The stench was insulting. A deep, saturated soot from gun powder and recently used explosives clogged the air. The sky blocked by a hazy screen. Buildings crumbled from the impact of German steel while wails from the dying echoed through the near barren streets. This was the fate of Poland’s capital, Warsaw. A ghost of a city once brimming with beauty and commerce had turned into a landscape of an ill nightmare.

Verena covered her nose with a handkerchief as she surveyed the area beyond the medical tent. With ample protesting from her family, she became a nurse within the German Red Cross. Only by name however. All the medical personnel knew that the Red Cross was controlled by the Wehrmacht. German soldiers were given priority, the poles, devastated by Hitler’s tactic, Blitzkrieg, were treated last. Any who did otherwise was removed from his or her station. Not that many cases occurred however. The superior people deserved life more so than the filthy. 

“Fraulein!” A German soldier was walking straight towards her as she quickly smoothed her bloodied nurse uniform and turned to face the man. What was once a clean white was now grey and caked in dried blood. “Are there any empty beds in this tent? The others are all full.”

She moved to the tent motioning for the soldier to follow her. “We have … four openings. How many?”

“A whole squad. So, nine.”

It didn’t sit well with the nurse to turn away patients. Verena tried to accommodate however she could. The medical tent was meant to hold forty patients maximum, they currently attended to sixty. She felt like a gatekeeper more than anything, for she decided who could or couldn’t enter.

She felt her stomach flip. More badly wounded men to treat. When she signed on to do her part for the Fatherland she never thought the things she’d witnessed would be so grotesque. However, such was the fate she chose instead of baring children like her other woman in the Reich. Her father had tried to find her a suitable match, but the men she’d seen disinterested her so. There was no feeling with any of whom she met. Why bother with creating a family based on duty alone? It was ludicrous. She dare not share it though. Thoughts like this was what sent people straight to a Gestapo holding cell. Women included. She shuddered from the stories she remembered hearing. 

“Only four,” she finally said. “Check the other tents; they may be open. Can you carry the wounded here?”

“Yes.”

With that, the soldier was off as he held his helmet down with his hand. 

“More?” It was Margaret, another nurse Verena worked with. “For heaven’s sake Verena! We cannot hold anymore!”

“But we have four empty spaces.”

Margaret sighed, wiping a sheen of sweat from her forehead. She wasn’t an unattractive woman. Margaret came from Hamburg. Unlike Verena’s family, the brunette came from a farming background, an occupation looked down upon by the middle and upper class. While a tad on the obtuse side, she woman still looked rather well.

“We’ve already got more than enough to attend to! Seven cannot take care of sixty. Simply cannot!”

She couldn’t deal with this right now. Verena walked into the tent as she quickly washed her hands in a dirtied bowl. She moved to the first of the four soldiers brought in. The other nurses who were checking on the ‘stable’ patients came to help. “Get some bandages,” she said as she began to inspect the wound. She gagged. The man’s leg was dreadfully close to severed. “Wait…”

Margaret came over and inspected the leg. She frowned. “Amputation. I’ll go get the doctor.”

Verena’s hand began to tremble. Amputation! How awful she thought to herself. Images of more blood filled her mind as she stepped back. She couldn’t stand to see that. Small gun wounds were fine, but this was far too much.

“Verena?”

She didn’t hear the voice. 

“Verena!” 

“What?” she half screamed the word. The soldiers were looking at her, as well as the other nurses. “…Sorry.”

Margaret placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “You’ve yet to take a walk from this, no?”

She stared blankly back. Did she or did she not take her recommended break? She couldn’t tell. With the constant stream of patient after patient, she had lost track of time.

The next thing she knew, Margaret had guided her to the tents opening and pushed her out. “Don’t come back for another half hour. Go get something to eat, walk around the controlled zone. Take your mind off of this for a moment. When you’re ready, come back.”

The older woman spun on her heels and marched back in leaving Verena to herself. Perhaps Margaret was right. Maybe all she needed was a breather. Taking off her nurses hat, she walked slowly walked towards the checkpoint leading to the city. She nodded to a soldier as he let her pass into the city. While there wasn’t anything much, the desolated city somehow made her at ease. A peculiar feeling.

Though the invasion had only started months ago, the area where the Wehrmacht had assumed control was finding an uneasy normalcy. Small cafe — the ones that weren’t blown to bits — had patrons visiting, brothels were opened for German sons, and the citizens of the near defeated country hid from the invaders. Especially the Jews. 

The Fuhrer’s loathing for the Jewish people was clear. On every propaganda poster, public humiliation in the streets of Berlin, and the destruction of shops, ghettos had been formed to imprison the enemies of the Reich. Verena’s friends who were Jewish had been sent there. She didn’t see the danger in them whatsoever; however, years of propaganda and education quickly changed that. 

Walking into a relatively empty store front save for a few soldiers and Poles, Verena took a seat at an empty table. The atmosphere rivaled the gloominess of a rainy day. It sucked all the energy from her. She placed her face into her blood caked hands. She loved the Reich and the Fuhrer; but, she wanted all this violence to stop. She wanted a peaceful Germany. The invasion of Poland was slowly wrapping up. The Fuhrer had already promised a strong and secure empire with the capture of Poland. She took comfort in that promise. It’d all be over soon.