Annexed by Sharon Dogar

Author:Sharon Dogar [Dogar, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2012-01-10T09:12:06+00:00

MARCH 3, 1944—PETER REMEMBERS BEFORE

It's been snowing. I stand in the attic, waiting for Anne, and stare at the branches of the chestnut tree all covered in white. There are stars behind it. The night is a clear, strange blue. I know I could paint all my life. But I could never make a blue that dark. That deep. That beautiful. I could never make stars like little holes of light in the night. Even van Gogh couldn't do it. I remember the crunch of snow under my feet. I remember throwing snowballs. Sometimes the snow was so deep there was no school. Gangs of us stretched out around the green on Merwedeplein attacking each other with snowballs. Hiding behind the bushes and trees. Wet hair. Red cheeks. Air so cold it made shapes with our breath. I stare out of the attic window. I wish the bells would ring. Anne's right, how will we ever know we're free if there are no bells to ring? I would like to feel the snow on my face. It buries everything. It buries us. Maybe one day the world will thaw, and we will melt away from here?

Maybe.

Snow.

I will never be able to stand and stare at it and find it beautiful again!

The Auschwitz snow is terrible. It made us dance with cold. Use energy we didn't have. It made my breath burn against the holes in my teeth. We stood in it, in thin pajamas hour after hour, day after day. It never got easier. Each day was as dreadful as yesterday. There is no word for it, Auschwitz-cold.

And at the end of it: a hut, a beating, a thin soup, another day of not knowing if you will live or die.

The dread of a seleckcja.

Knowing that the command will come. Each morning. Invading your half-dreams, your half-sleep, pulling you back to the nightmare that's your life.

WYSTAWACH.

Wake up.

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