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Chapter three: Crumbs of Truth

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;17th of May, year 1944, Buchenwald

The day had been absolutely beautiful outside the camp. I had taken a short walk in the woods near-by and enjoyed myself immensely. No wonder the prisoners' skin started looking so grey and fragile, thin as paper, when they didn't get to hear the birds singing high up in the oak trees. That one hour I had spent in the forest, wandering around, had lifted up my spirits enormously, giving me new energy to do my job. The zoo they had there in Buchenwald could only be interesting for so long, but I never got tired of the forest. When I tilted my head back to look at the tops of the sighing trees, I occasionally got blinded by the sunlight filtering through the leaves being moved by the wind. Pure blue sky opened up above me, beyond those trees, and at moments like that I felt like my life couldn't have been any better.

On my way back to the camp, my mood didn't exactly worsen but the unreasonably content feeling I had had decreased gradually as the distance between me and the gate doors grew shorter.

That day I was assigned to supervise the building site for a new Block for political prisoners, many of the future residents probably Soviets. The prisoners that had been brought there to build the wooden house had been working for six hours already as my shift started, and not even ten minutes had passed when the first signs of trouble appeared. That rather flattened my good mood.

Two prisoners had gotten into a fight in the middle of the working day, and another guard, Garin was shouting for me to come help him to pry the two prisoners apart. Taking my partner Tab with me we ran to Garin and I took hold of the taller prisoner while Tab pinned the smaller one to the ground. Both of them were now looking at us with clear, unmasked fear written across their faces.

Garin walked up to the bigger prisoner and, narrowing his eyes, he hissed dangerously, "Fights are not tolerated during working hours, you idiots! I could get you two punished for this if I wanted to, but since I am the one in charge of the site for the next four hours, I want no trouble from ANY of the workers here during that time, understood?" He turned to look at the other prisoner on the ground down his nose. "And I tell you, if you do something like this again, the punishment you get from me will be longer…" he emphasized the word 'longer', "…and more painful than either of you can imagine."

Garin was a tough guy, very much like that one Yugoslavian executor that I had talked with last week.

He had nerves like iron, showed no pity and hadn't softened at all even though he'd just had his first child, a baby girl, with a lady living in the nearest town.

Both of the prisoners continued their work but two hours into my shift the smaller one who had been carrying planks of wood stopped in his tracks, collapsed, and didn't get back up. Garin told me to go shoot him, and I did.

I was very pleased to hear Tab tell me a few hours later that our shift had ended. The sun that had been beating down on us from the cloudless sky the whole day had almost given me a heatstroke, and I was in a desperate need of a shower.

As the blissfully refreshing water poured on me I couldn't stop the sigh from escaping my lips. I even used the special shampoo the doctor had given me earlier to rid me of all the filth that the prisoners seemed to spread around and bathe in.

Twisting the tap closed, I followed the trickles of water with my eyes as they travelled across my skin, down my legs to the white tile floor and into the drain. I grabbed a towel and dried myself, my black hair still dripping water onto my shoulders and chest. Feeling very pleased with the fact that I was clean and about to go have a filling meal I stepped out of the stall and got dressed in no particular hurry, enjoying the sweet smell of soap on my skin.

The food was what it always has been, below mediocre, but that was kind of understandable since the Second World War was still raging on. Besides, when looking at the portions that the prisoners received, all I could do was thank some higher force for making me Aryan.

After dinner I decided to head back towards the SS barracks to have a lie down for half an hour before my next two-hour-long shift started; meals always made me feel a bit tranquil. While dragging my feet towards my destination, I munched on a piece of white bread with a bit of butter and a thick slice of cheese on top of it, fully aware of the hungry prisoners who were eating my bread with their eyes. Sometimes we would throw bits of bread into puddles of mud or potatoes into the flames at some working sites just for the hell of it, only to watch as prisoners charged for the leftovers and occasionally burned themselves so severely that they had to be relieved of their pains.

I was very close to the SS men's area already which meant that this was my last chance to have a bit of fun with the prisoners. I threw half of my bread amongst the thickest part of the crowd and in a blink of an eye dozens of skinny arms tried to reach for it, desperately. They bit each other, clawed, kicked and pushed one another like animals in order to get even the tiniest crumb of decent food. Although it was quite likely that the piece of bread had disappeared into someone's hungry mouth a long time ago already, the crowd was still looking for it hopelessly. The expressions on their faces, the disbelief that reflected off them… I didn't even try to hold back the chuckle that bubbled in my chest.

Something in the corner of my eye apparently caught my attention and I turned my gaze away from the bustling crowd.

That was when I saw Him again.

He was not fighting in the middle of the crowd nor did he look like he had even tried to get the bread. He was just standing there in the side, leaning against the building with his arms crossed. Silently he observed me from under his blond fringe, slightly hunched up, with silver eyes boring into me and every now and then flicking to the other half of the bread I was holding in my hands.

Making sure that the other prisoners weren't watching, I gestured for him to follow me behind the corner.

Limping slightly, he did as I told him to and having rounded the corner, he immediately supported himself by the wall of the building, looking up at me.

I looked back. I remembered how his hair had reflected the sunlight in such a striking way when he had first entered the camp and I recalled thinking how it had looked so surreal in the middle of grey, black, brown and all the shades of dirt. Now, though, his hair had lost quite a bit of its unearthly radiation, being hidden under layers and layers of grime although I was sure that if he had a proper shower, the locks would shine as stunningly as before coming to Buchenwald.

What hadn't lost their shine were his eyes. They were still as bright and expressive as I remembered them despite having been half-hidden behind those dim blond strands of hair.

It was quite a beautiful sight. Shame he was a prisoner. And a man.

"Hey", I said.

He didn't answer back, but I saw him purse his lips.

"Do you speak my language?" I asked and looked at him, genuinely wanting to know and hear him speak.

He cleared his throat. "Yes, I do."

I smiled. It would be almost criminal to let his hair lose its shine. I handed him the piece of bread I was holding, with butter and cheese and all. In an instant his hand closed around it, eyes wild and not quite understanding that he was actually holding food, real food, in his fist. Snapping his head up again, he looked at me with wide eyes. The skinny man in front of me didn't seem to dare satisfy his hunger without my permission. "Go on and eat it."

He needed to further persuasion and, feeling a something hot swell in my chest, I watched as he greedily stuffed the bread into his mouth with an expression that spoke more than a thousand words. It would have been easy for him to choke on that small piece of white bread.

After finishing up, he carefully licked his fingers. "Thank you." His skin was covered with soot and small scratches, and I grimaced at the thought of how hygienic it was to lick those fingers that probably hadn't been washed the whole day.

"You're welcome." I wasn't usually this friendly with the prisoners, not at all. "Who are you?"

Still licking his fingers and lips slightly, he answered, "1496302." He wiped his fingers against the striped prisoner's outfit. "I'm 1496302."

I frowned at his answer. "Your real name."

His silver eyes had slight specks of blue in them, I noticed. His eyes glinted behind the obstructing fringe, and he murmured, "Before coming here I was Draco. Draco Malfoy."

What an unusual name for an unusual individual.

A/N: I am very sorry for not updating sooner but at least you got a bit of Draco again, eh? Please, comment, I so love receiving feedback from you readers.

Some of you asked if the Nazis truly skinned people at the concentration camps and the answer is yes, they did, and they made lots of items out of tanned skin. I'm sure you would find pictures of those items by googling. By the way, if you want to have a look at Buchenwald, go visit my web site where I have collected some picturesfrom Buchenwald.

Yours,

Devilita.