a/n: This is not an easy story, but I wrote it because I was reminded of Hogan's Heroes when reading a description of the Dachau concentration camp in Bodie Thoene's moving historical novel, Vienna Prelude (I recommend this story highly for its very educational, inspirational, and rich content). Many of the cast members of Hogan's Heroes were Jewish and several escaped persecution at the hands of the Nazis in Germany. I hope to teach a lesson through this story, to show how close the Holocaust could have come to people we know, and how someone can just as easily end up on the side of good as he can on the side of evil.

The World Turned Upside Down

:: ::

It felt like he'd been hit on the head. No, it was like he'd been dreaming. Hogan's eyes were heavy. Was he sleeping? He opened them and found the world blurry for a moment. He inhaled deeply and almost choked on the sharp cold air that hit him suddenly.

He lifted his heavy head from the top of a large desk. Sight returned slowly and he almost recognized where he was. Yes, it was familiar. It was the Kommandant's office and he, he was— He stood up quickly. Klink's chair rolled away from behind him. The table was different. Klink's ancient helmet wasn't there, replaced with a delicate arrangement of red Nazi flags. He extended his arm to reach it, somehow transfixed, and realized the sleeve on his arm was not the familiar leather of his bomber jacket. It was black and tailored. On his head was a tight cap and around his waist, a black belt; across his chest, thin leather; and around his arm—

"Dear God," he gasped. It was not a curse. Something horrible was happening; he could feel it.

Then a mechanical screech caught his attention away and he looked out the dirty windows at the black, colorless night that peered back at him. A flash of light swooped by the window and he heard the callous barking of German voices and the quiet murmur of feet shuffling into line. The reflex was immediate. Roll call. He moved to the window and looked out. It was dark, it was cold, snow was everywhere, and the men, they were not wearing uniforms. Black and white stripes, every one of them. What was this?

A knock came to his door.

"Oberführer, roll call," said a commanding voice.

The voice. "Carter?" Hogan opened the door. "Carter!" The technical sergeant was in black uniform, with a helmet like Schultz's, a coat like Schultz's, but all black and on his collar, white daggers. Maybe they were in some charade, some acting he'd forgotten he had ordered. What that it? He looked over to where Klink's secretary used to sit. A youthful SS private had taken her place.

"Where did Hilda go?" Hogan asked cooly, but what was he fishing for?

"Hilda?" Carter responded, with a reserve so unlike him. "The name does not appear on the records, mein Herr. Have you taken a new secretary?" His German was impeccable. Hogan looked into his eyes, searching for recognition, a clue, anything to make him remember. But the sergeant's eyes were cold and lifeless. All business. This was not the Carter he knew. He remembered when Carter looked sadly at him when he'd called him rotten through and through, even when the whole thing was an arranged charade. No, this was different. Panic creeped up his spine.

"The prisoners are waiting, mein Herr," this man continued.

"Yeah, sure," Hogan started. Then he glanced at the papers on the private's desk. "Any new appointments?" He was still fishing.

"No, mein Herr. Just the old ones. You must meet Hauptsturmführer Alex Piorkowski at two o'clock tomorrow, and, well, you do have an invitation to lunch with Herr Himmler the day after that."

Hogan blinked. If he'd planned this charade, he'd sure done a thorough job. The private looked up at him, awaiting orders it seemed, and Hogan glanced around the room, looking he realized for the audience to this play. But there was no one.

"Uh, well, thank you." Hogan brushed him off. "Danke," he amended quickly.

Carter was eyeing him impatiently, his hand on the knob, practically turning it. Once Hogan was obviously done with the private, he swished open the door and stepped out. "Report!" he screeched with an authority that did not belong to his Carter.

Hogan stepped outside, playfully galloped down the familiar stairs, looked up and stopped dead in his tracks.

He hadn't seen it from the office window, through the darkness of the night and the mists of his confusion. But it was clear now.

Every one of them needed food. Every one of them needed rest, a warm bed and slippers, a fireside. Even just a place to sit. The short man in front of him was leaning heavily, ready to fall over. Instinctively, Hogan rushed up and caught him before his knees crumbled. "You okay?" he gasped, any further words cut short by the tangible manifestation of this man's malnutrition. This was a skeleton in the ghost of a striped gown. And then he saw his face.

He couldn't even gasp his name. He just crumpled to the ground with the little Frenchman in his arms. He was that small and that thin, he could do that. Hot tears of confusion and anger burned in Hogan's eyes. His first impression, that of fear, came back. This was not something of his own making. This was like the band on his arm, something horrible and horribly unexplained.

"LeBeau?" he gasped quietly, finally finding a voice, but the corporal did not respond.

A hard was on his shoulder. "He has lice. You will catch typhus."

Hogan looked up and cursed hotly. "Carter, what's wrong with you? Can't you see he's hurt?"

But the eyes of this stranger did not fidget. He merely adjusted the rifle in his arms and looked out the front gates, mumbling, "You wouldn't want the Gruppenführer to find you with the prisoners like that."

Hogan could take it no longer. He shouted every foul word at Carter, channeling his confusion into pure anger and hate. But the man was stone. What had gone wrong with the world?

LeBeau stirred, from the noise no doubt, and Hogan became aware that he was carrying the corporal as he stood shouting at Carter. His weightlessness cut daggers through Hogan's heart and he wanted to shout Why was this happening? and Where was Klink and Stalag 13 and everything I knew before?

Then he turned to the right, looked up the row of skeletons, and standing where he'd used to stand at roll call a thousand times before was a different man. Hogan had gotten used to familiar faces in places they didn't belong. He needed answers now and explanations.

"Klink, what's going on?" Hogan pleaded at the monocle-free, bare-headed human before him. The fact of Klink's striped, threadbare clothing, his place in Hogan's corner of the line, the lack of shoes on his feet, had not gotten to Hogan yet.

Klink stood up straight and tall, a depth in his eyes Hogan had never seen before. "I though to you people we are only numbers." Klink let it sink in, but Hogan was only impatient. "And if you must call us by our names, at least get them correct. My name is not Klink and his is not LeBeau."

LeBeau stirred once more and Hogan looked elsewhere to get answers, but behind Klink stood a noticeably thinner Schultz and the dark-skinned man he knew as Kinch.

"Kinch, please, tell me, what's going on?" He looked desperately into the eyes of his second-in-command, but the sergeant did not respond. He looked deeper into the black man's pupils, then he realized they couldn't see him.

"Typhus," said an accented voice.

Hogan turned around. It was Newkirk. "Peter," Hogan gasped, "I need to see a medic. It's a nightmare." The chaos in his head ravaged his nerves. "Please get me out of here."

Newkirk looked down at Hogan. Somehow, he had gotten taller and wore a new uniform. The blinding white skull and eagle glowered at him from Newkirk's cap. He removed his black gloves deliberately and slapped them in his hands. "Must I replace you this soon?" he said suddenly in snapping British English.

"Newkirk..." Hogan gasped, unable to comprehend anymore.

"You will have respect for your superior officer! Where is your salute? Rid your hands of that creature. Drop him, I order you."

"Newkirk—"

"I order you!"

Newkirk got his hands between him and Lebeau's lifeless form, and the Frenchman slipped to the dark earth with not so much as a sound. Hogan leapt down to him and something slapped him in the back, taking him off balance and throwing him to the ground himself.

Hogan looked up at Newkirk, who held a thin black cane in his hand. "I am not used to this in an Oberführer. You will be punished and removed from your post."

"Newkirk..." Hogan felt the ground acutely for something sharp or broken to give him pain. He needed to pinch himself and get out of this terror.

Feet shuffled behind him and the ray of the searchlight passed again. That glare was never more threatening than it was today at this moment, never more frightening than tonight. Newkirk stepped in front of it and leaned down to Hogan. "Stand up."

"You're British, you speak English." Hogan felt delirious. "Why are you here?"

"I do not give explanations. I give orders. And, you, you get up from there or be thrown in with the rest of the dogs."

Hogan had stopped thinking a long time ago. There was only emotions pulsing through him. Maybe if he closed his eyes, the nightmare would end. How he longed for his prison camp, not this, this dungeon. The searchlight made another swooping curve, its metal creaking sharp and clear and un-oiled far above the guard towers. Hogan turned over and squeezed shut his eyes, hot moisture soaking out of them into the packed earth below. "Dear God," he gasped, "get me out of here."

He looked up. It was still night. Long black and white stripes led upward to faces that peered silent and curious at him. But there was one face that wasn't scoured or gaunt. He moved naturally, looked natural, leaned down to Hogan and gently rolled him over on his back.

"Colonel Hogan?" the man asked, genuinely concerned.

"Wilson—" Hogan breathed, then sat up a ways to grab onto this last vestige of sense. "What's happened? Tell me what's happened."

"Colonel Hogan, breathe slowly for me, all right? You need to calm down. Nothing's happened."

Hogan didn't breath slowly, but he did try to calm down. He stuffed his face into Wilson's crouched body and held onto the medic with every feeble force left in his nerve-wracked body. "Where am I? What's happened to me?"

Wilson paused slightly, then tentatively brought his hand to stroke Hogan's thick hair. "Colonel, you're going to be all right. You're going to be fine."

"Get me out of this uniform, get me out of this place. Oh, Lord, get me home." Hot tears streamed down his face and into Wilson's uniform. Hogan didn't want to open his eyes. Wilson gently placed him on his back again. "Look at me, Hogan."

Hogan imagined Wilson in a black uniform, a peaked cap on his head, a new voice maybe and a new background. He couldn't bear it anymore. "No," he managed to whisper.

"You've got to." Wilson took hold of his arms. "You've got to get out of that nightmare. Look at me, Hogan! Open your eyes."

Hogan inhaled deeply and looked up. There was Wilson. He looked normal, concerned and scruffy, but normal. "Thank God," Hogan gasped, heavy with meaning. He leaned up and saw that his legs were elevated onto a familiar wooden bunk. There were familiar scrawny blankets over his body, and familiar wooden panels below him. To his right, in front of the closed door, he saw Newkirk and Kinch, Carter and LeBeau, peering at him with the weight of the world in each of their eyes.

The adrenaline of relief stabbed his heart and sent sparkling visions in his eyes. It was too much for his weary body to bear. Tears spilled out from under his eyelids and he closed his eyes again and inhaled great gasps of cold air, which petered down to normal breaths.

"What day is it?" he whispered.

"Tuesday," Wilson responded quickly, as if the question were perfectly normal.

"And I'm an American. We're all American?"

"Yes, sir, we are."

"May I rest, Wilson? I'm just so, so tired."

"Of course, sir. I'll check on you in fifteen minutes."

:: ::

He didn't tell anyone what had happened that day. It was just a nightmare. Wilson diagnosed stress, but never pressed for a description of his horrors. Hogan was relieved. He didn't want to relive it again. When he met LeBeau after he'd slept off his shock, he almost lost his composure. Their health and happiness seemed so precious now. He hadn't even teased Schultz and Klink since that day.

Five days after it happened, the Underground brought in a group of three people who desperately wanted to leave Germany. Hogan was in his quarters when they came. Newkirk gave him the report. "They look a mite crackers in the head, sir," Newkirk said slowly, "if you want me honest opinion. They won't talk much, the bird least of all."

Hogan faced them and realized Newkirk was right. Their eyes were distant and they couldn't comprehend easily. The Underground man told Hogan that one of them was a history professor; another, a security guard for a jeweler's; the girl, a young mother who'd survived the death of her four children in an accident ten years before. But each of them looked tired and confused. The professor's coat was torn in places. Hogan grabbed a new one from the wardrobe and offered it to him. He looked up at Hogan, nodded solemnly, and removed his old coat. Underneath the tattered black fabric was a faded white shirt. Hogan looked closely and saw stripes of blue and white running up and down it. Hot tears stung Hogan's eyes.

The old man, he looked old now, looked up at Hogan again. "You will … help us?" he asked brokenly.

Hogan nodded, unable to speak.

"Help them," the old professor whispered. "There are many, many more."

These were ordinary people, people who've been through so much in their lives before, people who were intelligent and alive once. Look what had happened to them. If he could get Allied flyers out from behind enemy lines, if they could break out of prison camps, certainly they could break into the dungeons that had housed these human souls. "Where did you come from?" Hogan asked, clearing his throat.

"Flossenbürg," he said quietly, removing his striped shirt and slipping the coat over his bare chest.

Hogan looked at the stripes thrown on the floor. He felt his men looking at him curiously. They didn't see what he had seen, but he had already decided what to do. Every one of them in those dungeons was a part of someone's family and was someone's dear friend.

Hogan stepped away and gathered his precious group around himself. "We're expanding our operations," he said solemnly. They looked up at him, always ready for whatever he wished. He felt ready now to tell them what he'd seen.