A man carrying a body jerked his head to indicate the gray wall inside the courtyard. “Resistance members and Polish political prisoners are taken to the wall for execution.”

Execution. These people hadn’t died; they’d been killed. The lump in my throat expanded. “That’s me and my family. Are we going to be—?”

“No, if you’ve been registered, you’ve been deemed fit to work. I wouldn’t call that luck, but at least you aren’t dead yet,” the prisoner said with a dark chuckle.

He carried a man’s body, and I noticed a small bloody hole in the back of the corpse’s head. Again, my stomach rose up in rebellion; I quelled it with the greatest difficulty. The prisoner set the body on the truck and accidentally displaced another, which landed in a crumpled heap on the wet ground. He tossed it back with a swift, mechanical motion.

“Some political prisoners are allowed to work; others are shot, especially the sick, disabled, elderly, women, and children. I wouldn’t wish this place upon the scum of the earth, let alone a child. If they kept you, they must be eager for more laborers, regardless of who they are.”

The litany of the unfit rang in my ears.

Tata is crippled. Mama is a woman. Zofia and Karol are children. I’m a child.

You’re going to the same place anyway.

The rain fell harder and soaked through my thin uniform. My whole body quivered, but not from the damp cold.

I didn’t want to look at the people in the truck, I couldn’t; but I had to. So I did. And that was when I noticed familiar blond curls nestled among the pile of bodies.

Once I’d located Zofia, I found the rest of my family clustered around her. Mama, Tata, Zofia, Karol. Dead. My entire family was dead because the Gestapo had caught me.

Something inside me shattered, sent me to my knees, a sharp, stabbing agony pummeling my chest. I’d have given anything to trade that pain for a thousand of Ebner’s clubs, to face Gestapo interrogation over and over again, whatever it took to change what I’d done.

Bring them back, dear God, please bring them back.

A rough grip pulled me to my feet. “Fall out of line again and you’ll wish you’d been sent to the wall like those Polacks.” The raspy voice let the threat sink in before its owner dragged me back to the group and pushed me along.

The wall had been meant for me as well. Had I not gotten lost, Fritzsch wouldn’t have sent me to registration. I should have been with them. No, they should have been safe at home. I got caught, but they paid the price. My parents, my sister, my brother—slaughtered, hair matted with crimson blood, piled among strangers.