Holocaust - Khurram Bukhari

Holocaust 250Yuri crawled out. He and Sasha began to circle the man firing with theSchmeisser. Sasha screamed at me, “Get the one who’s running!”I could see him loping down the road, back to the town. He ran clumsily,weighted down by his gun, his pack. Bullets sprayed and painted yellowstreaks in the night. Luckily, the man with the machine pistol—he musthave been the squad leader—was preoccupied with his attackers. Hecould have shot me down in an instant as I ran to the fleeing man.I knew I would catch him. I could always run. When I was a yardbehind him—he was breathing heavily, pumping—I smashed at hisback with the stock of my rifle. He went down. He whimpered. Idragged him to his feet and stared at him. A kid. Maybe sixteen. Hehad fat pink cheeks, stupid eyes, and long hair the color of cornflowers.I dragged him back to the hedgerow. The shooting had stopped. All theother Ukrainians were dead. Yuri and the others were stripping thebodies of guns, ammunition belts, boots and anything else of use.I disarmed my captive and shoved him toward Sasha. He fell to theground and reached for my boots. He was sobbing in Ukrainian, but Iunderstood not a word he said.“Take him in the bushes and shoot him,” Sasha said.“Shoot . . . ?”“I said kill him.”“Why? He’s a kid. Can’t we send him back?”Sasha grabbed the rifle from me. “If you don’t, I will. That little shit haskilled Jews as if they were flies. You let him live, he’ll go back to thevillage and bring the SS. Shoot him.”He was right. We were in a war of annihilation. I dragged the youngboy into the woods, shoved him around and muttered somethingabout tying him up. Then I leveled the rifle at his skull and blew theback of his head off.My hands shook. I began to cry.Sasha paid no attention to me when I came out of the hedgerow. Hewas shouting orders at the raiding party, telling them to hurry.“Enough, enough. We don’t want their underwear. Just boots, belts,guns. Let’s move off.”We ran off the road into the woods, keeping far apart. We walkedswiftly. Camp was at least two hours away.