The massive iron gates loomed up ahead as Kurt Hummel stepped off the train that had brought him to his new place of service.  Just the sight of the concentration camp was enough to send tremors coursing down his spine and cause the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end.  The buildings were ominous, dully colored brick, and the atmosphere was as cold and unforgiving as the people who worked there.

            A nervous feeling settled deep with the 19-year-old’s stomach and he felt nauseous at the sight of his new home.  If this was a war, wasn’t he supposed to be fighting?  Why was he being sent to work in Auschwitz?  What was a concentration camp anyways?  The dizzying thoughts swirled around and around in Kurt’s head before he was snapped out of his state of shock.

            “Soldier, snap to it.  You’re holding up the line.  Do we need to send you back where you came from?” an official wearing a dark green uniform and the trademark red swastika barked out at him.  His eyebrows furrowed as he glanced behind and noticed, for the first time, just how many were waiting to exit the train.

            “Oh, erm, I- ,” Kurt tried to apologize but the dark haired official held up a stern hand.

            “I don’t need your bullshit.  Do what you’re told to do and answer with sir, always.  Am I clear?”  Kurt cringed away from the angered man and stammered out a reply.

            “Y-yes sir.”

            “NOW MOVE!” the official bellowed as he roughly grabbed Kurt by his coat and shoved him out of the way. 

The cocoa-haired boy stumbled forward from the force of the shove, but quickly regained his balance and shook his head to clear his thoughts.  There would be no horseplay around here, that much he could gather.  He was starting to dislike this place with every second he spent there.  It was like a permanent dark cloud was hanging over the grounds and Louis couldn’t help but feel as if he was signing away his soul as he passed under the black gates that read ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’.

He ran a hand through his perfectly styled locks and looked around.  There were various buildings, some brick and some nothing more than little wooden huts, that littered the camp.  It seemed as though everywhere he turned there was a new façade glaring at him.  Everything here was so desolate and screamed for help.  He didn’t know what, but something was clearly off here.  Normal camps didn’t carry this sort of morbid air.

“Excuse me, sir, but you look at little lost.”  Kurt whirled around to find an older man standing behind him.  He was dressed in a blue and white striped outfit and looked as though he hadn’t eaten in days.  The hands that poked through the fraying sleeves were bony and caked with grime and there were dark bags under his eyes.  It was obvious this man wasn’t well.

“I just don’t know where I’m supposed to go is all,” Kurt shrugged sheepishly, “Hey are you okay?  You look awfully hungry.  I’m sure we could find you some lunch when I find out where I’m supposed to be going.”  The white-haired man gave him an incredulous look and hesitated, unsure of how to respond to the younger boy’s words.

“Sir, I don’t think you understand- ,”  The man was halted by a powerful blow the face from another soldier in the standard green uniform.  The solider towered over the man and spat on his face.  Louis watched the scene unfold before him with horror displayed readily on his features.

“You little piece of shit.  Haven’t you learned your lesson by now, old man?  You are to address the officers as their rank.”  Here he turned to the appalled boy.  “What is your title?”

“I don’t think I have one,” Kurt choked out, his mouth dry, “Look, he didn’t insult me.  He was trying to point me in the right direction.  You really don’t need to be this harsh.”  But the officer was no longer listening and had turned his full attention on the cowering bag of bones at his feet.  He rose up an arm and backhanded the man, causing a searing, red welt to rise up on the elder man’s cheek.

“You will address him as Soldier from now on.  If I find out any more of this foolishness had occurred, the repercussions will not be light,” the officer scolded, inflicting one last kick into the old man’s hollow stomach and motioned for Louis to follow.

After what he had just seen, Kurt did not have to be told twice.  He fell in step behind the curly haired man and didn’t speak a word.  He was scared out of his mind.  What on earth had he just witnessed?  The guy was simply trying to be helpful.  He had done nothing wrong.  Yet, this officer treated him as though he’d committed a major felony.  Nothing seemed to make sense in this dismal world he had entered not only five minutes ago.

Kurt readjusted the green cap that sat atop his head and continued to follow the middle-aged officer as he’d been ordered to.  He was currently being led down a makeshift dirt road that had ominous brick buildings lining either side.  They glowered down at him and it was just a physical reminder that he was utterly trapped in this camp.  The tall structures only served as a fence that was literally suffocating him to the point of sheer terror.  This wasn’t the war he had been expecting to walk into.  He didn’t like this place one bit.

“What is your name, Soldier?” the officer questioned in a sharp, business-like tone without looking at the target of his speech.

“Kurt Hummel, sir,” Kurt dutifully responded.

“Ah you must be the son of Burt,”  the older man paused until the blue-eyed boy nodded in affirmation and then continued on.  “We’ve been expecting you, then.  Well Soldier Hummel, welcome to Auschwitz.  I am Kommandant Shuester. I’ll be the one to show you around the camp today but first we need to get your assignment and I’m sure you want to eat.”  As if on cue, a rumble passed through the younger boy’s empty stomach. 

“Yes, sir.  That would be lovely,” Kurt sighed in relief at the first mention of something slightly comforting as they walked into one of the scary-looking buildings and got in line at the cafeteria-style counter for some much needed lunch.

After eating the less-than-appetizing mushy soup and chasing it down with luke-warm water, Kommandant Shuester and Kurt made their way out of the main building to begin his debriefing on the runnings of the camp.  They started with the massive structures that lined either side of the street.  Kurt learned that they included the main house in which meals were served, a mail-room, a hospital, and a dentist.  As they passed the building in which the hospital was housed, a piercing scream echoed out from behind the heavy metal door.

“What’s going on in there?” Kurt asked, startled.  He had never heard those sounds emanate from the doctor’s offices back home.  It sounded like someone was being put through an immense amount of pain.  It sounded like torture.

“That?  Oh, probably just one of the more painful surgeries.  Nothing to worry about.  Come along now, Soldier,” Kommandant Shuester explained level-headed, but there was something about his tone that didn’t have Louis entirely convinced he was telling the truth.  The cocoa-haired boy spared one last look at the dark door and briefly wondered what he would find if he opened it, but cleared his head and fell in step with the older officer.  Perhaps some things were better left unknown.

The duo continued walking until they reached the end of the dirt street and took a right.  A large expanse of field dotted with workers in the protocol striped uniform met their eyes.  Kurt gasped as he took in the sheer size of it all.  When he had been in the small quarters with the oppressive buildings, the camp had seem quite small but now as he looked out on the actual work site, he could see that this place was enormous.

“These are the yards where the prisoners work.  Your assignment isn’t here so you don’t have to worry much about this part of the camp,” the Kommandant explained with a casual wave of his hand.  So the people in the striped outfits were prisoners.  Now Kurt understood why the other officer had treated the old man so poorly earlier.  He had heard his father talk about these prisoners to his mother many times in the kitchen when he thought no one was listening.  They were something to be despised.  Nothing more than filthy vermin whose sole purpose is serving the Nazis to make-up for their traitorous ways.  Or at least, that’s what his father had said.

As the duo rounded yet another corner, Kurt could see a smokestack rising up out of a large building, jutting into the cloudy skies.  Puffs of thick, black smoke were billowing out of it, filling the air with a putrid stench.  The young boy gagged and covered his nose with the sleeve of his military jacket.

“What on earth is that smell?” he managed to say, ignoring his gag reflex’s want to return the food he had just eaten to the outside world.  Kommandant Shuester eyed Kurt with an exasperated expression.  Apparently, the blue-eyed boy should’ve already known the answer and it was wasting the officer’s precious time to bother explaining.

“That would be the Crematorium.”  Kurt wrinkled his nose in disgust.  A Crematorium?  Wasn’t that a place where people burned things?  As if this place wasn’t sketchy enough, now he was watching the smoke of burnt objects float into the air.  This whole day was completely surreal and the young solider felt like he was living in a dream, or rather nightmare.  He felt like this was all some creepy façade that he would soon awake from.

“What is it used for?” the brown haired boy continued to probe.  The Kommandant sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Its where we burn our, erm, trash per say,” he evaded the subject nicely and briskly walked forward, trying to move away from any further discussion.  Again, something about the way Kommandant Shuester spoke made him question just how true the things he said were, but he really wasn’t in a position to question.  All he could do was nod and follow blindly as the older man proceeded in showing him the rest of the camp.  Still, because of his cheeky nature, he had to make one last comment before letting the subject drop.

“You must have some awful garbage, then.  It smells terribly.”

“Yes, well, you wont have to worry about the stench much considering your living quarters will be on the opposite side of the camp,” Kommandant Shuester said with a manner of finality, “Which brings me to these.  You’ll be spending a lot of your daytime around here considering your assignment is to be a leader of a prisoner sector.  Your job is to keep them in line: wake them, make sure they do their jobs, and guard them at night so they don’t try to escape.”

In front of them, were four small, wooden buildings in which the prisoners were held.  The makeshift houses couldn’t have been more than 20 feet by 10 and the patchwork roof look like it didn’t quite suffice as shelter from a rainy night.  Kurt traipsed into one of the cabins behind the older officer and was surprised to see that it was completely devoid of people.  He had been expecting to walk into total chaos.  Seeing the young boy’s confused look, Kommandant Shuester began to clarify the situation.

“There aren’t any prisoners living here at the moment.  You’ll be assigned to this cabin along with one of our other men, Soldier Hudson.  You should start tomorrow which is when we’re expecting the next shipment.”

“Shipment of what?” Kurt asked innocently.  The Kommadant gazed at the lad with a sad and slightly guilty smile.  In that moment, the cocoa-haired boy showed just how truly youthful and innocent he was.  It was always sad when someone with as good a heart as Kurt came along.

“You’re a good lad, Soldier Hummel.  Let’s just hope this camp doesn’t break you.”