It was cold, cold, cold...

She was walking, not quite falling, her breath rushing out of her in warm short gasps punctuated by puffs of frosted smoke. How long had it been since she had felt warmth?
The wind whipped at her face making her scrunch up her eyes and lower her head towards her chest. Crunching through the snow, her coat-tails flapping wildly behind her, she lifted a weary head and through a blurred view, saw the menacing fencing of the camp looming out of the swirling fog and sleet. Around her a cacophony of pain and anger danced in the air, a grim pantomime. She tightened her arms around the life-giving bundle at her chest and walked through the imposing gates of her last resort, the black camp, too tired to hide anymore.

Men in uniforms, their face set in stone, looked her over casually with twin daggers of cold steel, and the alien swastikas at their shoulders almost had her choking on the lump that suddenly formed in her throat. A thin wail disengaged itself from the voice of the war-ravaged souls and wove its way to her ears. Anxiously she moved the blanket that was covering her precious cargo and guarded the silken head that she would give her life for. It shivered, moved and she was looking down into the cherubic face of her nine-month-old daughter, a little girl who would have to wait to die in a filthy concentration camp.
That’s all it is, she thought, one’s destiny is definite in a place like this.


She gazed at the fence and at the people milling beyond this dereliction, hopelessness, this madness that fed her situation.

Mind made up, she walked over to the fence, her heart pounding so hard that she was deafened, nauseous. On the other side she saw black bins piled high with stinking rubbish, and in the distance, a refuse truck nearing. Her soul breaking, hot tears drowning her cheeks, she looked down at Nadja and surrendered a kiss to her forehead.
This is the best I could do for you, she thought, grinding her teeth as she guided her baby through the bars and carefully laid her upon the rubbish.

With a roaring engine and screeching brakes, the lumbering lorry came to a halt and she stood rooted, her breath held as the young German jumped down from his seat.
He tentatively reached for the bundle and as he held it against him, she recognized realization dawn, then engulf him. His eyes found hers and she spied blessed understanding in their blue depths, and yes, her heart leapt. A promise.



Now as she sits, the stone floor her cushion, she thinks of her precious jewel and the kind German. Waits, her mind turning to bitter silence, and it’s cold, cold, cold…