*This takes place during the Holocaust*
A/N: This features a reference to my OC Israel. Back then, before she gained nationhood, she originally personified the Jewish Ethnicity, and she was known as "Jewry", a term for the Jews collectively. I depict her as a Messianic Jew (which I hint at in this). As I have previously stated in my bio, the canon characters are OOC (I do not portray Italy as a wimp).
For those of you that are interested, if not confused, Wewelsburg is a castle in the town of Wewelsburg. The SS held ceremonies and weddings there. Given Himmler's obsession with race, and "purity", it should come as no surprise that I hinted at him fanatically near-worshipping Germany.
*German Translation*
Glasmalereien - 'Stained-Glass'
Judenhass - 'Jew-Hate'
Jude - 'Jew'
*Polish Translation*
Oświęcim - 'Auschwitz'
The ornate columns stood silently, flanking either side of the marble-stone hall.
As did the organs, silently waiting for the organist to come and bring them to life.
Germany, the Third Reich, stood before the altar, before the image of God.
He wasn't sure why, but he found himself here; in one of his churches; one of the Lord's houses.
When he was the Holy Roman Empire, he enjoyed being in the Lord's house. He'd felt safe, sheltered, protected, and even loved.
Now, he felt like an outsider, an unwelcomed intruder defiling the sanctity in his black, Totenkopf-emblemed uniform.
Behind the image of God, sunlight filtered through the stained-glass panels, depicting the various Saints and Martyrs.
God's house was beautiful; this one was no exception.
Germany gazed up at the image, and the polished and painted face of Christ stared down at him.
As he beheld the crucified Lord, a cold chill shrouded him.
How similar, how frighteningly similar, the image's form was, to Jewry's.
Jewry, the personification of the Jewish people, looked similar to the image; emaciated, scourged, and forsaken.
Germany is the cause; he and his Führer; his Führer's idea, and he hadn't stopped him; he'd been in such pain, his people had been in such pain, he'd allowed Hitler to become his chancellor.
It was for his people, out of misguided love, and somewhere along the lines, he'd lost himself, so twisted and warped had Hitler made his mind.
Jewry, the thousands of years old Jewish "ghost", was currently in the hellish camp in Oświęcim, Poland, along with Poland's personification; it was not the first camp they'd been sent to, and it would not be the last.
The last time Germany had "visited" her, he'd mocked her; he'd placed a crown of barbed wire on her head, and sardonically hailed her as the people of God.
Jewry had knocked the barbed wire crown off, an anguished look in her sapphire eyes; it had almost been done as though she viewed herself as unworthy to mocked as He had been mocked.
The things he'd done to her; beat her, curse her, condemn her, force her to watch her people being abused, tortured, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop their slaughter.
He'd gassed her a few times, of course she'd already been gassed other times, when he wasn't around; since she was a personification, she reanimated, wounds healed, although why she kept choosing to reanimate was beyond him.
With coldness to rival, even surpass, Russia's winter, he'd watched, as Jewry, Poland, and their people had stripped bare, and marched into the gas chamber.
The result was always the same; only Jewry and Poland would emerge, having perish alongside their people, then reanimated.
He'd killed them in other ways, forcing them to dig the mass grave alongside their people, then shot them, and watched as they reanimated, bloody yet woundless, surrounded by the lifeless bodies of their dear people.
Why they kept reanimating, why Jewry kept reanimating, was still beyond him.
He suspected Jewry kept reanimating just to spite him.
Though her eyes generally held torment, and anguish, occasionally he'd see a flicker of sardonicism, almost a mocking look, as though taunting him for being unable to completely annihilate her.
That look held firm, even when he'd kicked her frail form, his jackboots striking her ribs.
Even upon the brink of death, annihilation, even as her people were slaughtered en-masse, she mocked him.
How fury had burned in his icy Germanic eyes when she did; how dare that filthy Üntermensch mock him?
How he beat her, scourged her, when she mocked him.
It was only at those times, the corners of his mouth twitched, almost a sadistic smile tugging at his bloodless lips.
Now, he stood before the image of Christ, Jewry's king.
He was tormenting, slaughtering, His people.
A cold fear shrouded him, and his breath caught in his throat; for a moment, he feared God would strike him down then and there as the worst of evil-doers.
Germany glanced at the stained-glass images, and the marble figures, of the holy saints and martyrs.
Though their faces where set in unfaltering masks, their eyes seemed to stare condemningly at him; How dare this hateful, wicked created enter this holy sanctuary? How dare he stand before us, and lift his pale face to us?
Their condemnation, as painful as it was, he could bear; God's, he could not.
Beneath the blackness that swathed it, was his Lutheran heart; a heart that had rejected Luther's Anti-Semitism.
Before, during the Kristallnacht, that heart had cried out against the abuse.
Alas, his mind, already tainted with Hitler's Judenhass, had suppressed it, and silenced it.
Christianity promoted weakness; therefor it was to be pushed aside.
Yet here, in this holy place, Germany felt the weakest, most pitiful, and pathetic creature on earth.
Germany, the iron-hearted Third Reich, who held nearly all of Europe in his palm, who Hitler hailed as the purest creature on earth, who Himmler genuflected before at Wewelsburg, nearly cowered before the image of God.
There was another who's condemnation, and scorn, Germany could not bear; North Italy's.
North Italy, his beautiful, auburn-haired, amber-eyed, lover; that easy-going, mirthy, yet steadfast when the moment called, Italian region.
Italy never cowered before anyone; he was one of the Roman Empire's grandsons; he bowed to one; save God, of course.
The last time Italy had visited him, with his boss, Il Duce, clad in his black-shirt uniform, he'd acted as he usually did when around Germany's government; reserved, aloof, and knowing.
Germany had been in his SS uniform, and during the entire visit, Italy had not so much as given him a side-ways glance; He was sickened by him.
So increasingly, Italy distanced himself from his Axis partner. North Italy, like his brother, South Italy, was no one's fool.
Though he had no definite knowledge, no specific details, he harbored no doubts as to what Germany's government, military, and people, did to those they condemned as beneath them, as "sub-human" creatures.
If North Italy scorned him, if he condemned him, if he hated him, Germany would surely go to pieces.
The disgusted fury in the amber eyes, as he'd beheld marches and rallies; his brows slightly furrowing, barely able to hide his revulsion at the perverting of his Grandfather's symbols.
That furious look would be nothing to that lividness that would burn in his amber eyes if he knew what Germany did to Jewry.
Jewry was the Italy brothers' friend; they'd grown up together under Rome.
How his eyes would burn with hate; how they did burn with hate when he'd beheld his marches, rallies, and his Führer.
Though Italy had yet to verbally condemn him, the looks in his eyes seemed to speak for him, and they pierced Germany's black-swathed heart like bayonets.
The look he'd given him at the rally; sardonicism in the Roman amber eyes, scoffing at him, as though saying, "as if you're worthy to succeed the mighty Roman Empire, you're just a pathetic barbarous Germanic knock-off.".
What hurt almost as bad as the look, was that it was true.
His treatment of Jewry and her people were the very epitome of barbarous.
He'd hurt at first, he'd ached then; his German Jews were still his people; but that had long since dissipated.
Germany, as though bidden, lifted his face to look at the image of God.
His icy blue eyes widened, his blood turned to ice, his breath catching in his throat.
In that one moment, he saw not the image of the emaciated Lord; rather, he saw Jewry.
Jewry, nailed to the cross, sapphire eyes half-lidded, cropped black waves of hair contrasting the pale, sickly olive skin, clad in the blue-striped "pajama" uniform that hung from her emaciated form, the yellow star of David with the black 'Jude' in the center, on her breast, over her heart. A crown of barbed wire rested upon the crown of her head.
Germany blinked, lowered and shook his head slightly.
Hesitantly, almost afraid of what his eyes might behold, lifted his face again.
The pitying anguished eyes of Christ beheld the Germanic Reich.
For a few moments, Germany could not tear his eyes away from the image's eyes.
Willing himself, he lowered his head.
Images of the anguished Jewry flashed before his eyes; the look in her eyes, generally somber and anguished, occasionally stared at him with the same pitying look.
Other images danced before him; the anguished Poland, the emaciated naked bodies, the sickening scent of Zyklon B, the skeleton figures that seemed to wander directionless, the figures that slaved away in his Messerschmitt factories, Mengele's patients...
Germany lifted his pale face to the Image's.
The anguished, pitying look was the same.
Germany glanced at the floor of the holy place, unable to look up.
He was unable to face God.
End.