‘That’s right. So, you have read my notebook?’
‘Every single word,’ Joyce insisted.
Dorotha nodded approvingly, and felt a chink of light open up inside her as she thought of her beautiful, sensitive, storytelling girl. ‘Yes, that is the same Gabriele Kaminski.’
‘Wait.TheGabriele Kaminski, acclaimed, international bestselling author ofThe Lost Librarians? We stock her in my local library.’
‘Yes, we’re incredibly proud of her writing success. In many ways, her stories in the ghetto kept us all alive, and now, she makes a living from it.’
Joyce was staring at Dorotha in pure astonishment.
‘So, you saved a child’s life, and look at her now, an author and an educator. A woman of real power. You saved many people’s lives in a way through your library. What you did... Why, you’re a hero.’ Joyce’s speech was rushing now and Dorotha was shaking her head.
‘No... no... NO! ’ Her voice rose, shrill in the small room, and Oscar flinched.
‘Sorry but no,’ she went on, lowering her voice. ‘Please don’tevercall me that, Joyce. I don’t even feel deserving of the title survivor.’
‘But what happened to Ruth and her mother, it’s notyourfault,’ Joyce insisted. ‘It’s not your fault they were murdered.’
This confrontation with her past brought the tumultuous events of August 1944 vividly rushing back. The ultimate dilemma.Hide or go. The heat and fear shimmering through the ghetto streets. Ruth, her mother and Oscar trudging to the wagons.
‘We didn’t know where those transports were going,’ she acknowledged. ‘No one did. We’d been systematically starved, dehumanised and stripped of our dignity. The Nazis took the last thing we had left – our hope – and weaponised it against us.
‘But the fact remains, I’m only alive because I swapped places with a dear friend and she died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Can... can you imagine her last moments?’
Dorotha wondered if Joyce could see it... the trauma that circled her neck like an invisible noose. She touched the pale flesh on her throat and tried to slow down her breathing. ‘It’s impossible to describe how I felt when I was liberated.
‘I was very sick when Soviet soldiers found us in the library. I’d been shot, you see, and the bullet wound became infected. The infection turned to sepsis. They had to amputate from the knee down on my left leg to stop the infection spreading further.’ She ran a hand over the blanket covering her lap.
‘I was broken. Physically and mentally.’
She looked over at Oscar. ‘If it weren’t for that man and Gabriele, I’d be dead.’
Oscar nodded. ‘Trust me, Joyce. If I hadn’t found Dorotha and Gabriele alive when I was liberated, I’m not sure I’d have made it either. It was a desperate time for those of us who survived, you see.’
For a moment, Dorotha turned and locked eyes with Oscar, and a current of understanding and love passed through her.
‘It was months before I was discharged from hospital; so many months, in fact, I’m not even sure I was registered as a survivor.
‘Oscar found rooms in the displaced persons’ camp in Lódz and took over the care of Gabriele while we waited for news of our loved ones. He was helped by a dear friend of ours, Mrs Cohen, who’d gone into hiding with her son.’
‘Did anyone come back?’ Joyce asked quietly, and Dorotha shook her head.
‘Apart from my dear Oscar, no one. Gabriele’s parents. My parents. Mybubbeandzayde. Aunts, uncles, cousins, friends. Ruth and her mother. Oscar’s whole family. All murdered in the Shoah. Most people we knew were murdered in the ghettos and camps. Oscar only survived because he was sent from Auschwitz to work as slave labour in a camp in Bavaria called Kaufering.’
Oscar nodded. ‘From there, I was sent on a death march to Dachau, where I was liberated by American forces. If it hadn’t been for Dorotha and Gabriele, I would have given up all hope, believe me.’
Joyce leaned into Harry and closed her eyes.
‘Oh, Dorotha, I wish you’d reached out to us, instead of running. Youdidhave family. Adela... Well, it’s been complicated, but she needed her big sister.’
At the mention of her sister, Dorotha’s fingers started to tremble. They did that a lot.
‘I wanted to, Joyce, believe me. I wrote her letters, hundreds of them, but I could never send them.’
‘Why?’ Joyce implored, sitting forward in her seat. ‘Why hide here?’
‘Look at me! I didn’t want to burden her with this, looking after a sick, angry, broken woman. I honestly believed that if she thought I was dead, she’d have a better life with you.’
