Oskar didn’t look at me, but he nodded. “Your siblings first, one right after the other. It was quick; they didn’t suffer.” The words were apologetic, as if they were meant to be a small comfort. He cleared his throat and removed the SS cap from his head, but I already suspected what happened next.

“Fritzsch waited before killing my parents, didn’t he?”

Oskar’s head dipped into a small nod.

Of course he’d waited. He wouldn’t have missed his chance to torment two parents with their children’s lifeless bodies.

“Your mother fell to her knees beside the children,” Oskar continued, suddenly absorbed in the Totenkopf emblem on his cap. “I thought she was going to faint, but she stayed there, silent, staring at their faces. Your father took her by the hand and pulled her into his arms for a moment. Then they turned to face Fritzsch.”

Mama and Tata had comforted Zofia and Karol in the only ways they could, and they somehow managed to keep them calm until it was over. And, when it was time for my parents to face the same fate, they did so with courage and dignity. It was all they could do.

“Your father was next,” Oskar said. “When he fell, your mother flinched, but she didn’t waver beyond that. She knelt and kissed his cheek, then kissed each child’s before guiding them into her lap, taking your father’s hand, and facing Fritzsch. She held that bastard’s gaze until the end.”

In the silence that followed Oskar’s words, I heard the wind howling outside, and through the small window I saw the snow steadily falling. A damp chill filled the room, and I shivered, but I wasn’t sure whether it was from cold, anger, sorrow, or all three. My parents watched their children die. My mother watched her husband die. All because of Fritzsch.

I hope you managed to find them.

His voice echoed in my head, his mention of my family during our chess game. This couldn’t have been what he was implying. He couldn’t have known the family he shot was mine. Perhaps he guessed they’d been murdered, so his words were meant only to remind me of this fact. He didn’t know he was the one who had murdered them.

But the look in his eyes had revealed something deeper.

What if he knew? What if he knew everything?

I traced my cigarette-burn scars.

Mama. Tata. Zofia. Karol.

When I managed to find my voice, it was hardly audible. “You saw me that day, didn’t you? How long had they been gone?”

Again, Oskar didn’t meet my gaze. “Minutes.”

Minutes. I’d missed my family by minutes. Their final moments, my chance to save them, join them, say goodbye, whatever could’ve happened had I arrived in time, I’d missed it by minutes.