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It was quiet. Really quiet. Even the rhythmic breathing, snoring, coughing of his barracks mates seemed quiet.

Levi eased himself off the bare platform that served as a communal bed. He managed to do it without waking anyone but that was no trick he thought. Most preferred to sleep anyway, made time pass quicker. Besides, when they were awake, all they did was work. Work, under the brutal eye of the guards; work, punctuated by cudgels, whips and dogs; work made more onerous by no food, at least anything that you could call food.

He had been in Mauthausen now for two years. An experienced arms worker, he had escaped the dragnets repeatedly. His superiors hid him, he was too good to disappear in Die Endlösung they said. And he learned to disappear when the inspectors came, look away when he felt their gaze.

But the sweeps got tighter and tighter. The Gestapo inspectors got better and better. And one day they arrested him as he left work in the evening. An inspector, waiting for him at the gate, asked him if he was Levi Rosenthal. He said yes and he was in the back of the police van.

Adapting quickly to the camp, he learned to get by. Not a particularly religious man, he did not feel this sentence was an act of a vengeful God but more the continuation of historical persecutions. Jews had had this sort of thing inflicted on them through the centuries. He made a few friends, acquaintances really, but they kept each other informed about what was going on.

And what was going on? A change was noticable. The guards had been nervous for a few days now. Rumors, ahhh, ever the rumors about liberation of the camp: the Americans, the British, the Russians were coming. There was a new rumor every day. Levi mostly ignored the rumors, but he did put stock in the guards behavior. The guards that had shown a shred of decency to the prisoners were gone; only the monsters were still there but even they were distant, distracted.

The barracks even quieter now, he looked out a dirty, fly-specked window. He could see the double barbed wire fence, flanked by a ditch and the „restricted“ area. He liked the quiet and then it struck him, it was too quiet. Leaning forward, he looked up at the nearest tower. It was empty. The machine gun pointed ominously at him but there was no one behind the gun. No guards on patrol, no dogs, no activity at all. He looked again, not knowing what to make of this.

Then it hit. The noise, the roar, the wrenching of wire. He raced back to the window, nothing, still no one.

The roaring continued, it was an engine, a big engine. The barracks stirred. Voices, scared voices, voices that had wanted the end, now cried out in terror. Levi went to the door. He knew he was risking his life, prisoners were not allowed to open the door of barracks. For many, it had been a quick end, open the door and you were out of the camp.

But the roar continued. Levi heard a voice, a strong voice. „Come out, come out“. He feared the door, but others were crowding him. He looked back at them, turned to the door, took a deep breath, grasped the latch and swung the door open.

It was a tank! An American tank! Covered with barbed wire and broken concrete pillars, the tank had driven right through the hated fence. The fence, the fence that had held him in, on which prisoners had hung motionless, now hung on the roaring tank.

The roar of the engine kicked up as the smiling driver gunned the engine. On top of the tank was a young red-haired soldier. He had a leather helmet, goggles on top of his head.

The soldier yelled again, „Come out, Come out. You are free!“ The soldier motioned to him to come out.

Levi stepped out the door and into a new life. He had survived.