Chapter 5

It was of course inevitable that sooner or later they would end up near the gas chambers, this absolutely disgusting place that Roderich had several years thanked God that he would never have to see again. Now he was there once more, and it wasn't even close to how he imagined it would be to get back there. The fact was that it was so horrible that he stretched out his hand for Elizabeta's hand. She did not see it, she was too busy listening to the guide who told them about the place.

Roderick stayed up for the first time since they arrived, and he didn't take Elizabeta's hand. Perhaps it would seem less scary if he was listening.

But after just a few words, it was clear that it wouldn't help, then he decided to do what he hesitated to do for just a few seconds ago. He took Elizabeta's hand. Elizabeta wouldn't let anything happen to him, she was safe.

Then the guide asked one thing that made everyone fall silent.

"Does anyone want to go into the gas chamber?" Everyone looked towards the door, some began to enter. Roderich felt sick. He had seen exactly this view too many times, not to mention the sight that used to follow shortly afterwards when the people who had entered were trying to get out.

But there was another view also, and he had not seen this in reality. Gilbert who laughed at him because he was the only one who didn't dare to enter. Roderich did not want to give Gilbert that pleassure. He started walking. Elizabeta hadn't walked in yet, she was not going to let go of his hand, and if Roderich did not want to go in, she was respecting that, just as she now respected that he decided to go in whatever the reason was.

They stopped in the middle of the gas chamber and Elizabeta gave Roderich a comforting pat on his back.

"Well done!" She whispered encouraging to him. After that Roderich could see everything much clearer. Kiku and Feliciano stood only a meter in front of him and looked seriously at one of the showers, with a sort of strange and unexplainable respect in their eyes. And few metres from them was Eduard von Bock, Lukas Bondevik and Berwald Oxenstierna talking quietly and earnestly with each other. Feliks and Toris looked at what seemed to be a handle for water, but Roderich knew very well that it had never led to a tap, Antonio and Lovino just walked around and watched everything without saying anything.

When Arabella came up to Elizabeta to talk, Roderich had almost relaxed completely. But this was of course too good to continue. Suddenly there was a noise that everyone in there knew very well what it was. Someone had closed the door to the gas chamber.

Roderich couldn't stop himself, he screamed right out in the air and seconds after that he felt his knees hit the floor. But the worst was yet that Elizabeta's hand had suddenly disappeared. When she had heard the door slam, she had immediately understood what happened. She had released everything, moved towards the door and tossed it up.

Just as she knew he would, Gilbert stood out there and laughed. Gilbert flew straight into the wall after the punch that Elizabeta gave him.

"If you ever do anything like that again I'll kill you is that clear?" When Elizabeta had said this the others who had entered the gas chamber started to come out, including Mrs. King, the other teacher and the students from the other school, in other words, it was the wrong time to say what she wanted to say to Gilbert, it would require too much explanation. But when she got the opportunity, he would certainly know what she thought about he, who had seen it all with his own eyes could even think of denying it. Right now, she could only stand and listen to his stupid arguments.

"I agree!" Elizabeta heard someone behind her say, and she turned around. It was a very big guy from the other school, he would probably have scared anyone, except just her. Besides, as so long as Roderich risked to hear it, she wouldn't let anyone scare her with something that had to do with denying the Holocaust. She simply turned to Gilbert again to warn him one more time.

And when she did, she actually felt a quite overwhelming relief. Gilbert's facial expressions testified very clearly that he too were really upset rather than glad that someone had walked over on his side - after all, he had also seen how Roderich felt when he was finally found, and even though the two had got their differences through history he didn't want Austria to go through what he had at that time.

But despite the signs of remorse Elizabeta couldn't bring herself to feel sorry for Gilbert in this situation. His behavior had now given a real denier a reason to make problems.

"You are completely right about it, there is no evidence ..." what the big muscular guy didn't think there was any evidence for, the others didn't get to know. Ludwig Beilsmidt and Ivan Braginsky, who both looked just as big and dangerous as the bully, had suddenly got enough of idiocy. They pushed their way through the crowd in a rather brutal way and then they just dragged the both troublemakers outside.

Above all, the teachers were quite relieved that at least two of the bigger guys in their classes neither believed that the Holocaust hadn't occurred nor was willing to let someone come and say so.

In the meantime Feliciano and Arabella sat down at Roderich side and tried to get in touch with him. Which wasn't so easy given that it was a pretty nasty panic attack he had got. But somehow they had actually managed to get him to stop hyperventilating.

However, it was not the consolation Roderich had needed at just that time, but Feliciano and Arabella, or anyone else didn't know that. Roderich had heard the door slam behind him, but he had also heard a sound that no one else who had heard this sound had heard after this, the sound of the door that was opened again. And he would even be able to walk out the door again.

Roderich's face was covered with tears when he came out to the others, so he looked as close to the floor as he could so that no one would see it. Right now Roderich didn't feel that he could manage to hear Gilbert's mocking laugh and his pretended belief that nothing had happened in this building.

Gilbert was very quiet, it turned out when they came out, in fact, he was so quiet that Roderich was forced to look up. Gilbert was apparently not there anymore. But now, two things happened that for Roderich was the worst on all day this far. First the guide proposed that they would go to take a look at the crematoria, and Roderich had actually been able to endure that, he had prepared himself mentally to revisit the site for over a week. But just one second after the proposal was submitted, he had caught sight of a face, Tino Väinemöinen. Roderich hadn't thought of it before, but Tino was actually very similar to that boy he had seen vomiting on the SS officer outside the right crematory.

During all this time Feliciano hadn't released Roderich for a second, and all the time he had been talking encouraging with him to try to get rid of the worst shock.

Feliciano just followed the group while he continued talking, he was too busy comforting to hear what the guide said, and Roderich was still too shocked to protest. He couldn't see Elizabeta anywhere, but he could see Tino all the time, even when he closed his eyes to avoid it, the difference was only that he did not look exactly like Tino when his eyes were closed. And he was not in a class outing, he vomited on an SS officer and as punishment he had been tied up and thrown into the crematory oven and been burned alive.

A little later, Roderich stared at the oven where the horror had occurred. The guide told them about what had happened in the room, Roderich tried not to listen but he couldn't. He had found Elizabeta in the crowd now, she had ended up among those closest to the crematory oven where the little boy had been thrown. Tino had ended up next to Vash and Elina Zwingli and they stood a little further away talking about something that Roderich couldn't hear.

Elizabeta had also seen Roderich, but she was simply too far away to come to him without elbowing her way to him, why she choose to just observe at the time. She could see that Feliciano still talked to him so he was at least in the hands of a friend. Additionally Matttias, Heracles, Irina and Natalia stood very close to him and they all knew what Roderich had went through – all of them knew that he had been in a concentration camp, which was the thing that made Elizabeta even angrier when it came to Gilbert, he had been involved in looking for him. But there was a difference in how much the others knew and what Elizabeta knew. The others knew that he was found in the Bergen-Belsen camp, it was just her that Roderich had told that he had also been in Auschwitz.

A hand was reached up, a girl in the other class wanted to ask a supplementary question to what the guide.

"What prisoners were working in here?" The girl pointed to one of the crematory ovens as she asked the question. "Were they Nazis who had ended up here by mistake or something?"