Two Films

Character prompt:write about something lost and found

Two Films

I closed the thick curtains then flipped the switch. A crinkly whirling preceded the projection of a grainy black and white film onto a white wall. No title introduced what would be shown. The camera panned on a thin mattress on a long table with tall sturdy legs, then to a plain wooden door. It swung open inward. A tall thin man was thrown down unto the floor. His face zoomed forward as a large hand grabbed his dark hair and raised his head. Looked like a teenager. Tears filled his defiant eyes. He shouted or screamed, I couldn’t tell which, for the film was silent. Twisted left and pressed on the floor, his face filled the wall of my dark room. I stopped the projector and stared at that face. That face with streaks of grimy sweat, shiny eyes, and gritted teeth haunts me still.

I had to take a break; made a cup of tea and rolled a cigarette. I wondered if I had discovered a record of real events or if it was just a fictitious enactment. I smashed out the cigarette then restarted the projector.

Someone in a white lab suit injected a clear liquid into a shoulder and soon the boy laid still. Lifted face down onto the table, his back was sponged clean. A latex gloved hand holding a long needle appeared. The camera focused on the tip then slowly moved to the other end which was flat and showed a swastika. The needle dipped into a saucer of ink then punctured the skin. Time was skipped and the face of Hitler appeared in ink on fair skin. In the final frames the camera zoomed in on the framed tattoo hanging on a wall.

The slapping of the end of the film against the projector roused me from the shock of realizing a murder had been committed and been filmed to boast about. Then, I realized something else, I had just seen what could lead to the identity of the killer tattooist, for on the other side of the flat end of that needle, I felt sure, would be the name of its owner. Only two came to mind, SS Doctor Erich Wagner or Llse Koch, the Bitch of Buchenwald.

I had one other spool. Perhaps, it would clear up the mystery. I attached it to the projector and flipped the switch. Immediately, I noticed its much better quality.

A bright light showed a room that had a lonely quality with its whitewash walls, dirt floor, and simple wooden chair. All of this hardly registered, for sitting roped on that chair was a figure with a black cloth bag over their face.

Chills streaked through me as a leather gloved hand lifted the cloth off to reveal a middle aged man.

A clear male voice spoke with utter conviction. “You are Erich Wagner, former SS-Untersturmführer of Buchenwald. As the camp doctor, you murdered men and women for their tattoos. You exhibited them to visitors and made gifts of their tattooed skins. Perhaps, as many as eight hundred.”

“You have kidnapped an innocent man! My sister has surely notified the ...”

A gloved fist slammed into his jaw and knocked him and the chair onto the floor. Two pairs of arms lifted him upright. There was a pause in the interrogation as someone raised Wagner’s face and lifted the hair obscuring it.

“Forgive me. I forgot to tell you not to speak unless I say so.”

There was a hoarse chuckle.

“Look at this needle, doctor. Looks familiar, doesn’t it? We found it in your room. A dear souvenir? Perhaps, so dear, you couldn’t part with it? It has your name on it. It was used to ink a tattoo on a young man. You murdered him and put his tattoo on display in Buchenwald. You flaunted it to visitors. Do you deny any of this?”

A bare heavy hand slapped the strapped man. “Speak. You bastard! I dare you to deny it.”

I stopped the projector. All this time, the film showed only Wagner. There were two other voices, probably another had helped lift Wagner from the floor. I took another break as I pondered what the rest of the film would show me. Would I see a murder of revenge? I cringed when I thought I might have to watch them torturing Wagner.

I hesitated, yet, I couldn’t resist restarting the projector.

Wagner sneered. “You can’t expect me to remember every tattoo I saw and put to good use.”

I jumped out of my chair, for Wagner, his face contorted and raised, screamed. The film didn’t show what had caused that scream nor prepared me for it.

The one who had chuckled spoke. “Careful. Even out here, someone might hear. Stuff a handkerchief in his mouth.”

Another voice spoke. It sounded young, younger than the two others. “Let’s hand him over to the authorities.”

“What? I say kill him.”

“That would be murder. I wish to believe we are better than his kind.”

The voice of the interrogator spoke. “He’s right on both counts. Though, it would be highly satisfying to put a gun in his mouth and squeeze the trigger, it wouldn’t be justice. Justice calls for him to be tried by a jury and judge in a public court to remind all of us that horrific deeds were done with the approval of a large segment of the population.”

“Well, at the very least, let me break the fingers that killed our brother.”

There the film ended as memories of my grandparents’ tales of the concentration camps left me staring at the floating dust illuminated in the beam of light from the projector.

Though, I searched several times in my grandparents’ attic, I never did find anything else.