“Alina, the noise was so loud...there was a bomb on Mr. Erikson’s shop and our house rattled and the glass all broke...”

“I know...”

“And Maja from school was asleep and her mother was shouting and Father couldn’t wake her up and I don’t understand why there was so much blood on her face. Why was there so much blood?”

“Hush now,” Mama murmured. Truda approached me, her concerned gaze fixed on Emilia. She slid her arm around my shoulders and gently pulled me to the ground, curling up beside me. I settled Emilia across our laps, and as I stroked Emilia’s back, Truda began to sing. Mama sat opposite us, watching closely.

“Just rest, little one,” Mama said softly. “You are safe now.”

“But what about Tomasz?” she croaked, her little voice weak and uneven still. “He is all alone in Warsaw. What will happen to my brother?”

No one said anything, and I tensed, then rushed to comfort her. Or maybe I was trying to comfort myself.

“Warsaw is so far away,” I said firmly. “Planes probably can’t even fly that far. It is better that he isn’t here, Emilia. He will surely be safer there.”

* * *

Over the days that followed, we took turns crowding around Father’s wireless to listen to the news updates. His set was a crystal unit the twins had constructed a few years earlier, and that meant only one person at a time could listen on the tinny headsets. I jostled for my turn like everyone else, but I always regretted those moments I spent at the wireless, because the news was never comforting. Entire cities were being destroyed, but the small stories hurt the most. We heard endless tales of farmers shot in their fields from machine guns on planes and even one horrific story about a grandfather who was harvesting the last of his vegetables when a pilot dropped a bomb right on him. That story spoke volumes to me about the might of the invaders and the way our country was outgunned—we were simply peasants standing in dirt, totally defenseless against massive explosives dropped from airborne war machines by unfathomably hate-filled pilots.

There were Nazi troops in our district within days of the bombing because the local army defenses were quickly overcome. After that, the bombing stopped but there were still more planes, only now they flew over us, but they didn’t fly back, and somehow, that was even worse. Soon, the trucks started coming, rumbling through the town, not yet stopping but promising just by their presence that one day soon, everything left intact after the bombing was going to be broken anyway. The men from my family made another trip into town, and again returned sullen.

“There are notices hung everywhere,” Father murmured.

“There is a town meeting tomorrow at noon, and we all must attend.” Mateusz flicked his gaze to Truda. “We must go home tonight, my love. Perhaps if we are at the house, we can protect it.”

“Protect it from the Nazis?” she asked, somewhat incredulously. “With what? Our bare hands?”

“An empty house in the town is vulnerable, Truda,” he said. “Besides, the Nazis have breached the national border. Do you think that little hill is going to contain them? Now that the bombing has stopped, we are no safer here than we will be there.”

“Did you see my father?” Emilia asked. Her voice was very small. She seemed to be shrinking by the hour, despite close attention from my sister, my mother and myself. Mateusz and Father both shook their heads.

“Your father is still very busy helping people, but he is fine,” Mama said abruptly. “Alina, entertain the child. Let the adults talk.”

We retreated into my bedroom and sat on my sofa, and I tried to play one of the counting games Emilia was so fond of, while simultaneously straining to eavesdrop on the conversation in the main part of the house.

“Everything is going to be okay, isn’t it, Alina?” Emilia asked me suddenly. She looked terrified, her huge green eyes wide within the frame of her pale face.

I forced myself to smile.

“Of course, little sister. Everything is going to be just fine.”

* * *

After a sleepless night, we made our way into the town square on foot. We walked along the road instead of up through the woods and over the hill—the road meant a longer journey, but it seemed that none of us were in a hurry to get to our destination.

By the time we arrived, a crowd was already assembled at the square, waiting in a stiff, eerie silence. As we joined the group, I wedged myself between my parents as if they could shield me from the gravity of it all. Stanislaw left us to stand with Irene, the girl he was courting. Filipe had gone to seek out Justyna. Truda and Mateusz were there too, but to my surprise, had opted to stand with the mayor’s wife and her children. I scanned my way around the assembled crowd identifying each of the couples, and I felt dual pangs of jealousy and fear. I so wished that Tomasz was there with me. I was sure everything would feel less bewildering if only my hand was in his. Instead, I held his little sister’s hand, and I scanned the crowd for Aleksy. He was tall, like Tomasz, so I was sure I’d find him sooner or later, and then I could point him out to comfort Emilia.

I felt disconnected from it all—at a place I knew so well on a sunny day that should have been beautiful, only nothing seemed beautiful—nothing even seemed familiar anymore. There were strangers among us, and they were somehow now in charge; and that very fact entirely warped the landscape that I had known as my home. Those men looked like statues in their stiff, impeccably pressed uniforms, with the impossible splash of red around the armband, the swastika they wore with pride. It occurred to me that the Nazi uniform removed their humanity somehow, drained them of their uniqueness—and left them a unified force of solidarity, like a solid wall encroaching upon our space. These were not even men—they were individual components of a machine that had come to destroy.

The commander shouted around the square at us, entirely in German. At first, I listened only to the tone of his voice—the disdain, the aggression, the authority—but each word tightened the viselike grip of fear in my heart. I just couldn’t stand not knowing what he was saying, or even understanding why he didn’t even have the simple courtesy to speak to us in our native language. After a while, I turned toward Mama and I whispered, “What is he saying?”

My mother’s response was only an impatient command to hush, but soon enough, I saw her eyes widen, and for the first time I saw fear cross her face. I followed her gaze to the corner of the square, where still more soldiers pushed two “prisoners” forward into the center of us all, their hands tied behind their backs. I scanned their faces and felt a punch of shock as I recognized them—our mayor was at the back, but right at the front, staring out into the crowd without fear or hesitation, was Aleksy.

Looking back now, I suspect a brilliant man like Aleksy might have understood what his fate was, but he walked into the town square with his head held high. After scanning the crowd, his gaze landed on Emilia, and he smiled at her as if to reassure her. I tugged her to stand in front of me and wrapped my arms around her from behind. She was stiff within my arms, surely as confused as I was. Why is Aleksy in trouble? He’s never done a wrong thing in his entire life. Aleksy lifted his smile to me, and when our eyes met, he nodded once. He seemed calm, almost serene. That’s why I thought for a moment or two that everything would be okay, because Aleksy was the wisest man in the town, so if he wasn’t worried, why should I be?