“I was at work and Ed asked me if Danner was living with us. I never told him his real name, but he suddenly knew it wasn’t Albert like I had said, and he was sure about it. I’m not sure how he and the mutual person we know put these facts together. I didn’t answer because he had a weird look in his eyes. But my silence must have been enough of an answer because he shook his head and said I should go home and figure out how to fix my living situation before it’s too late. The man who was at that party—the one who went to school with us, is the son of an SS officer who’s looking to fill a quota of removing Jews from Munich by the end of the week.”
Though garbled and hysterical, I understand every one of Felix’s words. I need to leave their house. I can’t put them in danger for my sake. It doesn’t sound like Felix knows when someone will come looking here for me.I can’t get back to Mama and David in Poland, and Germany has been removing all the Jews for the last few months so there’s nowhere good to go here.
“I haven’t the faintest idea of what we’re going to do,” Frau Weber says. “When will they be here?” Her voice trails off, making me assume she’s moving around or pacing.
“You need to let me out. I’m leaving. I won’t do this to your family,” I shout from inside the hole.
“No, please no,” Frau Weber cries out.
“I’ll push over the bookcase if you don’t let me out.”
Never have I threatened a person, but I won’t jeopardize their safety. No one responds, which means I must make a show of my word. I lurch my shoulder against the wall panel, using all my weight to move the hearty bookshelf. It begins to skate across the wooden floor, one small shift at a time until the bookshelf pulls away from the wall.I tumble out of the hole, catching myself with my palms against the floor. My nose hovers over the wood grains that I’ve never seen up so close before and when I push against my hands to pull my knees beneath me, I spot a pair of shiny boots close enough to catch the reflection of my startled wide eyes.
Felix and Frau Weber are nowhere in sight. It’s me, an SS officer and a couple of guards I spot outside the open front door. “A stray Jew,” he says, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
“Alesky is the name I’ve been given—son of Abraham Alesky. I assume you’ve been looking for your dear old vater, ja?”
I refuse to speak, give him an answer or anything he might want because he won’t do me any favors.
The officer shoves the toe of his boot into my side, knocking me off my hands and knees. “He’s dead.”
The anger writhing through me sparks every nerve in my body and I pull myself up to my feet ready to knock this bloodsucker to the ground. He’s lying. He doesn’t know where Papa is. No one does. That’s what they told me at city hall. It was stupid of me to keep checking for his whereabouts. No oneunrelated would care so much and despite using a false name, the wallpaper lining these walls has more knowledge about this city than I do.
The other two guards join the fight. Except there isn’t a fight. I’m defenseless against them and their armor-clad uniforms. I’ve never so much as hurt a fly, but I’m in the hands of the soulless now.
I fear the worst as I face the harsh light of day, the sun blinds me even after only being in the dark for a short amount of time. I don’t see Felix or Frau Weber anywhere and I’m not sure what they’ve done with them. I pray they’ve spared them.
The hands gripping my arms shove me into the back of a metal truck, cloaking me in the dark just like the hiding hole in Felix’s house.
He’s not dead. Papa cannot be dead. They will say anything to infuriate us before locking us up—they were the sick children who taunted stray dogs then caged them before poking at them with a stick. That’s who these boys have become—sick men with the idea of torture as a form of entertainment.
The truck moves along the bumpy road, and I slide around without anything to grip onto like a rubber ball, side to side until I hit a padded corner—a body that doesn’t budge against the shock of my weight slamming into theirs. I shake the torso, unable to see anything within the opaque space, but my hand meets the cool fabric unaffected by the heat trapped within the truck’s containment.
My body trembles beyond my control and I try to push myself away from the limp person I’m against, unsure if there are more at this end of the truck.
Please, God, don’t let me die like this here. Please. I have more life to live. I’ll do better. I’ll do more.
I don’t know where they’re taking me, but at best it will be one of the labor camps, where they have taken so many others.No one knows much about what happens at those camps, but it’s become clear no one returns to where they came from.
The rocks from beneath the truck ping against the undercarriage and echo harshly from every side of me. I’m cold and hot, sweating, and shivering, nauseous and scared to get sick. After a whiff of what I imagine to be a combination of death and body odor, I try to breathe only through my mouth, but maybe it’s a smell I should get used to.
There were days I thought I would outsmart this war and outrun the Nazis. There’s no hope for me now. I’ve been a fool to think otherwise.
ELEVEN
DANNER
MAY 1942
Dachau, Germany
The rear of the truck I’ve been bouncing around in opens, allowing in an abundance of sunlight, blinding me to my surroundings. After learning Papa had been arrested, I wanted to convince myself that he’d been taken to a common prison for criminals, but no one would truly believe that these days. Even Felix’s house overflows with gossip and stories about the aforementioned concentration camps, places of internment for not only political opponents but Jewish people too. We don’t know much about what happens at these locations because no one seems to return from them. That fact should have spoken for itself.
A Gestapo pulls me from the back of the truck and my feet hardly graze the ground before I’m being dragged toward a group of men. Most of them have a suitcase of belongings. I have nothing except for what’s in my pockets.
SS guards stand before a tall metal iron gate, shouting at us to get into a single line. The others forming the line in front of and behind me appear bewildered, unknowing, and lost. No onecan see much of what exists on the other side of the foreboding gates.
Minutes pass, standing here in the unnatural heat coming from a combination of crammed bodies, steam from the train, and smog settling beneath sun. I’ve gotten used to the missing scent of flowers, but the ash, smoke, and the sweet odor of something rotting is an unwelcome replacement. What would happen if I moved a foot forward— if I tried to run from the line, or collapsed in the act of falling faint? The guards don’t try hard to conceal the weapons accessorizing their uniforms so I imagine I would be shot. The guards don’t choose to fight. They choose to kill. We’ve been trained to know this and never question anything different.
