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Kaden frowned. “Wait. Isn’t that?”
“Where Lawson’s body was found? Yep.”
His eyes widened. “Wow.” Running a hand through his thick blond hair, he exhaled. “So...”
“So, there’s no way all this was a coincidence. The very day we go to look for the safety deposit box key GG wrote to me about, he beat us to it. Then we find out he went to the town Lawson was murdered at the day before?” She pursed her lips. “No way. Too much of a coincidence.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking my grandfather is following GG’s trail, whether through letters of his own or something else. I also think there’s something in Newberry. And we’re going to find out what it is.”
DECEMBER 18, 1943
I feel my time here coming to an end. Not because we will be liberated. I hold no such hope. For believing in freedom has become a thing of the past. A thing of fairytales. One cannot hold on to such dreams in this wretched place and survive. Instead, you are forced to think of only the day. Only the hour. For our lives are now counted in minutes, in breaths. That is how little time any of us have left at any given moment.
No, I fear I will not be here much longer because I
find myself weakening on every level, my will to survive fading with every passing hour. Today, I stand aside the throng of Jews—my people—as they stand before Dr. Mengele, awaiting the selection. As I watch, I know I will soon be responsible for stripping the newcomers of their valuables and clothes, then waiting as they are killed before I can resume my job of burning their bodies.
They called them to line-up, and the familiar process of the selection begins. They purge the newcomers first, then move on to the others. They strip them before they are forced to run, while Dr. Mengele, with his clipboard, decides their fate based on several factors which come down to an assessment of “health”.
I can no longer smell my body odor nor that of those around me. My filth no longer appalls or shames me as it did when we first arrived. I wait as one man fails while another survives to live another day in this wretched place. My nerves strike discordant notes inside my body, and I watch as a man I recognize struggles to remain on his feet before he is even called.
Kuni, a boy I know from my cattle car journey here, prods him on, pulling his arm, calling him ‘Papa’, inconspicuously trying to prop him up. The scene makes me think of my own father, and I wonder if he had survived the initial culling if we’d be in their position today. If I’d be struggling to keep both of us alive, instead of only myself. The thought forms a weight in my chest, not only because I miss my father but because I realize the burden of having to care for another in here would be nearly impossible.
It is Kuni’s turn, and he takes off, pumping his arms and legs. To avoid selection, you must out-do yourself, find your will to live from deep within. You must run as fast and as hard as you can. You must set aside your body, your hunger, your thoughts, and practically fly past the officers. And that is what Kuni does.
He is directed to the throng of men who passed, when his father falls to the floor with a thud. His emaciated form lies prone on the floor. The one guard, The Butcher, hollers for him to get to his feet and run, but it is everything he has to simply stand on wobbling legs.
Kuni watches on, fear in his eyes. His gaze darts to me, and I note something in them, something wild and fierce, and I shake my head no at him as the officer approaches his father, screaming at the old man to run. When he barely moves, The Butcher punches him in the side of the face. His body curls in on itself until he kicks him bloody before pulling out a pistol and shooting him in the head.
Kuni, red-faced and hands fisting into balls of fury, runs full bore. Like a freight train, he crashes into The Butcher. Until the day I die, I will remember and appreciate the look of shock on his face as the boy lunged at him. This one startled expression gives me hope.
Taken off-guard, The Butcher struggles for his pistol but not before Kuni somehow manages to grab a dagger off the officer’s belt. In one swift motion, so fast no one can react, much less The Butcher, he raises his hand, blade poised above him, and brings it down onto the officer, missing his head but catching his neck just as the officer raises his pistol and fires, sending a bullet into the boy’s skull. Kuni slumps to the ground in death, his blade missing The Butcher’s throat by inches.
Numb to violence, the commotion didn’t horrify me. If anything, it impressed me that Kuni had somehow remained victorious, even in death. Because he had left his mark. The Butcher of Auschwitz deserved a scar as monstrous as his soul.
The guard spit on the boy’s corpse with his hand over his own throat while blood pumped through his fingers.
I did not scream or cry or even blink. Such things got you noticed, beat, or shot. Instead, I thought of the rumblings through the Sonderkommando. The ones that had started these past months. Talk of an uprising, and I thought, maybe... Maybe there was hope yet. Maybe I could escape.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Night fell around her. Mosquitos drifted in the balmy air, out in full force. Abby swatted one on her forearm, as she glanced at the darkening sky, devoid of the light of the moon with the thickening of clouds.
It felt like rain, an explanation for the absence of the near-constant sound of crickets and chirpers at dusk. She only hoped the weather held until they made it to her car.
She watched from behind the large oak in Kaden’s backyard as he slid his long legs out his bedroom window first, followed by the rest of his body, and landed to the ground with more ease than Abby could’ve managed. Wiping his hands on the seat of his pants, he closed the window, then turned.
His gaze skimmed the yard around him and to the back of the house before he closed the distance between himself and Abigail.
“Are you sure you wanna do this?” she whispered.
He nodded, the tight set of his mouth and determined gleam in his eye confirming his answer. “Yeah. We’ve been waiting all week. Let’s go before my dad catches me. If he does, I’m so dead.”
Without another word, they took off, jogging through the adjoining neighbors’ backyards until they reached the end of his street where she left her car. After lunch the other day, they had hatched a plan. Among the information in Lawson’s file was his address and next of kin. Apparently, he had a daughter that had lived with him. They agreed Friday they’d pay her a visit. If anyone had information that could help them, Abby was willing to bet it was her.
Abby paused, catching her breath. “I don’t want to get you in trouble or anything.”
