By: Ana and Federico
"James! Watch out!" Günther shouted just as a bomb dropped a couple meters away from where they were standing.
"Shit! Run!" James and Günther turned the corner of the street and spotted an orthodox church. The church was relatively still in good state, but the ceiling of the bell tower had been damaged by bombs. Both boys barged through the doors of the temple, seeking shelter. They had been running from the bombing in their hometown just to find another town under attack.
"We should climb up that bell tower to get a better view about what's going on." Günther suggested, once they were safe inside the church.
"You want to get to higher ground during a bombing? Are you nuts? We should just stay down here and not look for any trouble." James reasoned with him. They had both heard firing of guns and explosions when they arrived at the village, and James feared they had already gotten into much more trouble than they bargained for. Günther had spotted a soldier diving behind a house while they were running down the streets of the town, and was curious to find out more about what they were doing here.
"It will only be for a second, and maybe we can spot a safer place to take refuge from up there." Günther persuaded, already moving forward to climb the stairs. The stairs were steep, and the deteriorated wooden boards creaked as the boys ascended.
Up in the bell tower, lay hidden a German soldier, who aimed through his crosshair at the soldiers wearing the identifying symbols of the NAZI party. He looked down at these soldiers with anger and despise.
As he was lining up his shot, he heard the distinct sound of voices approaching. One of them had a German accent, and he was instantly on guard. When the voices entered the small room of the bell tower, he jumped out from where he was hiding and pointed a gun at their heads.
"Both of you! Stop where you are!" James and Günther froze in their places.
Günther analyzed the situation. He had a gun pointed at his head. Holding the gun was a tall soldier, who had his face covered with a gas mask.
"Who are you? What are you both doing here?" the soldier harshly demanded. Neither one of the boys were wearing uniforms, nor did they appear to be armed. Still, he didn't take his guard down.
The soldier undoubtedly spoke German, Günther realized, since he had a ridiculously strong accent. Günther immediately began to explain who they were. He was about to finish when a loud, sharp sound filled the air, and the soldier was propelled forward as blood was splattered all over the boys, as well as the soldier himself, who was pushed onto both boys with a lot of force.
The old planks they were standing on weren't able to hold them all and snapped wide open when the three of them fell. The boys managed to scream "FUUUUU-", before hitting the floor two levels below.
James' head was throbbing. He rolled over with a groan, and squinted through the dust to try to find Günther. His friend was a small distance away, sprawled on his back, unconscious. James tried to move but instantly ceased the effort when he felt a pain in his ankle. He stared at the floor an inch away from his face with heavy eyelids, feeling himself starting to doze off, when he saw a pair of eyes looking directly at him through a crack in the floorboards. With a lot of struggling and a lot of gasping, James managed to get the words "Help, please", before closing his eyes.
Anka watched the boy above her pass out.
"What are you doing girl? Get over here!" Nana Eliza called out to her from the other side of the basement in which they were hiding. They had been down there, trapped inside the small church ever since the Germans invaded their town.
"It's not safe for us, Anka, you shouldn't get so close to them." Her older sister, Iwona, warned her in a soft voice. Instinctively, Iwona's hand reached out to touch the six-pointed star dangling around her neck. Silence followed after. They could hear guns firing outside the church.
"I don't think they're soldiers. They had a hard fall, and the boy I saw looked about our age." He looked normal too, in the sense that he didn't seem as tough and unaffected as soldiers usually did.
"No, Anka." Her grandfather replied with a stern tone.
"I just want to help them, grandpa, please. They won't even know I was there. I'll come right back without waking anyone up." She persisted, already tired of sitting and waiting.
"Go with her, Bernard. Iwona and I will wait here for both of you to return." Nana Eliza urged her husband. "Any signs of trouble, and both of you come right back."
Anka made her way over to where the ceiling had come crashing down. There was a lot of dust, and debris everywhere. There were three bodies sprawled on the floor, one of them, was a lot bigger than the other two, and had blood oozing from his body. She ran over to him first, her grandfather in tow.
"Grandpa, turn him over." her grandfather aided her with her request, sturdily picking up the man's torso, and turning his body around. Anka's heart nearly stopped once getting a look at the man. Grandpa Ben would've dropped him if it wasn't for Anka's cry warning him. He had a bullet wound in his left leg and he must have gotten knocked out by the fall. But that wasn't what had her heart beating a mile a minute, and her grandfather cussing profanities. It was the uniform, and the gun, and the gas mask thrown at his feet, and most importantly, the swastika, the emblem of racial purity branded across his chest.
She didn't hesitate a minute longer. She ripped a piece of cloth from her dress and rushed over to the soldier's side. Anka steadfastly wrapped the cloth around the bullet wound several times and then tied a knot. She instructed her grandfather to lift his leg and apply more pressure to the bandage with the heel of his hand.
She glanced at the other two boys on the floor. Getting them back to consciousness was her main priority at the moment. She rushed over to them and started shaking them lightly on the shoulder. They slowly began stirring.
"Iwona!" She called at her sister. "I need your help treating the injuries. Come quickly!" One boy looked like he had a dislocated shoulder, and the other had a swollen ankle. Her mother was a nurse, and she had taught Iwona and her the basics in medical aid before she was taken away.
Günther felt pain. The last thing he remembered was feeling something heavy fall on his right shoulder. He heard a feminine voice, and felt disoriented. He tried to move, and immediately cried out in pain. There was so much pain radiating in his right shoulder.
"You dislocated your shoulder. We're going to have to put it back in place." A girl's voice spoke from above him. She had long blonde hair and really dark eyes. Behind her, stood an old man, reaching for Günther's right arm. It was quick, and it felt like someone had hammered a nail to his bone. The pain subsided quickly, and he stood up.
James was getting his ankle bandaged with a cloth by the blonde girl, and the soldier who was shot was lying on the floor, with a small girl applying pressure to his leg. There was an elderly lady overlooking the girls.
The blonde girl noticed him standing, and glanced at his shoulder.
"I'm Iwona," She introduced, "That's my sister Anka, and my grandparents." She said, letting go of James ankle. "Who are you?" She asked.
"Günther." He presented himself. "Thanks for fixing my shoulder."
"I'm James. Thank you for helping us." James stated. Iwona nodded and looked over to where her Anka was still aiding the soldier.
"I'm assuming you guys aren't with that soldier. What happened?" Iwona asked.
"We found him in the bell tower. One thing led to another, and the next thing we know we're falling down two floors and spraining an ankle." James said.
"He's a Nazi." Günther said, "You're a jew." He nodded at the Star of David hanging around Iwona's neck. "Why did you help him?"
"I didn't. Anka did. She's more forgiving than I am." She tugged at her necklace slightly and turned away from the boys' stares.
"What are you both doing here?" Iwona asked them. The boys had noticed that all the houses looked abandoned, and the only sounds produced were gunshots and bombs exploding.
"Our town was under attack as well. Our parents told us to leave as quickly as possible. We ran east, and found this dump." James explained.
"Why are you still here?" Günther asked Iwona.
"The Nazis invaded this place about a month ago. They began shipping away all the Jews they could find, and killing the ones that they didn't send away. My parents were one of the firsts to be sent off. We've been hiding in this church ever since." Iwona answered in a soft voice.
"I saw a couple Soviets when we were heading in. What are they here for?" Günther asked.
"To fight the Nazis. They're trying to reconquer territory, and we were caught in the crossfire." This time it was Iwona's grandmother who answered, and the old lady then shifted her attention to the soldier.
"He's starting to squirm. Bernard, take his weapon." She said. The old man grabbed the gun next to the soldier, as he began to shift from his position on the floor. The soldier winced and grinded his teeth together. He could still feel the bullet ripping through his skin. He opened his eyes and saw a young girl kneeling by his side, with the palm of her hand applying pressure over his bullet wound. Behind her, an old man holding a gun pointed in his direction.
"How long have I been out?" The soldier asked with urgency, giving no importance to the gun in his face.
The small girl answered, "An hour or so." The soldier cursed. He sat up quickly, ignoring the pain in his leg for a moment. He studied the people in the room. Four out of six of them were teenagers, and the other two were elderly. It could work, he decided.
"The only way you're going to stay alive is by helping me and my family." The old man pointed the gun at him said. The old man had a beard, and a black coat. On top of his head was a . He was a Jew.
"I don't want to kill any of you. I thank you for aiding my injuries. You helped the blood clot before it could start bleeding profusely. The reason for the wound, and the reason I was hiding in that bell tower, is because I have turned my back on the Nazis. I committed treason, and there's no way I'm leaving this place alive either way." The soldier said with sincerity.
"I'm going to selfishly ask for your help one more time. The situation out there has worsened. The Germans have probably called in more troops, and I need to double the firepower if I have any chance of defeating them before they come to finish us off. I have more weapons up there in the tower. I'm going to ask of you, to have the same trust you had when you aided me back to health. We don't have much time. If you help me with this, I promise, I will find you and your family refuge, even if it's the last thing I do." While he spoke, he looked directly in the eyes of the members crowded around him in the small church.
"I'm all alone on this. And if you want to help your country, your people," he said, "then you'll help me avenge them. If the Nazis lose this battle, then the tables may turn in our favor once more."
Iwona and Anka's grandparents didn't know what to say. They chose to say nothing at all. Surprisingly, Iwona was the first to speak.
"I don't know how to shoot a gun," she said, "but if this means getting back at the Nazis for taking away my parents, then I'll do it for them."
Günther then followed. "I'm in," he stated, and shared a look with James, who nodded his head as well. "We both are."
"I'll go as well, not for the same reasons, but because I want to see this war end." Anka said. Both grandparents supported the girls with hesitancy, but they all ended up climbing up to the bell tower once more.
The soldier helped them set up their shots, and he started by taking out a few of the soldiers in their range. The rest followed, missing by long shots at first, but then shooting right at the points of impact. By looking at the children, the soldier could see how much this would affect them. Günther's face was as rigid as stone, while James looked paler with every bullet he shot. Iwona looked like she had aged a hundred years from when they were in the church, and Anka had tears streaming endlessly down her cheeks.
By the time the sun had set, there was a deafening silence in the town. No bombs, no shooting, no heavy stomping or yelling. Just silence. They had won. The kids dropped the weapons as if they weighed a hundred tons. The soldier dropped his as well. This was the end of the line for him.
He took the family and the two boys to the Soviet troops stationed in the town, and explained to them the events that took place. They were relocated to a safer town, where they could take refuge. The boys were reunited with their parents, and four months later they received a notice, declaring that the boys were to be presented medals, for their efforts in the war.
James, Günther, Anka, Iwona, Grandpa Ben and Grandpa Eliza, stood side by side with the wounded German Soldier.
"The Allies would like to present the following Gold Medals to these individuals now branded as heroes, for helping the Soviet Union, and the Allies as such, in the battle against Germany…."