Thread: A Light in the Darkness (Madam Mim & Sync)

Sunday, January 28, 1940 This will be my first journal entry. I stole this notebook and a pen from a shop I dont know the name of the shop, nor who owned it. It doesnt matter the shop was deserted anyway, broken, looted already. Im going to use this journal to try and help myself, I think, as well as record my thoughts and feelings. Someone told me or did I read it? that speaking of your nightmares helps you deal with them. I dont have anyone to talk with, so this journal will have to do. Ill probably be killed if this journal gets foundbut then, if this journal is found Ill probably be dead anyway. I think death might be preferable to the nightmares. The worst of the winter is gone, the sky is starting to warm up again. The rains are cold, and snow still falls, but its not as much, now. The ground is not as slushy under my boots. For now I hide in the woods to the south of Munich, on the road to Starnberg, but I will have to brave the city soon. Munich may be the center of the Nazi party, but I cannot stay out here much longer. Food is getting harder to come by. They would call me a deserter, and they would be right, but I would rather be killed as a deserter than go back to the army. What the army allowsit is not right. I cannot be a part of that. Corporal Gunther Haas looked at the page of the notebook for a few moments as he let the ink dry, then he closed the book, snapped a thick elastic band around it to keep it closed, and slipped the book and pen into a pocket inside the thick jacket that he was wearing under his trench coat. He was not an unattractive man at the young age of 20, he stood at five-feet ten-inches tall and was lean from his time in the army, and was a model Aryan bright blue eyes, fair complexion, short blonde hair. His face was a little small in his head, but that merely seemed to add to his rugged appearance. Perhaps the strangest thing about him was a slightly-haunted look in his eyes, a look that now never seemed to entirely disappear. It was a little after sunset. The sky was grey overhead, and a light drizzle fell down from the clouds. The woods he was hiding in were not thick, but they were thick enough for one person to hide in. Hed been here for a couple of weeks since hed deserted, but he knew he couldnt expect to be able to remain hidden here. Hed have to move on sooner or latermore likely sooner. A water droplet formed on the tip of his snub nose and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. He was wet and cold the weather saw to that, and while the trench coat was thick and heavy, it would not keep the weather out indefinitely. The young man had been conscripted into the army when he was six months past his eighteenth birthday. He hadnt particularly wanted to join, and had made that known, but hed been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and his fathers political position made his situation worse than it might otherwise have been. His recruiters didnt take no for an answer where Gunther was concerned. Hed been hauled up, given basic training, roughed up in the name of Discipline he was given the usual speeches on the Evil that were the British and the Russians and especially the Jews, how they all wanted to crush the German way of life and the German peoplebut none of that made a lot of sense to the young Herr Haas. Hed known a few British people, and a good number of Jews, and they seemed pretty nice to him he didnt know any Russians, it was true, but the French werent so bad. Still, he did albeit a little reluctantly what was asked of him. He wasnt sent out to the Front, thoughmaybe his superiors knew he wouldnt be a good front-line soldier. So he stayed in Germany and spent a lot of time working tours as a guard or something similar. That was before he was stationed at the Dachau camp. Hed been promoted to Corporal by the time he arrived at Dachau, barely six months before he was to make his first journal entry. He knew of the camp already, most people did it was a concentration camp, used by the Reich to house its political enemies as well as various prisoners of war. Ostensibly the prisoners were at the camp to help make munitions for the German army, and maybe they did, but there was more to it than that. The workers prisoners were run ragged. The death toll was high. Prisoners were often malnourished and frequently mistreated if they were even suspected of doing the wrong thing. There was next to no regard given to the prisoners or their well-beingthey were just another resource to be used. Gunther knew he had to get outhe just needed an opportunity. That opportunity presented itself just after the New Year. Gunther was on perimeter patrol with a young private whose name he didnt know. It was a rather unpleasant night to be on patrol gusting winds pushing the snow around them and reducing overall visibility. They were a short distance from the camps outer fence, all but invisible to the camps watch towers. Without a word, Gunther struck his companion in the back of the head with his rifle butt, hard, several times. He ransacked the privates pockets for money and ammunition, then fled. Hed be marked down as a deserter as soon as the private was found or reported back, he knew that, but he did it anyway. It would be better than living a lie. He skirted around the city, moving through the woods as much as he could for cover, keeping hidden and resting by day and moving slowly by night. He used stolen pepper to cover his passage, mask them from the dogs they might use to follow his tracks. He broke into houses where he could to steal small amounts of food and water to keep him going until the next house. He knew his best chance lay in another country Switzerland would be best, but it was so far from where he was when walking by night was his only means of movement Austria was closest, but also the first country annexed by Germany Italy might be helpful to him. But hed need to properly rest, first, and clean up. Maybe if he went home? His family might not be there he could only hope and pray they hadnt been taken in response to his desertion but he could still have a bath and sleep and get fresh clothes before he struck out for a nearby border.