The Final Day 2nd Draft

This is the 2nd draft of The Final Day. A story based on the final day at Camp Bergen.

I am still wondering if I should add to the characters in the story. To show where the women came from before they were inmates here but I am wondering if it would distract the reader to much from the main story.

Thank you to Kelly Micheals, NotFrodo and Adriana Noir for the reviews on the first draft.

If you have more comments to add please feel free.

Enjoy Reading


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The Final Day!


The stench from the rotting corpses permeated the whole camp. Death and disease was rife. Rats and maggots feasted on the decaying corpses. They had never eaten better. The living may say they are no longer suffering; they found a way out, but being used as a banquet by the vermin and the bugs is not a way to rest in peace.

Today was the last day of humiliation and victimization. The British were liberating the camp from the tyrannous Nazi oppressors. The Nazi’s had one final horrendous task for the inmates of Bergen concentration camp to perform the disposal of thousands of rotting and decomposed bodies. Thousands upon thousands lay strewn around the camp in piles like discarded trash.

The sun was breaking through the horizon. The sunrise and sunset was the only color in the lives of the otherwise dismal inmates. The only comfort the inmates gain from seeing the sunrise is having a fleeting feeling of joy as the warm spring sun began to make its way up. The soft and warming colors reminded them of hope and now the British were liberating them. They were filling themselves once more with joy and hope at the prospect of being with their loved ones once again, a feeling they had long forgotten.

The Nazi guards began to unceremoniously wake the sleeping hoards bunched tightly together as if they were sardines. They knew this was their last day of domination and wanted one last humiliation for the inmates to remember them by. Not that the inmates would ever forget the time they spent in this god forsaken camp. The nightmares would be with them for the rest of their lives. The guards began ripping off the blankets of the sleepers, if they didn’t move fast enough the guards would spray a hose of ice cold water over the inmates to get them moving.

The inmates quickly forgot their dreams and were roughly forced into various groups. The men were given shovels and sent on a one kilometer march to dig shallow graves. The women were handed the blankets they had just slept on to pull the bodies to their final resting place. They did not relish such a dismal task but the thought of this being their last day in hell spurred them on.

The women were split into groups of three to drag the bodies to the graves. Violette, Luba and Tryszynska were placed in one such group. They had been together for two years and had seen many horrors they knew would fill their nightmares for many years to come. Horrors they wished they had never seen. Sometimes they thought they should have been one of the “fortunate” ones, the ones that have passed on, but knowing the fate of the dead, they consider themselves the lucky ones.

The stench of the rotting and bug eaten corpses permeated their noses making the women wretch, hurting their empty distended stomachs. But they pushed on knowing this would be the last day. They moved each body carefully trying to preserve what little dignity they had left. Some of the bodies seemed to move on their own; the maggots had taken over and were devouring them from the inside out. Some of the corpses no longer resembled something that was once a living person, the maggots and the rats had taken care of that.

Dragging the bodies to the grave was easier than they had imagined. The previous night’s rain gave them a smooth ground surface with which to work with. The blanket glided over the rain soaked mud with relative ease. It was physically easier but mentally they struggled. Seeing their friends that once lived reduced to rotting corpses discarded like trash was too much for them to bear. Luba the youngest of the three at only 20 began to cry finally breaking her spirit that she fought for so long to keep. One of the German Guards saw this and began to taunt her. “Get moving you Jewish pig.” He hit her in the back with the butt end of his gun. “You all deserve this, it’s a shame you did not die with them. We should have slaughtered you all and left you to rot and feed the hungry maggots.” He began to laugh and walked away.

Luba had fallen in the mud when the guard had hit her, her clothes were now mud soaked and drenched. Violette and Tryszynska helped her up off the ground. “Don’t let them beat you,” Tryszynska said as she held out her hand to help her up. “We only have today to suffer them and then we will be free.” Free from the camp but not free from the nightmares.

Lunch was meager, left over stew from the day before that was barely warm and a lump of moldy bread. The three women scoffed what little they had and began again to move the bodies. They were eager for the day to end and begin their life again, a life they were looking forward to living. Nothing would now be taken for granted for any of them.

It was getting close to dusk; the three women began to move the last body toward the grave. Violette looked down to the face of the body. She crouched down and looked sadly into her face. “I know you can’t hear me but I hope you can rest knowing there will be freedom. I wish you could live the rest your life. I wish you could go back to your friends and family.” Violette knew that she would be around at least in spirit anyway.

The body of Anne Frank was laid with the others. These are the unfortunate ones, the ones who will never rest in peace.