The smell of smoke had begun to seep into the room. Bridgette went to a window to look out again at the bundles and boxes of papers the prisoners threw into the fires with the systematic rhythm of a water brigade. Through the haze she could read the large print on some of the boxes: DACHAU, RAVENSBRÜCK, AUSCHWITZ…My God! she thought. The Germans were destroying the files of victims they’d deported to the concentration camps!

“What’s that smell?” Nicoline asked nervously.

“Come look,” Bridgette said.

Nicoline peered out. Her room was not on the side of the house with a view of the courtyard. “Sainte Mère de Dieu! What are they doing?”

“The Germans are burning evidence of their atrocities in the camp before it’s liberated.”

Nicoline stared at her. “Liberated?”

“I think the camp’s liberation is near, Nicoline, and those monsters know it,” Bridgette said, trying not to get excited. “Madame’s hasty departure and that scene out there prove it. The commandant and his officers want no records left of the crimes committed here that they can be held accountable for.”

“But, Bernadette, in the meantime, what will they do with us, the inmates?” A new fright in her eyes, she gasped, “Aren’t we evidence as well of their crimes? Will they line us up and shoot us, so we can’t bear witness against them?”