PROLOGUE
JULY 1944
My sister’s hand is clenching mine, our arms dangling behind our backs as if we’re breaking a rule of affection. Maybe we are. Her hand is warm and damp like mine. We’re both squeezing so hard, her nails are pinching my skin and mine are pressing into hers. This will be the third time we’ve moved to a new location since arriving in Auschwitz. We’ve gone from one barren building, a place to wait, to a hospital for observation, and now it appears we’re entering a different hospital—a dismal building, robbed of daylight. Each transition feels like we’re turning the corner in a dark maze and there is no hint as to who is waiting for us or what they will need from us next.
Though the insides of each building are slightly different, each façade is the same: corroding brick edifices with dark windows, some with boards to prevent anyone from seeing inside or outside. The entryway door to this one is made from steel and sounds like crashing cymbals each time it opens and closes.
The interior walls are light green, and the floors are made of grimy brown tiles. From a distance, each adjacent corridor in here appears the same, but from our experience in the last hospital, each room has a different purpose—some where inmates are killed, others to perform operations in front of an audience, ones for experimentation, and then those intended for observation. The pungent odor of formaldehyde and sulfur fill the air, forcing me to take breaths only when necessary. The taste of rotten eggs on my tongue is a side effect from the smell, one I wish I could ignore.
We’re in a line with two dozen other sets of twins, following the man in charge. One child whispered that some refer to him as the Angel of Death—I’m not sure what that means, but I’d rather not know.
The farther we shuffle into the desolate halls, melodies of haunting cries, groans, and feral screams bleed toward us. My chest aches—an instinctual reaction, one I have been trying to shut off since the day we stepped out of the dark cattle car.
“New guinea pigs,” someone says from the distance. His German accent is sharp, and a sinister laugh follows the statement—an SS guard enjoying his powerful role of authority.
I would like to take my sister’s hand and run for our lives, but there is no way to escape, and we’ve already seen what happens to those who try. One blast, one bullet, another life gone.
We pass an open door and I tell myself to keep my gaze set on the girl’s hunched spine in front of me, but my curiosity is like a magnet and the scene, metal.
My stomach lurches and I feel the need to swallow against it, keeping myself from becoming ill. I close my eyes, trying to unsee the horror, but it’s too late.
A ragged, sputtering breath steals my attention. My sister was born with the same inquisitiveness as me, and now we both know the truth about this building.
This may be our last stop.
ONE
ARINA
MAY 1946
Thick, milky-white paint coats each nut, bolt, and imperfection along the gritty walls and ceiling, encasing the congested ship cabin I share with three others. The space holds four walnut brown beds stacked two to a side, framing a wall mounted porcelain sink with a metal shelf above to hold our small belongings. A thin deco-patterned carpet of red and brown hues covers what must be more steel beneath us. The only way out of the cabin is through a narrow door that some must have to shimmy through sideways to make their way down the corridor between more identical cabins. I’m well acquainted with the lifestyle of a lower-class citizen, so I shouldn’t have much reason to complain, but I’m tired of being treated as steerage.
The communal area and mess hall here on the lower deck are just as unappealing, from the overcrowding to the stale warm air reeking of smoky fish. Then the insistent cries of babies bounce and echo off each wall around us, offering a constant murmur of white noise all day and night.
For the time I’ve been aboard the ship, I’ve chosen to stay put on my bed for as many waking hours as possible. If only I could sleep the days away, time might move faster.
“It shouldn’t be much longer now,” the girl on the bunk above mine says. She’s done enough talking for the four of us. “I just know the United States is going to be everything I ever imagined it to be. Don’t you agree?”
For the three and a half days I’ve been on this ship after departing from Poland, I have been listening to the girl blab about everything and nothing. Yet, I still don’t know her name and I doubt the three of them know me as Arina. I’ve been nothing more than a number for the last year though, so I’m okay with remaining anonymous.
The other two girls have said little. None of us knew each other before being assigned to this cabin, but we all seem to be around the same age—sixteen or seventeen, and they are also traveling alone, without their families. I could assume they have lived a similar life to mine, but I hope for their sake they can’t imagine such horrors.
“It will not differ much from the hole we were living in,” another girl says. She’s on the bottom bunk on the other side of the sink that separates the two bedding columns. “I don’t mean to burst your bubble, Sylvia, but I’m sure the scenery will be no better, and the rules will be stricter.”
The two girls must know each other seeing as they exchanged similar banter yesterday, but at least now I know the chirpy girl’s name.
“Goodness, you shouldn’t be so blue,” Sylvia lilts, her voice clashing against the twang of mattress coils. I used to be like Sylvia—the girl who tried to bring happiness and laughter to everyone, no matter the situation. Now, I’m more like my twin sister, Nora, who is—was—the quieter one of us two. “Besides, the war is over, and a new life awaits us. We should be grateful.”
“Enough,” the third girl on the top bunk parallel to me says. “This is hard enough as it is. No one needs to be arguing. We’re all orphans, are we not?”
“Yes,” I respond, listening for the other three to reply. They do, one at a time, like the dribble of water droplets from a leaky faucet, with a resounding yes.
I wonder if the other three girls will end up at the same location as me, or if we’ll separate upon our arrival in New York.
A dizzy spell from the subtle swaying of the current pulls me down against the green woolen bed cover. I roll onto my side, facing more white painted metal, and rest my arm over my pillow. It doesn’t take long before my gaze falls to my brittle flesh and the dark pink scars left behind from the last year. The doctor said I have bad veins. I wanted to respond to the blood thief by telling him it’s better than having bad blood because that’s all he has in his body. I’m still left wondering how an army of people can wake up one day and decide to hate everyone who doesn’t mirror their blonde hair and blue eye genetic profile. There are cruel human beings who won’t accept anyone different from themselves. From the first minute I had to face this inhumane cruelty, I knew I was standing in the center of a collapsing world.
Two Years Earlier
Debrecen, Hungary, March 1944