Dietger held up a hand to me to indicate I should stay on my front porch. Then he jogged quickly over to one of the cars at the curb. He spoke quietly with one of the men. Then his shoulders slumped as if he’d suddenly exhaled. The streetlight above his head brought the shock and the sadness on his face into sharp relief. A feeling of dread hit me so hard, my knees almost buckled.

I ran past Dietger. Past the Gestapo officers, who were sliding back into their black cars. I ran through Adele’s lobby and through the smashed interior door into her apartment.

I found her on the floor in her bedroom, lying on her back by the window. Had the Gestapo seen her collapse? Had they even tried to help her?

“Adele,” I choked out, dropping to my knees beside her. I took her shoulders in my hands and I shook her limp body. “Adele, please. Please wake up.” My breath caught on a sob. “Adele. Oma. I can’t do this without you.”

Should I call an ambulance? A doctor? Should I try to resuscitate her? I didn’t even know how to start, and besides…somewhere deep inside, I knew it was too late. Shaking her body only reminded me how frail she had become in recent times.

I brushed the wispy hair around her face back into place. I touched my shaking fingers to her cheeks and I let my tears rain down over her, anointing her body with my grief and love.

“Sofie?” Dietger was at the door, hovering and uncertain. “Is there someone I can call? Maybe Jürgen? Lydia?”

It took me a few seconds to compose myself enough to speak.

“Did they tell you what happened?”

“They said she’d already collapsed by the time they got inside.”

“And was her alleged crime punishable by death?” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.

“She was suspected of disloyalty to the Reich,” Dietger said, his expression hardening. “She would have been taken to a camp anyway.” He took a step back from the door, shaking his head sadly, then said, so quietly I had to strain to hear the words, “Perhaps this is a blessing.” His footsteps retreated.

I looked from Adele’s face, relaxed and peaceful in death, to her bed, and the photo of Alfred and her sons that she kept beside it. I started to cry again. I couldn’t stay with her body and leave my children alone in the house, but I couldn’t bear to leave it.