“Send my best to your family.”
“Same to you, comrade.”
I’m watching their timid conversation bounce back and forth like a ping-pong ball. Both front doors open and the officers step outside, the driver saluting the passenger as he opens my door and reaches in to pull me out.
With unnecessary vigor, the officer yanks me toward the other car, opens the back door and shoves me inside leaving me with rattling windows as he paces around the front of the vehicle. I reach for the door handle, the cold metal making me hesitate. These soldiers are ruthless, heartless, and don’t care if someone lives or dies.
But how can I sit here and allow him to take me away? My entire life has been one internal battle of knowing when I should fight and when I should concede. Which would be worse now?
The other officer is still sitting his car just a few footsteps away. I don’t stand a chance at making a run for it. Not here. But Stefan needs me. Yet, I can’t help him if I’m dead.
My cheeks burn with anger as the officer slides into the driver’s seat and ignites the engine. Still no explanation of what he wants with me. No inclination of where we’re going or why. Just silence and more stale cigar stench wafts through the enclosed air.
Hours seem to vanish between the village like roads and an endless one that bleeds into a horizon surrounded by acres of snow-covered fields. Every second takes me farther away from Stefan.
“My pregnant wife requires your skills.” His words are stark, overpowering the frost crackling along the windows. “You’ll ensure she has a healthy delivery.”
This man thinks that because he’s taken me against my will, claimed me as his wife’s personal midwife, I will do everything in my power to save his wife and child during labor and delivery. The last thing this world needs is more heirs to the Nazi throne.
“There are no guarantees in midwifery.” My statement can be heard as a threat or a dose of reality, but I’m not sure any Nazi can think with logic.
“You must be confused.” The officer snickers. “If my wife or child dies, so do you.” His hands grip the steering wheel, tighter and tighter, his flesh slick and sticky against the plastic, knuckles becoming white.
His statement steals the air from my lungs, leaving me lightheaded as my focus clings to the speeding blur outside the window.
The endless road becomes a bridge—a bridge with a barricading gate and a German sign reading “Restricted Access.”
My knuckles ache as I clutch the fabric of my dress in each hand, my pulse hammering as I come to realize I’m crossing into a location where no one will be able to find me. Smokestacks poke above the trees, and the hearty hum of a steam engine drills into my veins. The officer pulls up to the blocked barricade and cranks his window. A rush of cold air infiltrates the car along with a mixture of mine and soot. The train in the distance screams with panic and alarm.
“Heil Hitler,” the guard shouts, saluting the officer.
The window closes and the guard pushes against the metal gate, allowing us through.
The quiet returns along with the racket of my pounding heart. Where are we? What is this place?
The passing roads appear abandoned. Heaps of metal junk are piled among dead trees and blackened snow.
Windows are boarded on many homes along with clotheslines drooping with icicle laden clothes.
Then we turn onto a street, stark in comparison to the wasteland with pastel façades, snow covered hedges bordering several large houses.
When the car stops along the curb in front of a peach-colored house, the front door flies open and two young children wave from the threshold. It’s as if they don’t know what their father does for a living—that he captures innocent people and threatens their lives for his own benefit. That very door those children stand in front of is the entrance to my imprisonment.
TWENTY-NINE
STEFAN
BIRKENAU (AUSCHWITZ II)
Present Day: April 30, 1944
Injection. Black out. Blur.
Screams and cries. Whimpers and moans.
Repeat.
Until now. Something is different—my mind is clearer or remaining open for more than a few seconds. This time, I’m awake.
