“Don’t worry, you’re safe now,” Frau Meinhart said to me, still speaking Polish. Maybe she believed my native tongue would calm me. She consulted her husband and directed a murderous look toward Irena. “What are we going to do with her?”

“Exactly what needs to be done.” Herr Meinhart poked Irena with the rifle barrel. “Outside.”

“Listen, you stupid bastard, if you touch me with that gun again—”

I opened my mouth to protest, but before I could, Frau Meinhart shushed me and gave my back a comforting pat. “You poor girl. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, but you’re not in danger, do you understand? We won’t hurt you, and she’ll never hurt you again.”

“Hurt her?” Irena asked with a scoff. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, so take your hands off her before I take them off myself.”

I made another attempt to reason with them, but it was no use. My words were lost in the uproar of arguing voices. Amid the shouts, the front door swung open, ushering in a burst of cold air. Everyone fell silent, and a young man stepped across the threshold. He didn’t bother to take in the scene before him as he shook snow off his belongings, hung his hat and overcoat on the hat stand, and voiced an absentminded query.

“Why the hell is everyone yelling?”

At the sound of his voice, Irena leaned forward to get a better look. “Franz?”

The young man lifted his head, and he scrutinized her as he crossed the room. “Irena? Is that you?”

Herr Meinhart placed a hand on Franz’s chest, stopping him before he got too close. “You know this Nazi bitch?”

“Tell these morons I’m not a Nazi.”

“Right. Irena, meet these morons, Hermann and Margrit Meinhart,” Franz said, as his amused smile blossomed in full. “My parents.”

Her cheeks turned bright red, and she ran a flustered hand through her hair. “Good Lord,” she muttered.

“Papa, Mutti, allow me to introduce this Nazi bitch, Irena, who isn’t a Nazi bitch at all. She went undercover to help a friend escape from Auschwitz. She contacted the German resistance for help to infiltrate the SS-Helferin, and I was her primary connection while I was spending more time in Berlin helping Elsa—my sister, heavily involved in the German resistance alongside her husband,” he supplied for me. “We prepared Irena, then she entered the SS-Helferin training base north of Berlin near a village called Ravensbrück, home to a women’s concentration camp of the same name. And this—” Franz paused as he looked at me again. “I assume she’s the friend.”

Irena nodded. “This is Maria.”

The five of us stood in silence, though Franz seemed thoroughly entertained. At last Herr Meinhart lowered his rifle while Frau Meinhart released me. Still, none of us moved.