“I want to play with my toy soldiers when we get home, Tata,” he said.

“Will your soldiers defeat the Nazis?”

“They always do,” Karol said with a grin. “Can we go home now?”

“Soon,” Tata replied. “Soon.” But he exchanged a glance with Mama, the same one they’d started giving each other when the Nazis invaded. The one filled with doubt.

I wondered how much they resented me. They didn’t act like it, but they must have—if not for themselves, then for Zofia and Karol. My actions had gotten two innocent children sent to prison. We’d been held only a few days, but my parents’ soft yet emphatic sighs, their futile comforts and encouragements, my sister’s bored complaints and brother’s hungry cries, all reminded me that I was responsible for our misery.

As Karol clambered onto Tata’s lap, a new sound caught my attention. Footsteps.

My parents reached for each other—a small, simple gesture, but they made it as one. Moving at the same time, the same speed, perfectly in sync. Two halves of a whole. Their hands touched for a moment before they looked at me. I wished they hadn’t, because upon seeing the look in their eyes I hugged my knees tighter.

Mama sent Zofia and Karol to the far side of the bed, as if the rusty metal frame could protect them, while Tata stood. When he put too much weight on his bad leg, he winced and pressed his palm against the wall to stabilize himself. It was all he could do without his cane. Silence filled the tiny space while the booted footsteps drew nearer, then our cell door creaked open and revealed two guards. One pointed at me, a gesture that made my heart plummet almost as much as the words that accompanied it.

“You, out.”

All along, I’d told myself that, when the guards came for me, I’d obey to keep them from manhandling me. But suddenly I couldn’t move.

Tata lunged. I wasn’t sure how he managed to stay on his feet, but he did until a guard struck him and knocked him to the floor.

Mama held me to her chest, between herself and the wall, shielding me. “Don’t touch her!” she shouted. Her shrieks reverberated in the small space and continued even when her head jerked back. Her arms tightened around me, but I glimpsed the guard holding her by the hair, and he wrenched us away from the wall and tugged me from her grasp.

I twisted and writhed—a gut instinct, though there was no point—while they hauled me out of the cell as if my struggles were a minor inconvenience, and then they slammed the door and clamped heavy cuffs around my wrists. My family’s screams faded as they took me away. An ominous thought crept into my mind, and I wondered if I’d ever come back.