There was only the sound of boots on the floor. It must have belonged to the man to whom they dedicated this respectful silence. Keeping my gaze fixed on the ground, I forbade myself to look too noticeably in his direction or to move even a millimeter. No, I would wait without attracting attention. For that had been the worst thing to do as a Jew for years - to attract attention.

Next, the voice of the faceless man rang out. I didn't know what I had expected: perhaps actually the pathos of a play, or at least for his words to be portentous. But neither one nor the other was true. He did not speak loudly, only audible at all because of the silence and the short distance, and at the same time, said nothing remarkable.

"The transport arrived rather late."

They seemed mundane words for that moment; an impression reinforced by the petulance in the dark voice. Everything about it was too ordinary in the face of this hell, and yet again frighteningly appropriate for these people — for them, almost ridiculous self-promotion and banality went hand in hand. 

For them, lies had become truth and inhumanity had become commonplace, combining to form the grotesque essence that was their ideology. I tried to catch sight of this man but only recognized boots and a coat next to the stoic SS man who had welcomed us when we arrived.

"There seem to have been complications in Litzmannstadt, Herr Standartenführer," the latter replied, completely changed. The calm, commanding tone had slipped from him, as had his indifference. A noticeable subservience replaced both, like that of a servant who sensed the wrath of his master.

Standartenführer, I repeated in my mind. Was this something important?

"Balance?" asked that Standartenführer.

"Total strength 354 from original 360. Four unserviceable on arrival. Another's on the way there. In any case, he's probably not fit for work, Herr Kommandant," now reported an SS man reminiscent of Heinrich Himmler, with the undertone of undisguised arrogance of someone important, or at least thought he was. 

He had to be high up. If he weren't here, he would have seemed comical with his squeaky voice, which now rose to a rambling explanation. This way, I just wondered how much he had to be feared.

"And the sixth?" the commander interrupted. He adjusted his round glasses.

"Escape attempt, just now."

The images wanted to force themselves on me again. Coat, man, striped clothes, lifeless body, hat, crying woman - woman ... what became of the woman?

Look ahead!

I did and now finally recognized who was standing there next to the other SS man, and summarized these memories of something horrible, which I did not dare to name, still burning like a fresh wound, with a simple "Oh, that's where the shot came from".

Between the women in front of me, a tall, slender figure in a feldgrau coat emerged, and then, behind a handkerchief, a gloved hand kept there for a strangely long time, his face. Above a pair of somber blue eyes, dark brows arched slightly together as if in an expression of steady displeasure, thus laying the forehead in delicate wrinkles that would remain and deepen with age. It added something sinister to his emotionless gaze. 

The harshness of the features, however, lessened downward — a straight, fine-formed nose divided the face between the sharp-edged cheeks; the lips below were softly curved and the chin narrow.

Except for the apparent emotions which the natural forms alone inscribed upon it, it betrayed no feelings. His face was an expressionless mask. Those of the surrounding others showed every shade of submissiveness from dog-like, dutiful to proud obedience.

"Now then, let's look at the stock, Dr. Rothenstein." The commander turned yet to another man who had hitherto stood in the background and now stepped beside him, without a particular reaction to this word. Stock. Not that I seriously expected it from any of these SS men. But how natural it seemed to them disturbed me nonetheless.

Indeed, Rothenstein wore a doctor's overall above his uniform. An irony he seemed unaware of, or ignored, like the Hippocratic Oath he was supposed to have sworn. Even more frightening was that of all these men he seemed the most harmless in his demeanor, friendly even. That's probably why I was instantly the most afraid of him.

The commandant's face disappeared again behind his handkerchief. Something about the way he pressed it to his nose was disconcerting as if there lay some urgency in it.
"You should let me examine you, Herr Kommandant," Rothenstein said with a gentle, playful sternness, and smiled.

"A nasty cold, that's all. The awful air here doesn't necessarily contribute to the recovery." The Standartenführer waved it off and paused as he brought the kerchief to his nose again as if suddenly feeling silly about it. He folded it, tucked it in his coat, and instead pulled out a silver cigarette case, from which he took one, and put it between his lips.

"Seidler," he grumbled, and as if the person addressed - it was the SS man who had been so stoic earlier - knew the order, even without it being uttered, he immediately pulled a lighter from his coat and gave his superior a light. Together with Rothenstein, he walked through the lines, letting his gaze linger here and there critically, then turning to the doctor with a questioning one.

They finally stopped at the mother with her child from our wagon, who was now forced to stand a step apart.
"How old?" the commander asked without digression. No shouting, no anger, not even a commanding tone resonated in his voice.

"Pięć ... Finf," the mother answered quietly, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her reach for her son's hand.

Slowly, the commander let a cloud of smoke pour from his lips.
"Do you hear that, Rothenstein? Five. I asked for more factory workers. What are we going to do there with a five-year-old? What use are these transports of, if we have to house half of them separately?" Displeasure, no, more like anger vibrated in his voice, even when he didn't raise it.

"I could use him in my work, Herr Kommandant," the doctor commented. Silence hung for a moment, during which I was not sure what was going on between and within the two of them, not even understanding what a doctor could need a child for in his work.

Then the Standartenführer agreed; they took the boy out of the line. I heard a quiet sob when he was separated from his mother, but it died away instantly. Even the boy sensed that this was not a place where he could expect understanding and mercy for his tears; he was too afraid to cry.

Something similar happened to a few more: most were either quite old, weak, or both. The commandant selected them before he finally reached us, with a simple finger point, which Rothenstein acknowledged, and with another told them to stand on the other side of the area to the Rottenführer and Wilken.

The steady rhythm of his steps did not falter once. Through my clothes, the cold seeped straight into my bones, but despite my shivering, I hardly dared to move to snuggle deeper into my coat, however futile it would have been. Although I knew it probably had no meaning whatsoever, I dreaded every movement. This sense of inconspicuousness had often brought me a tiny bit of security in recent years, and I hoped it would do the same now. 

It was silly and almost ridiculously reminiscent of school days when everyone thought that if they just stared intently enough at their books, the teacher wouldn't ask them to come to the blackboard. Had that ever worked? But how much less did we have to lose back then? How much more was at stake today? And in this chaos, it was easier to believe in rules than in pure chance, in a little control rather than facing complete powerlessness.

The Commandant and the doctor reached Leah. I expected her to leave her position in a moment as well, not knowing whether the notion should fill me with relief or concern. Was it better to be selected? What did the commander mean by "housed separately"?
My gaze was fixed on the ground, ready to lift just the one, necessary second to know my further fate as soon as his boots appeared in front of me. But nothing happened. Only the footsteps suddenly fell silent.

"Your sister? Friend?" the commandant asked, and it took a few heartbeats, during which no answer was given, for me to realize that he was speaking to me. My gaze fluttered up to him in surprise and found confirmation in his - and a piercing cold that bored into me and froze my insides. Its nature was completely foreign to me; I knew it in terms of hatred and contempt or merely as an act. This one resembled none of those.

It was calculating and uncaring as if he didn't even have a human being in front of him but a lifeless object. I had to resist the urge to crawl deeper into my coat to escape it. The devil's gaze could not have been more frightening.

"My sister," I finally forced out of my mouth tonelessly, startled by my voice that no longer wanted to obey me. I didn't know how to behave towards someone like him.

"I nearly thought you didn't understand me." His cigarette, burned down to a stub, landed at my feet and was trodden out by his boot, which shone as if freshly polished. Even as he did so, he was eager to replace it with a new one, but this time without calling Seidler to light it for him.

Instead, he pulled a lighter of his own from his coat pocket. In the burgeoning light of the flame, a scar on his left cheek lit up for a second and drew a shadow on it. The next moment, it disappeared behind a wisp of smoke. Others accompanied each of his words, merely smaller.

"How old?"

"She's fifteen."

"She looks younger." At that, his gaze didn't shift to her for more than a second before it found its previous target. Me.

He was right. Leah really didn't look like she was fifteen. Not only had she inherited our mother's small stature, as I had, but the shortcomings of the past few years had left their marks and were detrimental to the healthy development of her body. Her girlish-soft face with big, round eyes contributed to making her look at least two years younger. Even I perhaps sometimes believed her to be younger than she actually was.

"You're German?" he proceeded, and before I could respond, as if that explained everything, he added a "no accent" with a slight movement of the cigarette between his fingers. I nodded hesitantly.

"From Berlin."

"Lo-and-behold! It's a small world, isn't it?"

I didn't know what these questions were about, what depended on my answers, and the commandant's attention, those eyes still resting on me, his emotionless voice - his entire, palpable presence was becoming more and more unbearable to me.

 I found it difficult to remain calm. My gaze refused to decide whether to look anywhere except at this man or on the contrary, to take in every single inch of his face and uniform with that almost panic-stricken fascination with which a bird looks at the cat's claws before they pierce it, wondering when the fatal blow would finally come.

Yet it was not claws, but cool leather on my chin. Not a death strike, but merely a careful but firm touch that ordered my head into another position. My heartbeat stopped for a moment and I thought I felt all blood drain from my body. This was not the kind of force I had expected. 

Everything in me wanted to recoil, but I forced myself to hold still. Something so simple - doing nothing at all - had gone from a barely manageable feat of strength to the only thing I was capable of in a matter of seconds. The nightmares in which I couldn't move in the face of danger had become reality.

"You're shaking," his deep voice stated with a callous calm in which I thought I sensed danger. "Very pale." With this observation, the commandant abruptly turned again to the doctor. "Is she ill?"

If they ask you, tell them you are healthy, I recalled the words of the man on the train, and before I could have stopped myself, I interrupted the conversation against my better judgment.

"I'm not sick."

As if he had already forgotten that I possessed the ability to speak, the Standartenführer looked at me with a hint of astonishment - the first sign of honest emotion I had noticed in him so far.

 His eyes narrowed, deepening the wrinkles a little. For a moment I wondered if his initial surprise was about to turn to anger if I had been too forward. How did they punish insulting the commandant? With the gallows, now luring and taunting in the breeze, as if to say that it lusted for a victim?

All blood rushed to my heart, leaving only a tingling numbness in my body. As if it could have made a difference now, I clenched my jaws so tightly that my teeth ached, lest they tremble from cold, fear, or both, and provide the commandant with some confirmation. Without looking in his direction, he waved off Rothenstein, who was about to answer his previous question with more expertise.

"She stays. Giving too many of them special treatment hurts the quota."

With that, the Standartenführer turned away and continued his way through the lines.
Only when he had almost reached the other end did I dare to let the held breath escape from my lungs. Taken aback by this sudden reaction, again so banal, which stood in such stark contrast to my worries, the tension would not fall from me and no relief would settle in. Would I ever be able to feel it again as long as I was still here?

Leah's trembling hand sought mine, and I grasped it, unable to return her firm, anxious squeeze.

 Behind the rooftops and barbed wire fences, the embers of sunset broke through the heavy cloud cover for a few moments, drenching the square in red light. As if it had been a silent command to them, little snowflakes danced in it. 

Irritated, I watched them fall down on us, settle on my coat, and tangle in my hair. One of them landed gingerly on my outstretched palm.
Snow in October? 

The clouds smothered the evening glow and left us in darkness.

The snowflake in my hand did not melt.