Chapter 19
NINETEEN
CURRENT DAY
Che?m ?l?ski, Poland
More than an hour has passed since I was left in this windowless cement room. The tin cup of broth has grown cold between my palms.
Across the room, a man with a scar sliced through his eyebrow has been watching me since I arrived.
The others glance at me infrequently and whisper among themselves. I wonder if there are other spaces in this building holding people—if that’s where Avi and Elias are waiting.
“Where have you come from?” the man with the scarred brow finally speaks and steps in closer to me before squatting to my level.
His hair is dirty, wet from oil and grease, stiff and dark. His facial hair looks to be a week old, and he’s covered in a chalky black substance, making the whites of his eyes so bright they glow beneath these warm lights. He looks older than Papa, but perhaps not by much.
I’m not sure how old Papa would even look now. I haven’t seen him in four years. Neither he nor Mama would recognize me. I’m not sure I would recognize them either if they’re even still alive.
“Auschwitz,” I say quietly, my words directed to the staring man.
He nods, but it’s such a slight movement I might be imagining it. “What did they do to you there?” His voice is phlegmy as if he hasn’t spoken out loud in days.
The question is so large and heavy, my mouth opens but words don’t come to me right away.
“Dehumanized us. Made us prefer death over life,” I begin.
His eyes are wide, waiting for what I’ll say next.
“It started with my name—they replaced it with a number. Then they took my clothes, the few belongings I had on me, even my hair.”
“Your hair?” he interrupts, touching his own as if questioning how a person could take that from another.
“To prevent the spread of lice.” The man scratches his head, something I forced myself to stop doing when I began leaving cuts along my scalp.
“Where’d you sleep?”
“In a barrack with wooden bunks. Three to five women in a space that should fit one person.”
“How long—”
“Fifteen months for me.”
The man lowers his voice, making our conversation more private. “That’s a long time to live like that.” The lines on his forehead deepen and his stare drops to the inside of my exposed arm—the ink-laced blood—my identification cheapened to numbers.
“Most didn’t survive that long. Being capable of work meant they kept us, but most died from typhus, hunger, cold, or heat.
Whoever couldn’t work, was… they sent them to their death.
Survival was based on luck. I’m just lucky,” I say bitterly.
And now a prisoner once again, but for Allies of the Dutch. Allies we should be able to depend on.
“The Soviets found you in Auschwitz, didn’t they?” he asks.
“Yes, but I don’t think intentionally. I could see the surprise on their faces. I don’t think they knew what to make of us.”
“I fought alongside them in the Great War. They operate with caution, calculation, and proof. Keeping us here isn’t a goal, just part of their system.”
“Why are you here?” I ask. He could have been grabbed along the way just like I had been. My uniform doesn’t mean much now. No one can be trusted.
“I volunteered to aid them however I could when they arrived at our village, but gaining their trust is a slow process.” He’s Polish.
His accent is thick. “I helped them sort the German collaborators when they first came through. You know—translation, identifying ranks, figuring out who served willingly, and who didn’t. ”
“What—what will they do with the prisoners?” I shouldn’t be asking questions.
“Interrogate them first,” he says. “Here, in this building.” He shifts his weight, leaning back against the wall.
“When they’re finished, they’ll move the SS west along the rail lines toward the coal loading site at the larch mills in Gliwice where they’ve been staging transports to German detention camps. ”
“How long until you think the trains will be working again?” I ask, careful to take breaths between words.
The man exhales. “The rail line took heavy damage during the German retreat. Men are repairing it now, but it’ll be a week-and-a-half or so before there’s any movement.”
Ten, eleven days. Or so.
“Don’t worry. They won’t keep them here,” he adds. “This is only a temporary holding. Nobody wants them in this country.”
“Right,” I say, trying to memorize everything he’s said.
The man reaches to my shoulder and squeezes gently.
“I’m sure you’re eager to get away from the SS even more than the rest of us.
And of course, find a way home. You’ll get there.
You will.” The man stares directly into my eyes as he leans in closer.
“You’ve been fighting a war you didn’t ask to be a part of.
You aren’t just a survivor. You’re a fighter.
” He presses his hand to the ground and pushes himself back up, groaning at his knees on the way.
At the door, the only way to enter or leave this holding space, he pounds his fist three times. “Privet! Izvinite!”
That isn’t Polish. He’s shouting in Russian.
The door opens and a Soviet soldier greets the man, a stern glimmer in his eyes. “Chto?”
“Otpustite devushku,” the man tells the soldier. “Prinesite yey yedu.” He points at me and shakes his head. I don’t know what either of them are saying, nor whether it’s good intention.
“Skoro,” the soldier says, pulling the door shut again.
The man nods at me. “What’s your name?”
I pause before responding again. “Celina.”
“I’m Igor. When the soldiers return and take you out of here, tell them Igor said to feed you if they don’t give you something more to eat.”
I scan the room again, wondering why he’s singled me out. All the people in here must be waiting for Soviets to clear their names for something. “Where will they take me?”
“A displacement shelter down the road. The Red Cross is moving quickly to put them in order. You’ll be better off there than near the prisoners on the other side of this wall.”
But what if they shouldn’t all be prisoners…?
“Could I ask you something?” He returns to the wall he was leaning on and rests his back, then raises his brows, waiting for me to continue.
“Do you think it’s possible that not all those prisoners are guilty of war crimes?
Perhaps, only wearing a uniform for a different reason?
” The Soviet soldiers barely gave me a chance to talk, never mind an explanation of what I was doing outside the building.
I doubt they’re listening to any of them, for good reason. But, what if…
“I wish I could give you a reason not to fear every one of them, but… while I’m sure many Germans exchanged their uniforms for other rags to disguise themselves, I’m not sure anyone would want to disguise themselves as a German soldier right now.”
He’s right. A German uniform could maybe have helped a daring Jewish prisoner escape from Auschwitz, but only before liberation.
And if the man who saved me was somehow my beloved Noah—if he had somehow survived and been taken to the camp—he would have tried to save me if he knew I was there too, and if he found me, he wouldn’t have left me.
But a true German guard wouldn’t have saved me that day. There’s no questioning that.
Am I just holding on to a prayer that my one true love somehow survived? Even knowing what I know. The odds are improbably stacked against me. At what point do I accept the truth and head home?
The door to the holding room opens again and a Soviet soldier I haven’t seen before points at me. “Come.”
I give Igor one last glance and mouth the words, “Thank you.” Though I’m not sure if I haven’t anything to be thankful for now, but I think he tried to help me. For that, I’m grateful.
The soldier leads me out the door and into the open space shared with the Germans in rows. The proximity comes with dread, colder air, and a stench of grease.
A door clangs shut somewhere beyond the rows of prisoners, and Russian voices clash with the German ones.
The soldier pivots sharply to his left and waits for me to join his side, keeping the distance between us and the prisoners.
We pass wooden tables covered with piles of paper, bottles of ink scattered about, some empty and spilling remnants onto the floor.
In the corner, two Soviet soldiers are in a quiet but obvious argument, one jabbing a finger against a short stack of papers.
The German prisoners stand before us, frailer than the way they looked yesterday. My stomach tenses, thinking this is how they viewed the Jewish prisoners up until just a few days ago. Except they were proud to see the result of their torment.
I still see humans. Suffering. No one should want to see such a thing.
“Petrov, Eedée syudá!” a Soviet soldier’s voice slices through the air.
“Chyo?” the soldier beside me mutters to himself before replying out loud. “Da?” He steps in front of me to engage in their conversation, leaving me and my wandering eye to scope out the prisoners.
I scan the rows of powerless men. Faces mottled blue with bruises, beards matted with dried blood and dirt. Insignia still decorates their filthy uniforms, and ropes bite into their dangling wrists.
I shouldn’t look. I shouldn’t be hoping. Not when I saw him lying dead in the street of Amsterdam.
Then my world stops.
Ten steps away. Maybe fifteen. Close enough to touch if I lunged for him.
His jaw—God, his jaw—swollen along the left side, purple and yellow splotches bleeding together. A cut splits his upper lip, and another along his eyebrow. His coat—someone else’s coat—hangs loosely over his shoulders, two sizes too large.
I shove my fists into my eyes, bile rising in my throat. The resemblance is—it’s torture. I force myself to look again. He lifts his head, and our eyes meet. His fingers twitch…one, two, three pops of his knuckles.
Noah. My Noah. Recognition hits like a blow. I nearly cry out. His eyes flash with the same frenzied knowledge, his face contorting with something feral and possessive.
And then…he erases me.
His gaze cuts through me. Past me. As if I’m no one.
Boots scrape the floor as a Russian guard steps closer to him, grabbing the rope at his wrists, yanking him forward. “Eyes down!”
My heart cracks, and my foot shifts toward him before I can stop myself. One small step.
“Nyet!” a voice barks from behind me, and I whip around at the sound. He nods toward the soldier with Noah. “Take that one to interrogation first.” My heart thrashes against my rib cage and I gasp for air, jumping backward.
Not him. Not first. No, no, no.
“Someone, take her out of here,” another soldier snaps.
“I—I… There’s been—you have the wrong man…” I blurt out, pointing toward the group of German prisoners.
He’s alive. Noah’s alive.
And I’m not leaving him here.
Papers shuffle. Soldiers laugh. And I risk one last desperate glance at Noah, ready to show them who he is…that he’s not who they think he is. He can’t be. I spot him for a brief second, but he doesn’t look at me again.
“Enough,” a soldier grunts, grabbing my arm. I stumble a step, my legs threatening to give out.
“Please, you must listen to me…” I beg, trying to pull my arm from the soldier’s hand, but he tightens his grip.
“I will only warn you once to shut up,” he spews, yanking me out of the building into a slap of cold air.
Tears fill my eyes as my heart quakes through my body, wanting to plead again, fearing what will happen if I open my mouth—fearing what will happen if I don’t. Another soldier stands guard at the back of a truck, his rifle pointed to the ground, but his finger on the trigger.
“Not another word,” the soldier mutters before tossing me into the truck.
Avi and Elias are already seated on the bench along the right. “Celina!” Avi cries.
I drop to my knees and turn around to pull myself back out of the truck just as the gate slams shut between us, separating me from Noah…again. “Please,” I whimper, the word becoming lost within the engine’s rumble.
“Are—are you all right?” Avi whispers.
I thrash my fist against the metal gate again and again before the truck jerks forward, slinging me backward.
“Celina,” Elias hisses. He leans forward and scrapes me up from the ground, pulling me up to the bench between him and Avi.
“What happened?” Avi presses again.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“We didn’t get far after they spotted you.
They separated us and asked us too many questions, repeatedly, before they brought each of us into a room with a bunch of Polish villagers who didn’t speak a word to us.
We asked where you were, but they wouldn’t tell us anything,” Elias says.
“They fed us, didn’t hurt us or anything. Same for you?”
I shake my head again, staring across the truck into the dark folds of the curved canopy top.