Page 32 of The Lost Husband

From: Celina Felsheim of Amsterdam, NL

“There’s a bulletin board over there where you can pin messages to be delivered to loved ones,” I tell Avi.

She peers at the board then back down to her tin of broth. “You should get some bread and broth before they run out.”

“Avi,” I say, taking her elbow and ushering her away from the other two. “Were your parents with you in Auschwitz?”

Avi releases a held breath, and her knuckles whiten around the tin can. “My mother held my hand at selection as they sent my sister away. She squeezed once.” Her words are monotone, but her gaze falls to her broth. “That was her goodbye as she followed the same path as my sister. I was sent in the other direction. I shouldn’t have let go of her.”

“Avi, I…” My heart aches for her, the pain etched across her face.

She loosens her grip and clears her throat. “It wasn’t long before I learned what happens when you go looking for what’s missing.” She pauses through a dry sniffle. “Sometimes you find something you wish you hadn’t.”

I reply silently, with a nod.

Her confession…it doesn’t scare me. It reins me in, slows me down, makes me realize I’m in a rush to find what I may not survive seeing.

Behind us, the radio crackles. People crowd around, grim desperation lining their faces. The static quivers in volume then cracks into silence.

…All Red Army units in route…

…All are moving northwest along rail lines…

…Prisoners of war secured…

I step toward the crowd leaning in around the radio, watching the old man from the medical table adjust the dials. A squeal breaks into fractured static again before clicking into silence. It’s about the group of Soviets and Germans we came upon—the one we’ve been following this whole time.

…German force in custody for imminent interrogation…

…identity acquisition underway…

… necessary executions, cleared…

…train transport from Gliwice to follow…

“Gliwice,” Avi mutters. “That’s a long way to keep moving.”

The words rain around me like small falling bombs. It means the Soviets will have to stop somewhere to question them.Whether they walked through the night or not, they are stopping somewhere between here and Gliwice, which means I’ll have time to catch up. I need to see that man before he’s transported…or executed. Yet, all I can think about is Avi’s last words to me. “When you go looking for what’s missing, sometimes you find something you wish you hadn’t.”

The radio sizzles again, smothering the voice just before the crackle returns. Then…silence exhales along with every held breath.

I don’t know what scares me more now…what I heard, or what I didn’t. There was no mention of where the German prisoners would be taken from Gliwice, and no timeline—as if a place and time won’t matter to where they’re going.

FOURTEEN

CURRENT DAY

Kopciowice, Poland

Within the thin walls of the farmhouse, we stuff straw into old flour sacks, then collect tattered army blankets with holes worn through the corners, which become our beds for the night.

The front door creaks open again. More blue-striped uniforms funnel in, shoes thudding, voices raw and gritty from the cold and hunger. The air thickens with the smell of more damp wool, sweat, and old smoke that sticks to every surface. The pot of broth scrapes empty, and hands reach for crumbs of bread that aren’t there. In a corner, a woman licks the wooden ladle, her knuckles white, eyes closed.

The four of us huddle in a corner, our shoulders pressed together, each blanket overlapping. The straw pokes through the flour sacks and scrapes against my palms. For a moment it feels normal, or too familiar. A sensation I thought I left behind in Auschwitz.

“Go, find space or sleep on the floor,” the kapo welcomes me into the barrack after being freshly registered and branded. There’s no space between the wooden walls of this horse-stable-like-building. Three to four women share each bunk slot on all three tiers that stretch from one end of the barrack to the other, and then another mirroring it across the way. Every woman is sleeping on their side, pinched like sardines.

The dark makes it hard to see bodies on the floor, but it doesn’t take long to trip over them. A spot to the side of the long trowel sink lining the center of the barrack seems free. I fold into the ground and curl up in my coat, then pinch my nose to block out the reek of manure.