The question sounded so impassive. I blinked and cleared my throat.

“Um, no, but her fever is worse. I’ve brought the last two pills, so make sure she takes them. Here, this will help until the Red Army arrives.”

I offered him my bundle. Wrapped inside a blanket, I’d stashed the additional organized goods Hania and I had saved: food, the pills, socks, mittens, soap, an extra toothbrush, a small bowl, a broken comb, matches, cigarettes, and coal. Izaak accepted it with a terse nod.

Mumbling a farewell, I returned to my block before my absence was noticed. Huddled on our bunk, Hania looked smaller and weaker than ever. I climbed in next to her and wrapped my arm across her midsection and watched the fluttering rise and fall of her chest. My only reassurance that she was alive.

Outside, a hum of voices indicated the SS guards had started to gather, and when I glanced out the window I saw that the sky threatened snow. It was almost time.

I flipped onto my stomach and rose on my forearms so I could look at her face. “Listen to me, Bubbe,” I whispered. “I have to leave, but Izaak will take care of you. You’re going to live, and we’re going to meet in Warsaw and find your children. Jakub and Adam need you. And so do I. Stay alive, Hania, do you understand? Stay alive.”

Her eyes remained closed, brow creased, lips cracked and dry, but as I tucked the blanket around her frail body I prayed some part of her heard me. I kissed her burning forehead, studded with beads of sweat even in this frigid block, and brushed away one of my tears that had fallen onto her cheek.

Then the shouts started, the shouts that had greeted me upon arriving at Auschwitz, the shouts I’d heard every day since. Raus, schnell! I didn’t obey.

Countless innocents would never escape this terrible place. One whose limp represented a bravery and compassion I’d dreamt of emulating, another whose fervent spirit had ignited my own. One whose curiosity had been as boundless and unrestrained as her golden curls, another whose youthful exuberance had found constant joy even in simplicity. One whose selfless nature had brought me out of suffocating darkness. Here, before me, one fighting against the poisonous clutches of sickness and death, left with the promise of a liberation that could come too late. What right did I have to leave when so many had been denied the chance?

I barely felt the club or heard the voice ordering me to move. I’d delayed as long as I could. Releasing Hania and climbing down from my bunk was one of the hardest things I’d ever done.