Dawn Redemption

Finn didn't have the energy to be overly surprised when he walked back to see that his apartment was almost unscathed.

There were too many things that happened. After listening to Abendroth's long-winded words, he recited what he said intact and went back to convey it.

After disbanding, I was already in a state of extreme exhaustion. I dragged my tired body upstairs, opened the door, saw the bed, almost collapsed on it, and passed out.After lying down for a few hours, I woke up again in a daze, forced myself to get up from the bed, took a shower to wash off all the dust and grit, changed my clothes, went back to bed and covered the quilt and continued to sleep.

He was still dazed when he woke up.I have been sitting in the office and my physical strength has declined. I don't know how long it will take to recover from yesterday's consumption.But he didn't even have one more minute to rest. He needed to rush to the security department building, wait for the arrangement from above, and then organize the members of the department.

I went downstairs to buy breakfast and ate it. Under the light during the day, the city that had been looted by an air raid revealed its true colors.More dilapidated, hollow, and desolate than what I saw last night.The shops full of fresh fruits of various colors, the brightly colored signboards deliberately attracting attention, and the gorgeous dresses on the girls in Fein's memories of the past have all faded like old old photos, leaving only gray and yellow .

Finn still walked along the familiar street, but it was different from usual except for the dilapidated background, Finn noticed that a large group of people gathered on the side of the street, as if they were queuing.Finn glanced at his watch. There was still time to spare. He leaned over and peeked in through the crowd.

There were two large tables joined together, and behind them stood a few familiar SS members whom Finn probably met while working.On the two large tables, there are piles of folded clothes, and those team members are distributing the clothes to the refugees.

In addition to the enormous damage caused by the bombing, the weather in November was almost deadly for the people whose homes were destroyed.They lined up nervously, and the crowded crowd almost occupied the entire street. From time to time, heads poked out of the queue to see how long it would take for them to arrive.The people who received the clothes were almost moved to tears, and some couldn't help bowing to the SS team members who distributed the clothes.

If you take a closer look, you will find that the clothes are not new, some coats have been frayed, some have been washed and faded, but in this situation, there is no room for people to pick and choose.

Finn sighed, and when he was about to leave, he suddenly saw the dress, and he froze in place for an instant and didn't move.

The jacket of that jacket was very common and common, and Fein had seen it worn by other people, but the Y·S letter embroidered with gold-yellow thread on the breast pocket was a unique personal symbol.

And these two letters were exactly what Fein saw at the time!Even the fact that the dividing point in the middle is specially embroidered into a small flower is exactly the same.

Fein seemed to have forgotten that he was still on the way to the assembly, turned around and walked towards the two tables, took a look and found the little boss among them: "Come here."

The little boss was stunned for a moment, but he still gave some instructions to his colleagues first, squeezed out from the crowd and stood aside with Finn.

"what happened?"

"Where did these clothes come from?"

The little boss felt that Finn was in a bad mood.He tried very hard to suppress it, but the trembling light in his eyes still revealed the uneasiness in his heart.He didn't know why Finn asked such a question, he hesitated for a moment, but he heard Finn ask again in a lower voice but more urgently and oppressively:

"Where did these clothes come from?"

Finn knew the answer he would get, but he still wanted to ask, and couldn't help but ask.

He once saw with his own eyes the person wearing this dress squeezed out of the stinking train carriage.Where he was, in Poland, in Auschwitz.

The little boss was a little flustered by his gaze, glanced at the people who were still queuing up to receive relief clothes, and replied honestly in a low voice: "These are recovered from the concentration camp."

really.Finn lifted his head and sighed softly.

Rules are crushed and order is poured down the drain.The whole world is thrown into chaos and all boundaries are blurred.It is not clear who is innocent, who is guilty, who is pitiful, and who should bear all the crimes.

The clenched fist was slowly loosened. At this time, Fein realized that his previous words and deeds were too violent, and said softly to the little boss: "It's okay, you can continue."

Regardless of the astonished eyes of the people behind him, Finn left quickly.Leaving the crowd, and walking alone on the empty street.

As he was walking, he realized that he had to rush to work, so he changed from pacing slowly to brisk walking, and then to running again, and finally arrived at the gate of the security department building within the stipulated time.

A lot of people had already gathered there, but Minister Kalten Bruner was still missing, and it was Abendroth who was in charge of convening everyone.Fein found several other section chiefs and deputy section chiefs who were also in the first bureau, and stood beside them after saying hello.

After waiting for a while to see that the people had almost arrived, Abendroth glanced at them before clearing his throat and said loudly: "Someone has already assessed that this building can be repaired and continue to be used. But we need to temporarily change the working location during this time." , the address is Kochstrasse not far away. Before moving there—”

He glanced around again, and his eyes were a little domineering, which was very unpleasant.

"Each department needs to sort out the important data files and store them there temporarily, and then move them back later. This is today's task."

A few hours later, Fein returned to the Security Department building after he and his colleagues carted common work supplies to the temporary office.

Fortunately, only one side collapsed, the stairs are still usable, and the personnel archives are relatively intact.Finn carefully walked up the messy stairs that were smashed by gravel. In the process, he complained in his heart that the higher-ups would not care about the possibility of a second collapse, and asked them to go inside the building for a long cleaning operation.

But this complaint stopped abruptly after he walked up the stairs, and Finn walked through the corridor to the door of the archives.The corridors were no longer clean and tidy, and the floor tiles seemed to be covered in a layer of dust.The door frame of the archive room was deformed, and the door was forced open.

He didn't need to participate in the tidying process, and he didn't even need to come back after moving the things in his office, but he came anyway, for some unknown reason.

The room was also full of rubble, the filing cabinets were crumbling, and the whole process of sorting was still very difficult.But Finn came just in time for lunch, and there were only a few people inside to tidy up, and it sounded like they were discussing about lunch.Seeing Finn standing at the door, they all stood up and saluted him.

Fein raised his hand in return: "Everyone has worked hard, you can go back to rest early if you finish early, and take this opportunity to refresh yourself."

After he finished speaking, seeing the excited expressions of the two subordinates, he felt extremely uncomfortable, as if someone had severely pinched the tip of his heart.They are happy, nothing more than what Fein said, they can get off work earlier than usual, they can go back earlier to accompany their girlfriends, or wives and children, and they can go into the kitchen to help their wives cook instead of letting her stay by their side. The delicious food on the table is waiting for me to get off work...

They seem to have recovered, or they have become numb, forgetting that they just came out of a tragic bombing yesterday, and there is only a thin line between life and death.In the unpredictable future, it is unknown how many times such disasters will be experienced.

"Sir?" One of them called Finn softly when he saw Finn was in a daze.Only then did Finn's gaze find focus, and he looked at the man.He scratched his head and said, "We want to have lunch first and then come back to clean up. We've been busy all morning."

Finn checked the time with a glance: "Of course, you guys go quickly."

Several people exchanged glances with each other, quickly put the documents in their hands back in place, stood up, patted the dust on their bodies, said goodbye to Finn one after another, and walked out of the file room.

"Aren't you going to eat?" The last person walking turned to Finn as if remembering something.

To be honest, Finn doesn't feel any hunger right now.To be precise, physically, the stomach may be empty and even protested, but there is no appetite at all, no desire to eat.He didn't want to show this feeling, but just said perfunctorily, "I'll go later, you guys go first."

After those people left, Finn walked slowly into the file room and walked around twice randomly.Now, this room is empty, only Finn, not so neat cabinets, and a huge amount of archives.The light was dim, and the sunlight streaming in through the askew window frames left a bright passage in the air.

Walking slowly among those tall cabinets, he had to look up to see the whole cabinet.He saw the number printed on the category label marking the year, and he couldn't help but follow the label slowly backwards.

1943, was the latest, then 1942...

1941.

Finn stood between the two cabinets, facing the door he had just entered, his face was slightly illuminated by the light outside, but any footsteps would definitely echo, and there was only silence in the corridor.

Perhaps it is precisely because of this that the words heard a long time ago suddenly came from a distant place, accompanied by the unique sound of water in my ears at that time.

"Until the year before last, my troops were organized into the Southern Army under the command of Marshal Rundstedt, and went east to implement the Barbarossa plan."

"I was wounded in the Kiev battle not long after."

"I was eager to go back to fight, but suddenly received an order from above, and I was transferred from the front line of the exchange of fire with the Soviet Union."

"My reply is that I am willing to obey the arrangement, but my physical condition will not allow me to retreat from the front line, so I apply to continue to lead my troops in combat..."

Finn hasn't heard Noah speak for so long, but he can still clearly remember his tone, intonation, and even the way he pronounced words.

Everything replayed in my mind, the fleet, the explosion, the broken streets, and the chaotic crowd.But Noah was always standing in front of him.

Suddenly Finn walked quickly to the cabinet marked "1941". Everything Noah said should have happened in that year!

It has long been heard that the empire secretly purges disloyal people, especially those officers at the top.And with the oppression of the general situation, I heard that under the high-intensity work pressure, that person also had some minor mental problems.

If such material is left behind, I don't know if it will become a stain.

But with so many cabinets and tens of thousands of personnel transfer documents in 1941, I don't know how long it will take to find which one of them!

Finn didn't dare to delay. The people who went out to eat earlier couldn't tell when they would come back, and there were always people in the file room, so he only had this chance.

With trembling fingers, he quickly opened one of the cabinets.He found that there were also sub-labels with the date of the month in the cabinet.Finn quickly closed this drawer, took two steps to the right and opened the other.In this way, the scope can be narrowed down. The battle started in July, which means that Noah's transfer must be after that!

Inside that drawer is August.Good, close.

Finn took a deep breath, lowered his head and flipped through it quickly, his nerves were highly tense, and his fingers twitched slightly while flipping the document rapidly.

This drawer was not there, and he hurriedly closed the drawer, which made a "clang" sound because of too much force, which echoed in the archives room.Finn didn't have time to worry about it, so he opened the next drawer and continued searching.

He knew it was there.

"What are you doing?"

He suddenly heard a cold voice behind him, but he couldn't stop his movements and continued like a habit.His body was out of control, starting from his fingertips, he suddenly lost temperature.The whole person seemed to have turned into a dead thing, leaving only the beating heart that almost rushed out of the body.