The Singer Behind the Wire

Auschwitz, 1943. Ella tries to ignore the coughs and crying, the whispered prayers. Her eyelids grow heavier, but then a melody floats through the block as if on a breeze. Her lips open on a gasp, joy making her heart sing even as it shatters. She would know that voice anywhere…

Sitting bolt upright, Ella rubs at her eyes and concentrates on the music. Is she dreaming? She’d fallen for Luka’s voice the first time she heard him singing on the street corner near her house, with his kind smile and joyous laugh. He was her first love, and the pain...

Auschwitz, 1943. Ella tries to ignore the coughs and crying, the whispered prayers. Her eyelids grow heavier, but then a melody floats through the block as if on a breeze. Her lips open on a gasp, joy making her heart sing even as it shatters. She would know that voice anywhere…

Sitting bolt upright, Ella rubs at her eyes and concentrates on the music. Is she dreaming? She’d fallen for Luka’s voice the first time she heard him singing on the street corner near her house, with his kind smile and joyous laugh. He was her first love, and the pain of being torn apart still slices at her.

He’s alive. But even as hope swells in Ella’s heart, terror threatens to swallow it. Luka is Jewish. If he’s here, he’s in grave danger—even more than Ella faces for sneaking into the ghetto to see him back in Warsaw… But she will never regret it. They had fought every day for their love, even knowing where it might lead…

Despair tears at Ella as she battles to find the strength to keep going, to search for Luka even on the days when the bitter cold whips through the camp—the days when her body feels weaker than ever and her friends are lost to the cruel regime. At night, she listens desperately for the sound of Luka’s voice as he’s forced to perform. Knowing he’s still alive even if she can’t see him is the one thing that brings her peace.

Until one night when, as his first haunting notes reach her bunk, an angry shout splits the night sky, the music stops, and there is only resounding, terrifying silence…