The Evil Dictator: A True Story?

Long time ago, in a far away country lived a boy, John, with his parents and one younger sister. One day his parents told him that long ago, in their country, lived a people that a war wiped out. The boy wanted to know more about these people who lived there and walked these same cobblestone streets. His parents told him as much as he would understand.

One day his mother wanted a bouquet of flowers for the dinner table and asked John to go in the meadow, behind the house and find her favorite colors. When he was barely out of sight, his mother called him back and asked him to go a little further past the meadow where there grew a very special flower, a color rarely seen anywhere else. Would he please go there and bring them home? John did as he was asked. Upon his return his mother took the bouquet and pressed her cheek to the very “special flowers”. “Thank you, son,” she said and put the flowers in her favorite vase.

During dinner that evening John asked his mother why those “special flowers” grew only in the area past the meadow. His mother asked him if he remembered the story of the people that lived here long ago. He nodded “yes”.

His father continued, “This is where they died and their ashes remain. Only these flowers come back each year to remind us of them.”

John was now even more curious. “But who did this to them?” he asked. His father told him about a Dictator that didn’t like these people and wanted all of them to disappear from this world. “Were they bad people, father” asked John.

“No son, they were people just like you and me. They had families, worked hard, their children went to school. Maybe somebody even had a son just like you,” his father told him.

The years went by, but John never forgot the story his parents told him.

When he was in high school he learned about an old cemetery that belonged to the people in the story. One day after school he went to see if he could find it. There was only debris, overgrown weeds, scattered dead leaves. No cemetery. No headstones. He started to clear the debris and found something hard and solid beneath. Curious, he dug deeper. The object turned out very big. He tried to lift it. Heavy, but curiosity overtook him, and with all his strength he lifted and uprighted it. He stared at it for a moment and then read the dates. “That was long ago,” he thought. He looked for more and found several more of these cemetery headstones. He was very excited at his discovery and decided to section off the area with some sticks.

When he got home, his mother asked him why he was so late and he told her where he had been and what he decided to do. He talked and talked. His mother had never seen him so inspired, so moved by anything. “Yes, you must do what your mind and heart tell you, son,” was all she said to him and left the room very slowly and quietly closed the door behind her.

The next day John again was late coming home from school. This pattern continued for many weeks until it tapered off to once a week. One day, many months later, John came home by a different route. He usually did not go this way. But that day, after stopping in church for a quick prayer, he turned behind the church and noticed something that puzzled him. There, right before his eyes stood the remnants of a burned out house. It looked eerie. He walked over closer and noticed fresh flowers gently laid in a corner. He moved closer. There, near the bouquet, was a prayer card. He picked it up and began to read “A Prayer for the Dead.” He put the card back in its place and stood there silently thinking. He then began walking home briskly, knowing he would be very late this time and his mother would be worried.

At home he said nothing. He thought about the burned out house and the flowers, but could not figure out what that was. At suppertime his father noticed how quiet John was and asked him if anything happened in school. The boy shook his head “no”. After a few minutes he began to talk. He told his parents about the burned out house he saw in back of the church, the fresh flowers, and the prayer card. There was a long silence. His father was first to speak. “Many years ago your grandmother lived there with your aunt and uncle and their two children. It was during the time of the Dictator who hated people who were different from him. To cross him meant instant death. People were afraid of him. The Dictator forbid helping or hiding these people. One night there was a knock on the door. Afraid to open the door, grandmother peeked through the curtain and saw a few people, in shadow, standing there in the cold. She looked closer. There were two children and three adults. Grandmother opened the door just a crack and asked what they wanted. The older man said they were hiding from the Dictator and his henchmen and needed a place to stay. These people were strangers. No one knew them. Maybe it was a trap, grandmother thought. The Dictator did that just to find out if people would be willing to help them. If they did, he would punish them by death. Grandmother took them in anyway, knowing fully the consequences. They were hidden in the stable for three weeks, when one day the Dictator’s henchmen came to the house asking if she was hiding people in her house. Grandmother said ‘no’ and she glanced at her grandchildren standing in the corner, frightened. The henchmen proceeded to search the house from top to bottom. Finding nothing they shouted that it had been reported that she was seen buying more food than was needed for her family. Grandmother immediately thought of her neighbor who had been visiting her every few days pretending concern on one matter or another. The neighbor was of a different ethnic background and different political beliefs. But grandmother never disliked her for that. The next evening the henchmen came back. This time she was frightened. Grandmother had just returned from the stable after bringing food for the five people. She wondered if she had been seen by someone and the henchmen were coming for her.” Father was deliberately choosing his words so that John and his sister would understand everything.

Father continued the story: “There was a loud knock on the door. Grandmother stood up and deliberately walked very slowly and opened the door. The henchmen pushed her aside and demanded she produce the five people she is hiding. She protested that she was hiding no one, when she heard screams and shouts from the stable. There were more than five people approaching the house. Suddenly they were all inside the house. There was shoving and pushing, people begging for mercy. Very quickly some of the henchmen left, leaving four armed guards with the ten people inside the house. Shortly more henchmen arrived, screaming obscenities at the people and the late hour they were summoned. They opened the door with a thud and cold air rushed in. It was a cold night and they all shivered. Grandmother knew what awaited them. The Dictator’s henchmen left them inside, barricaded the doors, put guards at the windows and set the house on fire. There were such screams as never heard before, then silence. The next day we heard of your grandmother and the strangers she sheltered. They were all burned alive. We don’t know who lays the fresh flowers every week. It must be done at night when the village is asleep.” John’s father ended the story and lowered his head.

That night John laid in bed a long time pondering why the Dictator hated the people so much. In school he asked his teacher about the Dictator. The teacher tried to explain, but to no avail. Listening to the conversation were two of John’s classmates. After school when he was going home, the two classmates joined him. They wanted to know if they could help him at the cemetery. John agreed and they proceeded in the direction. The classmates, a boy and a girl, were very solemn as they walked between the headstones, reading the inscriptions. Suddenly the girl began to cry. Not knowing why, the boys tried to console her asking her why she was crying. She said that one of the headstones had her grandmother’s name on it. She had been searching for years for her grandmother’s whereabouts. Now she had found her. Walking home, John said goodbye and left his friends to go their own way.

During dinner John told his parents about going to the cemetery with his classmates and how the girl started to cry when she found her grandmother’s headstone. His father listened, not interrupting him. A few more times, after school, the three would go to the cemetery, pray and clean the debris. John kept asking his father to tell him more about the Dictator and why he hated those people. Never getting satisfactory answers he devised a plan, but could not tell anyone. He also never forgot the rare flowers that grew beyond the meadow or the burnt house near the church.

John woke up very early, before the sun has risen, and quietly left the house. He could not control his excitement and his feet were running as if they had a mind of their own. He reached the place and crouched behind the ruins and waited. It seemed to him he was waiting forever but it was not so. He was just anxious to see what he came to see. Half hour went by and still nothing. Suddenly he heard someone approaching. He held his breath. There in the darkness a figure appeared. John strained his eyes to see who it was. There she was, John’s classmate with flowers in her hand. She laid them down in the corner and removed the old wilted ones. She stood there for a moment as if thinking or praying and left.

John decided not to tell his parents about his adventure of that morning. He waited a few days and repeated his morning of adventure. He crouched in the corner and waited. The figure appeared again, but looked much smaller. John is even more curious than before. He looked closer. It was his sister. She was not bringing flowers, but instead she knelt down in the ruins of the burned out house, her grandmother’s house, and began to pray. Her lips were moving but John could not hear the words. Finally he heard her last words “I love you Grandma.”

Bozenna Urbanowicz Gilbride grew up a Catholic girl in Poland caught in a web of terror during World War II. She survived deportation, labor camps, concentration camps, starvation, disease, and isolation. Later in America, she met a friend who grew up a Jewish girl in Germany and had also witnessed the horrors of the Nazi occupation and Hitler’s terror in Germany. The two Holocaust survivors published a book in 2009 about what they experienced as young girls. Her friend’s name is Inge Auerbacher. Their book is Children of Terror. It has been translated into
Polish Przerwane Dziecinstwo and German Verlorene Kindheit. They now travel the world to tell their story.