, woman or child. Do you have any more right to revenge than the hundreds of identical twins that were butchered by Doctor Death? Then the mothers who refused to let go of their newborn babies, and died as a result? Then the men who limped away from the camps with no money, no family, and no home?" Magneto found his gaze dropping to his knees in shame. He didn't know what to say to this man who had suffered alongside him, and yet had walked away with a completely different view of the world.
Magneto jumped as he felt cold metal touch his hands. The gypsy was returning his helmet. "Go," the gypsy said. "My daughter will not be joining your Brotherhood. Take your men away from here. Figure out where you want to go with your life. And find your companion—the telepath that you want and need, yet are too scared to find. I assure you, he will welcome you back." And with that, the Brotherhood of Mutants left the house of the mutant gypsies. For a minute, Magneto wavered. It would be so easy to continue hating—to continue blaming humanity for the pain he had suffered. But the words of the gypsy—"You must remain innocent for the day we all are judged"—were ringing too loudly to let him focus on his former path. Magneto dropped the helmet on the street, discarding it like his oldest friend had asked him to so long ago. Then Erik reached up to his temples, mimicking an action that his friend had done so many times before.
'Charles?' he projected. 'It's me, Erik. Can I please come home?'
"If I had chosen to hate the Germans for what happened to me, then I would spend the rest of my life hating. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth just leaves the world blind and toothless."—Frank J., Holocaust survivor.