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“Where’s Edek?”asked Jan.
Walter stared at him, eyes blank.His lips opened, but he didn’t say anything.
Then Jan saw him.Edek was on the edge of the glow from the vehicles’ headlights.He held up his camera and snapped a shot of one of the victims.Then he moved onto the next.He was documenting the dead.Jan’s throat tightened.
“There he is,” he whispered.
Walter’s gaze followed Jan’s pointed finger.
They waited in the dark as the cold seeped into Jan’s joints.Edek moved down the line, taking photos, one by one.He took his time.And as he drew closer, Jan could see his face was expressionless.The Gestapo ignored him.
Once Edek had taken a victim’s photograph, the men in rags moved forward and took turns pushing the victims into the pit until they were puffing from the effort.Edek went through several rolls of film before he was finished.Then he ambled back across the darkened field as the group of thin men finished their work at the pit while the Gestapo watched on in amusement.
Jan and Walter hurried quietly back to their meeting place and caught up with Edek.The trio didn’t say a word, but trudged silently to the ghetto and through its gates.
Finally, Jan spoke up.“Why did you do that?”He wanted to scream, to cry, to hit Edek for what he’d done.A stone of emotion sat heavy in the base of his throat that he couldn’t swallow no matter how he tried.
Edek sighed.“I do this often.I don’t wish to do it, but I believe it is important to capture the faces of these people, my people.They make me document their victims so they can keep their meticulous records.But I do it so that one day the world will know what they have done, and who they are.And so we can all remember the lives they’ve snuffed out.Who will remember them if not us?”His voice trembled with emotion.
He stepped up to Jan and grabbed him by the shoulders.His gaze found Jan’s, and the intensity behind Edek’s eyes scared Jan into silence.“Who will remember them if not you?”
The next morning,Jan rose early and strode through a foggy dawn to the ghetto wall.He traversed it quickly and pulled on his armband as he ran along the empty streets.When he reached the corner where he and Edek had arranged to meet the previous evening, he found it deserted.
He shifted back and forth from his right foot to his left, blowing hard on his hands to warm them while he waited.The silent empty streets were eerie and he scanned them constantly, his ears pricked and nerves taut.
Footsteps hurried up the street behind him and he spun around to see Nathan striding towards him through the fog.
“Nathan, what are you doing here?”he asked.
Nathan hushed him with a hand to his mouth.“Our voices will carry this morning.”
Jan fell into step beside him as he continued walking.
“I came to tell you something,” said Nathan, his voice low.
His brown eyes found Jan’s and he stopped suddenly with a sigh.“Edek is gone.”
“What?”
“They took him this morning.There was a transport to Treblinka, and he was rounded up along with many others.I’m sorry.”
Jan shook his head.“We were supposed to meet.”
“I know.He told me.”
“Did he give you anything for me?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
They said their goodbyes, and Jan watched as Nathan jogged back in the direction of his family’s apartment.Anger surged up his spine and he blinked back hot tears.
Then he shoved his hands deep into his pockets, hunched his shoulders against the cold and walked home through the gloom as the city wakened around him.
