“Well, if I’m calling you Maria, you can call me Oskar,” he said. “Tell me about your family.”

“My father was tall, and he had light brown hair and a crippled leg, and my mother and siblings were blond. They spoke perfect German. Zofia was nine, and she was the only one with curly hair, and Karol was four. My parents were Aleksander and Natalia, and the surname was Florkowski. Like I said, it was May of 1941, and I saw you near the courtyard when I found them, so I was hoping you’d seen something.”

He stayed silent, his expression unreadable; then he nodded. “There was a family around that time which matched your description. They stood out to me because they were together in the men’s washroom, and I’d never seen females there. Someone said the woman had asked if they could stay together. Her husband couldn’t walk on his own.”

I blinked to clear my blurry vision. Of course my parents had found a way to ensure they stayed together.

“Fritzsch came into the washroom, but he didn’t look surprised to see the woman and children there. Maybe he was the one who permitted them to stay together, I’m not sure. Once they’d undressed, he was eyeing the woman—” Oskar broke off, cheeks flushed, and cleared his throat. “I happened to be standing close to the family, and I was intrigued by them. The woman—Natalia, was it? She saw Fritzsch looking at her—”

“You’re certain it was Fritzsch? And you’re certain he saw my family?”

Oskar nodded. “He spoke to them.” He opened his mouth again, then closed it. “Do you want to hear this?”

I nodded. “Please keep going.”

“Tell me if you want to stop,” he replied. “After Fritzsch went back into the hall, Natalia spoke to her husband, then she went after him. Like I said, I was intrigued, so I followed at a distance. I didn’t hear their whole conversation, but I heard the last thing Fritzsch said before—”

“What did he say?”

Oskar’s face fell. His chair groaned in protest as he shifted position, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “I’d rather not repeat it.”

“What did Fritzsch say to her?” I asked with as much force as I could muster. “Tell me his exact words.”

Oskar took a deep breath and ran his thumb across a nick in the table. “He smiled, then he said, ‘I’m not doing a damn thing for your children, you filthy Polack bitch.’”

The words hung heavy between us, and I bit my bottom lip until I tasted blood. I was certain my parents had realized what fate awaited them, and their first thoughts would have been how to spare their children. They would have agreed that Mama should talk to Fritzsch, though Tata would have hated for her to put herself through that. They had to die knowing they’d done everything they could. Mama would have offered Fritzsch anything, anything at all, to spare her children’s lives. Not her own, not even Tata’s. Just her children’s.