Chapter One

“If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” -Leviticus 13:20

I never thought I could fall in love with the color of someone’s eyes or even the freckles on their face. And never did I think that I could love a man the way I did Joseph.

It was 1936 when I saw him for the first time. His medium-length blonde hair caressed his face in just the right way. When he pushed it back, a small tattoo of a pink triangle was revealed to the right of his ear lobe. At the time, it was nothing more than a normal triangle to me, but I still loved the idea of a tattoo. His left ear was pierced, while his right was completely covered in scars, those that resembled burns. I studied him until dismissal at two o’clock. He headed toward the nearest door and started to his home. I decided to follow to later discover that he lived a few doors down from me. I wondered how I had never seen this boy. I’d never missed a day of school, but it seemed I had always missed him.

From that day on, I knew that I didn’t want to follow him home anymore, I wanted to walk with him. Not just tomorrow, but every day. Telling my mother about him wasn’t easy. I told her that just the sight of him made me happy. That was the first time I had seen my mother cry. At the time I wasn’t quite sure why she was crying, but when she had stopped crying, she hit me with her rolling pin. After we spoke, I still didn’t understand why she attacked me like she did. All mother had said was that I was a disgrace to our family.

I remember when I was in my early years of schooling. The other kids would always laugh at me and tell me I was happy, even when I was crying. I never knew what that meant until I laid eyes on Joseph that day. I was happy. Even though my mother hurt me, I was still happy.

After that day, I started walking home with him and several months later I brought Joseph to my house for the first time. The exact date was the twelfth of January. I told him I loved him for the first time. I wasn’t quite sure if he would say it back to me but he did, and just by staring into his dark brown eyes I could tell that he meant it. He told me, however, that we couldn’t be together because being in love with a man like me was against his religion.
“I don’t believe the things my parents believe”, he said, “but it is easier to die than to disgrace my family.”
I then remembered what my mother said to me the day I first met Joseph. That I was ‘a disgrace to our family’.
I was never into religion. After my father passed away my mother stopped believing God. She always told me that He was supposed to make miracles happen, but after father passed there was no such thing as miracles. Even though He didn’t believe in homosexuality, I don’t see why my mother would agree with Him if she no longer believed.
One night after Joseph and I had dinner together, I talked with my mother about why she didn’t support the relationship I wanted with him. She stated that I was only sixteen and that I didn’t understand love; that Joseph and I were just friends. After arguing for several minutes, my mother forbade me from seeing him again. Mother said that I didn’t know what was right for me. But I felt how I felt, and although I had never experienced love for anyone other than my mother, I knew that I loved Joseph.

I continued walking home with Joseph for the next few months. Mother never saw me since she usually didn’t come home until four. She was usually making a few dollars cleaning houses or watching the kids around the block until their parents came home from work.

One day Joseph and I went to my house to grab some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. At the time, we usually listened to Shirley Temple on the radio, but that day something a little different was on.

Chapter Two
““Birds are not free since Men have invented cages.”  Mehmet Murat Ildan

That day we heard of a group of people that were setting out to ‘capture those who didn’t belong’. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant and neither did Joseph. I slept on the idea and tried to figure out its importance or even if it was important. The next day there were less kids at school. I figured there was a virus or something.

When I got home, there was a green-eyed man in my home that I had never seen before. He was thin and tall, but not too tall. My mother said he was going to stay in our home for a while. He then told me his name was Jaxon and that he was in danger so he had to stay with us. I agreed, of course, not knowing what type of danger he was in.
The next day Joseph was not in school, nor were many others. I decided to check up on him on my way home just to make sure he was okay. His father answered the door and asked who I was. Without any further questions, he led me to Joseph. I told him about my day and then  asked why he didn’t come to school. He explained this thing that was happening in Germany; that a man named Adolf Hitler had gone mad. This man wanted a perfect country and set out to eliminate all those who weren’t like him, but Joseph feared that what this monster was doing would go far beyond Germany. He was right.

As time passed, fewer people showed up to school. When more than half the class was gone, I decided to stop going too. I still saw Joseph everyday, though. We’d met up to talk about things that had been going on in our lives, which usually wasn’t much.

Years passed and it was soon 1939. Joseph had heard on the radio that Poland was invaded by German soldiers and they were killing ordinary Jews just like him. He then explained to me that he had to go somewhere to hide and he couldn’t see me anymore. I argued with him until I told him that he could stay in my home with my mother and me. There was this dresser in my living room that covered a huge hole in the wall, one that had enough space for a few people  to stay. He agreed, but asked if his family could also stay because he didn’t want to leave them behind. I agreed, mostly because I knew if I didn’t Joseph wouldn’t have either.

My mother was never a fan of Joseph, but I had to make her agree to letting his family stay in our home. After a few days, I finally threatened her in a way that I knew would crack her.

“I’ll tell other people about Jaxon. He’s like Joseph, isn’t he? I’ll go to the authorities right now and let them know,” I said as I started for the door.

I wasn’t really sure I knew what I was talking about, it was just sort of a tease. But it worked.

Joseph, his sister and his parents moved in the next day. Although his house was right around the corner, I think he felt safer  in a secret location that many people didn’t know about. From that day forward, they stayed behind my living room wall. He and his family normally came out for a few minutes to eat or use to the bathroom.
I never had alone time with Joseph. When I did, it was only for a minute or two to say hello and talk about what we’ve been doing that day, which was never much considering he was in a small space with very little light. On the other hand, I started going to school again. There were only eight kids in my class but this was my last year of schooling. I needed to support my mother in the years coming and I couldn’t make a life for myself without an education. I couldn’t help but think of all those kids who couldn’t have one because they were afraid of people who weren’t even in our country. Besides, there were very few Jews in our community, what were they afraid of?

Chapter Three

“Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” (Yehuda Bauer)

Weeks later, I finally understood. The Germans invaded France halfway through 1940. By this time, school was already over for me. I wasn’t really concerned about Jaxon or Joseph and his family. I really missed Joseph, though. I missed him so much that I couldn’t handle being apart from him anymore. I had began staying behind the wall with him and his family. His parents weren’t a big fan of me either. They didn’t believe that two men should be in a serious relationship together. Mary and John, which I think were the names of his mother and father, never said much about us. I’d guess it was because I was the one who argued with my mother to help them out.

After a few weeks of staying with his family behind the wall, I poked a small hole through the dresser so I could check on my mother every now and then without having to move it all the time.

On July 17, 1940, Joseph’s family and Jaxon had moved the dresser to grab some bread and use the bathroom. Joseph was asleep so I put the dresser back in place for a few moments until they returned. In those two or three minutes, there was a pounding at the door. My mother refused to answer so those who were there just knocked it down. I searched through the small hole in the dresser and found my mother on her knees with her hands tightly clasped near her face. She was praying. My mother, who had no belief in God anymore, was praying.

Right before one of the men who knocked the door down put a gun to my mother’s head, she said three simple words that I knew were for me. 

“I love you.”

The shot woke up Joseph. I wasn’t exactly sure that I could explain what just happened. I just sat still and watched the men.
Instead of shooting Joseph’s family and Jaxon, the men dragged them through the door. I didn’t really know where they went, but they weren’t with us anymore. It was just Joseph and me in a tiny space behind a wall. Joseph and me, the two men that had nothing left but each other.

Chapter Four
“The rising of birds in their flight is the sign of an ambuscade. Startled beasts indicate that a sudden attack is coming.”-Sun Tzu

It took us a few days to grasp an understanding of what had happened. I still wasn’t sure why it happened, though.
Joseph and I hadn’t moved the dresser in a while. We had a few pieces of bread and some water in a clay pot. We thrived off that for almost three weeks.

I think it was the beginning of August when we moved that dresser for the first time since the incident. I still didn’t have a front door. More importantly, I didn’t have my mother anymore. Even though her body was still on the living room floor, it was empty. She wasn’t the person I seeked when I needed to listen to a heartbeat. She wasn’t the person that once held me so close that I felt the vibrations of her lungs inside her chest. She just wasn’t my mother anymore; she was only a pile of skin and bones on a bright yellow carpet.

I decided to put what was left of her behind the wall where Joseph and I had stayed in the previous weeks. We didn’t need the space anymore, the men had already left. I never thought they would be back for us, but boy was I wrong.

We weren’t quite sure what to do about the door situation. There wasn’t much need for one anymore but Joseph and I still wanted our privacy. I hadn’t heard any noise in days. The last gun shot I heard was two days after the men had invaded my home. The next morning, the church bell didn’t ring. The birds didn’t chirp. Our town was so silent that you could hear a pin drop from ten miles away. 

Joseph was still pretty devastated, but I understood why. Losing one person wasn’t as tough as losing three. We didn’t speak about it, though. His silence spoke more words about the situation than anything else could have.

Days passed and Joseph and I needed to leave my home. The smell of my mother’s body had infested the house. It was impossible to stay in a place that constantly brought back the memory of that night.

We went back to Joseph’s. It was close enough to feel safe but far enough that we did not have to think of the things that happened in the past month. The first night that we spent at his home was the most memorable by far. We didn’t eat much, but after we did, Joseph had started talking to me about the future; about his hopes to someday become a doctor. He stirred into the idea that there weren’t many doctors that had tattoos or piercings, but he wanted to be different. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I liked his mindset. I didn’t say anything in the minutes after he told me this. I just stared at him until I asked what his tattoo meant. He then spent several moments explaining that a pink triangle was the symbol for homosexual rights. After he got it, his father was furious with him so he tried to pour a cup of boiling water on it. His purpose was to only demolish it, but Joseph jerked away last minute. His father missed the tattoo completely.

That’s when it happened. Joseph pulled me in close and our lips finally met. After years of loving Joseph, I didn’t think I could have been more in love. In the time following this moment, we held each other tighter than we ever had. It was soon midnight and Joseph had fell asleep in my arms-the arms he said he could never be in because his religion didn’t allow it. I couldn’t sleep or even think. I was so obsessed with this man who I had spent so much time with, but I still had so much to learn about him. I imagined our future and fell fast asleep.

Joseph was now my home. Not the four walls and the roof that once belonged to his parents, but him.

Chapter Five
“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” -Dr. Seuss
Joseph and I had spent the next few nights almost exactly how we spent our first. More specifically, we spent nine nights together. Our ninth night was the last we had ever spent together in peace.

The men came into our home on December 21, 1941. Joseph and I were sleeping beside each other on the couch early that morning. We first heard knocking, but we figured it wasn’t important. The men were soon standing before us while pointing their weapons towards our heads. They said they had been searching for Joseph. I didn’t know why at first, but then I remembered what he had told me earlier last year about Adolf Hitler, the man who wanted to kill all those who were different. Joseph was different, he wanted to be. The men quickly dragged Joseph and I out the front door and threw us into a small cattle car.

I spent such a long time behind the wall with Joseph and his family that I forgot what other people looked like and I forgot how they acted. But, most of all, I forgot how much power one man could have.

We stayed four night in the small box with many other people we had never seen. Most of them were shouting cruel words at each other or fighting over food that the men had thrown at us. Joseph and I were never that hungry though. We mainly spent our nights holding onto each other like we had many times before. On the fourth night, Joseph held me tighter than he usually did. It’s almost like he knew it was the last time we’d see each other.
The men came back for us. They could’ve just left us alone in that car to die together, but instead they separated us. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes when they pulled him away from me. I never thought I’d miss looking into someone’s eyes.

Once they separated us, the men guided us toward a large cement building and ordered us to take showers. Afterwards, one of the men handed me a uniform with upside-down pink triangle on it. It was almost an exact replica of Joseph’s tattoo. I finally understood. This pink triangle was my name tag. All I was to those men was a man who loved another man.They didn’t understand that I was just like them.

After I changed into this costume, I saw other men. They were dressed like me, but their nametags weren’t the same as mine. Some of them had stars while others had triangles of different colors-some were red and some were blue. I recognized the star. Joseph had one in his home. I wondered if he had the star on his uniform. Maybe he had the triangle like me. Maybe he had both.

The next day, the men guided us to a field. Here we worked, the others who were also wearing costumes along with me. We did this for a long time. We didn’t get many breaks. Sometimes the men would give us bread and some soup, but most times I wasn’t hungry. All I ever thought about was Joseph. I couldn’t imagine what he was doing. I didn’t even know if he was still alive. I hoped for a day when I’d see him again.

Years swam by. I made friends. I watched many of them die. I didn’t stay in that cement building for long either. Soon enough, new men came for us. These were good men, though. They didn’t hurt me. They brought me back to France. I went back to my hometown, but my home was no longer where it once stood. I searched for Joseph for many years, but I never found him. His home soon became mine. I waited for him to come back. Life for others was once restored, but not mine. I had nothing left.

Chapter Six

“I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth. Then I ask myself the same question.” -Harun Yahya

It is currently 1981. I still live alone in Joseph’s home, hoping that he will soon find his way back to me. After all these years, I still remember his long, blonde hair and all those hopeful nights we had shared alone behind a wall in my old home. But most of all, I still remember the way he kissed me that one night and the love we had shared with each other.

I wonder if I’ll ever love a man the way I did Joseph.

I hope not.