She and the other Jewish women waited as the others, the ones with numbers, were organized into work kommandos for the day. She waited patiently, hoping they would not have to walk too far. Hoping the blister on her heel wouldn’t burst.

Their guard, the same awful woman who persisted in calling them zeros, was in a good mood; that was enough to set Nina’s nerves on edge.

“Today you go to via Pacinotti,” the woman said, and her smile was feral in its intensity.

Nina chanced a glance at the other prisoners surrounding her, but no one seemed to know what the guard meant. Perhaps it was a road they were going to repair? Or the address of a building they were meant to clean?

She joined the queue that was forming. It was far larger today, at least a hundred strong, and it included dozens of women she’d never seen before. Some were still dressed in civilian clothes; some were elderly and had been absent from the work kommandos.

None of the women had numbers.

They marched out of the camp and along a bridge, and after they’d been under way for ten minutes or so they came around a corner, to the edge of an open swath of scrubland, and though they weren’t anywhere close to the Bolzano station, a train was waiting.

It was made up of boxcars, their doors drawn wide, and the men guarding it, the same men who were now coming forward to surround the women, wore the black-and-gray uniforms of the SS.

It was too late to run. Too late to hide.

The women at the front of the queue began to protest, to shy away, and to scream. She did, too, but it was no use. A heartbeat later she was at the foot of the ramp that led to the last of the boxcars. It was full already, but still she was pushed up and along by cruel, mauling hands, and with one last shove she was inside. The door swept shut behind her with a stomach-turning clang.

There were dozens of women in the boxcar, so many that it was impossible to lie down or even to sit. The train lurched forward, startling her. An older woman, her back bent by age, clutched at Nina’s arm, and together they managed to keep their balance.

“I beg your pardon,” Nina said, amazed at how she could remember her manners in the midst of such horror.

“It’s not your fault, my dear.” The woman smiled tremulously and then, her touch ever so gentle, patted Nina’s arm. “Do you think you might be able to see outside?”

“I’ll try.”