(This is a somewhat cheesy little story I wrote for the newsletter at my first social work internship. My director said it didn't belong in the newsletter and she threw it away. I use it for my suicidal patients now -- they seem to like it.)
Not Without Hope
By Amy K. Stewart
It was January, 1945. Ethaniel had been in the camp for almost a year since he and hundreds of other Jews had been rounded up, shoved into cattle cars and shipped to the camp. Ethaniel’s wife Sarah and daughter Meira had arrived to the camp at the same time. He never saw them again.
Ethaniel and his grown son Moshe were some of the few original survivors. They had endured beatings, disease and continuous hard labor in the scorching heat of the summer and the biting chill of the winter. Ethaniel helped his son survive by stealing food whenever he could. He once stood in front of a guard and begged for his son’s life, receiving a swift blow to the head as a result.
Moshe would listen each day as his father told him to remember the times they had spent as a family, ice skating on the pond, walking to the downtown square for ice cream, sitting around the large oak table in the dining room cutting into roast duck. “You can have all these things again one day. We must not give up hope. We have to hang on. We have to survive. Promise me you will not give up,” he continuously told his son.
That night Ethaniel was weak with fever. He tossed and turned, knowing the guards would be rousting the men in just a few hours. He reached into the blanket for the crust of bread. It was gone. His son, sleeping next to him, turned over so his back faced his father and said nothing.
The next day while working side by side digging ditches, Ethaniel could barely stand up. He was delirious with fever. “The bread… the bread,” he mumbled. Moshe turned to his father, “I was hungry.”
Ethaniel could not believe his ears. His son. His very own son. Betrayed.
That night Ethaniel grew even sicker. He had typhus but if anyone found out how ill he was, he would be sent to “the showers” -- never to return. Images of his wife Sarah floated in his head. He reached out for her.
The next morning Moshe awoke to find his father’s body cold and lifeless next to him. Ethaniel had given up. The act of his son’s betrayal had been too much for him to bear. Moshe was suddenly aware of something else. It was quiet in the camp and sunlight was streaming through the open doorway. The men cautiously ventured outside. In the distance they could hear the rumbling of tanks. No one knew what to do. Foreign-looking men in uniform began to filter into the camp. The tanks were topped with a red, white and blue flag.
If only Ethaniel had known. If only he had held on one more day. If only he had not given up hope. No one truly knows what their future will hold. All we know is that we can hope.
