‘My love. So are you! Reading is in itself an act of resistance.’
She nodded, understanding. ‘So why are you telling me this now?’
‘I want there to be no secrets between us. And besides, it might come in handy.’
It was then that Dorotha noticed he had a bag over his shoulder and was hurriedly pulling sheafs of notepads out of it.
‘Today is Monday 31 July 1944. I’ve edited my last post for theChronicle. After this morning’s speech, it’s now time to safeguard its contents. I’ve been hiding different editions around the ghetto.’
He tucked the file under the crate.
‘We’ve all been in a state of powerlessness in this waiting room of death,’ he murmured, touching the notebooks lovingly one last time. ‘Writing, and observing, like reading, reminds us that we are alive. Bearing witness is our last chance of establishing a link to the outside world.’
His eyes burnt fiercely in the gloom as he touched her hand. ‘Maybe it’s human nature to want the future world to remember us, to know that we existed.’
‘And to connect to our suffering,’ Dorotha concluded.
‘Precisely, my love.’
He pressed his lips against hers so softly, she wondered if she had imagined it.
‘But also, our hopes and our dreams. That we weren’t just nameless prisoners. We dared to fight back.’ He took her hands in his. ‘Last night my sister came to me in my dreams. She told me that I would never find another woman like you, with your capacity for love.’
In the darkness she saw a flash of gold. Oscar was holding a ring with a beautiful emerald at its centre.
‘Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’
‘The ring,’ she breathed. ‘Where did it come from?’
‘My sister gave it to me shortly before the GreatSperrefor safekeeping. Told me she had a premonition of her death and said she wanted me to have it. Of course, I didn’t believe her. I should have. So now, when she comes to me in my dreams, I listen.’
Tears filled Dorotha’s eyes as the enormity of what he was asking her sank in.
Did she love this man? Undoubtedly. Would she say yes to his proposal even if they had a guaranteed lifetime stretched ahead?
‘So...?’ he pressed. ‘If you say yes, you give me the greatest gift of all. Hope.’
‘But surely we should marry for love, not just for hope on the eve of our destruction?’
He laughed. ‘Dorotha, I could not possibly love you more than I do now.’
Why was she overthinking this? There was every chance she would not be alive next week. She nodded and choked on the burst of a laugh.
‘It was also my dream that I’d be proposed to in a library,’ she said. ‘I just didn’t imagine it would be a library like this.’
‘Is that a yes?’ he asked, and she nodded, tears trickling down her hollow cheeks.
Carefully he slid the ring onto her finger and they leaned into one another’s embrace. She felt his ribs under his flesh and the hardthump thumpof his heart.
The irony of her predicament was not lost on her. Somehow, in this monstrous machinery of death, she had a child to care for and now a fiancé. Who would ever have believed it? There was so much to live for. And yet, so little time. Standing in their precarious little library, she visualised the books as a shield. If only they could stay here for ever, they might just hold back the war. And perhaps, Dorotha thought, were it not for Gabriele and her dear friends, that is precisely what she would have suggested to Oscar.
Three days later, the situation was critical. Doors to the ghetto workshops and factorieshad been nailed shut in an effort to force prisoners to present themselves at the assembly points for deportation. Hospitals and food distribution points were closed. No more bread or food of any kind was being brought into the ghetto. Now the lines gathered not at the food distribution points, but at Radegast train station in the northern quarter.
The first transport left on 3 August. The Germans were demanding 5,000 persons a day report at the station for deportation.
All over the ghetto, people forced their raw and ulcerated feet into wooden clogs and old boots and began the dreadful trek. Great columns of people tramped northwards towards thestation, with shabby bundles on their backs, precious soup bowls and pots tied around their waists. Trembling, damaged bodies dragged themselves to destinations unknown, one thought circling around and around.
Were they really going to Germany to work?
