Prompt: Beginning
Note: About a year ago, I stage managed a production of Cabaret. The characters were complex and layered, and during the run I began to wonder what happened to these characters, and how did the war affect them? Here's my take on what happened to Ernst.
Note 2: This is part of my 101 writing prompt challenge.

It was the beginning of the end. Our leader knew everything. His politics were correct, and I steadfastly believed in them and in him. I had to. If I was not a member of his army, I would be one of them. He hated them. No, I was not a Jew. Just as bad, or even worse. I was gay. Not that I ever told anyone that. I couldn't. I would suffer an even worse death. The gays had more tests done on them, to figure out what was wrong with them. If I never told anyone, if I just kept it all to myself, then nobody else had to know. I would be safe. Or so I thought.

In the beginning, I believed in everything. That Jews were bad, the mentally insane were dangerous, and that the blondes were the ones that needed to be the majority. Jews did not follow the religion of the country, and for that they should be punished. I had to talk a dear friend out of marrying because her husband to be was a Jew. Not only did I have a somewhat new but profound dislike for the man because of his religious beliefs, but I could not allow my friend to encounter the same fate as him. At the time, I did not know the lengths to which our leader would go in order to rid our country of filth. I knew it would be bad. I knew there would be deaths, as there always are in a war.

But then things got out of hand. Too many people were dying. My part in his regime did not feel right anymore. People were carted off, tortured, and killed. The scent of death filled the air, stuck in your nostrils for months. The burning of flesh is not a smell one can easily forget.

In the beginning, I was in charge of a camp, which lasted for about twelve months. We had to be ruthless. I, especially, because of my secret. I had to watch everything I did, lest I give myself away. I got married to a woman. She supported me in my politics. But unlike me, she felt the actions of our leader were justified. She loved hearing stories of the camp, and what poor Jewish child I tortured, or what elderly woman I denied food. Or how I saw kids covered in their own shit because the toilets were too full. I had to fake my own glee when relating them to her. I hated myself for it. I hated that I had signed up for something so macabre and was in so deep that I could not turn around and get out of it without losing my life or being exiled from my homeland.

After my stint at the camp, I was transferred to the group of men that would go into houses and look for Jews in hiding. I would also be forced to take the family that was helping them. I was fairly successful and became known to my leader by name. I knew in the circle I was that it was a big deal. But I could not find happiness in him knowing that I was excellent at finding Jews and throwing them and their families, in addition to the host family, into a camp, to almost certain death. It did not make me feel like a good person. Some nights I was on patrol duty, and every now and then a Jewish child would scurry home past curfew. Sometimes Jewish parents worked late, or were delayed in getting home. Frequently, if I were alone, I would allow them to go on their way and I would pretend not to notice.

Soon it became too much to bear. I started hating myself. I divorced my wife but to keep up appearances I took up with another women. She was somewhat hiding as well. She was vocal in her support of the Nazis. However, she liked women in the same way in which I liked men. She would host bridge two to three times a week and one of those women would stay late. I'm not positive what they did, but I know it gave my wife pleasure that I could not provide. It was easy to get away with it. To the neighbors and our friends the woman was a dear, close friend. People didn't bat an eye.

For me, it was a bit harder. I did find someone, a Nazi like me. While taking a community shower, I noticed him eyeing another soldier, trying to be sly. I noticed how he got aroused and covered it up by washing. After seeing this occur a few times, I invited him out for a drink. There, he confessed he preferred men over women, and I cautiously told him I did as well. After several hours of talking, we agreed we would try to secretly meet up. We knew it was risky, but we wanted to try anyway.

I broke the news to my wife, who was thrilled I had also found someone. We devised a plan. There was a shady hotel on the outskirts of town. Far enough out where Nazis did not patrol. She and I would arrive at different times and each request our own hotel room. We would meet in the bar at a set time to let the other know the room number. We would then make calls to our respective lover and give them the room number. Except we had another step in case the concierge was keeping tabs. I would give my lover my room number, but instruct him to tell the concierge he was going to my wife's room. We believed this was the safest way to carry on as we wanted.

The first few months of our plan worked like a charm. We met up no fewer than twice a week. Soon we began to fear we had raised suspicions with the concierge. So we began to travel from hotel to hotel, but always stayed at our main hotel once a week. Our predictability was what led us to our downfall. How quickly our lives fell apart.

It is a day in late April. I am with my lover per our usual agreement. My wife is two doors down with hers. Suddenly, our door is knocked down and our tiny room is filled with angry, yelling Nazis. I am roughly thrown against a wall, handcuffed, and hauled off, naked. I don't know what happened to my lover; I only assume he will suffer the same fate as I. He and I are not taken to the same place. I also do not know what happened to my wife, if her room was raided as well. Despite our arrangement, I do love her. I hope she is able to get out of the country. I want her to be safe.

I am stripped of my Nazi badge and without a trial of any sort, am thrown into a crowded cart filled with Jews, gays, and the disabled. I am taken to a camp, very much like the one I patrolled a few years prior.

I, along with another man and two women, am taken during the day to a doctor - I use this word loosely - who tries to figure out what is wrong with us - what part of our brain makes us like the same sex instead of the opposite sex. It is torture in its purest form. We are poked, prodded, have all sorts of horrendous experiments done to us, and are forced to perform all sorts of sexual acts with one another. At the end of the day, we are sent back into the camp where we have to work at for least three hours. We are fed so little, we may not be fed at all.

The screams I always heard in my former days as a Nazi soldier I now experience first hand. I am one of them. After several months of torture, work, beatings, and very little nourishment, I no longer desire to fight to live. I don't know when or if we will ever be saved. The prospect that someone would come in and get rid of the Nazis quickly becomes a pipe dream. I now desire for my life to just end. I want the pain and torture and misery to be over. I want to not sleep in a room built for four but packed with thirty. I want to sleep on something softer than the hard packed floor or rocks. I want to be able to sleep laying down. I want to not be experimented on, to not be tortured, to not be beaten on a daily basis. I pray for God to forgive me and to release me from this life.

After nearly a year of suffering, the doctors render my disposition helpless. My rock breaking services are no longer needed. My body no longer is needed for experimentation. I, along with several hundred of my fellow prisoners, are led into a giant chamber. I know what is going to happen. I had led a long line of prisoners to a similar fate myself. Everyone else in line knows it too. Many are frantic. Some attempt escape and are executed on the spot. Others cry, say prayers. As a Nazi, I remember thinking that it was useless, that no God was not going to save them in these last moments. As a prisoner, I welcome it. The end of my suffering. I do not weep, I do not try to escape.

How funny it is that only a few years ago was I celebrating with dear friends. That life, while still dark, still had hope. I wondered what happened to my friends in the Kit Kat Klub. Was Sally still singing in night clubs, with a bunch of scantily clad women behind her? Was Fraulien Kost still entertaining men for money? Did Schneider heed my advice? If so, what was she doing? And Schultz? Did he make it out of Germany, or did he suffer the same fate as so many Jews? As me? And Cliff. My dear buddy Cliff. Not a day goes by that I do not miss him or think of him. I'm glad he escaped back home to America. I wonder what my life would have been like had we not met on the train. Would I be here?

As I am led into a giant chamber, amidst sobbing men, women, and children, I stand alone, emotionless, stone faced. As the smoke begins to fill the air, I allow my mind to go back to the day Cliff and I first met on that fateful train ride into Germany. Cliff is the last thing I think of as smoke clouds my mind and I gradually lose consciousness. I welcome darkness and death, for now I am free.