The Last Green Valley by Mark Sullivan

Author:Mark Sullivan [Sullivan, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1643589245
Publisher: Center Point Pub
Published: 2021-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

With sixty-kilometer-an-hour wind gusts, an arctic blast hit Europe on New Year’s Eve. It would be the start of two of the coldest months on record. Temperatures in western Poland dove to thirty-one below zero Celsius. The entire building where the Martels lived shook in the gales. Windchills approached minus forty-five and overwhelmed their individual coal stoves. The four families took to crowding into Adeline and Emil’s apartment because it faced south out of the wind. They used their combined coal rations to keep a fire burning hot.

But their food stocks were almost drained, and Adeline was unsure whether new rations were coming anytime soon. On January 2, 1945, Will went down with the fever. The following day, Malia did and then Rese. Emil relapsed on the morning of the fourth.

On the evening of January 6, 1945, Adeline gave the last of the vegetable broth to Emil and Will and the last of the bread to Walt, who had also fallen ill. There was not enough for her to eat. After talking to her mother and her mother-in-law, she went to bed tired, hungry, and determined to go in search of food in the morning.

When she awoke, it was snowing lightly and well below zero. She put on every stitch of clothing she had, took a canvas bag, and went out into the bitter cold. With the hunger building again in her stomach and the memory of real starvation echoing from her past, Adeline went to the edge of town where an SS soldier stopped her and asked her where she was going.

“To Lodz,” she said. “To find medicine and food. My sons are sick and starving.”

“Where did you get money?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m going to sell my wedding ring. And my mother’s. And my mother-in-law’s.”

He must have heard the desperate emotion in her voice, because he flagged down the next truck heading north. When she told the driver that her family was sick and starving and she was going to Lodz, he was kind and let her sit up front in the cab.

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