Page 1 of The Lost Husband

ONE

CURRENT DAY – JANUARY 26, 1945

Auschwitz, Oswiecim, Poland

I wake with my mouth open, throat drier than old newspaper.

The stained cellar ceiling hangs low over me. The air tastes like mold and something sour. A soft groan murmurs nearby, or it could be me. I grip the cold metal frame of my cot as chills writhe through my veins, slow and venomous.

I’m not dead.

But I should be after purging my insides from dysentery over the last two weeks.

My stomach pinches tight, muscles contracting hard enough to fold me in half. Pain crashes in like a wave, recedes, and swells again.

An unexpected weight falls against my chest. A frail arm, clad in faded blue-and-white stripes, the bone thinner than a broomstick.

The air is thick and suffocating in the damp cellar, lit only by a few hanging bulbs that struggle to offer a dim yellow blur. The SS have entombed us down here, the sick prisoners beneath Auschwitz. We’re too far below the surface for even a hint ofsunlight to reach us—deeper than a coffin’s reach. Even the screams above seem distant now.

“If they continue burning the place down, they’ll burn us down with it,” an older man shouts from the far wall. He sounds as if he’s swallowed a rusty nail. “That’s why the Nazis didn’t care about leaving us behind. Soon, there won’t be any evidence or people to find if the Allies come looking in this abandoned encampment.”

The war is ending. It must be. How could it not be after four-and-a-half years? The rumors circulating down here in the infirmary all say the Allies are closing in from the east, and the German SS are fleeing before they arrive, but not without destroying whatever is possible on the way out. Auschwitz is being demolished by the same people who built it.

Since the SS moved all the sick prisoners down here from the sick bay two days ago, before they fled, there’s been a near-constant rumble from above, the ceiling shaking so hard, plaster crashing to the ground—or on top of us. It sounded like a battle was taking place just above our heads.

Until today.

The rumbling stopped, and it’s the first time there’s been stillness since we were sent down here.

“I don’t know if anyone’s left to continue the demolition. That’s why it’s so quiet,” a younger man, a few cots down from me, garbles with a wet cough. “The SS left with the groups they were marching to another location. Not one of them in sight when I sneaked outside yesterday.”

“The SS aren’t all gone,” the older man replies. He points toward the cement stairwell, his finger trembling. “This morning, I saw a few by the main gates with their dogs. They’re making sure the rest of us don’t get out.”

I have seen some of the ill prisoners come and go from this cellar these last couple of days, sneaking out for fresh air beforereturning. If the older man is correct, the SS still posted at the main gates would prevent anyone from leaving the camp. I don’t know why anyone would choose to come back down here though. There’s nowhere else to go, I’m sure.

Regardless, we’re waiting down here to die, either by sickness, starvation, or when the remaining SS decide to destroy this building with us inside.

I twist my head to the side, staring at the middle-aged woman on the cot next to me. The one whose arm has fallen across me. For hours, she has been crying out for her beloved to save her—rescue her—while reaching for something I can’t see. Her hand lifts, fingers clawing at the air, then falls.

She’s quiet now. Her eyes are closed.

I take her slim wrist into my hand and slide her arm from my chest onto hers. It’s ice-cold and heavy, resting on her chest—a chest no longer rising and falling with breath.

“I think you’ve been rescued,” I whisper to her. “May your memory be a blessing.”

When no one is speaking or speculating about what’s happening above, the silence grows louder than the coughs, moans, and snores. The walls seem to narrow around me, threatening to swallow me whole.

I don’t want to wait down here to die. Not if there’s even the slightest chance I might get out of here alive. With a pause in the rumbling, now’s the time to try.

I shift my legs off the cot, waiting for the room to still. Hunger and illness have hollowed me out to a point where I can’t see straight anymore. I need to push through it. The dirt floor wobbles, the rows of cots sway, but I convince myself that I can stay upright. I lower my bare feet into the dirt and rubble, testing my weight before releasing my hold along the cot’s metal frame.

Everything I’ve grown accustomed to in Auschwitz over the last fifteen months dictates I should expect a shout, a beating,or a baton strike for being out of order, but there are no kapos or guards down here to stop me now, as the others have proven. But whether the SS have all gone or not, leaving this cellar without restriction feels dangerous.

So does dying without a fight.

I move along the narrow cement path, stepping around bodies who couldn’t find a cot, or didn’t have the strength to look. The air thins around me as I push myself toward the stairs—closer to the exit. Each step, a fiery burn within my legs.

The stairwell heads steeply upward, and the damp stone wall is grimy against my palms, leaving my fingertips to do all the work. I cling to the grooves, fighting to pull myself up.