In the Mouth of the Wolf (19 page)

Then for one long moment I stood in the empty courtyard where I had taken my first step, where I and my friends had gathered to ponder the mysteries of algebra and
geography, where we dreamed about the future and planned the building of a better world.

It was time to go. The train would be coming in soon, and I had a long walk back to the railway station. I'd catch the night train and arrive in Kraków by morning. I knew I had a lot to do. I had to find an apartment and move my furniture. It was important to get everything set up as soon as possible because, after all, my brother would be coming back…and maybe Mayer…and my father…and possibly even my little sister Pola, if she had been lucky and someone had been kind to her. Yes. Some would surely be coming back. And when they did, they would need a place to stay and someone to look after them. There wasn't much time. I had to get ready. There was a lot of work to do…

Tomorrow.

Epilogue

 

 

Benek survived, the war as a Polish worker in Germany. He now lives in Chicago. He has two children and two grandchildren
.

Renia Zaks lives in Haifa
.

Rose's (Wanda's) father died in 1944 in Blizin, a subcamp of Auschwitz. Rose's mother and sister Pola were taken to Treblinka. Of the 150,000 Jews transported to this camp, only 50 survived
.

Colonel Roemer was killed in the fighting before Prague. His wife and son are living in Germany
.

Mayer, Rose's fiance, was a prisoner in Buchenwald, Sliben, and Theresienstadt concentration camps. He and
Rose were married in 1945. They helped smuggle 135 Jewish children out of Soviet-occupied Poland before settling in Germany in the American Zone. For the next five years they served as head educators in a home for Jewish refugee children in Lindenfels. They came to the United States in 1951. Since that time they have lived in South Bend, Indiana. They have three children and one grandchild
.