December

Karin

It was April 1945

When I saw my friend Pippi again, she had two kitchen knives hidden in her pocket. She said that she had heard people saying the Russians burnt down houses with Nazi posters in towns they had conquered. So the two of us went around our block and scraped off posters with a swastika. We never finished our project, too little time between the too many air raids.  

One day Papa and I left the apartment and we sat on the park bench in front of our house. I asked Papa why he does not take anymore photos.  “What is there nice to take pictures of now?  Ruins? Sad people?” “ I am smiling.” He smiled too, got up, fetched his camera and took a photo of me. We could hear the cannons at the outskirts of Berlin. “Papa, we will call this picture ‘the end is near’.  And soon everything will be good again.” “No. It will never be good again.” Sad that grown-ups always now have to add unhappy words. 

And this is the photo: