January, 1951

• Jeremy Suss, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2020

Five years, eight months and twenty days. It had been nearly six years since these very buildings that I now pass were once merely piles of rubble. The street that I find myself currently wandering through, littered with small craters from artillery. The bodies of axis and allied soldiers alike lay lifeless against the cathedral beside me, swept aside and forgotten. The people that I pass, hiding in bomb shelters, praying to their Gods and holding their loved ones as the ground shook from air raids. The Battle of Vienna pushed the German offensive back from the Austrian border, but what was the cost of the armed conflict?
Much of the city was destroyed by desperate shelling from both sides, innocent lives cut short. In the months following the end of the war, I joined a team of Viennese citizens with a collective goal of rebuilding the great capital, helping preserve the ravaged architecture. Now, in the new decade, I can gaze upon the glistening streets that I have known my entire life, and I can almost forget about what has happened since. Almost.
For the most part, life has gone on. People commute to work from the houses that I helped rebuild. Children once again play in the streets that I had paved, a sound that I hadn’t realised I’ve missed. The process was more successful than we could ever have hoped. Newly constructed chapels and synagogues that I designed now hold services, boats once again traverse the river, and opera houses resume productions. With all of these restorations, I often found myself feeling perturbed by just how quickly Vienna had moved on. It feels as if it has been just weeks since the sun was hidden by enormous pillars of smoke. Had it really been years since I was handed a rifle and ordered to shoot men that likely grew up just kilometres from where I did? Since I hid under the bridge that now loomed before me, tending to the wounds of my fellow troops as I myself feared that I would be next. And since the waters of the Danube carried thick sheets of ash throughout Austria.
Have people forgotten, and were those fateful days really so long ago? The dishevelled Vienna that I had helped cover up is still beneath our feet, and will forever remain a part of the city, but what happens when it becomes forgotten? Will the memories of those that I fought with wane? I can’t allow them to become one with those who too have been forgotten by time.