“The address she gave you is not far along this road,” Zofia murmurs. “We’re headed to that house over there on the left. It’s quite unusual to see a prewar house in this district...we’re lucky it’s still there.”

“Because it’s so old?”

“No—just because farmhouses in this region generally didn’t survive the occupation. I’d say what saved that one is the construction material—if it were brick, it would be gone too. The Nazis deconstructed all of the brick structures because they couldn’t manufacture bricks fast enough to expand the second part of Auschwitz—the camp they called Birkenau,” she says. “That’s not far from here, and I’m pretty sure this property would be just within the twenty kilometers they designated for their ‘area of interest.’ They basically cleared the farms of all residents so they could put up a big fence and make sure no one inadvertently saw what they were doing in the camp. They did it under the guise of making a huge work farm—which was true too, of course, they did farm much of this land but...secrecy was the real goal.”

“I can’t even imagine living in such a small house,” I admit. The house is probably only the size of my living area at home, maybe even smaller.

“It was a different time. People’s expectations were different.” Zofia pulls up into the drive, then glances at me. “And here we are.”

I stare down the drive at the house and the woods on the hill beyond it, and to my surprise, I recognize the scene before me. I’ve never been here before and I know nothing about Babcia’s life during the war, but I know all about her childhood. I’ve heard about the woods on the hill behind her home and the township on the other side. She told me she lived in a very small house with a large barn. She told me the land was poor because it was so rocky and most of their fields were steeply sloped.

And that’s exactly the scene before me.

“Is that hill called Trzebinia Hill?” I ask Zofia. She tilts her head.

“I don’t think that hill has a formal name, but the township of Trzebinia is on the other side, so I suppose that would make sense.”

“Babcia told me so little about her life once the war began, but she always told me stories about her childhood...life with her brothers and her sister and her parents on their tiny little farm,” I say to Zofia. “This is everything she described to me, and it is exactly as she described it.”

I am totally caught off guard by the swell of intense emotion that rises as I step from the car. There is something unexpectedly profound about being here—in this country that was my grandmother’s home and a place I have always understood she once loved very dearly and has always missed. I feel Zofia’s patient gaze on my face, and I try to blink the tears away, but one escapes and rolls down my cheek.

“Do you need a minute?” she asks softly, and I clear my throat and shake my head.

“It’s so silly...” I mutter through my embarrassment. “I can’t quite believe I’m here. I’ve always known her as the other version of herself, you know? And this is like a glimpse into...” I clear my throat, unsure if I am expressing myself adequately. “This is just a farm, right? An unimpressive one at that, and we can’t even be sure it’s the one she told me about. I don’t know why I’m so emotional about it.”

“You’re looking at it all wrong, Alice. This might be ‘just’ a farm to anyone else—but to you? It’s clear just by your willingness to come here that you have a great depth of love for your grandmother. This may be a piece of your own history, and it’s a history that was lost to you until now. I’ve helped people track their ancestors before, and the smallest things are sometimes unexpectedly intense.”

I nod, and another tear trickles over onto my cheek.

“I just wish I had come here when she could travel with me,” I whisper, then I impatiently swipe the tear from my cheek and clear my throat one more time. “I wish she’d been able to tell me more about her life here. I wish she was just standing here with me, telling me the things she wants me to know.”

I stare at the house, set against that odd little hill, framed by the thick green woods behind it and the shock of deep blue sky that stretches above. The scent of dust and grass hangs heavily around me, and the breeze stirs my hair. I breathe in that country air, taking it deep into my lungs, as if I can store the memory of it, as if I can take it home with me.

There’s a rusted and low chain-link fence around the yard, with a gate at the front. The lock on the gate seems a little redundant—it would be easy to jump the fence anyway, and I have a feeling that with a little pressure, the hinges would give way. Zofia approaches the gate, then looks back at me expectantly when I hesitate.

“Are we going to trespass...?”

“If trespassing bothers you, perhaps you’ve just come halfway across the globe for nothing,” she laughs. I still hesitate, and she waves her arm around expansively. “Look at the property, Alice. No one is living here. Most likely it’s abandoned and has been for decades—that’s not at all uncommon. More recent generations either can’t or won’t make a living from small plots like this one, so sometimes the land just wound up left behind. In this case, perhaps there was no one left here to take the property on after the war.”

“There are car tracks in the grass,” I point out, and Zofia shrugs.

“It’s not so recent.”

Beyond the gates, I can see what amounts to something of a rough driveway through the grass, leading past the house—but she’s right, the grass is bouncing back even along this path—it’s hardly in frequent use. Zofia jumps the fence and starts walking along the quasi path. I’m still nervous to trespass, but it doesn’t look like I have much choice.

“Are there snakes here?” I call after her, and her soft laughter at the question carries on the wind past me. I decide to take that as a no, and I climb carefully over the fence, then jog a little until I catch up to Zofia. I stare at the tiny house as we walk. The roof is made of corrugated concrete tiles, but it sags in places. The walls still look sturdy enough, but that roof looks like it could cave in the next time a leaf lands on it. I can see two wooden structures beside the house—a tiny outhouse behind, and what I assume is a barn in front of it. The barn roof has indeed caved in, along with one of the narrow walls.

The electricity poles on the road run right past this house, and I have a sneaking suspicion that outhouse might not connect to a sewer. I don’t have the best eye for the size of spaces, but Wade’s brother has a hobby farm in Vermont. That property is twenty acres—and this feels maybe half that size. And the house feels even smaller now that I’m close. Babcia and Pa’s house at Oviedo was at least ten times as big, maybe more. I know they lived elsewhere in America before that big house—Mom remembers living in some very ordinary places as a child while Pa’s medical certification was recognized, but even so, to Babcia, it must have been quite the culture shock to shift from this life to the one she landed in once she arrived in the US.