The Story of Two Twins in Auschwitz

Creative historical fiction short story. Winner of the Saint Louis Meramac Community College Writer's Competition and was read there on APRIL 3rd!!! It's a series of journal entires of one of the twins in Auschwitz who explains his and his brothers

 

June 6, 1944

            This morning, I begin this journal to explain the horrors here, to let those who have forgotten me and left me here remember me once more in the future, as it seems that this is a place no one will survive. There is no true way to fully explain this hell hole for anyone who reads this to understand. The explination can never take as full of an effect until you are here in my shoes. It began when we were in our hometown. The Germans invaded our homeland and took many families away, including us, and we weren’t even Jewish. It was because of our grandparents on our mother’s side that caused us to be included in the selection.

            My mother, father, twin brother and I were deported to Auschwitz, and as soon as we arrived, my brother and I were taken out, and that’s when one SS officer shouted “Zwillinge,” and that was it. The Angel of Death ran over with that twisted grin on his face. He then separated my brother and me from our parents. Mengele acted all too nice to us, and sadly, we trusted him then. We were so stupid, but since we didn’t have to undergo selection, we had to believe in him because I had seen the fires of hell that people were thrown into. My brother had not, and he thought I was making it up, but he never pays attention anyway.

            We then took a shower after being pulled out from the crowd, and as soon as we got out of the shower, we were tattooed with numbers. Mine was T-3758. The next day we woke up at 6 am and went to inspection, just to see if we were healthy and then we ate breakfast. After that, we were given a ride by Mengele to a building which I thought was no less than a normal building, but as soon as we walked inside, he led us to a room with 3 other pairs of twins. 

 

June 6, 1944

            Weird things were happening today since my first entry. We were forced to get nude and lay on a cold, hard marble table, next to each other. Scientists measured every inch of our body for hours. After that, Mengele examined us very closely, too. He took pictures of us doing weird poses to capture all the hair on our body. Instead of drawing my blood like normal, they drew it and injected it into my brother. They also tried to give me my brother’s blood. No effect yet and I’ve still have yet to try to figure what the hell is going on in this place.

 

June 12, 1944

            I’m trying very hard to write. I finally got most of my vision back from the other day. That twisted demon caused my brother to go blind. He injected me with some blue, and then light red, almost pink, and then yellow chemicals. He was so upset that my eyes didn’t turn blue the next day that he did it again! I wanted to hit him in his face so hard. Already my friends are dying, while this guy only cares about his weird experiments. How dare he do this! Doesn’t he realize he’s…killing all of our families’ history?

 

June 13, 1944

            I’m sorry for my last entry and how sloppy it was. My eyes must have not had as good of vision as I thought. Today, I regretted seeing him again. He tried drops this time in my brother’s eyes and I knew what pain he was going through. Luckily he was only temporarily blind for a few hours. When he could see, my brother still said his eyes were really hurting and he was feeling sick.

Towards the evening, I was walking in a hallway of the hospital, and in this window of a door, I saw the most gruesome thing that I will probably ever see here. Two twins were being cut and stitched together on the side, but the operation failed because too much blood spilt along their sides. Blood had flowed off the table, onto the floor and under the door. It got on my feet and before I could leave, a doctor found me and signaled for me to follow him. I did, and I looked behind me, seeing the blood stained footsteps slowly disappearing with each step. He led me into a room with a big vat of steaming water in which my brother was inside of. We had to sit in there, and when I finally woke up, I realized I had passed out. My head felt cold, and when I felt it, I was bald. I passed out again, and woke up on a cold, marble slate. I had looked at my body and my brother’s and we both had no hair. As they were taking pictures of us, I still felt a slight pain of where my hair had been, and once more passed out from exhaustion.

 

June 18, 1944

            Nothing has happened to me, but my brother is still gone. I am now worried greatly for him. What could they be doing to him? I swear if they hurt him, I will look for that man and tear his head off. Who am I kidding? I will never have the strength now to do that, but I really want my brother back. I beg of God, I beg of these doctors, I beg of Mengele. Please, don’t kill him. Don’t hurt him. Let him live!

 

June 20, 1944

            My brother came back! Such joy came through me when I saw him, but such sadness came through me when I noticed he was hurt. He can hardly walk, because of what they did to him. He remembers waking up with pains in his back one of the days, and seeing the needles on the counter, he put two and two together. On the next day, they performed surgery on him. He wouldn’t tell me what kind of surgery, no matter how much I comforted him, because he was too embarrassed. All he said was that they removed pieces of his body, or something along the lines of it. He was crying so much from the pain of it and from the joy of seeing me I couldn’t understand him too well, but I didn’t need to push him to tell me. I knew he was happy to be alive and I’m also thankful he still is. We know we will soon be dead if we don’t escape this place. So, when he calmed down, we thought up a plan. We will take action tomorrow.

 

June 21, 1944

            I woke up and he was not here, meaning we will either escape tonight, or we will not escape at all. I will never leave him here. While I know he’s still alive, either we both escape, or we both die. This is my sacred promise to him that I have made inside myself. Although I don’t want to give the Angel of Death this power, it actually is up to him and the sands of time. It will all depend on what he does with my brother today. This time, I pray he gets back in time. I do not want to wait another day. I do not want to spend even one more hour waiting and wondering. I do not want to be here for even another minute, because I know that with every minute, someone in this camp dies, and within that minute no one is born.

 

June 22, 1944

Last night he had returned, and all they did was try to help him, but they failed. They may have actually made things worse. We tried to hide in the labs because we were sighted trying to leave camp, and then Mengele found us, and showed us his true self, the angry and malicious side of him. We tried to tell the other older twins during breakfast that we had to work together to escape, but they fell into his trap. They believe he is kind, and some of them even called him uncle! Damn it! We have to escape and my brother and I both know it. No matter how much we pray, God no longer answers us. “God is on their side now and is never coming back for us,” my brother says. I am starting to believe him now. Deep inside, I know its wrong to believe God’s against us, but everyday that feeling is being buried deeper and it seems that the idea of God being against us is the only logical answer to why our prayers are ignored.

 

June 25, 1944

            These may be my last words, and then again they may not be. I will find out soon enough. My brother’s number was called once again, and this time so was mine. I have lived here for almost one month, which is somewhat of a feat, and completely a miracle. If I live this day once more I will continue my story, but if I die, my story ends, along with the knowledge of what Mengele is hiding.

 

June 25, 1944

            One of my questions has been answered, but answered in the suffering of my brother. Not only in his suffering but in the suffering of me too, for I have suffered emotionally. Mengle is so sick that my brother had become his frog to dissect today. First he was placed on the table, naked, and they sewed his eyes shut. Mengele led me to the side of the table for me to watch what was in store for me. Mengele nodded to the doctor, and the doctor grabbed a knife and started to cut my brother’s chest open. As I heard my brother’s piercing screams, tearing my heart apart, I looked away. As soon as I looked away, Mengele forced my head in my brother’s direction and held my eyelids open. He explained while my brother was being cut open that there was no way to escape this place, and no way to get other people to believe me if I tell them what happened. What will be said is that my brother had died from a big accident, and that will be that. The kids will be on his side, and all against me. He then told me his initial plan is to find immortality. It was to figure out how the body works and to be able to fight diseases, problems with the body, and so on, so that he will be famous for it and the Germans will live long and forever to create an Aryan race. I couldn’t help but imagine the pain that my brother must be feeling, to only concentrate on how it felt being cut open, and to not see what’s going on. Also to have to hear Mengele explain his plan during that pain must be torture. I couldn’t help but scream for my brother, and right before he died, he cursed Mengele, and screamed my name. His final tears rolled down his eyes, and Mengele continued to have me stand over his body. I tried not to show a reaction, to not show weakness in front of Mengele, but I couldn’t help crying. It hurt me so much to see the blood spilling out of my brother’s body and to hear the piercing screams of pain as he was being cut open. Those screams will be running through my mind until the day I die. 

This is exactly what Mengle must want. To let me survive this day, so that I can remember what it felt like to have hugged my brother for the last time before his cruel death, so I can forever hear the screaming of his pain.  So I will continue to smell the scent of blood and sweat.  So I can always taste the tears I shed and so I will see the images in my head of my brother dying until the day I leave this earth. I do not know how to escape now. Suicide is not an option, Mengele made sure of that. My room is now almost bare, except for a light, a bed and this notebook, which I stashed inside a cut of my pillow.

 

June 30, 1944

            Once more my name has been called. I have no clue what’s in store for me now that my brother is dead. My own death? More experiments? No clue. I do know they soon will come for me and get me into that lab again. I don’t think I’ll be able to take it. The memories of my brother still flood my mind. I have tried to spread the word, but to no prevail. Brother, I miss you. Family, I love you so much and hold you dearly in my heart.

 

July 5, 1944

            Three days hooked up to tubes. Not only was it humiliating, it was torture. Here the word torture has such a vague meaning. Outside of this world, it is thought of inflicting severe pain unto someone, but here it happens so much here, it is only considered as minor pain compared to the outside world. Anything that exceeds the normal pain that goes on around here is torture. This however wasn’t normal. They stuck tubes up my nose until it traveled into my lungs. As if it didn’t hurt enough, they put gases in the tubes and made me constantly cough. I tried not to, because the contractions of the lungs caused the tube to inflict pain unto me, but when I didn’t try to cough, I just coughed harder. The third day I started to cough up enough blood for me to be sent back to rest. Of course, the next day I rested.

            Only thing is that now I know they have to kill me. They have no more use for my living body. When I yelled at Mengele, while being hooked up to the tubes, I asked him why he was doing this. As he stood over me, he had become intimidating for the second time of my stay here. He then did something strange. He…laughed. It was a gruesome laugh that came from deep inside his soul.   It was a laugh so sinister that you heard his evil thoughts, laughing out his life story of him being in Auschwitz. He then said, “The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it,” and he flat-out left.

            So all day, 2 days ago I pondered the meaning of this statement. Yesterday I decided to escape after figuring out that it could only mean that the more they do they me, the more I slowly die until I leave this life into a life where I can’t believe what they have done. This time, when the doctor took me to his truck, I had brought one of my pens with me and stabbed him in his throat. This worked and I tried to bring the truck to a fast speed to go through the gate, but I hit two Germans and the car slowed down just enough for the gate to stop me. They then completely searched me, and when they got to my room they then removed everything except my pillow and blanket.

            This is why I believe today’s the day because they called my number. I imagine they’ll drag me out, and do what they did to my brother.  As I hear their footsteps now, I am not sure if they’re real, or if I’m imagining them out of fear. One thing I do know is I will never be ready to face the fate my brother had to face. Remember me, please, always remember me.

Author's Note

Plz comment on not only how well you think it is with history mixed with fiction, but also if it is effective in anyway to you...

Reviews

[Enigma]

WOW!! EXCEPTIONALLY WELL WRITTEN!!
No wonder it won the first prize!! Not only is it a thorough mixture of history and fiction, but also it's a very effective write in every way. One could easily mistake it to be true. It's very realistic, emotional and depressing. I've always felt excited in reading something related to the holocaust. I've made a school project on 'The Diary of Anne Frank' and studied about Nazism at school. Every thing was filled with torture, violence, inhumanity.....
Now, about the story. To tell you the truth, I honestyl, have no words to describe how beautiful a write it is. The word 'beautiful' seems ironic here as the story is full of blood and torture.
It flows very well and all the thoughts, emotions and feeling of the brother are very well presented. It all flows like a movie infront of the reader's eyes and the reader imagines himself to be the brother who's made to see the brutal death of his twin.
It's all very sad, depressing and very well written....
OUTSTANDING JOB!!!

[Coyote Poetry]

I saw Auschwitz in 1977. The place feel of death 32 years after the camp was closed. I had Dr. Mengle book. Somehow I lost the book in my travels. He was a cold blooded smiling killer. Your story is true. He liked the twins. His book was detailed and scary. He thought he was doing great things. Thank you for sharing this story. I believe real life would even be worst then even what you wrote. The terror to have lived with pain and death so near.
Coyote

[J.]

YOU ARE THE WINNER OF SUPER SHORT STORY WRITER OF 2008!!!!
SEND REVIEW ABOUT YOURSELF TO EITHER ONE OF THESE STORIES: FIELD OF DEATH, BRONZE EAGLE, OR DAY IN THE FOREST!!!
MAKE SURE YOU INCLUDE: NAME, WHAT YOU WANT YOUR STORY LINE TO BE ABOUT, AND THE TITLE!!!
ALSO, BE SURE TO READ MY NEW BOOK CALLED THE WARP ZEON CHRONICLES!!! REALLY GOOD READ!!!

BY THE WAY, I LOOOOOVE THIS STORY!!!!

SEND THE REVIEW NOW!!!

[Des]

I love German history! Everything about the Nazi's and the happenings of the World Wars fascinates me.
This was incredibly well written and enticing. Bravo.

[Rhan F. Sydney]

Holy God....That was brilliant....I am so thankful that you have made this an entrant in my contest...

(I'm also glad you're on Team Edward)

[Berserker[Diktator Von ..]

Wow..this is a powerful piece.. about a horrible time period..great job...=)

[Dawn]

This is a depressing as well as fantastic piece..This was tragic and it touched my heart..i almost started to cry! Good work, keep it up!!

[Piper Sullivan]

Wow. Talk about an absolutely depressing read. I thought that the voice of the narrator was very strong throughout the entire piece and not once did I question the character's motives. You can literally feel the trauma that he has experienced. My heart went out to him, but perhaps it's because I have read quite a number of stories, fictional and autobiographical, that focus on the Holocaust. Definitely not light reads and they always pull at my heartstrings. I realized that the Nazis experimented with live human bodies but I guess I was ignorant to the extent in which they did so, if this is of course, accurate. It wouldn't surprise me even a little bit. The horrors of the Holocaust, especially in Auschwitz, are things that can hardly even be mentioned among people today.

There were some grammatical and spelling errors, but I can overlook them because the story is written in journal format so there is room for human error. I thought it evoked my emotions quite well. Great job!

[Michael Carr]

a harsh and utterly compelling work.
unbelievably well told with great emotion and truth.
fantastic work.