“I’m so glad that you and Eloise are all right. I know your work with the underground put you in terrible danger. You’re so thin, Ans.”

“I spent time in Vught Prison. I was delivering ration books and was arrested for breaking curfew. But it’s all in the past now. The war is over and all is well.”

“Professor Huizenga looked so different. I hardly knew him.”

“He suffered terribly in the Amersfoort prison camp. His brother was executed. They paid a huge price for the work they did at the bank, but they saved thousands of lives.”

“I can never repay you for helping us or your parents for hiding Elisheva. So many good, kind people risked their lives for us. I would like to find out about the sisters who owned the last house where I hid. The Nazis arrested them along with me, but we were separated when I was sent to Westerbork.”

“Oh, Miriam! You were in that horrible place?”

“My violin saved me. I played in the camp orchestra, so I was exempt from the transports. Otherwise . . . I heard about the concentration camps . . .”

“And now we have a chance to start all over again.”

“I know that I’ll never have the life I grew up with in Cologne or even the one I had in Leiden with Abba and Avi. My future is going to look very different from what I imagined.”

“That’s true for all of us, I think.” The train was moving too slowly, starting and stopping so many times that Miriam wanted to scream. She needed to keep talking or she would go crazy.

“You had a boyfriend . . . will you marry him now?” she asked Ans.

“I broke up with Erik. I couldn’t accept what he did, helping the Nazis, joining the Nazi Party. Professor Huizenga says that all of the NSB members are being captured and sent to Westerbork. I suppose that means Erik, too.”

“I don’t wish that place on anyone.”

“The professor said he hopes there will be justice, not revenge.”

“I know that evil people exist in this world, but there are good ones, too. Whatever happens . . . if Elisheva and I are the only ones who’ve survived, I want to raise her to be one of the good ones.”

They arrived at another station and waited to transfer to a different train. After an eternity, they arrived in the small village near Ans’s farm. She and Miriam were both too weary to walk the final miles, so Miriam waited some more while Ans begged a ride from someone she knew in town.