The mussad is here for you my friend duckie. We have agents outside right now quieting your dobermien pinscher, so just come out of your house quietly. Put down the nine millimeter broom handle mauser, and we will not shoot you. The Hague tribunal will be more than fair with you.
Just needlin you but you are the duck of death…….

i hear a lone piano tapping a sorrowful melody, one of lonliness, in the background, and see quick images in black and white sequence.. this is stark and sad, and devastatingly cold.

Oh, it hurts my German heart so.

Is there anything as deceiving as self-deception.

Is there anyone as blind as those who WILL NOT see?

Changed it slightly. reordered a bit and added some smoke.

I think its a little better

this is sad but it is true……..they never knew or chose not to face the truth

I wonder if this is how my grandmother felt when the Nazis came barreling over the border and started their reign of terror on that first of September, 1939…

“There are none so blind as those who cannot see.”

Sorry, RYD’s quote reminded me of my father’s. Silly man.

I could make a list adjectives a mile long and still not convey what I mean when I say this story is well done. Simple is best sometimes, so well done, excellent.

ah i forgot to comment on this when i read it.

i thought it has very good imagery. i think this just re-sparked my attention into finally reading anne franks journal.

oh and congratz on featured!

Very good. The man in my profile picture is a cousin of mine with the very same name, Eli’ Justman. He escaped the Nazi’s in Poland and went with the Zionists to found Israel after their defeat.

Quite a character, this Father though, I almost don’t believe his stubborn optimism.

“Arbeit Macht Frei!”

IMHO, this story suffers because it gives away too much too fast. The first sentence (“,in a cattle car filled with 102 other Jews.”) fills in all the blanks and leaves nothing to further for the reader to discover.

Thank you for the featured.

Given the speaches by some holocaust deniers in NYC in the past couple of days, I guess my mind turned back to those times.

such a powerful story. the worst deception of them all.
congrat’s on the feature.

Krullar,

True, the first sentance does reveal a lot. but how else would one explain being in a cattle car, with 102 other people for four days. It sets the tone and reasons for the journey. It gives the reader the ability to see what the characters cannot. I am reminded of the sceane in hitchcocks psycho where the audience sees the shadow on the other side of the shower curtain, but the girl does not. The audience knows the danger, wants to warn the victim, but they are unaware of the situation.

Setting the story in the first person and in the present of the war – for me that’s what makes this story. Yes the first line gives a lot away, but it’s necessary to set up the dramatic irony that then gets wrapped up in the last line. Skilful.

Mr. Duck

Respectfully, I disagree. The hitchcock scene did give more information to the view than the character, but it doesn’t ultimately reveal the ending; Norman dressing up as his dead mother. So the cross dressing norman was reveled to the end. The Jewish Holocost is so well known that even mentioning a jew spilled the proverbial beans.

Wow, I should have grammer checked my comment before I posted it. Hopefully you get my point.

Well in this story my intention was not so much to show the holocaust as the father’s reaction to it. The disbelief that the same nation that produced Luther, Beethoven, and Bach could engage in systematic mass murder to many was unthinkable. It made more sense to them that their use as labor, even slave labor, would be more valuable to the Reich than their deaths would be. And slaves, that you want to keep, need food and shelter to work efficiently. They underestimated the Reich’s valuation of their labor vs. the desire for their deaths.

You might say that attempting to tell the story of a couple of people crossing the Atlantic to start a new life in America would be spoiled if you knew the ship was named Titanic. Then again that piece of information may bring about a certain irony or prescience to the story and how it can play out. More so than if it were some unnamed vessel.

I guess I am saying knowing the big picture doesnt necessarily spoil the smaller vinietts

It’s refreshing to see a good mature defense of one’s writing. So, I won’t restate my position, because I won’t be adding anthing new to the conversation, and I don’t wish for my disagreement to detract from your story.

Look at y’all being all mature and junk. I love it. Nice and appropriate to be so adult when dealing with such an important topic.(I just wanted to point out that, because maybe some people are being a little catty and juvenile lately.)Both of your positions are very valid. Taste wise, I’m sliding toward Krully, just because I think you have enough room and talent to be somewhat more oblique in that opening paragraph. Just reordering the sentences and being a little more cryptic would (I think) heighten the betrayal aspect, maybe conveying more poignantly what those people were going through. This is obviously just my opinion, and I have to say that overall the piece evokes the pathos and sorrow of all of the best portrayals of this tragic tragic period.

Well let’s try somethnig different.

If you think that this story can be told in a better way, then sequal it. I promise you I won’t be offended and you can show me what you mean.

I look forward to the stories.

I love the last line. It actually makes the story even more heartbreaking given the father’s obvious high character and intellect. However, you’re missing quotation marks to indicate it’s dialogue.

I also think that the second line in the story is misplaced (along with having an unnecessary comma). I think describing how cramped the car is should be what directly follows the opening sentence. The spilled latrine bucket is a consequence of the car being over-packed, and should therefore follow the description of such.

Other than those minor nit-picks, I’d say “good job” if this Internet thing allowed me talk rather than type.

I’ve made the corrections you suggested