“Well, this isn’t what I expected upon coming home from my night shift at the hospital. And finding my father holding you at gunpoint isn’t how I envisioned introducing you to my parents, Irena,” Franz said, his wide grin bringing dimples to his cheeks.

“You’re certain this is the same girl you met, Franz?” Herr Meinhart asked. “And you’re certain she’s not a Nazi?”

“Completely.”

“You didn’t see what we saw last night,” Frau Meinhart said. “I don’t trust her.”

Franz sighed. “For God’s sake, Mutti, if she’d behaved in a way that made you trust her, she wouldn’t have been a very convincing Nazi, would she?”

Frau Meinhart seemed unsettled by this logic. She didn’t protest, but she didn’t look convinced, either, and neither did her husband. Even though his gun was lowered, he hadn’t relaxed his arm, and he hadn’t returned Irena’s pistol.

I stepped forward. “I understand how this looks, but it’s true. No one has sacrificed more for me than Irena has.”

Silence followed. Herr and Frau Meinhart exchanged glances. At last he allowed Irena to stand, though he stayed between her and Franz. He handed her the pistol, and she reluctantly accepted it.

With a satisfied nod, Franz addressed Irena. “How did you get here?”

When she acknowledged him, an unspoken accusation resided within her steely gaze—but, if I knew Irena, it wouldn’t remain unspoken for long. “You’re a damn Volksdeutsch? All three of you are registered, aren’t you?”

He clenched his jaw while a flicker of guilt and disgust crossed his face. “Our choices were to acknowledge our German ethnicity or be branded traitors and persecuted.”

“And you’d rather be branded traitors by the Polish untermenschen instead of the Nazis.”

“If that’s how I felt, would I have spent most of the war helping the German and Polish resistance organizations? Neither I nor my parents wanted to sign the Deutsche Volksliste, but church and resistance leaders said to do it for our safety.”

“Well, thank God you could hide behind your heritage,” Irena said with a scathing laugh. “Others weren’t so damn fortunate.”

A thick silence followed her words. I sensed all eyes on me. None lingered, but I felt like I was in the middle of a selection. Their scrutiny was suffocating, and I could hear the SS doctors ordering me to turn, lift my arms, open my mouth—

“Maria, we’re leaving.”

The gruff voices faded, the clothes returned to my body, a bit of anxiety vanished. I’d been spared. This time.

Irena marched past Franz without looking at him, but she didn’t wait for me to follow before slamming the door behind her.

* * *