My tour with Jakub was several hours before Rosie’s arrival. I rented a heavy, battered city bike for the ride, chipped blue paint and egregiously chunky. When I biked up a hill—thankfully, there weren’t many—it was like heaving the steel frame on my back. To distract myself, I scrolled through Rosie’s recent texts: Eat that Polish butter hard, sweetcakes; Damn those dumplings look like your ass; Need you here so bad. Frumpy bald walkers overtook me on both sides.

Jakub was already waiting. He was thicker today in his red puffer jacket. All shiny and flexible, he jiggled on his heels. What would I do with that much energy? I’d savor every second. “You’ve come! Beautiful. Welcome to Płaszów.”

I ripped off my mask, ashamed for him to think I disparaged the air of his country, even though, under the cotton, my chin and upper lip already sprouted sweat-induced blackheads. He was right about the camp: green fields stretched in every direction, pedestrians leashed to standardly unfriendly Polish dogs, bikes bumping over grass, old couples dressed as though for a living history museum, promenading in silence, the men a few steps ahead. Sun touched every example of Saturday afternoon Polish stoicism. Jakub took off at a clip.

“There’s the Gray House,” he said, pointing to an institutional building, the hue of dirty snow. “Prisoners were tortured in that basement. These weeds used to be a fire-prevention pond. Allianz made camps like this one dig them to meet insurance standards.” He let the statement hang over the bank of phragmites. The name of the modern insurance agency was so wrong in the context of the Holocaust. I touched the fragile stem of a weed, which felt like any plant.

“Life expectancy was three months for those digging the ponds,” said Jakub. “All filled in now. Be mindful of some certain holes. Ah, here’s one. Remnant of the sewage system. And there, the latrine.” He indicated a dent in the grass. “Orphans hid here when the children and elderly were killed, come along!” He threw his hands above his head and flitted away. I hesitated at the hole, picturing the cliff jumper crammed down there, all baby face and immature heart.

“Can you imagine these fields of bunkhouses? People made brushes here! Everyone had to make a certain number of brushes per day. A lot of brushes, I know, I don’t have the number, but picture, please, if you will, some entire mound of brushes. Even a young boy had to make brushes, like thirteen years of age. And one day a particular boy couldn’t make enough brushes, and an old man made his brushes for him—can you imagine? Only in a place of death and horror, only in a time of entire deprivation, can Poles come together to help make brushes.”

“That’s too bad.” I’d never been on such a jaunty Holocaust tour.