Those Who Save Us

by Jenna Blum

scrawled drawings that have been omitted from museums and history books. There would be scenes of ritual aggression and submission, painted

Null Hour.

The Americans might not be the SS, who would be using their rifles much more energetically by this time, but nor are they the friendly captors

My Country, Right or Wrong. The archway over the iron gates bears a different, more ominous motto: JEDEM DAS SEINE! To Each His Due!

We just did as we were told, like good citizens. It’s criminals like her you should lock up, that woman right there. She’s an SS whore!

She has simply awakened from one nightmare into another.

expiation, this penance.

Jerk

She can never tell him what she started to say: that we come to love those who save us. For although Anna does believe this is true, the word that stuck in her throat was not save but shame.

They were very easily bored, as stupid men often are, and often hungover and most often drunk, and they had atrocious ways of combating their ennui.

But as Trudy sits trying to calm her breathing, she also remembers what Rainer has said: Let the punishment fit the crime. Anna has taken the burden of silence upon herself. It is her decision not to speak of the things she has done, valiant or otherwise. It is in fact her prerogative as a hero.