Personal Narrative-D-Day

I have finally done it. Guilt travels through my veins and weighs down my heart like bricks. I have taken the a life of a human being. Breaking the sixth amendment, I had played God. Choosing the time that John Dawson was to go. This made me think back to just before the first time that I had taken part in this terrorist group. I had to make a superhuman effort not to be sick at my stomach, I found myself utterly hateful. Seeing myself with the eyes of the past I imagined that I was in the dark gray uniform of an SS officer. I am no better than the Nazis who killed my people. I have become what was once my adversary. What I once despised. I cannot comprehend what I have done. For, I can still recall my first mission. We ambushed a convoy. The first truck blown up and the soldiers from the other trucks scrambled to find

cover. But they were unable, and were mowed down by our guns.

Afterwards, yet again, while feeling nauseous, I saw myself in that SS uniform. I still remember every gory and frightful detail. I saw the legs running like frightened rabbits and I found myself utterly hateful. I remembered the dreaded SS guards in the Polish ghettos. Day after day, night after night, they slaughtered the Jews in the same way. We in a sense are embodying the very thing we set out not to be. We, like them, try to justify our violent actions with our reasons. WE Jews have been wronged and persecuted. But was that not the reason that Hitler started the Holocaust. Was he not wronged allowing him to justify his wrongs. Why was it okay for us to be murderers. Something that Ilana said really resonated with me. She said “We say that ours is a holy war. That we’re struggling against something and for something, against the English and for an independent Palestine… But these are just words… And our actions, seen in their true and primitive light, have the odor and color of blood.” Though I may be able to give words for our actions, it is undeniable that our true intention is

bloodshed.
In my actions I see no purpose. I frequently ask myself why. Why did I kill John Dawson? I had taken lives before and never liked it, but something about being one on one, face to face with your victim made it even worse. Also, I had no problems with the man. I tried and tried to hate him, but I just could not. Hatred was the only reason I was here, yet I could not bring myself to it. I want to believe that I need to hate my enemy. I want to believe that this is the reason the Jews have been used as scapegoats and humiliated so many times before because we have never stood up for ourselves. Yet, I know that hatred is not the answer. It is no solution, but merely adds to the problem. But hatred is what fuels our cause. Because, without hate, everything that my comrades and I were doing would be done in vain.
The hatred never set in, allowing the guilt to overflow inside me. I, unable to look at myself, had determined that John Dawson was not the only one to die. A piece of me died as well with that pull of the trigger. As I looked out the window, the night lifted, leaving behind it a grayish light the color of stagnant water. Soon there was only a tattered fragment of darkness, hanging in midair, the other side of the window. Fear caught my throat. The tattered fragment of darkness had a face. Looking at it, I understood the reason for my fear. The face was my own. I was the night.