Buchenwald Concentration Camp

December 20th, 1944

5:03 pm

"Bring them out! All of them!" The doors of the boxcar that I was in flew open and down to the side, having em squint from the bright lights that were hitting me from the outside of some kind of fence that was about four stories high. I was in shock, still freezing and almost collapsing from how tired I was as I was being shoved out of the boxcar with about a dozen other Allied soldiers that were picked up along the way now. Some of them looked at me in confusion as I was placed in there and others were in shock, and I knew it was because I was the only female in the whole goddamn boxcar.

Probably the only one on the train.

I was still freezing as the snow fell and I landed on my feet on the snowy and almost frozen ground and I was being lead over with a soldier behind me, another American soldier on his other hand and our own hands were tied in front of us. I was almost delirious as to where we were, but it didn't look safe. The high barbed fire fences, a wooden cabin that looked so bare and almost like a place where you would look your soul and never get it back.

I felt like I was in Hell.

"The female goes to see the Captain immediately!" I was shoved over to another soldier who took me by the arm and away from the other soldiers were going, over to a large long cabin and I was wondering why I was being singled out. I did remember one officer, almost feeling like a lifetime ago, saying that he had no die where to put me and if I was good enough to be sundered one of their prisoners. I was still having no clue what my future was going to be like when the soldier escorting me opened the door and took me inside.

It was still freezing there, but a bit warmer now by a couple of degrees as I saw once again a singular table with two chairs on one side and one chair on the other. On one wall I saw a large filling cabinet and a bookshelf, the other side of the room there was a window that was looking out into what could be a courtyard of the prison type of place now, no one was seen out there but I had the feeling that it was a prison as I was placed into the chair at the table now and the soldier was still that behind me. I decided not to say anything, I doubted that was going to help me at the moment.

The door on the opposite of the room opened and I looked dead ahead, feeling the soldier right behind me and I knew his gun was still out, ready to shoot em at any point that I was going to run as who looked to be the Captain of the whole place now walked in with a curious look on his eye now before he walked to the table and sat down right across from me now. He looked a bit young to be a Captain, then again I would rather talk to a young Captain than someone who was old and looking like he could kill me with one look. This one had to look like he was in his thirties and was already seasoned with the war now, which got me a bit worried as he looked at me up and down from his spot in the chair. What was he going to do with me now?

"Leave us," He said to the soldier now, having em look down at the table in fear now since I was going to be left alone with the Captain there, "Don't worry, I can handle her alone. Or do you think I can't, private?" He was a stern Captain, I gave him that. And the way he talked to the private as like he knew the soldier was lower than him on the military line of succession, and the soldier behind me reluctantly moved away from me now and walked out of the room. It was quiet for a moment or two now, having em still breathe in and out and rethink as to how I was here in a room, alone, with a German Captain. I thought then I was going to die that night at the hands of this man.

"So…the men on the train told me you know German….but I would rather talk to you in English," I was shocked to hear him speaking in English to me other than German, and I was dumbstruck on how smooth he sounded with a stern look on his face as he took off his uniformed hat and placed it there on the table between us, "I'm sure by now you understand that you being here as Prisoner of War to the Germans is a bit tricky."

I was still quiet, seeing him look a bit more relaxed to me now as he gestured to me almost in a kind way but still looking stern about it.

"You can talk, it's quite alright," his German accent was thick and yet soothing, which petrified me now.

"Yes…sir," I replied in almost a croak since I had no idea what else to tell him then.

"You're the only female Prisoner of War that we have encountered in this war, not to mention ever…which raises a few questions as to what to do with you," I could only think of the worst when he said this to me now, thinking that I was going to be used in some way since men and have some crazy idea over women.

"Are you going to shoot me?" I asked him out of the blue, seeing him watch me and then lower one of his hands to his hip now as he was keeping his cold eyes on me.

"I'm not allowed to do such a thing. You're a prisoner now, and it's against the law for me to shoot you without any consent behind it, even if it means that you're a female." He replied to me, placing his luger on the top of the table and I watched it now since the barrel was aimed at me. All he can do within that moment was place his finger on the trigger and pull it without breaking a sweat, and I would be dead.

"I don't know what to do with you, since it's not fitting for a female to go through the work that we're going to place on the men we've captured," he explained some more, not looking at the luger on the table at all but looking right at me with intrigue there in his eyes and it was making me more on he edge, "I would have you sent to one of the women's camps that are down at the next trains stop and see what they want to do with you….and I was going to do that…until I heard that you are a nurse. Is this true?"

"Yes," I replied slowly now, thinking that this was some kind of sick joke from a killer. He nodded his head now, folding his hands on the table.

"How long have you studied medicine for?" He asked as if it was an interview for a job and not that fact that I was his prisoner. I wondered where hew as going with this, and why he wanted to know about my background in medicine.

"Since I was 17," I replied back to him, and I figured hat talking to him wit honesty was better than lying about something like this. I would rather try and live and get out of here some way than say one wrong thing and die, "17 years old."

"Have you been able to help soldiers in this war?" He asked me, having me look at him more in confusion since something was clearly going on that I had no idea of. I shifted a bit in my chair, his eyes drilling into my own and making me feel so small and such a victim already.

"I have, sir." I replied back simply, seeing him think to himself before he talked again and this time, I honestly thought I was going to die from him.

"Because of the delicate situation that is now resting on the fact that you're the only female I have in this prison, not to mention I have been laughed at from the other officer about my idea with you and how I wanted to keep you. However, I will let you in on my secret that I want to conduct with you." He explained to me now in a light manner, as if he wanted to have small talk with me now and I could only think of the worst when it came to what he wanted to do with me. I only sat there and he then leaned back in his chair, now grabbing the luger in his hand now and having me cringe.

What was going to happen to me?

I was walking into another part of the prison area, across the way from where I could see some of the other soldiers that were captured were being shoved into a bunker or some sort. With the Captain in front of me and the soldier whom escorted me from the boxcar behind me, some of the captured soldiers looked through the windows now at me interest and in shock now since I was walking across with nothing or no one really pushing me along.

"In here," The Captain said as I was walking in with him over to what looked like to be some kind of ward of some kind, medicine cabinets on the walls and some cots set up against the walls and in the corners now as I was then placed in front of what was in the middle of the room: an operation table. I looked at him on confusion now as he rounded to stand on the other side of the table as I looked down at the table now. I could see blood stains there, having me feel like I'm about to be sick.

"I decided to let you live….and help our men in the war." He said to me in almost a stern manner, my eyes shooting to him now as I was shaking and not understand what he was talking about.

"What?" I asked him, hearing the gun cocked behind me now and having me look at the soldier over my shoulder in confusion and in shock now.

"If you are a nurse, as you say you and as I can tell from your uniform and your patches, you can help heal our men and get them back on the line. And since you've done this for years, it should be no problem for you to do this since more of our medics are out upon the line. We have no doctors here and they have designated our location as the main location for our wounded men. Which leaves me to you, and this decision that you have to make." He explained carefully now, having em then freeze in my spot and almost pass out since I felt the gun the soldier was carrying behind me was now pressing into my skull from behind. I gasped out in a shaky breath, trying to look ahead and not look behind me.

"I am giving you this choice, either to live or die," The Captain said to me now as he rounded the corner of the operation table and stood next to me while I remained still with the gun still aimed at me head and me feeling the metal against my hair and skin, "I will not kill you for no just cause. And the only just cause I know that you will not be refusing or hurting one of my men under your care. So, if you want to live, I suggest agreeing to help men any one of the Germans soldiers that come through. However, if you choose to refuse, or you decide to let a soldier die on the table right then and there, I have full reason to kill you with one shot." I knew something was going to to happen to me that was not normal, but this….this was not even close to being normal. He was still watching me as I was trying to make a decision within my own head at that point. A part of me just wanted to start running and get out of there, to try and find a way out of there while I had the chance. But then again me try to get out of there was a suicide run, and I felt like I was going to die there always since there was to real way out. I had to make sure I would survive for so long, maybe with a hint of hope there within my brain now as I looked at the Captain now. I had to try, for as long as I can until some kind of miracle came along.

"I'm at your service."

Match 14th, 1945

Landsburg, Germany

"What's her medical report?" I sat there within my own room now in one of the apartments that Easy was staying in at the time, just sitting there and trying to drink in the fact that I was not dead. I made it out, I was alive. Alive….alive…

"Malnourished, like the other ones that we found here in the town at the camp….possible bruising along the ribcage and wrists from some sort of struggle… no sign of any more physical trauma that we thought we were going to see…" I could hear Doc telling Major Winters all that he wanted to know and understand about me as I was still staring out the window, not moving an inch now and thinking back to the camp and what happened there. I was still cold…I was still starving from the inside out from not eating enough food yet they gave me plenty that made me vomit on the floor as soon as I tried to swallow it down, and I could still hear the officers and other soldiers in my head now.

I could hear them….all of them…feel their fingers under my skin while no one was around me or even talking to me….they were still there and they were haunting me.

"Sir, we need to get some kind of psychologist to talk to her," Doc recommended in a lower tone, but I could still hear him now as someone walked into the room carefully, almost too carefully now since his boots were moving at a very slow pace. Butty eyes were still at the sunlight had of me through the windows and my hands were folded in my lap, "She went through some kind of trauma, I can see it on her face and how she was talking to me."

"Talking to you, Doc?" Winters asked him in a hint of concern as the sounds of the boots were coming closer to me.

"Sir, she went through something back there in the camp….I know it's a bit on the obvious side….but she's not the same as we saw her last back in November." Doc tried to explain as someone was now standing next to me, and having me look dead ahead and not say a word since I was still too tired, too wrecked and too emotionless to even care as to who it was. But I knew, from the corner of my eye I knew who it was.

"Georgie?" I closed my eyes now, seeing nothing but the darkness within myself now as I heard his voice for the firs time within months, the same voice that I dreamed about and I thought I would never hear again. It was him.

Joe.

"It might be a bad case of Post Traumatic Stress, sir….but compared to the others that excused with her, she looked far more together physically than they did. It was like they spared her for whatever the hell hey did to her," Captain Nixon spoke up to now as Joe moved a bit closer to me and I opened my eyes now, seeing the window again but this time my eyes were getting glossy. I could hear them all again in my head, see it all and relive all of the kills that happened in front of me. Joe reluctantly stay down on the bed next to me and I felt the bed sink a bit yet he gave me enough space so that I would be able to move away if I wished to. I wanted to, I needed to breathe and feeling him close to me was going to make me feel like I was suffocating. But it was Joe, of all people I would move away from, why him?

"Whatever happened to her, it's up to us to make sure she and the rest of the men that escaped get the proper treatment that they need," Winters explained, "I'll get on the horn with Sink in the morning to see what he wants to happen with them. Until then, they are under our care now and we need to make sure that they are safe."

"Georgie? Can you hear me, Liebste?" He asked me, having me breathe in sharply now when he used the one pet name that he did with me before I was captured, back when we were content where we were as a couple in England and nothing was going to touch us. God, I haven't heard that name in what feels like years now as I looked over at him with wide eyes. He looked the same, the same long face and beautiful eyes and his brown hair short and smoothed to the side with ease. But somewhat he looked older, from the war and all its harshness on his as well as a faint scar on his neck near his jawline. He looked the same, but different and he was looking right at me with sad and loving eyes at the same time. I didn't know what came over me then, how it was either seeing him there in front of me and knowing that this was no dream, or that I was no longer in that place of hell and I thought I was going to die there, but somehow…I started to sob in front of him.

"I can't…Joe….I can't.." I closed my eyes in defeat and Joe wrapped me into his arms without a second thought to him. I felt my head go against his collarbone and upper chest as he crawled my head with one hand, his chin on top of my head and his other arm around me almost like he was trying to shield me from the world. It all came out of me, all of the pain and all of the suffering I felt from seeing my friends die and suffer in front of me, from enduring my own pain and punishment from the officers that were there. It was all coming to the surface and it was making it harder for me to just breathe in and out.

"I got you…I got you now, okay Georgie?" He whispered into my hair, having me just cry in his arms and try to get my own shit together. To remind myself that I was safe, that I made it out alive and I was not going to die that day, it was harder to do than to think. I would rethink to all the times when they made me feel isolated, worthless, pathetic, and less than human because I would not help them from time to time.

"Listen to me…I love you….I have you now and I won't ever let you go…" Joe tried to soothe me with his mantra, both in English and in German now as he was stroking my hair and kissing my forehead so lovingly now. He was trying to bring me back to the land of the living.

When all I wanted to do was be in the land of the dead.