The Final Day 1st Draft

The idea for this story came during one of my writing exercises where I randomly choose a word from a book, google it, look at the images page and take an image. The word was "Dragging" and the picture I found was from this website www.scrapbookpages.com/.../BergenBelsen05.html

Please feel free to send any feedback. Please let me know what you thought of the story overall and the writing. Am I using too much description or not enough? Do I have the tone right?
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The Final Day!

Today was the last day of humiliation and victimization. The British were taking over 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 stench from the rotting corpses permeated the whole camp. Death and disease were rife. Rats and maggots feasted on the decaying corpses they have never eaten better. The living may say that they are no longer suffering they found a way out but being used as a banquet is not a way to rest in peace.

The sun was breaking through the horizon. The only comfort the inmates gained from seeing the sunrise is having a fleeting feeling of joy as the warm spring sun began to make its way up. The soft colors reminded them of hope and now the British were liberating them, they were filling themselves once more with more 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 they would ever forget the time they spent in this god forsaken camp. 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 them 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 given the blankets they had just slept on to pull the bodies to their shallow 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 which they knew would fill their nightmares for many years to come. Sometimes they thought they should have been one of the “fortunate” ones, the ones that have passed on, but seeing the fate of the now deceased, they consider themselves the lucky ones.

The stench of the 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 to try and 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 bodies 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 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 is a shame you did not die with them. We should have slaughtered you all and left you to rot. Food for the 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. She was help up by Violette and Tryszynska. “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 ladies quickly ate what little they had and began again to move the bodies. They were eager for the day to end so they could sleep once again their final sleep in this godforsaken place.

It was getting close to dusk; the three ladies 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. The unfortunate ones, who will never rest in peace.