It was almost three months later and I was still laid up in the hospital. Because of just how deep the pencil had been driven and because of the place in which it'd been driven, I had to undergo intense physical therapy. Doctors told me I was damn lucky she hadn't driven it any deeper or any lower than where she had, else I'd be wheelchair bound for the rest of my life. As it was, they told me, it was still gonna be an ordeal in of itself to rehabilitate me again.

The first week or two was awful. I could barely stand up long enough to position myself against the bars, never mind actually trying to walk along them. By the fifth or sixth week, though, I'd managed to make it from my room to the restrooms and cafeteria without a whole lot of help needed from the nurses. I was then given a cane, which I was told was likely going to be necessary from now on. I didn't personally see this as that much of a bother. Like the doctor said, it could've been a hell of a lot worse.

What did bother me, though, was the kid in the room next to me. I'd seen him a few times before, going up and down the halls. He was just fine for the most part, mentally, I mean. He was there, supposedly, undergoing chemotherapy. I remember thinking how young and sweet he looked, yet nearly having one foot in his grave already. Needless to say, that broke my heart. Honestly, looking back, I suppose that could play a part in why I did what I did. Part of me looked at him and was reminded of Tommy. A sweet little boy, having to look at the face of death so early on.

Unfortunately, he was a lot more like Tommy than I'd realized at first. It was, I'd say, about the middle of the third month I'd spent in the hospital that I noticed the weird sounds coming from his room. See, the walls of this facility were paper thin (and I'm not entirely exaggerating here, I almost tried to actually punch a hole through it at one point and when I touched it, it felt completely hollow), therefore, it wasn't impossible for someone in a room all the way at one end of the hall to hear somebody from all the way at the other end snoring at night or something. Now imagine this kid, who not only was doing more than just snoring -- more like giggling madly -- but was also right in front of me in the next room from mine.

For a moment, I want to ask, how would you react if you were hearing this? What would you be thinking? I was thinking that, first thing that next morning, I'd be asking for a room transfer. Just my luck, I was told that they were all booked, so that was out of the question. I then asked if they could maybe just say something to the kid, you know, politely reminding him that not all of us there were young, blazing bundles of energy like he was (Well, like he should've been).

They said they'd talk to him about it and that was that. Well, sure enough, so I thought, whatever they'd told him or done, it seemed to work because that night, I didn't hear a peep from his room. Later on that night, I'd say about 3 or so in the morning, I could hear footsteps coming from the hallway. When I looked, all I could see was a small shadow going down the hallway. I then watched the kid pass by my room, stopping in front of the door and peering in, smiling, before then continuing forward.

This both confused and disturbed me. Confusing at the fact that he was even out of his room in the first place after lights out. The nurses always lock the doors at 10:00 P.M. and the only way out was to buzz them for emergencies or to go to the bathroom. I knew if that'd been the case here, he would have had a nurse with him, not to mention the bathrooms were in the opposite direction from my room.

That leads me to why it was disturbing. The way he stopped in front of my door and smiled in at me. It wasn't a friendly smile, mind you, no, it was crazed, like he was just waiting for me to look away or worse, fall asleep. I heard the pitter-patter of his feet as he continued down the hall. This did little, if anything, to comfort me, however.

Somehow, I had the feeling he wasn't actually gone. I tried staying awake as long as I possibly could, managing to make it until at least 6:00 A.M. before I was forced to fall asleep. To my relief, I woke up the next morning just fine. I actually took a good five minutes basically patting myself down in my bed, checking myself for any scratches or marks or anything like that. That's when the nurse walked in.

"Well somebody's antsy this morning." she said with a playful giggle. I snapped to look at her, honestly not even noticing her until she'd said something.

"Huh? Oh, uh... Yeah, no, it's nothing, just, uh... stretching, you know?" She looked at me, raising her eyebrow. I plastered my best smile, one that I knew damn well wouldn't have fooled a kindergartner, let alone this nurse. In spite of this, thankfully, she didn't bother pushing for any more believable answers. I'd thought about telling her what I'd seen, but decided against it. Yeah, it was strange how he was out of his room, not to mention against safety protocol throughout the hospital, but I guess I figured, since he didn't actually do anything suspicious outside of that, and he wasn't technically hurting anybody (that I knew of), why go and tattle on him, right? If nothing else, they'd have him already on the CCTV roaming the halls, therefore I figured they'd say something to him regardless, if they hadn't already.

The rest of the day was quiet after that for the most part. That day, I was told I could take myself to the Rec area for an hour, give me an opportunity both to exercise my legs as well as to socialize with some of the other patients. I wasn't as much interested in socializing or exercise as much as I was just being able to spend a little time out of that stuffy as hell room. This quickly began to fade, though, when I saw the kid in the Rec area, sitting in the chair with a book. I seized up at first, not knowing what he'd do if he saw me.

That sounds ridiculous, I realize, but keep in mind why it was I was even here in the hospital in the first place. Yes, by that point, I was very much nervous when it came to children, and people in general, exhibiting even the slightest suspicious behaviors. Of course, watching him now, calmly and quietly reading his book there, I slowly felt a little bit of the anxiety fade away. Not much, but enough to where I felt relatively comfortable with the thought of going over to him and asking him about it personally.

"Hey there." He looked up briefly at me from his book with a blank expression on his face. "Whatcha reading?"

He held up the cover, reading The diary of Anne Frank. "Ah, I see, so you're a fan of history?" He shrugged and returned to the book. "I'm a bit of a fan of history myself."

"I'm not really." he said softly.

"Beg your pardon?"

"A "fan of history", I'm not."

"Oh. Sorry, I just thought that since you were--"

"No, I'm reading it cause I was told I should."

"I get it, school project?" Admittedly, I kind of felt stupid for asking him that, given the circumstances, but I figured I should try and give him as much a positive outlook as possible, you know? He shook his head.

"Family maybe?" I asked. "You have family roots connected to that time?"

"No. It has nothing to do with family. Not that I can think of anyway. I wouldn't really know, though."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe I did have family ties to the stuff happening in this book. I wouldn't know, though, cause I don't have any family."

"No family? What--"

He shrugged, "Who knows. I don't, and I stopped caring a long time ago." I stood there in an awkward silence for a moment. What was I supposed to say to that?

"I-I'm sorry. Who... Who's been--"

"St. Dunworth's."

"I see." Another moment passed in silence. Truth be told, I wasn't really sure I wanted to keep asking him anything, much less about the incident from last night. "Do you read a lot?"

"Sometimes."

"For fun or because you're told to?" He looked back to me, his face still blank, hollow, like I was talking to a large doll rather than a little boy.

"You ask a lot of questions sir." I sighed

"Forgive me, I work as a children's psychiatrist, you see? I guess it's just a force of habit to ask too many questions."

"Like the ones you asked them?" I raised my eyebrow.

"Pardon?"

"You know, those other two?"

"I'm afraid I don't--"

"Sure, you "Don't remember", right?" A sinking feeling hit the bottom of my stomach like a rock when he said this. "You know it's because of you, right?"

"Wh-what is?" I asked, shaking.

"That they're all alone now. I heard all about what you did. You made a little boy die and made a little girl get locked up."

"Well now, hold on, how would you know anything about that? First, I didn't cause anyone to die. Whatever might've happened to that little boy was out of my control completely. As for the girl, she was very ill and in desperate need of help."

"She needed a friend, and so did he. They both needed someone, and you took it away."

"Who is telling you this?"

"You know who he is, Dr. Randall." My eyes sprang open and my heart froze dead. "Mr. Needle-nose told me all about you. You're here to cause children to be lonely for the rest of their lives by taking him away from them, telling them he's bad. Well you know what, I say you're bad. I think you should go away. At least Mr. Needle-nose is there for me and everyone else."

I stood, my mind completely blank now. I didn't know how to counter that. Moreover, how does he know, not only of Mr. Needle-nose, but of Tommy and Gina as well? The best explanation I could think of was the news reports of both cases, that'd explain how he could know their names, but then that brings me back to the question of how he knew about Mr. Needle-nose and how he knew they knew him. That, and obviously the biggest question of all of this, WHO IS MR. NEEDLE-NOSE?!

Before I could ask him this or anything else, one of the nurses came and escorted the boy away. I stood for another ten minutes, staring at the worn copy of The Diary of Anne Frank which was face down on the coffee table in front of the chair he was sitting in. I picked it up and immediately noticed something about it. The words on the pages weren't right.

They looked like they'd been handwritten instead of typed. The handwriting was in an elegant sort of cursive, one that made it hard for even me to read, let alone the boy. As well as this, I found there to be small crude little stick figures drawn on the pages. Each of them on every page were short, with the exception one or two every three or four pages. A few of the others I saw were wearing what appeared to be berets, similar to the way I saw Gina draw them back at the office.

There were more than one of them like this here, though. Not only that, but all of the tall ones wearing the berets were shaded completely black. I looked again at the writing, seeing that not only was it cursive, but also in German. I decided then to take the book back to my room with me and use my phone to try translating some of the words. It took me almost three and a half hours to do, but I actually managed to translate the first set of pages. That was all I could stomach.

As it happens, I don't have much of the translation with me, but it was essentially an account of a lone little Jewish boy from 1941. He never mentioned himself by name, so whoever he really was, and to a degree still is, entirely unknown. His account begins with him boarding the train to Warsaw. At least, that's what he believed. Here's as much as I still have of the account.

***

Nov. 15th, 1945

Dear diary,

It was early morning when the men came. Three rough knocks on the door and Mother opened the door to two large, mean looking men in black uniforms. She bid them hello and all they could say was for her to round up the rest of us and follow them to the railroad station. I could see the fear in her eyes. We all knew what this meant.

She'd told me and my sister who these men were and what they were after. We'd always been taught to fear men like the ones at our door. We'd seen friends of ours be taken away by them, too. Where they went, we never knew before. All we knew was that no one ever saw them again. Now, though, maybe we will.

When we came to the train station, we were told to remove and relinquish our shoes and anything valuable, including the gold tooth my little sister had. The way she screamed as mother forced it out of her is a sound that I fear I'll never stop hearing as long as I live. Worse yet was the callous look of indifference on the faces of the men in uniform as they watched her suffer like this. I was then made to relinquish the locket my grandfather bequeathed me with. A family heirloom that should've gone to my father, were he still alive, now being forced to hand over to these fiends in uniform.

From there, mother, sister and I were corralled onto the train like we were cattle. We tried desperately to stay close to each other, but were inevitably separated. There were so many others there, all huddled together, all looking even worse than we had. All of them, too, with faces of either resignation or utter fear staring back at us. I tried to talk to one or two of them, to see if maybe they would know where the train was heading. Most would either stare at me with dead eyes like they were dolls, or would simply mutter the psalm of David indistinctly.

Without my grandfather's pocket watch, I had no bearing on the time. I have no idea, therefore, how long we've been on this dark, cold train. I've not seen the sun rise or set, that much I know, simply because of the fact that there are no windows on this train. There are very few lights inside the train car as well. I feel that, whenever we see light again, it will be long from now, perhaps weeks or months even, when we finally reach wherever it is they intend for us to go.

Another part of me fears that it won't be light that welcomes us, but only a looming shadow.

***

Nov. 27th, 1941

Dear diary,

We finally reached our destination. It was dark out when we'd finally stopped, presumably night. We were then ordered single file off the train by the men. I remember how quiet it was as we were led off the train. It was suffocating, that silence, to some. For me, it was only an elegy.

Many of the people corralled on this train hadn't made it this far, having succumbed to hunger, sickness, or thirst long before now. In truth, I almost wish myself and my mother and sister had. Greeting us from the train was a very small, very shabby neighborhood with small, almost dilapidated houses every three feet or so around every corner that was cordoned off by a large barbed wire fence. The place itself reminded me of the pigpens I saw in the old farm mills back home.

I suppose that was purposeful on their part. I remember how they pointed to one of the other children, a boy who must've only been a year younger than me and barked at him, "Schweinchen!" before grabbing him by the arm and ripping him from his place on the corner of the train along with his mother. I would be the next to receive this same sort of treatment, being forced up and dragged off of the train. My mother and sister didn't accompany me. They were made to stay behind on the train.

I tried to plead with the men to either let me back on the train or to bring them out as well but it was for naught. I was nothing to them, I could see it then. I was a "Schweinchen", merely squealing to annoy them.

From there, I and countless others who were forced off of the train were pushed into this giant pigpen. No one knew where or really what this place was. I did, though. It was a prison, forged out of cruelty by these men in dark uniform, the same as the way in which these identifying armbands were. Marks of death.

Every four or five feet along the fence, there stands a tall watchtower with at least two armed men always standing watch, eyes of the devil from up above. We were assigned in groups of at least 15 or 20 to one of the charnel residences. The inside of the one my group was assigned to was every bit as uncomfortable and insufferably drab inside as it appeared out. There are three rooms, none of them any bigger than my bedroom back home. There was the den, the kitchen, and a single bedroom. That was all we would have between the twenty of us.

I can imagine the others are just as bad, if not worse. Many arguments have already erupted in my residence alone, never even mind the ones I've heard late into the night coming from the other residences. I've seen fistfights break out between men, both young and old, over which dusty space they'd lay their heads in that night, the coarse wooden floor or the smelly, stained, mildly softer carpet. Conflicts like this usually resulted in a visit and subsequent discipline from one or two of the guards. Occasionally, I'd see men dragged out of the residence, out of the neighborhood past the fence line and taken away in a truck. God only knows where they go or what comes of them from there.

As callous as it is to think, a small part of me can't help but feel relieved when it's my residence they visit for this. Then, at least there's less conflict of spare room. In spite of this, whether it's my residence this occurs in or another, I feel more and more alone with each day I wake up. I am without family, and now, I can see I am without friends as well.

***

Dec. 1st, 1941

Painful as things are, I've found something that's made me happy. Someone, rather. One of the men from one of the other houses, as it turned out, was a performer.

It was something I'd heard about only in passive whispers before. His name, I don't know, outside of "Herr Nadelnase". I asked around and was told that he was known for putting on shows to entertain any who would come. I asked Wayne Bachman, one of the other youths in my particular residence and he told me that he would be performing that night in one of the residences a few blocks away from ours.

“He used to perform, you see?” Wayne told me. “He was with the ’Erstaunlicher Beliar und die Illusionisten’!”

He said this with such excitement, too. I couldn’t blame him, of course. Before all of this, before men in uniforms came like wolves in the night, picking off people like me one by one, I’d heard before of the great ’Illusionisten’, masters of wonder and of awe and of terror. I’d wanted to see them myself, but was never allowed because neither mother nor father ever had the money for it. I remember wondering what they were even like.

Were they men or women, or both? Would they be real magicians or cheap charlatans like the schnucks in ’Greatest Show on Earth’? Were any of them clowns, and would they be funny? Were they even people at all was another question that found itself caught in my fevered brain.

Now was my chance. Now I’d finally have the chance to actually see one of the ever infamous ’Illusionisten’ with my own eyes! That night, just after the sun had fallen for the night, myself, Bachman, and a slew of other boys and girls my age and younger gathered around at one of the residences at the farthest end of the neighborhood.

There, inside of one of the admittedly larger residences, was a large, open stage with multicolored lights painting it in a sort of dreamy aurora. Looking at it alone was like I had stepped out of this world, stepped away from my body and into a new plane of existence altogether. All the more astonishing, considering the conditions we live under.

The room was loud, boisterous, alive! So many children there, all of them cheerful and excited for the arrival of Herr Nadelnase. I wasn’t as much loud as I was simply speechless. Two main emotions were expressed at once as I stood amid the raucous crowd around me, childlike wonder as I said before, as well as a sense of sadness, a small dreg of sadness at the thought that, this is it.

After this show, this one moment of excitement, it would be over, and I and all the other children would be condemned yet again to our crowded residences. None of that mattered here and now, however. No, this was our time to be happy, to be excited, and to be terrified even.

Finally, a hush rolled throughout the room and the lights started to come to life, moving all about the room to illuminate the faces of everyone present. While the stage was without light, and therefore likely wasn’t seen by any of the others, I faintly caught the sight of a tall, lanky figure cartwheeling and flipping with such grace and agility that I at once knew, this was none other than Herr Nadelnase himself.

When the light returned to the stage, the crowd roared with cheer. The man on the stage, Herr Nadelnase, stood stiff and erect, almost a stark contrast to the acrobat He was not two seconds before. He was attired in clothes similar to the men in uniform — something that, admittedly, had me frightened at first — along with white dots painted around his eyes and a long white line across his mouth, pronouncing both features against his pitch dark face.

The noise died down once more, with Herr Nadelnase a statue on the stage. Almost ten whole minutes passed with this silence hovering as a large cloud over the room when all of a sudden, Herr Nadelnasen erupted into a solo of whistling. It was rapid, yet steady, his whistling, the sort I’d only heard from the quartets I’d used to see along the streets back home, except that it was from only one man.

Then he began to sing. The song or the words to it, I cannot remember. Truthfully, the song itself wasn’t what was important to me, what had me spellbound. Rather, it was the way in which it was performed that held me. Like the whistling, his singing was such that I only heard from multiple people, except it was coming from only one person!

It’s almost impossible to describe what I mean here. Herr Nadelnase’s voice seemed to carry both a high and low pitch simultaneously, creating this strange droning that seemed to linger in the back of his vocals as he sang. And as he sang, he remained perfectly still. His eyes, too, were wide and strange, as though he were attempting to hypnotize us with them.

The more I listened, the more I could feel my mind sort of detach from my body. I felt light as a feather. No, that’s just it actually...

I felt absolutely nothing at all!

I couldn’t smell or taste, either. I could only hear the strange voice of Herr Nadelnase as I looked down over the room. Yes, I was looking down at the room, floating above my body and the bodies of others. The other children were floating too, all of them looking around like I was in a mix of wonder, fright, confusion, but above all, in utter disbelief.

It was impossible for this to be real, wasn’t it? All the same, I and the others knew otherwise. This was real, and only capable by Herr Nadelnase. I was sure then that he wasn’t a man, but a god.

As this progressed, me and the other children watched Herr Nadelnasen then leave his own body. The room was now populated by floating specters. The faces of the others, I could see, were terrified. I was terrified, too, though not more so than curious.

Herr Nadelnase himself lorded over us, his arms outstretched and his smile all but welcoming compared to the more unusual appearance he had before. He still looked unusual, sure, with his dark skin and white eyes and lips, but now they looked natural on him instead of simply being makeup.

“Come along, dear children.” He said cheerfully. Suddenly, all of us found ourselves floating up and away from the room. Through the ceiling and through the clouds. All of us were both amazed and afraid at the same time.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of Peter Pan, soaring through the night sky with Wendy and her brothers as they were whisked away to Neverland. Below us was the quiet world, quiet and peaceful, though dreary and bleak. We soared past the pigpen neighborhood, past the railroads, and even passed into the old market on the edge of Poland — what remained of it anyways.

It was here that Herr Nadelnase descended and bade us to follow him into what looked like one of the old shops that’d been blown to smithereens back when the men first came and invaded. We stayed put for a moment, unsure of what to do. What could’ve been there that Herr Nadelnase wanted us to see, I wondered.

The others wouldn’t move either. Their faces were even more skeptical than mine. That was, except for one boy from the group who began to float toward Herr Nadelnase. With eager, outstretched hands, Herr Nadelnasen pulled him close before hurling him inside the abandoned building behind him.

The boy disappeared into the building and we were all frightful. Questions of what had just happened to the poor boy, as well as what Herr Nadelnase planned to do with the rest of us, kept the rest of us collectively crippled with fear. Then we saw him reach out his hand, smiling, and say to us, “Come children, don’t worry. He’s safe and happy, you see?”

He showed us then the inside of the abandoned building, where we indeed saw the boy, safe and beaming with joy while swinging from what looked almost like a long rope of licorice or something. That was when I began to move closer to the doorway, believing I’d seen what looked to me like lollipops sprouting from the ground like daisies from beneath the boy. Before I even knew it, I was seized and likewise hurled through the doorway to join my companion in this new sort of dreamland.

When I came to, I was surrounded by a lush, green field peppered with lollipops, each varying in colors and shapes. Laughing, the boy told me to come swing with him on the vines. I didn’t though, being far too mesmerized by the beauty of this place, this paradise!

Soon we were joined by the others being hurled one by one through the doorway. They each came to with looks of awe in their eyes. Yes, we all felt it, this place must be heaven. Scanning the fields, far as the eye could see, Lollipops and gumdrops peppered across the terrain. Across the hills in the distance, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

There were living Gummy Bears! Yes, I said it, they were alive! I watched them graze the sugar coated grass field like they were cows on a farmland. The other kids erupted into squeals of cheering as they dispersed, running all throughout the landscape. I stayed behind, though, noting the absence of Herr Nadelnase. When I looked for him, he was nowhere to be found and the doorway was gone.

This frightened me at first. I was now trapped. We all were. We’d never get out. We’d never return to the real world...

We’d never have to go back...

We could live here. We’d be able to run around in this dreamland forever. We could stuff ourselves with candy and play and run freely until the end of time. No one would ever have to be sad about anything ever again.

I ran to join the other children then, joining hands with them as they sang and danced around one of the licorice trees — which I soon realized was made entirely out of chocolate. We sang many songs, some of which being “Ring around the rosie”, as well as “William Tell” and “This old man”. Then we set about greedily, gluttonously, and all too happily devouring the sweet chocolate bark.

Mein Gott, I tell you, I’d never been this happy before in my entire life! I could see the others hadn’t either. We were mad with excitement. It was in this excitement, too, that I realized I’d even forgotten about my Mother and little sister.

For just a moment, I stopped. I couldn’t help but think about how much I missed them. How much I wished they could be there with me, stuffing themselves silly with never ending treats. I wondered briefly then what exactly happened to them after I left them behind on the train.

I pictured my little sister right there beside me while I consumed the chocolate tree, imagining seeing her sweet little cheeks stained with chocolate while beaming her most jovial smile. This made me smile again and I was right back to gorging myself like the others on literally everything in sight. The chocolate bark of the trees, the fudge soil beneath our feet, the lollipop daisies and the sugarcoated grass, everything.

In all of this, I had no grasp of the passage of time whatsoever. For as much as I knew, I could've been here for only a few short hours, yet perhaps it could have been as much as weeks lost there in this dreamland. I still don’t — and I couldn’t care any less.

Alas, this wouldn’t last and eventually, I was forced out of the dreamland. As it was, it was sudden, abrupt, in such a way that I’d no idea until I found myself waking up again. One second, I look up to see Herr Nadelnase standing in front of the doorway again, looking fearful and perhaps in pain, and the next, I see nothing.

When I came to, I found myself in a darkened, damp and cold room. I was alone, and the room was much smaller than the apartments we’d shared in the residency. Where was I, I wondered. Where were the other children?

The room I was in, the room I’ve been in now for what I can only assume to be days now, had only a single barred window, allowing only a small sliver of light to shimmer in. How I got here and why, I have no clear idea of. It’s night right now. Perhaps I’ll find out more in the morning.

The last thing I’ll write is this, I know that what I experienced was real. The land of limitless treats and happiness, I know, somehow, deep down, that it was real. I can just feel it, even now...

For that, I am happy even now.

***

Dec. 3rd, 1941

I am afraid. I was awakened this morning to a man in uniform shouting at me from the other side of the door to the room I’m in. “Wach auf, schnaufendes Schweinchen!”

A pitiful, almost grayish, gloomy sort of ray shown through the single window into the room. The man outside then opened the door and started toward me. I could see a hateful, enraged ire in his eyes. Whatever he was there for, it was not good for me.

I made motions to move, to flee, but found that my ankles had been shackled to the bed I was on. The man reached me and immediately pinned me to the bed, slamming me roughly and crushing my thighs under his kneecaps. I struggled furiously but it was no use, the man was far stronger and frankly just far more brutal than I.

Hate, pure and unfiltered, burned a blazing bonfire in his eyes and a foaming spittle dripped from his mouth as venom from a snake's fangs. I could hear him growling, too, as his hands and knees crushed my joints nearly beyond the point of mending. My wheezes for mercy fell upon deaf ears.

I no doubt wouldve died then and there if it weren’t for the arrival of two other men who separated me from him. The man wasn’t so easily pried away. He wanted blood.

I heard a variety of shouts between the three men, many of which were commands at my attacker to restrain himself. The latter thrashed wildly in their arms, shouting at the top of his lungs, ”Kleines Schwein wird sterben! das verdammte Ferkel muss sterben!”

He continued repeatedly shouting this at the top of his lungs while the two men wrestled him out of the room. Where two more uniformed men then entered. I laid on the bed. Aching and looking fearfully up at them. Though not nearly as extreme as my attacker, I saw disgust in their eyes when they looked at me as well.

In all of this, two questions presented themselves to me — ones that for obvious reasons, I did not voice to these men. Why was I being treated so cruelly now? What had I done to deserve such punishment from them? And the other was Will I ever see outside this new room again, this prison cell?

The men in the room with me began questioning me on events that I had absolutely no knowledge of. Actions and behaviors they swear I’d enacted, yet that I knew beyond doubt weren’t true. They accused me of attempting to not only “escape” from the ghetto. But also of making attempts on several of the men’s lives.

I swore to them they must be mistaken, for I am not — nor ever have been or even could be — a killer. They would hear none of it, though, and I was forced up and into the hallway. There, I was made to follow them down what has to be the longest and most sinister hallway alive ever seen, with dark, stained walls on either side of me, doors to other cells following every three or four feet down.

At the end, I found two more uniformed men standing with the rest of the children from Herr Nadelnase’s performance. Some of them had bruises and others were even crying. Wayne Bachman was the only one of us there brave enough to speak, asking the men what was going on and why they were doing this. With cold, callous eyes, one of the men stared back at him, then passed a glare around to the rest of us, before announcing that us ”Schweinchen” were to board a train to Birkenau. Wayne was about to speak again, but was shoved forward through the door behind the man.

Outside, it was frigid and white. The year had already laid down its annual snowy blanket. This sight used to bring me joy when I was younger, seeing the ground consumed entirely in snow. Now, it was more akin to an icy tomb, an omen of something wholly more horrible to come.

The rest of us were soon likewise shoved roughly out of the hallway into the snow. A few of the children lost balance on their ways out and ended up falling on their faces. The men, having apparently no patience, then shouted at them to get back on their feet and continue to the train. Some of them, I guess, still took too long, and so they were jerked to their feet violently.

That is except for Wayne Bachman. Poor little Wayne Bachman, he laid perfectly still, face down in the snow. One of the men came to force him back up again, repeatedly delivering sharp, crushing blows to his rib cage while screaming at him to get up. He wouldn’t.

His back still lightly rose and fell, I could see. He was alive, merely pretending to be dead, perhaps to attempt escape. The man was about to kick him again before another came over. Halted him, and then turned to us while drawing his gun. With a sinister smile, the man fired three shots straight down into Wayne Bachman’s back. For a solid five seconds, I watched his body convulse before starting to relax, where then the man fired a last shot straight into the back of his skull.

Without another word, the man turned to the rest of us and harshly demanded that we get on the train. No one could at first move. Then the man turned the gun to us and repeated his demand. We hurriedly scampered like mice to the train.

We were huddled together just as we had been the night they first took us. The car we were in was even smaller, in fact, suffocating us all the more. For a solid fifteen minutes, perhaps longer, we were forced to sit there, cramped against each other.

We were in the dark. I couldn’t see any of the others, despite being compressed against them. I could feel the ways which their bodies trembled and quaked against mine. We were all thrown into a raving panic when we heard a series of gunshots from outside. Four or five were heard before the door to the train was opened again.

In the opening was the tall outline of a man in uniform, yet behind him, I saw the bodies of the four uniformed men all sprawled out on their backs in the snow. Then I looked back up to the figure in front of us and immediately I recognized the gleaming white circles around his eyes. It was Herr Nadelnase!

Before any of us could say a word, he raised a finger to his lips before starting to sing again. No one moved, though I’m not sure whether it was out of sheer fright or if they were entranced by his song once again. Nonetheless, it wasn’t long then before we were lifted from our bodies again, floating as apparitions in the air. Just as before, he bade us to follow him.

We did, being relieved at our sudden and unexpected rescue. All except me, no one had any sort of suspicions concerning this. I couldn’t help but to wonder why he’d come for us, why he’d gone so far as to murder those men and save us. What made us, a small group of children, of schweinchen even, worth so much effort to rescue?

Just as with the night before last, we were led again to the ruins of the old shop and again, one by one, we were hurled through into the dreamland. I didn’t move when my turn came. He reached out a hand, beckoning me forth. I wouldn’t move.

“What is wrong little one?” He asked. I told him that I was frightened. That I didn’t know what was going on, why any of this was happening. To this, Herr Nadelnase simply smiled and reached his arm out to me to pat the top of my head. His arm was able to, or so it seemed, stretch the four or five feet between us to reach my face.

This both amazed and further frightened me. In a shaking voice, I asked him, “Who are you?”

Softly stroking my hair, he replied, “I am every child’s best friend. I am the one that, as long as you still need a friend, will always be there for you, and I won’t let anybody take you away.”

I remained still. Despite his assurance, I was still nervous about him. So much just didn’t make sense to me — and still doesn’t. I could tell that his intentions were pure, sure, but at the same time, I couldn’t understand just how or why he does this.

“Please trust me, child, I want only for you to be happy, I promise.” I knew his words were sincere. He wanted me to be happy, for all children to be happy. I looked again to the doorway , seeing the children running about the candy coated dreamland.

That’s when I relented and was hurled through once more to join them. As before, almost endless hours, perhaps days, were spent having the most fun and enjoyment I or anybody could possibly have in life. The time came once more when Herr Nadelnase returned for us, looking every bit as exhausted and somewhat deranged as he had last time.

Like last time, I never wanted to leave. Alas, I’d get no such say in that matter and I was forced asleep again. I came to again standing in the middle of a dirt road. All around me. Men in uniforms laid dead at my feet.

How I got there or what happened to them, I can’t even begin to guess. Since then, however, I’ve wandered blindly down this open road. I’m cold, hungry, tired, and above all just afraid! More than anything in this world right now. I want my mother, my sister, my home. I want to go back to the dreamland. I want Herr Nadelnase to come for me again...

***

That was as far as I got with the diary. Like I said before. It was all I could manage, both for the sake of my stomach and frankly, my soul as well. On the next page there was a newspaper clipping with the headline ”Youth Polish boy found dead on street.”