Herschel's Log - Entry Four.

Herschel’s Log

December 3, 1943

Dear Kristen,

            I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I can. Jim is right. Goddamn it, he’s right. Everyone will die without an uprising. I’m not saving anyone by holding Peter back. The iquidation is coming, and everyone will die. If there is going to be any hope at all, I have to bring back the Resistance.

            Only I can do it. Peter has tried. He’s never stopped trying, but he can’t do it on his own. He scares people. He intimidates them. He doesn’t mean to do it, only he’s so consumed by rebellion he can’t help himself. My father taught me that no one will follow you out of fear, that you have to give them hope. Kristen, you know as well as I do that I’ve never given these people reason to believe in me. I’ve only ever misled and abandoned them. But whatever there is of my father in me, it’s the only thing ever to have spurred this city into action.

            No one understands why I haven’t commanded the Resistance since coming back to Piekło. You would understand, if you were here. You would see that I’m weak, Kristen, in my body and my conviction. I’m afraid. I ruined the Resistance once, and I know I would do it again. If what happened to you happened to Rebecca or Peter, or Jim or Gabe or even Erich, I would do what I did before. I’m not strong and cold like Peter, or committed to the community like my parents. I can’t put the people of this town ahead of the people I really care about. You knew that about me, Kristen. I told you how I didn’t understand how my father never made an enemy, how my mother could make herself care for everyone she met. That isn’t me. I love the people I love, I keep them close, and they are the only ones worth protecting.

            I tried to be like my father, to think of the people I left behind instead of myself, when I brought Rebecca back to this place. I thought I was doing what he would do, but I will always regret doing it. I don’t know how to be like him.

            Do you remember when we first took over the Resistance? My parents had been missing for two weeks, and though we hadn’t found their bodies in the pit yet, we knew they were never coming back. We gathered everyone in the Underground headquarters, but we didn’t know what to say. I had had virtually nothing to do with the Resistance until then. Peter had taken his father’s place as my father’s lieutenant, and he thought he might be the new commander. But the people were mourning my parents, so Peter asked me to say something on behalf of my father. I had no idea what I was going to say. I wasn’t my father. I would never be my father. How could I say what he would say?

            But before I stepped onto the platform, you took my hand. And I looked down at you, and you said, “Tell them we never give up. Your parents never gave up, and neither will we.” So that’s what I said. And Kristen, they cheered. Remember how they cheered? I knew how he did it, right then. I saw how strong the people were, how ready they were to fight for their lives. I saw the people I had known my whole life, ordinary people, ready to die before admitting defeat.

            I saw you. I saw that the people who believed in me would never know the truth: that I was nothing without you, and that I never even could have gotten on the platform without you. You were the reason for the Resistance, Kristen, because you were the reason I kept fighting.

            I don’t know how I can do it again. Not without you. Only you gave me the courage to believe I could save the people who trusted me. I needed you to believe in me, not Peter, not my army, only you. I can’t even say what I used to. We never give up. I did give up. I’ve given up for more than two years.

            My father never would have given up. He believed in a life outside this ghetto in a way that I can’t anymore. For him, there was a world outside these walls, a world like the one we lived in before the wall. But we in the Resistance were younger. I am twenty-two years old, and my country �" my home �" was taken away when I was seventeen. The Nazis have loomed over my life since I was twelve. There is nothing outside of this war for me. I feel like I was born into it, and I will die in it.

            That’s what I’ll tell them. Goddamn it, Kristen, that’s what I’ll tell them. We are not our fathers’ generation. Don’t you see? We are the children of this war. We were born to be in this war. We were born to fight. We have been fighting our whole lives.

            The soldiers think that we are the last generation. The world thinks we are the last generation. No one is coming to save us. Everyone has given up on us. My parents are not coming back for me. Only we can save ourselves.

            That is what I will tell them. I wish you could be there, but I have to do this without you. I’ll make you proud, Kristen. I promise.

You were everything, Kristen. You’re still everything. You will always be everything.

I love you,

Herschel