Once the little ones have set up the pieces, we begin. I allow Hania to act as coach—after all, it’s Irena’s first game. I might enjoy winning, but I enjoy a challenge even more. As my fingers navigate the familiar board, strategizing and planning and predicting her next play, I feel more like myself than I have since liberation. Most of all, I feel alive.

I’m alive. I’m safe. And I’m free.

The game I’ve played for so long still feels unfinished, but, when I learned to play chess, one of the best pieces of advice Tata gave me was to take my time. Consider each move, then make the play when the time is right. Finish the game, Maria. No matter how long it takes.

From terrible suffering and crippling loss rises a special kind of resilience, one unique to those who endure. Every tap of a chess piece against the board, every whisper and peal of laughter fills the room and sends a flicker of warmth into my chest. These are voices that evil attempted to silence, voices of bravery, kindness, strength, intelligence. Voices of resilience. Those ravished by hatred will be healed by love, and their courageous spirits and compassionate souls will lead them through the darkness to a life beyond.

Epilogue

Auschwitz, 12 October 1982

THIS PLACE. THE place I never thought I’d revisit.

We hadn’t returned to Europe since immigrating to New York a few months after the war ended. Together we had survived; together we would rebuild. Although the headaches and memories had become less frequent once I told my friends why I’d returned to Auschwitz after escaping, we didn’t speak of anything else that had happened during the war. We’d endured it once, and once was more than enough. But a few months ago, while planning the trip to Vatican City for Father Kolbe’s canonization, Hania suggested visiting Warsaw, too, and the little voice whispered that I needed to come back to this place. The loud voice protested, but I listened to the little whisper. I always do.

Light fog and misting rain settle over the early morning. It’s been thirty-seven years since I stood in this same spot, an eighteen-year-old girl, wounded and broken and desperate for justice, and forty-one years since I first stood here, a fourteen-year-old child who had no idea what horrors waited beyond the gate, the same gate staring at me in the distance.

ARBEIT MACHT FREI.