Chapter 53 Section 53

We couldn't tell the time as the truck drove out of Krakow on bumpy roads, but I could catch glimpses of what was passing by outside through a gap in the tarpaulin awning.We couldn't talk either, the only time we could hear each other was when the truck stopped, but then Henrik in the driver's seat could hear it too. The words that Henrik said to himself, those extremely ominous words, have been lingering in my mind and cannot be dispelled, and I know that Yiluo is the same. Fortunately, Nicholas didn't understand anything, and he was still immersed in the excuses I made up for this journey. The bumps of the car made him excited like a normal little boy.So I didn't have to worry about him, so I focused on Yiluo.

We hold each other's hands, and our touch conveys emotions that cannot be expressed in words, so that we can draw courage from each other. I know that soon we will have to decide whether to continue our brave and increasingly reckless actions, or to return to Henrik's protection at this last moment, and finally to Wojciech and Isabella. . If things were simple a few hours ago, now they suddenly become extremely complicated.The real reason for Henrik's prevarication and refusal last night had been revealed, and while I still believed that Nikolai and I would find Mama in Auschwitz, Ilo's hopes had been ruthlessly shattered.

Witnessing the scene of Jewish luggage being looted at Warsaw Station, I finally gradually figured it out.Even if everything has not been fully revealed, there is no doubt that, at least for the Jews, Auschwitz is their burial place.I imagined they would be forced to work until they fell, and that was the case, and the brutality of the Nazis was no longer an unimaginable thing to me. But now I am faced with the problem of determining the fate of Yiluo, and our own destiny connected with her.There was no way we would show up to Henrik and ask him to take Ilo back and hope that he would allow Nikolai and me to go on to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The options before us were two extremes: the three of us, either we all went back to Wojciech and Isabella's forest cottage and lived there until the end of the war, or we went to Auschwitz together. As much as I wanted to take Ilo, as much as I wanted and needed her company, I knew very well that when we reached our destination, the best outcome waiting for her would be sadness and despair, and the worst outcome ... I couldn't ignore that statement from Henrik. "Not a single Jew left Auschwitz alive."