Short Story: The Robot

Short Story: The Robot

What do you do when the world has gone mad? When all human decency has vanished, when there is no dignity afforded to anyone, when people become beasts of burden, beasts of terror? When all empathy has gone, when the only feelings to be had are hatred and contempt? This is where I am now, an empty shell among hundreds of thousands of others, shallow, soulless, already dead.

I have been asking myself this question for what feels like a long time now, ever since I came to this place. No, even longer than that. Because what is going on here started well before the smoke began rising from the chimneys, before I was selected to come here. And I think that I was aware of it even then, when I was but a boy with happy memories and a decent future ahead.

For many, this all started after the end of the First World War, but I wasn’t born then. It wasn’t until the thirties, when I was about 10 or 11 years-old, that I began to realise that something was going on, something momentous. There was excitement in the air, mixed with a twinge of uncertainty and a hint of subdued fear. Fear of what? I know the answer now, but at the time, it was impossible to tell for sure. Things were a little crazy everywhere, but that was the way everything was then. Crazy.

I was sheltered from the uglier sides of life, but still, I saw things: rallies, slogans, propaganda. They meant little to me then, except that we were now on a new path. I heard adults talk. Talk of the way ahead, of the future of our great nation, the Third Reich; talk of our new chancellor, Adolf Hitler. Talk of his struggle, of his great ideas and plans for the future, of the work he was doing to make Germany strong again. I heard some rumblings of dissatisfaction, rumours that he had a darker agenda, and that some people were being targeted by him and his supporters. But these were whispers, not meant to be heard by young, sensible ears.

At first, I don’t think that people took him seriously. He was an entertaining and appealing diversion from the troubles of everyday life in post-war Germany. Unemployment was high; men had a hard time feeding their families; war heroes felt dejected. Hitler was one of them, and they could relate to some of his rhetoric. He had come from nowhere, an Austrian who had fought in the trenches and who had fallen on hard times since. Still, he was loud, brash, agitated, and didn’t always make sense. But he was persistent, and he never gave up. He had an aura, and magnetic eyes that could draw anyone in. And once you paid attention to his ramblings and looked into his eyes, he had you. You couldn’t help yourself; you watched and you listened, mesmerised, no matter what you thought of him and his ideas.

I heard him talk once. My parents had taken my sister and me to visit relatives in Nuremberg, and we were there during one of the party’s rallies. I had never seen such an enormous crowd before, and I was awestruck. So many spotlights were set up that it felt as though we were standing in broad day light. The buildings were grandiose, and added a touch of majesty to the spectacle. The crimson flags, hung all around, waved in the evening breeze, strangely hypnotic and drawing the crowd in further. The atmosphere was electric, and the spectators were enthralled by Hitler, the ultimate puppet master.

I didn’t understand what was going on. He sounded like a rabid mad man to me. As I looked around, I saw countless faces wearing the same expression of adoration, of ecstasy, almost of rapture. These people were looking for a saviour, and they had found one. I tried to make sense of the things he was saying, but found it difficult. I was not interested in the disturbing words, just in the effect they produced. I found it funny that so many people could have the same dump-struck look about them, almost as if they had been turned into automatons at the flick of a collective switch.

As I got older, I became part of that robot society that had so entertained me a few years earlier. I had no choice. We were all under Hitler’s rule, and so everyone’s place was pre- determined by his master plan. Each puppet had a role to play, and to try to play differently was not an option. We were all machines headed towards the same catastrophic end, only using different paths to get there.

Mine took me here, to this forsaken compound, where misery and death are the only constants. I had other options; my mother wanted me to be a teacher, and my father wanted me to be a doctor. I wanted to be a lawyer. What a ludicrous idea that was! What use does a lawless land where countless ignominious laws are passed everyday have of a legitimate lawyer? Very little, I'd say. Studying law in Nazi Germany was a tragic farce. There is no room for justice in a system that treats dogs better than humans. As the war went on, it became increasingly difficult, and then nearly impossible, to go to school anyway. So I gave up. I had relatives who lived abroad, and might have been able to go live with them in hope of a better go at life. But I wanted to stay home, with my family.

We tried to maintain as normal a life as possible, but that too was a dream. We became a product of our world, affected by everything that was going on around us, suspecting deep down the ugly truth behind every bit of news coming to us on the radio and in the newspaper, but choosing to pretend everything was as it should be. Like everyone else, we became robots, following the line that was determined to be ours by the party machinery.

Eventually, someone noticed me, a young unemployed lad, without any significant skills, talent or achievement. I was quickly enrolled for the greater good of German society, given a uniform and put to work. Then, based on my excellent pedigree, I was selected to come here. The assumption being that, as a perfect Aryan specimen, I would be able to perform whatever duty was required of me under any circumstances.

Nothing prepared me for this. Nothing could.

I think that most people feel the same when they arrive here, whether as a prisoner or as a captor. The first thing to hit you is the stench of death. It permeates everything, and is inescapable. People are dying everywhere, every minute of every day, through disease or starvation, murder or torture, or simply from exhaustion. It doesn’t matter. The smell is the same.

The sound of this place is something that no one can forget. Shouts from the guards, screams of pain and anguished cries of sorrows from the prisoners, gunshots, orchestral music in the back ground: Dante could not have envisioned a more demented soundtrack for his Inferno.

The sights are as horrible as anything the human mind can conjure. Walking corpses everywhere, unbearable pain on every body, and unimaginable sorrow in every prisoner’s eyes, only to be matched by unbelievable contempt and disdain from the guards.

Yet, there is one thing that almost everyone seems to have in common. We are still following the path allocated to each of us by the puppet master, whether we are the prosecuted or the prosecutor. And as time wears on, the roles become more entrenched and the initial shock slowly vanishes, to be replaced by a near-absolute detachment from everything. Slowly, we get used to the smell, sights and sounds. And once we are used to it, nothing bothers us anymore. We are a part of the collective, and we are doing our part for the greater good of the Reich. The prisoners know that they will die; the only unknowns are when and how. We all accept our roles in this sickest of society, and carry on as if it were inevitable.

Except that I can’t do it. I wasn’t born a killer. I wasn’t born to torture innocent people. I wasn’t raised to ignore people’s suffering and to turn a blind eye to the indignities I have witnessed. I wasn’t born to hate. Yet, here I am, doing my part in this nightmare. And although the Fürher has done his best to turn me into one of his killing machines, he has not succeeded.

I have managed not to kill or hurt anyone; I couldn’t. But by being here, I am taking an active part in this obscenity. Some are natural killers, but not me. I have never as much as hunted a rabbit before being thrown into this, let alone thought of killing one. And now, I am part of a much more vile and sinister deed. I have been touched by the blood of countless innocent people, just by being here, and my soul is dying as a result.

I have been there when the convoys arrive and the selection is done. I can look at it and not flinch now, but only because to do otherwise would hasten my mental demise. The sight of so many young boys and girls, so many women, so many old people leaving their loved ones behind and going straight to the chamber continues to keep me awake at night.

The hangings are a little easier; I can almost, but not quite, convince myself that the condemned are criminals who have done something wrong and deserve to pay for their crimes. That’s what you do when you work and live in a place like this. You make up excuses to justify your actions and those of others. It is either that or you go crazy. The human brain can only process so much horror before it snaps.

The gas chambers are hard to justify, so I try hard to ignore them. They are just a part of the machinery that is beyond my comprehension, and it is best not to question it.

The crematoria are a necessity, maybe. After all, it is more sanitary that way. Dead bodies can bring all sorts of diseases to a place like this, and then what could we do? I don’t believe this, but try hard to convince myself. I call it self-preservation.

But I can’t find any way to process what I saw today. I will never be able to justify it, and I will never be able to forget it. I would never want to forget it, even if I chose to go on living. An innocent baby, crying in its mother’s arm. An evil man, a guard, exasperated by the baby’s cries. A fraction of a second and it is over. The baby is no longer crying, its short life, insignificant to the guard, snuffed in a violent instant, its mother, delirious with grief, gone a moment later.

The pain I felt at this monstrous act of barbarity was instantaneous, and unbearable. I made my exit from the platform as soon as I could, and here I am now, in the last few moments of my life. I have been here just a few weeks, but they feel like decades; I am a young man, yet feel ancient; I have aged beyond my years, and will never be young again. I can’t, in good conscience, continue to be part of this masquerade. I have reached the point where my mind can’t take anymore. I can’t continue to be part of the evil that has taken this world over, and I am not sure that there is much hope left for any of us. So the question is, what do you do when you reach this point in your life? What point is there in living when the world is dead?

For me, there is only one solution. I can’t justify living in a world that wants me to be a killer, and I refuse to continue to play the role that was assigned to me by this sick society. As I take my Luger and pull the trigger, deeply saddened by the pain and sorrow I have witnessed and could not stop, I find comfort in the knowledge that, in the end, Hitler failed with me. This robot has turned the switch off and will no longer be a part of the puppet’s master plan. It is over.