On Cemetery Day 2025, on September 14, Anna Thalbach read texts that had been selected by the jury of the short story competition. One of these texts was Marlen Wagner’s piece, which we would now like to publish in full on our website.

I had a dream by Marlen Wagner

The night of June 21, 2025, will remain forever in the memory of humankind. In that shortest night, which followed the longest day of the year, something monstrous occurred. And I was a witness.

At last I had fulfilled a long-cherished dream: to spend this special night outdoors. I had sat by fires and listened to people’s conversations, had for a short time been part of a community that welcomed me, the stranger, on that night. I had bound herbs and flowers into a wreath and, after a very brief stay upon my head, entrusted it to the little river. Now I stood on the small bridge over the Panke and watched as it drifted away in the moonlight. The fires had burned down; singly, in pairs, or in small groups, people were making their way out of the park. Some nodded to me as they crossed the bridge on which I still lingered. I too wanted to go home, blinked sleepily back at them—and yet I hesitated to finally set out. A hesitation that did not only slow my steps, as I suddenly realized. Those who had just brushed my shoulder kindly in passing came to a halt, stood still. Soon we were standing shoulder to shoulder on the small bridge, waiting. A deep stillness had fallen; the singing had ceased and even the fire crackled only inaudibly. No bird of the night raised its voice; dogs lay at their people’s feet, ears pricked. The leaves on the branches no longer rustled and the mild night breeze died away. Profound silence settled over trees, animals, and people—something was holding its breath and preparing itself. It should have been frightening, yet in no one’s eyes did I see fear. Tension, anticipation—but no fear.

And then we saw it. Coming. From the direction of the cemetery something moved toward us, passing over us with a sigh from many invisible throats. It had no fixed contours, and yet we discerned figures in the mass above us. Translucent, human. The current drifted toward the southeast. We watched it pass and heard a whisper: “Never again.” And sometimes, “Never again is now.” From all the grassy areas of the park flower stalks burst forth with force. Large red blossoms opened in the yellowish light of the luminous apparitions. When the last whisper had faded, when the final apparition could no longer be made out in the night sky above us, they withdrew again beneath the green grass into the earth. We emerged from our paralysis and went home—still silent and so cautious, as though the world might shatter beneath a loud step.

At home I did not turn on the light; the moonlight was enough to find my way. To find my way, I thought mockingly—that was not so easy. The world had held its breath. I went into the study, opened the windows wide, and listened. Sounds mingled with the silence, very faint, yet audible. The stillness of the night had returned. I booted up the computer, switched on the internet.

Gradually reports appeared, and all of them described what I too, what we too, had experienced.

In all countries, ash clouds rose from the sites of the former extermination camps and their surrounding fields, forming those translucent figures that we had also seen. Shapes also rose from the mass graves of the world wars and the endless soldiers’ cemeteries. There were very small clouds as well—like those we had seen that night over Pankow. And everywhere people heard this sighing, this whispering. The apparitions bore no insignia, no stars; their clothing was the smoke, the ash, vaguely shaped by the wind that carried them. That carried them onward toward Gethsemane, Gat Shmanim, the garden at whose edge stands the Basilica of the Agony.

The clouds of these shadowy figures moved toward that land, sweeping over it like the seven plagues over Egypt. The Angel of History accompanied them. Torn free from the storm of progress, he moved his wings freely, his eyes grim. No longer was he damned merely to watch.

Millions of apparitions—and they swept away the mass murderers, the war criminals, the forgetful of history, the fanatics, and those without doubt. Almost soundlessly, relentlessly.

The Sabbath was over, the work done in the pale light of the new day. The clouds turned back, dissolved over the cemeteries, the fields, the sites from which they had come—with a final glow in the morning red of the new day. The Angel of History, however, remained, called others to his side. And together they taught the people of two nations to shape a shared future.

From my window I too saw a distant bright glow, there where the cemetery lies.

I woke up and I wept—I had had a dream.