Travel & War

Why I love to travel by train

He was helping his father in the music company where he liked to write down the music. How suddenly the sound of flying planes arrived and how quickly he’d to run away, out of the shop. How his dad asked him to stay in the bombshelter. But how curious he was and how excited about seeing the planes. He saw the bomb and its destruction which wiped out the whole music shop. Nothing was left of it. He was a lucky guy, cause he survived.

He stopped for a little while before he continued. He told me about his ride to school, on his bike. How one day changed it all. He heard screaming, shouting. Again his curiosity brought him in a difficult situation. A hard one. He went toward the yelling sound, but before he could see what it was about, he was pulled of his bike. The German soldier put him in a line, with about 15 other man. They had to stand side by side with their backs against the wall. He was surrounded by German soldiers, with their rifles in their hands. He said he couldn’t remember being ever that scared.

The man next to him whispered: “This is bad, this is really bad”. He must have looked really scared, cause one of the soldiers grabbed him. He started yelling at him: “Weg! Weg! Zur Schule!!” and after a pat on the head and a hard push he let him go. He run and run and kept running towards his bike, and the moment he turned around, he saw all the man in line getting killed with loud shattering shots.

Later he learned that the man who had grabbed him out of the line was no other than the highest German officer in his hometown. He was told that the German officer has been attacked at a bar, but wasn’t harmed. Out of pure anger and revenge the German soldiers had gathered all the innocent men they could find and killed them in that specific line.

I noticed that his bright blue eyes turned wet. He added, he still doesn’t know how to feel. Should he feel anger and hate against the officer, for killing all these innocent men? Whether he was grateful, that he is still alive?

I was speechless. And when the train stopped, it was hard to say goodbye to this kind man, even though I just met him half an hour ago. Strange isn’t it, how a stranger becomes so much more in just a couple of minutes. How a passenger can open your eyes, and not only let you look, but allows you to see.

Even if there are some question marks left, you can still enjoy life and make the best of it. Not everything is good or bad. Right or wrong. Black or white. Sometimes its just the big gray mess in between.