Life is Beautiful ⑤: the story of Lukas, a German boy

We were heading toward a dark alley of some kind.

"Keep moving, Jew. Come on! You're wasting time!" the soldier said.

They turned a corner and all of a sudden, a series of gun shots echoed in the cold night air.

We froze.

The soldier walked away as if nothing had happened.

"OH. MY. GOSH. The soldier shot him, Adolf! The soldier shot Mr. Jew!" I panicked, "What should we do? Should we call for help? But then they'll find out that we've been sneaking out again and I don't want to be spanked. But we can't just leave him here, right? I mean, it's not like he was a bad guy. Oh no! What should we do? What in the world should we do?"

I was blabbering. I couldn't help myself. I was just so shocked.

"Calm down, let's go and see if he's still breathing. If he is, we'll think of something," Adolf's voice was relaxed, but I could see the fright in his eyes.

We crept up to the body.

I took a deep breath and asked, "Hey. Umm... mister? Are you okay?" Of course he was not okay, but I didn't know what else to say.

At first, Mr. Jew was still, but them he started groaning.

"Oh, you're alive! Adolf, go get 'Bulldog'. I'm going to stay here and try to keep him conscious."

"But he's not going to make it. There's too much blood," said Adolf.

"Just GO!"

"Alright, alright!" Adolf ran to get help.

"Mister, you're going to be okay. Breath deeply. There you go. You can do this," I encouraged him as much as I can, knowing deep inside that I was already too late.

"Don't cry," said Mr. Jew in a voice so quiet I could barely hear him.

He wiped a tear off my face. I didn't notice I was crying until then.

"Please... don't cry. Please... don't blame yourself... Germans have done many... cruel things to me, but I don't despise them... That's because not all Germans are bad... There are pure, innocent Germans like you... Germans who treat me like... a real person... I was able to go through all the hard labor at this camp... because I knew that there was always hope... Even in the darkness, there is always a glimmer of light shining through... Life is beautiful in that way... don't you think?"

I couldn't understand his words, but I nodded, because for some reason, I could grasp what he wanted to say by looking in his eyes.

"Yes... Life is beautiful..."

He then closed his eyed slowly, never to open them again.

I looked up at the starry night sky and repeated to myself "Life is beautiful" over and over again, burning it into my memory...