“Our parents tried to get us into a youth program so we could emigrate to Palestine. But they were so crowded already, and we weren’t Zionists, anyway. We mostly went to synagogue on the High Holy Days. But things kept getting worse . . . They thought maybe we could move to Luxembourg—the farm where our uncle lived. Thought we could start a new life there. But even that wasn’t far enough.” Daniel shrugged into his overcoat. “Germany came back for us and sent us to the Łódź ghetto in Poland. Detention, they called it. Without telling us what we were waiting for.”

Rebeka couldn’t let him tell the next part. She leaned forward, gripping her hands together. “Our older brother, Ari—he worked in the ghetto’s administration office, and he overheard the officers discussing plans to ship us all off again. He begged us to run. As far as we could.” She picked at a ragged nail. “And so we did.”

“Ship you off? What, did they send your family to the work camps?” Liam asked.

A noise escaped her, a wild, frantic laugh. “Is that what they tell you?”

His brow furrowed, like he was grappling with a foreign tongue. “The Times says they’re concentrating Jews and other political prisoners in labor camps. Like—” Liam ducked his head, cheeks darkening. “Well, like President Roosevelt’s doing with Japanese Americans.”

“Are they lying to you? Or are you just willfully ignorant?” Rebeka snarled. “They’re killing us. As many as they can.”

A muscle twitched along Liam’s jawline. “I didn’t—I mean, the papers say it’s just—”

“It’s a purge. Extermination. They’ve made monsters of us and won’t stop until we’re all dead.” Daniel’s fists curled at his sides. “So I won’t stop either. Not until I’ve killed every last Nazi I can.”

“You’re sure?” Liam sank deeper into the hay. He didn’t sound disbelieving, only—tired. Rebeka felt it, too. The endless capacity for human cruelty, weighing and weighing on her until she couldn’t move.

“We saw it. When we stowed away on a passenger train out of Poland. We passed their camp at Chełmno, and you could smell it, the bodies burning. You could see the smoke.” Her voice shattered. “And the other passengers—they were laughing about the smell. They all knew what it was, and it was just some big joke to them.”

She watched the American, her mouth set in a firm line. Waiting for some kind of reaction, though she wasn’t sure what she hoped he would do. She didn’t know what she wanted—to rage and scream and tear the world apart? Most days it seemed like a good enough plan. Good enough to keep them alive for one more meal, good enough for her to believe what Daniel was doing was right.