A Political Detail
… Day 1, my parents keep telling us to stay
together, we have no idea where we are.
We’ve travelled for what seemed like years. My little sister, Bernice keeps crying, and Mutter
and Papa are trying their best to keep her calm. We are in a small room, with
one toilette between us. We are Jews…
The diary entries were hidden in between small cracks in the
wall of the cell.
Day 1,825. My name was
Eric Silvermann, now I am prisoner 55768, one of the many children placed
in hell on earth; darkness had descended upon me, nothing but the light from
this candle fills the soiled cell that is my home…
More and more pieces of the diary entry were being pulled
from the wall: mixtures of parchment, cloth, toilet paper, pages from books
with small etched messages in ink and pencil were opening our eyes to the
horrors of this political hell.
17, a number that no one
actually cares about; It has become meaningless
to me... Thomas Jenkins has just crawled past me; I have tried to kill him
once before, but now his rat features
and his small tail are a blessing. Small
bread crumbs from supper attract my small friend; nothing made me happier than
the conversation he and I will now have…
As I wander about the room I find more and more pieces of
paper revealing more of the boy’s story to me.
…Day 740, the guards took me away from my
sister, my mama and my Papa, I am weak.
My arms are thin. The posts on the
bed that I have been given are thicker. They were taken towards the tall towers in
the distance, probably for some extensive work.
They said they needed me here so I could continue building…
The room was no bigger than six by six feet. How had this boy lived for so long in this
small prison cell?
Day 1,867: my nails are blackened and the
cut on my leg has started to itch. The
guards have refused to help me yet again, and there is no medicine or doctor to
tend to scars. My life is considered meaningless; I am just a boy…
Each document that is found in this room has been hidden in
cracks, door hinges and as mattress fillings.
The cell is a room of secrets and it is brutally honest with each note
it releases.
Day 1,870: I stole a piece of cheese from
the officer’s mess; if I am caught I will surely lose my life. hunger
drives me to extreme lengths, I haven’t eaten in days and I need to keep my
strength if I am to survive…
It was becoming increasingly clearer to us that the people
trapped here had suffered but from reading these pages of this one boy’s life
it was becoming clear to me the full extent of human suffering in such a time
as this.
…I have been counting
the days since I arrived. I still have
my dressing gown which is of great comfort to me as none of the other prisoners
have been allowed to keep their original clothes. I still remember the night I was taken.
It is a cold evening in mid-December; the snow has left a crisp even
white along the camp which we have been forced to live in…
The rest of this page was charred from some sort of fire
damage that had gone on in the back corner of the room it crumbled in my hand
and left no evidence of ever being written.
…The camp was an echo
of our history that was to follow. I can
now say that at least I will be remembered as one of the many…
Part of the wall had crumbled away on one side, a
distinctive feature of time; revealing more messages for those who would take
the time to read. Eric Silvermann is
just one prisoner in this camp, but why was he confined to solitude?
In one of the small cracks I find another note.
…Day 1,950, my strength is almost none
existent. I can hardly get out of bed to
do the work, and I can only move one rock whilst working, the guards have
started bets to see how much longer I will survive. My life is almost over, and I have not seen
my parents or sister since…
The page had water stains on it and was torn on each side
the bad looked different from the others, the writing was shakier than
previously and it seemed to wither away at the end of his sentences. Eric had lost a lot of weight by this time had
been bed bound and was ready for...
…day 1,951, I am to be transported to the
towers… Death no longer scares me, the fear has overcome me. I have seen my own
friends turn on their families in order to survive. I have seen people I once
knew before this horror; destroy their own village for this war. What I have learnt is human life is
meaningless in a war, we are just humans, we are just a political detail. Friendships are destroyed. Families are killed. Voices are lost…
Prisoner 55768 – died June 17th 1945
Age
17 years 6 months
Gender:
Male
Name:
Eric Johan Silvermann
Religion:
Jewish
Method
of death: Gassed
Eric Silvermann is one of the brave. He is a political detail, in a war that was
cruel. The Nazi party collected him and
millions of other Jews in an ‘attempt to purge the world’, even if they were
directed by a mad man. He and many other
Jews were forced into trains, possessions taken off them and rights stripped
from them. In 1933 Hitler finally
achieved the majority vote and started the extermination of European Jews. Eric Silvermann is just one of six million.
This is awesome Matt!!
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