Emilie spent a long time simply wandering through the camp, scarcely feeling the pain in her ankle. She encountered more dead bodies and huts with what must have been fifty people crammed into them, living in the most awful conditions – if what they were doing could even be called living. The camp was divided into two parts, and she also stumbled across what she identified as gas chambers, buildings for medical experiments and crematoriums, and the mere thought of what the people would have had to endure in there caused her to throw up. Around the entire camp there were various guard towers; some German soldiers had been stupid enough to stay behind, including some SS women soldiers, and Emilie wouldn't have been surprised if they didn't make it out alive. The Americans eyed them with such hatred and malice.
She met more prisoners that told her of other ways they had seen people in the camp killed: just one of the methods was to tie them to railway tracks and run them over with a train, while they screamed the entire time. They said that when more men were tied to the tracks, they lay down in the blood and gore of hundreds of men that had perished gruesomely before them.
"Lieber Gott, mach mich dumm, damit ich night nach Dachau kumm," was a phrase she heard many of the men sing to themselves in scratchy voices as she passed them by. Dear God, make me dumb, that I may not to Dachau come. She heard tales of suicide; of a typhus epidemic in the camp spread from its sub-camps just a few weeks ago, wiping out many prisoners, and how they were briefly evacuated only to be brought back soon after; and of death marches to and from the camp in which many more men and women died. But they weren't just Jewish people in here. They were Catholic priests, communists, and political opposition of Hitler, along with men and women of an array of respectable occupations: teachers, authors, doctors, artists, scientists, and even royalty. The people in there for political reasons wore red tags, while the criminals wore green tags. Sorted out, like cattle awaiting the slaughter house.
Emilie shook her head in dismay, sniffling and wiping tears from her eyes. She had never seen such horrors. But the thing that really got to her was that the prisoners still somehow managed to smile; as the soldiers walked past, they weakly welcomed and saluted their saviours. Emilie suddenly felt selfish. What right had she ever had to complain, to think her life was hard, when here were these people?
At that moment, she realised that the prisoners were all milling in the same direction, back towards the entrance to the camp, brushing past her. She turned to see a few American transport trucks designed to carry troops parked there, with a few soldiers standing in the back, ripping off chunks of huge wheels of cheese and distributing them to the prisoners. It would have been a frenzy, if they hadn't been so malnourished and weak. They clambered over each other, reaching up to get more food, but their movements were painfully slow and clumsy. She saw many of the Americans trying to hide their tears, the ones that weren't able to suppress them being supported by their friends.
She spotted Eugene handing out food, his expression impossible to read, but he didn't notice her. If he did, at least, he made no sign of it. Her heart twisted. This was not how she had imagined seeing him again, not that she had been imagining it…
But that was when it hit her. Emilie spotted an American doctor standing a little way away, frowning as he watched the food being handed out, and jogged over to him, paying no attention to the twinge of pain in her foot. He turned to her as she approached, his frown deepening.
"I'm a nurse," she told him urgently, giving him no time to interrupt her. She pointed at the prisoners, feeling terribly guilty as she considered what she was about to say, to deprive them of. But it had to be done, as much as she hated it. "They can't be eating that. They are three-quarters starved, their bodies won't be able to manage it. If they don't eat it, they'll die. But if they do eat it, they will probably die even quicker. We have to ease them into it, as hard as that may be, and then they might just stand a chance at survival."
The doctor let out a sigh, rubbing his hand over his face. He didn't question what she was doing there. "I know," he replied in a low voice filled with sorrow, "I know, I know. They have to be kept in this camp, so we can monitor their progress and help them. But I'm just dreading being the one to have to tell them that." He looked at the scrawny men in front of him and shook his head. "After all they've been through. It could be a riot."
"It's all part of the job, delivering bad news," Emilie sighed, following his gaze, "But I hardly think they're in any condition to start a riot."
He turned his head to look at her, smiling sadly and giving a small nod. "You're right."
The American turned on his heel and walked away with hunched shoulders; he carried the aura of a defeated man forcing himself onwards. Well, weren't they all like that? He stopped in front of a major, and she watched as he told him the awful news. She couldn't hear them, but by the look on the major's face, she could tell he was thinking exactly the same thing as they had. He called over another man and briefly told him something; the other man looked horrified, glancing over at the prisoners before shaking his head and answering the major.
Reluctantly, the man began to walk towards one of the vehicles, pulling himself up onto it. He began to address the prisoners in a voice choked by emotion, and they shook their heads and wailed and tried to break away as he spoke, telling them they had to stay in the camp. He apologised profusely.
As Emilie watched, rubbing her arms and pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders, she made a silent vow to herself: if Adolf Hitler was still alive by the time she was discharged from the army, she would be the one to finally kill him.
