Schatzi

19

The doors opened for a second time, again after what felt like days of travelling, but this time they'd arrived at their destination. People craned their necks to see out of the doors as soon as they slid open, bustling and shoving against each other.

"Out! Everyone out!" Wolf, the officer who'd singled Peter out, yelled, hitting people with the end of his rifle when they walked too slowly, weak and tired from the journey. The hitting quickly escalated to using the other end of the gun, the shots ringing out around the area. He'd lost count of how many had died now. From the station to Dachau, it had been far too many.

Dachau. Wolf had mentioned it at the last stop, and it hadn't made any sense to him then. Dachau was just a town if he remembered correctly, and not a very big one at that. If they were taking them to prison, why not just take them to one in Berlin which would surely be bigger and more able to accommodate their large group. And for the Poles, why did they have to travel all the way to Germany to go to a small town prison?

The answer was soon made clear when he got out of the train carriage and saw what stood about 400 feet away from them. A plain looking building which seemed to be the entrance, and in the surrounding area, high, chain link fences with coils and spikes of barbed wire at the top. Inside of the fence were small, squat buildings lined up close to each other, and in one area, a few larger brick buildings with big chimneys. But the part that shocked him most was how many people he could see inside the fence, working and walking about, dressed in a striped uniform.

"W-what? What the fuck?" He mumbled as he was pushed forward into walking closer to the camp by the crowd even though that was the last place he wanted to go. He wanted to run as far away as he could from this place and never look back. He didn't want to know what it was or what it was for. He wanted to never think about it again.

But the train was already moving again, back in the way they came from, perhaps to pick up another group like them. No going back now.

They quickly arrived at the entrance with relatively few casualties from the train to the door. But Wolf was definitely feeling trigger happy and that scared him a lot. He hoped he could just stick in the middle of the crowd of Jews and stick with them through whatever hellhole this place was.

There was a pit of fear deep in his stomach, a confusion and uncertainty gnawing away at him as well. It was there in the back of his mind, but he hardly had time to feel the terror coursing through his veins. He just had to keep going as they walked through the door and into a room. It was relatively crowded but nothing compared to the train, and well lit. There were several tables laid out, and sitting at them were the prisoners in their uniforms. There were also several well armed guards pacing the room, fingers on the triggers of their guns.

"Line up!" Someone yelled, (he couldn't see who) and everyone was quick to obey, scrambling to line up single file at the first few tables, men in one, women and children on the other. He noticed the prisoners held what he was fairly sure were tattooing needles, and his theory was quickly confirmed when the first in line was told to place his arm down on the table. The prisoner looked down at a piece of paper in front of him and then began inking something onto the man's arm.

Meanwhile, a doctor who he hadn't noticed before was walking up and down the lines, grabbing people by the arm and directing them to the other side of the room. A lot of the children were sent over there, as well as the elderly and the weak. Nothing was said to them and they were clearly all too afraid to ask, so they just stood there, shaking and afraid as the rest of the group was tattooed and directed onwards. A couple of the guards also placed the girls' line as well, looking them up and down, grabbing them roughly by the chin and forcing their gaze up so they could look at their faces. A few were taken aside, but after they'd been tattooed. He noticed all were conventionally very pretty. He didn't want to think about what the guards planned to do with them.