Ordinary People In Nazi Germany

Ordinarily Incomplete

I know I am not an ordinary person. At the age of 16, I can do many ordinary things like others of my age. I am different, incomplete, divided in flesh and limb. One half of me is perfectly normal, the other imbalanced and cursed. I live in the age of thunder of guns and rumbling of tanks that spilt the air with deadly power. German men in officer gear, cackling with beer in their hands, violently abusing ordinary people around them. I live in a society getting ready for war.

It 's 1939, and I find myself awakening to the cool breeze flooding into my minuscule wooden bedroom. I rise and descend the tight hallway to the kitchen. My mother greets me, helps make my breakfast and sits down opposite me slowly eating her own. I break the monotony and say, “Do I have to go to the Nazi speech today?’’ “We must” states my mother. She knows how much I abhor standing out in the public. I will be travestied and jeered by officers, ignored by adults and consistently visually examined by children. Eventually I lose the long one-sided argument and go to the speech.

The heat is unbearable, I feel the burning sun, beating down on my bare, burnt skin while I stand stock still like a statue outside the Reichstag building on the perfectly mowed grass. The monotonous tones

Some people are too young and kicked out of the line, their robbed faces mixed with glee and slight disappointment; whereas, some are too old, they move slowly out of the line, their hunched forms supported by comrades or polished wooden canes, gripped by gnarled, swollen-jointed hands, that shake like earthquakes as they realise their sons might die before them. A select few people in front are kicked out because they are like me, inefficient, worthless, not worth the time and investment