Afterward, Benita had remained upstairs for two weeks. When she came back down, she was as jumpy and tentative as she had been when they first found her in Berlin. My sweet boy, my dear boy, she would say over and over, reaching for Martin.

On the day before Christmas, Marianne presented the children packages sent by American Quakers. They were full of fabulous items: oranges, toothbrushes, candy bars, a tin of something called Kraft cheese, and chewing gum. These were accompanied by handwritten cards from American children—pictures drawn in bright wax crayons. Martin’s card had a drawing of a fat brown-and-white cat with a red-and-white-striped bow. It read As a token of our country’s goodwill and was signed by Amy (age eight) and Roger (age six). Martin tried to imagine Amy and Roger and the box of colors they had used to create this card. He pictured them wearing crisp store-bought clothing and new shoes with thick soles and no worn-out places. He was sure they each owned their own bicycle and left food uneaten on their plates. Martin pictured this not so much with envy as with wonder—what an amazing thing to be an American!

“Enjoy half of what is in the package, and then find someone to share the other half with,” Marianne instructed. They had received these gifts only because they were Opfers. There were not enough for all the children of Ehrenheim. And despite Marianne’s disdain for the townspeople, she did not like the inequity.

Only Elisabeth had the courage—or the foolishness—to protest.

“For that, you just lost half your portion,” Marianne announced. “You already have it better than most of Germany’s children.” From then on, no one complained.

So that afternoon, while Marianne visited the DP camp and Ania prepared the Christmas stew and Benita rested, the children, minus Fritz, who was in bed with a fever, bundled into even more layers and walked to Ehrenheim, bearing their half candy bars and chewing gum sticks like the gifts of the three kings.

“I’m going to eat mine myself,” Elisabeth announced.

But Katarina looked so shocked that Elisabeth was forced to take this back. She was thirteen now. If it weren’t for the war, she said, if it weren’t for everything, she would be learning to play piano and reading interesting books and going to dancing school. Instead she had only the Bible and two volumes of Goethe, which she had read a million times. And she had only her “numbskull brother” to dance with. Her rant semipolitely excluded Martin and the Grabarek boys.

Katarina and Elisabeth decided to head to the children’s center at the DP camp to share their gifts. They had visited often enough with their mother, who had begun to volunteer there, and knew some of the children. The decision was certain to please Marianne.

“Martin, do you want to come with us?” Katarina asked.

Martin declined. He would join Anselm and Wolfgang. He had spent enough time with the girls, who were always chattering and worrying and bickering with each other. The Grabareks, on the other hand, were silent and knowing. They shared a language of glances and nods, by which they communicated. They could walk across the fields kicking a stone back and forth, making a game of it without ever stating the rules. Martin admired their self-containment. Cut from a different cloth, Frau Vortmuller would have said. Not as a judgment, but as an observation. Martin had earned their trust through his own silence and ability to assimilate. And so they told him things about their journey west—about finding their way around the SS checkpoints and sleeping in cold Polish forests. About escaping from an overheating bomb cellar in Dresden the night of the famous bombing—the fire in the streets and the trees lit up like dancing torches, the pools of pavement melting in the heat. What was it like before, where you lived in the east? he asked them once, but they grew silent. He did not ask again.