Standing in Line

As he stood in line he noticed the light. The composition was pretty good. All the feet were lined up neatly, almost orderly. Just then someone was ripped from the queue and shoved into another. The still frame in his mind he saw just now he would try to replicate many years later. It would never be the same of course. This moment, excruciatingly painful as it may be, must be held onto. He knew he had to keep thinking of this moment to be able to remember it clearly, vividly. Not because he wanted to, but because he had to. He had to make sure that this is not something that is forgotten. They will get their reward for their beastly, uncivilized and inhumane treatment of other people. Other humans like him and many others.

The queue slowly shuffled forward, he could hear the German shouting all around. Occasionally he would hear a gunshot. No one in the queue dared talk out of line. Anyone who fought back was swiftly taken care of. The bodies weren't moved until the queu had long passed. It was a stark reminder to all that if you stepped out of line - literally or figuratively - you were dead. No one dared. They dared in Warsaw. They dared in other cities. Here it is too late, though. Once you got here it was already overdue. He remembered trying to calm the others that this would never happen here, not in civilized Europe. Maybe in the Americas or the Asias, but never here. Not in our part of the world. He tried not to smile at his own ridiculousness. What if someone saw him smiling? At a time like this? Unheard of, what would the people think. At the same time he wondered 'What the hell does it matter what anyone thinks? We are forsaken here.' and he would be equally right. The queue shuffled upward and another body swiftly got out of line towards where the man at the desk in front of them would direct them to go.

"Next!" Someone would shout for him. An officer of his class and stature - his poise was immaculate - would not shout so gruffly and barbaric. He was a handsome young man, perhaps some noble descendant. The two soldiers flanking him, the soldiers behind him chatting, the clouds and the way they broiled over into one another. This alone is worth another picture. He tried to remember their faces. The helmets would obscure the hair, so he tried to look at the eyebrows. But that was not always an indicator of the hair colour on the head you know. His uncle Jan had black eyebrows but brown hair. He had a dark, dark beard as well, black as night, but brown hair. They used to joke it was because his mother had two men at the same time. Jan laughed at the joke at first but it got so old and so repetitive he once beat his cousin and gave him a black eye for spouting it time and time again. That's when the joke stopped, truly.

The line shuffled upward again, there were only three others ahead of him. The women were off in another area. He could hear screaming, shouting. Some were crying, wailing. He tried not to look another way, lest he see the body of a man who tried to run for it not even a few tens of meters away from where they were now. He was a young man from a village he had never heard of. He got caught up in the wrong group, so he said. He wasn't Jewish at all, so he said. He did look more like a gypsy, he had thought to himself at the time, but that made no difference to the Germans. Why would it? They killed all who opposed them.

The line shuffled ahead again, two more ahead of him. He could hear the discussion with the officer clearly now.

"Name?"

The man mumbled something, he couldn't quite hear it. The officer did however.

"Occupation?"

"Bricklayer." Came the answer a bit louder this time. The officer waved a hand and the man went.

Only one more man in front of him. This was an elderly man, he held his hat gingerly in his hands spinning it round and round, over and over again. Probably a nervous tick he had.

"Name?"

"Alfred Schmidt." The senior replied. The officer's eyebrows went up.

"Truly? But you are Jewish, are you not?"

The old man nodded "Yes, sir. I served in the German army in the great war." He spun his hat nervously. The officer looked down at the paper in front of him. His cleanly parted hair was neatly combed, his face didn't have a hint of stubble. His eyes were a deep green, mesmerizingly green as they looked back to the senior.

"What are you doing here? A veteran no less. Report to the canteen at 17:00 and I will give you some duties worthy of a soldier who served. Dismissed." The old man saluted and the officer gave a curt salute back as he waved him in the direction the bricklayer went. It was now his turn.

"Name?" The officer asked, not even looking up.

"My name is Adelbert Kotsov." He replied.

"What a peculiar combination." The officer did not look up "Occupation?"

"Photographer." He replied and tried to straighten himself. His back hurt, his joints hurt. He was so thirsty.

The officer smiled as he looked up "No! So am I! What a coincidence. Heinrich, come over here another photographer." An officer behind the one seated, wearing a hat with a skull and a grim face, approached and met the seated officer's eyes.

"Yes?" He asked quickly. The seated officer leaned back "Another photographer! We were discussing this earlier, remember? We need someone to document all the people here. This man will know what to do." The seated officer turned back to Adelbert. "You can do people in a room, right? Not one of those landscape photographers like Heinrich." He scoffed and Adelbert smiled.

"Ah I know my way around a darkroom. I have taken pictures of many happy couples, of the land near where I lived. I wanted to take my album with me but I lost my luggage..."

"Oh? Where is it. I would love to see some. Where was your luggage?"

Adelbert looked up to the train and tried to remember which wagon. It was the one where the young gypsy man was laying, blood was pooled around him as people walked by as if they didn't notice him.

He pointed to the wagon "There, where the dead gypsy is. It is red, the only red one if I recall." The seated officer gestured for a soldier to go get it and he sprinted off towards the wagon.

"That's great. You will report to my office at 17:00-" "The veteran, Michael..." Heinrich interjected. "Ah yes, 17:30 at my office then. I will have eaten by then. Heinrich you know I have to see to the old man myself. The cook is a fucking idiot." Heinrich nodded knowingly.

"Take any pictures of famous people?" The seated officer asked Adelbert.

Adelbert nodded "Greta Garbo. I actually have her photograph in the album, if you let me show you..." The officer's green eyes lit up.

"Really? No! That's great! I loved her in... in... What was the one from the Tolstoy?"

Heinrich replied "Anna Karenina."

"Precisely! You, Adelbert, you wait here. Next!" He gestured to his side where the soldier had stood who went off to the wagon. Another poor soul came up and introduced himself, and another, as he and the officer would share stories in between. He would look back on that moment and come to realize it saved his life in the end. In that moment things felt a little normal, interspersed with jolts of reality.