Killing Questions

Bertram was a German boy who was born in 1927, specifically in Berlin. He was half American as his father was born in Massachussets, in the northwest of the United States. This has always been a taboo in his family. His mother side was really conservative and agreed with some of the ideas of the raising ultra-conservative party. So, when she announced she was going to marry an American guy, the news were not welcomed by his family. But she never cared. She did not seemed to care until her baby boy was born. He got that american look since he was a blond, blue-eyed boy, just like a typical american farmer. Maybe that is why his mother has always been less affective with him. But, in fact, that american look has always been perfect to called him "the perfect German boy". But he has always being bullied thanks to his American side. In school he always was the "American faggot", the "American asshole", the "American fool". And it seemed that "American" was even more pejorative and hurtful than the other insults. But hes has always been over this. He never thought this was something he should be ashamed of, despite his mother's efforts to achieve it. So, Bertram was a boy who was always sympathetic with injustices since he had suffered them his entire life. It is hard to imagine something more hurtful than being almost ignored by your own family. But he was always over this- he continously made an effort to keep thinking this. As he was growing up over the years, he became more aware of the tremendous injustices the Nazi goberment were carrying out. Thanks to his mother's family traditional membership to the Nazi party, soldiers never took his father to some concentration camp, as Dachau or Auschwitz. His grandfather had many conversations with the most powerful and influential men of those years to please his daughter's requests- it was clear his grandfather did not do it to save his father´s life. Those years were really strange, full of fear, suspicion and instability because you could be taken by soldiers in any moment and with no explanation. There were public murders in streets and kidnappings all over the city. In a cloudy day of 1943, Bertram was going back home from school, when he found a group of soldiers punching one of his neighbours, an old lady who always seemed really nice to him. He run to help the old lady and ask the soldiers why they were doing such an outrageous crime. With no answer, they shoot him in the stomach. He fall down and while he was knocked down on the floor, he looked at the old lady, and she said: Thank you. Nobody had ever told him something like that. Something with such affection.  It was in that moment, in that last second of his life, when he felt full of love for once.