Death of Innocence


     I remember that day so vividly, as if it was yesterday.  The clouds were a deep gray and the wind was just starting to take on the bitter cold that always preceded the winter.  I was only nine, still too young to fully understand the war that others would later refer to as "World War II".  At first my mother said that I had to be careful when I would play outside.  "Inessa, stay close, you don't know when trouble will find you."  She'd say.  After a short while, I was not allowed to play outside by myself.  
      Then there were the gunshots.  The loud crack and reports repeating incessantly through the air.  Mother said that we had to hide when we were out in public.  More and more soldiers in their large gray coats like the clouds of winter patrolled the streets.  Father would whisper to me that those men were looking for Jews.  He would normally tell me to always be proud of who I was, of being a Jew.  That God would deliver us from this as he had for so many generations.  I know that he was only trying to make me feel better, but really, he scared me even more.  
       That day, I understood what he meant.  He was trying to keep me from changing myself for others.  My father was always brave to me, I wished that I could be brave.  But that is the way that all little girls think.  To a little girl, our fathers are great kings and we are their princesses.  Mother was always my father's queen, he would say so all the time.  He used to call her "Queen Isabel".  No matter how sad my mother would seem, when my father called her that name, she would smile.
       The soldiers came through the market with big trucks and heavy guns.  Each one stood on a corner.  There were more soldiers in the market than regular people!  I clung to my father's arm with one hand and gripped my baby doll with the other.  I walked with my eyes closed because the soldiers looked so mean.  I was so afraid of someone being mean to me.  My mother told me to keep my eyes open so that I could watch where I was going, but I was too frightened.  Not like my father, he was so brave all of the time.
       When I did open my eyes, it was because there was a young soldier talking to my father.  He was telling him to put on a coat that had a gold star sewn onto it.  My father said that people would know that he was a Jew based on his actions, not by some symbol that some Nazi wanted him to wear.  There was an arguement, the soldier hit my papa with the butt of his rifle.  My mother screamed and the blood splattered.  My mother told me to run.  
       For a moment I hesitated, I was so scared.  I had never seen my father hurt, had never seen him bleed.  He was indestructable.  But this young soldier had hurt him over words.  Because of a coat.  My mother yelled at me to run again.  "Go home Inessa!  Go!" She yelled.  Little did I know that it would be the last time that I saw her.  I turned and ran in the direction of home.  Tears stung the sides of my face when the cold air hit them.  I could hardly see.  Only grays and blacks and blues and browns from the different coats and clothes of the people that I passed.  All of them were a blur.  
      I ran until I couldn't breathe, until my baby doll felt like a whole other person in my arms.  I cried and I ran, ran, ran.  And that was when I slammed face first into the leg of one of the gray coated soldiers.  I hit him so hard that I fell over onto my bottom, he nearly tripped himself.  I wiped the tears from my eyes and tried to catch my breath.  He was also a young soldier, young with a kind face and yellow hair.  He smiled at me and helped me up.  I tried to run again but he held out an arm and stopped me.  "Now where are you off to in such a hurry little one?" He asked.  He had a smile on his face, but he was holding a large rifle.  The same kind of rifle that I had just seen hit my father in the face.  I started to see pictures of the rifle hitting me in the face and making me fall to the ground i a pool of blood.
      "I'm going home..." I half sobbed.  I clung to my baby doll as if she would sheild me from that rifle, from everything.  The kind faced soldier's friend held several coats in his arms, he was passing them out people.  He noticed his partner crouched and talking to me and gave him a nudge.  "Is she too?" He asked.  "Little girl, are you a jew?" He asked me, as if the word "Jew" were a bad word.  I kept seeing that rifle hit my father, then me, all because of that word.  Because of that coat.  I didn't want to be anywhere near that coat or that word.  It all scared me.
       "No, my name is Inessa, not Jew!" I said, I was angry at that coat, at the guns, at the soldier who hit my father, at this soldier who stood between me and my home.  I was angry at the world then.  I even pulled my arm back while holding my baby doll like I was going to hit the kind faced soldier.  "Whoa whoa, little one.  It's okay.  Why don't you go home now? Hmm?  Run along."  He said putting his hands up in mock defense.  For a moment I only looked at him, and then my senses returned to me.  I ran home without thinking and crashed through the front door, slamming it behind me.  I ran to my bedroom and cried into my pillow.
        That's when the guilt set in.  I didn't know that it was guilt, only that it felt terrible.  My father had told me to be proud of who I was, of being a Jew.  That God would deliver us as he had always done.  But I was not brave, not like my father.  For hours I waited, night came and I still waited.  But my mother did not come, and neither did my father.  A few days later my grandmama came to the house to find me, I hadn't left my room.  She told me that she feared that I was dead with my parents.  And that's when I knew what I had lost in the blink of an eye.  I had lost my mother, and my father, and most of all.  I had lost what my father had tried to protect in me.  I lost it when I lied to that Nazi soldier, when I denied what I was because of a silly coat and a frightening rifle.  I had lost the innocence of a child in that one lie.  It had died with my parents, and I would never feel it ever again.