“Hunger doesn’t pick and choose. You’re no better equipped to fight it than I am, and unlike you, I don’t have a child who needs her mother.”

At this, she drew an unsteady breath and broke an icicle from a birch limb. “I have a far better chance of getting back to her than you do. You know that. And I’ll be damned if I let you die after surviving that hell.”

I was silent for a moment, letting my irritation go. “You said we’d both get out of Auschwitz alive, remember? I have no intention of losing now.”

This time when I offered her the bread she accepted it. After swallowing, she looked at the corpse, and the color drained from her face. I pulled her along, cursing my own stupidity. Why hadn’t I made her walk away first?

Keep the bread down, Irena, please keep it down.

She did with great difficulty.

We pressed on. Our search for food was futile, so we ate snow and various roots. The frigid air ached as it touched my lungs and enveloped me in its frozen embrace, tighter and more painful with every step, sucking what little energy I had left from my body. We wouldn’t survive the night in this forest.

Daylight was almost gone when the trees started to thin. I prayed it meant we were nearing the edge of the woods, so we kept walking until a welcome sight confirmed my hopes. Before us, a quaint farmhouse sat on an open stretch of land. Wisps of smoke rose from its chimney, and an elderly man—the farmer—emerged from the barn, wielding an ax. He spent a few minutes chopping the pile of logs gathered beside the barn until an elderly woman called to him from the house.

Their voices carried across the field and reached my ears. German. I noticed the flag billowing on a pole near the house, and I didn’t need daylight to recognize the white circle, black swastika, and red background.

“Dammit, they’re Volksdeutsche. Why couldn’t we have found a nice Polish couple?” Irena muttered, then she laughed. “Well, I suppose we can knock on the door and ask for a bed instead of sneaking into their barn.”

“I’m glad you’re thinking what I’m thinking.”

Irena looked from my sly smile to the farm and back, eyes wide. “I wasn’t serious.”

“You’re a camp guard, remember? A guard would demand a place to stay, and since they’re Volksdeutsche, they’ll be happy to oblige. We’ll be warm and have a proper meal.”

“Doesn’t dining with the enemy sound wonderful?”