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FORTY-ONE

LUKA

February 1944

From the moment I arrived at this death camp, I no longer questioned whether there would be a final night in Auschwitz.

A final night on earth.

The thought loomed liked a brewing storm.

When the beatings dealt by an SS officer became a nightly occurrence, growing harsher and longer, I wondered why they didn’t kill me.

I can only assume they wanted me to keep singing, even though they weren’t satisfied with my performance.

I should have been more grateful for those days rather than questioning why I was there.

During my final performance at the Commandant’s Headquarters in September, five months ago now, I was so ill and weak, I couldn’t make it through one song without gasping for air.

The brutal officer, the one who often took pleasure in beating me, came toward me once again.

This time, somehow, with a darker look than I had seen before.

I was halfway through a song when he took his first swing.

He didn’t stop. Not that time.

He kept thrusting his fist into my stomach again and again, then kicked me in the chest until the wind left my body.

Everything went dark, and the next morning I woke up in an infirmary with signs marking the location of Birkenau.

Immediately, it was clear I had been brought to the other section of Auschwitz—the side Jews went to die, as rumors went.

With a swollen face, blood everywhere, and bruises marring my entire body, the pain ignited just seconds after I woke up.

But I couldn’t scream.

All I could do was stare at the wooden beams crisscrossed above my head, asking God why I was still alive.

Again, I wondered why they didn’t just finish me off.

The SS kill for far lesser reasons here.

It’s because this place isn’t done with me yet.

That’s why.

I’ve been in Birkenau for five months.

As soon as I became well enough to be assigned a block and labor, I ended up in front of a shower room—a gas chamber—the place where Jews go to die.

When will it be my turn?