As Protz pulled me toward an adjoining room, everything inside me said to protest, and every part of me tried and failed to obey. Resisting wouldn’t have worked anyway: he was too strong; he had a gun. One hand gripped my arm while the other rested on his belt.

“Protz.”

He paused a few meters from his destination. I couldn’t comprehend the new voice, the one instructing Protz to go somewhere and do something. I couldn’t even breathe.

“Damn, that’s a shame, isn’t it? Until next time, love.” Protz sent me back toward the prisoners with an enthusiastic slap on my behind.

Accompanied by his sniggers, I staggered away, crossed my arms over my chest, and let the crowd sweep me along. I was too numb to do anything but follow, too disgusted with myself and my own helplessness.

“Get moving, girl.” The order came from the same guard with the strange armband who had made me undress.

But I was frozen again. More people in striped clothes were armed with scissors and razors. Before my eyes, entire bodies were shaved and tolerated thorough physical examinations, all in mortified silence. The same thing was about to happen to me. Where was my family? I had to find my family.

Someone pulled me backward with a swift, painful jerk and pressed something hard under my chin, forcing my head back until I met a vicious gaze. “It looks like someone already gave you a beating, and unless you obey orders, I will give you another.” The prisoner with the armband shoved me at a man wielding scissors.

I stopped before him, painfully aware of my exposure, but his face was blank. I supposed that should have made me feel better, but it didn’t.

The prisoner placed a hand on my trembling shoulders, guided me toward a stool, and sat me down. He wasn’t rough, but he wasn’t gentle, and I wished the ground would open up and swallow me. “Listen to the kapos,” he murmured. “They may be prisoners, too, but they work as supervisors, so they have something the rest of us don’t have—power.”

More SS guards patrolled the room and watched the horrible procedure. The man lifted my braid, and metal scraped against metal as he opened the scissors. My hair was all I had left linking me to the girl I’d been before. The girl I would never be again.

“Please.” It was a useless plea, but I couldn’t help it.

Even if my plea hadn’t been useless, I was too late. The man sliced through my hair and set the detached braid down, trading the scissors for the razor.

“I’ll try not to cut you too much, but I have to be quick,” he said, and the cold blade touched the back of my neck. “I have a quota to meet.”