The Violinist of Auschwitz

by Ellie Midwood

Genres: General Fiction; Historical Fiction; Jewish Fiction; Literary Fiction; War & Military; Women's Fiction; Romance

Synopsis

In the depths of hell, can hope rise? And can love triumph over hatred?

In Auschwitz, every day is a fight for survival. Alma is inmate 50381, the number tattooed on her skin in pale blue ink. She is cooped up with thousands of others, torn from loved ones, trapped in a maze of barbed wire. Every day people disappear, never to be seen again.

This tragic reality couldn’t be further from Alma’s previous life. An esteemed violinist, her performances left her audiences spellbound. But when the Nazis descend on Europe, none of that can save her…

When the head of the women’s camp appoints Alma as the conductor of the orchestra, performing for prisoners trudging to work as well as the highest-ranking Nazis, Alma refuses: “ they can kill me but they won’t make me play ”. Yet she soon realizes the power this position offers: she can provide starving girls with extra rations and save many from the clutches of death.

This is how Alma meets Miklos, a talented pianist. Surrounded by despair, they find happiness in joint rehearsals, secret notes, and concerts they give side by side––all the while praying that this will one day end. But in Auschwitz, the very air is tainted with loss, and tragedy is the only certainty… In such a hopeless place, can their love survive?

Based on a true story, this devastatingly heartbreaking yet beautifully hopeful tale proves that even in the darkest of days, love can prevail––and give you something to live for. Fans of The Choice, The Tattooist of Auschwitz and The Orphan Train will lose their hearts to this magnificent tale.

Readers absolutely love Ellie Midwood:

“ Oh, my heart!… Beautiful, chilling, terrifying, and hopeful… Midwood is a wonder with words –– I am so in love with her writing… I cried quite a few times while reading this, so have tissues at the ready! And her descriptions of life in the ghetto and the daily struggle to survive were real and visceral… I loved every second I spent with this book and cannot wait for more from Ellie Midwood!” Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“ One of the few books that have left me reeling for days. Talk about having a book hangover!… I smiled, I sighed with relief, I held my breath, I cried. This book gave me all the feels and chills. Hands down, a five-star must-read.” Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“This is a very emotional read and I highly suggest a box of tissues beside you! ” Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“An amazing tale of courage and love in the face of evil and death. I highly recommend this book. You won't forget it once you've read it. It is powerful historical fiction that literally bleeds off the page and becomes a part of you.” Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“The writing is gorgeous, the story is atmospheric, and the characters feel so real, like I could reach out and touch them. And as usual, Midwood's story has that ‘it-factor’ that just sucks you right into the story from page one… Midwood weaves this story together masterfully!” Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“ I don’t think I could give this story enough praise! Rich with historical accuracy and vivid emotions, this is a love story for the ages. With beautiful writing, Miss Midwood is able to create an atmosphere in her story that is both tragic and compelling.” Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“The writing is AMAZING and passionate… It will break your heart.” Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“I have just sobbed my way through the last 30–40% of this book and shall have the mother of all book hangovers now I've finished… An incredibly moving book that I highly recommend.” Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Release date: November 18, 2020

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 306

Sample

There would be no curtain call tonight. Not for her, at any rate. Her eyes staring fixedly at the crack in the opposite wall, Alma’s fingers played with a small, glass vial full of clear liquid. It had taken her a month to secure it from one of the Kanada detail inmates. For weeks, he had stalled and grimaced and invented all sorts of excuses—he’d be glad to help but what she was asking for was nowhere to be had, only the German doctors had it and not their local ones and he didn’t know which one of the Germans to bribe; he wasn’t quite friendly with them, as she could very well imagine—in the hope that she would change her mind. Alma had listened and nodded and obstinately replied that it was all right and she was ready to wait for as long as needed until she wore him down and he had surrendered at last.

“Here’s your goods. The best around, I’ve been told. Works best as an injection, but you can swallow it if you like. It’ll just take a little longer.”

“Thank you. You’ll get my violin as a payment after—”

“I don’t want anything.” A categorical shake of the head and a gaze directed at the ground, flattened by the feet of thousands of inmates, most of them now gone and forgotten. “It’s mixed with something, so there’ll be very little pain before…” He didn’t finish, simply staring at her tragically, with his pleading blue eyes, hands thrust in pockets.

Smiling faintly, Alma reached out and gave his wrist a slight pressure, in gratitude for his help.

Pain. If only he’d known the extent of the pain she’d been living with for the past few weeks, he wouldn’t have tormented her for so long with this unnecessary wait. This—this would end the pain, not inflict it.

An urgent knock on the door brought Alma out of her reverie. Quickly dropping the vial inside the pocket of her black dress, she clasped her hands and squared her shoulders. “Yes?”

Zippy, a mandolinist, Alma’s confidante and a friend she’d grown to love as a sister, stuck her head inside. “Lagerführerin Mandl is here! We’re ready to start.”

Acknowledging the girl with a nod, Alma gathered her violin case, a conductor’s baton, and sheet music from the table. On her way out, she threw a last, appraising glance in the mirror.

The women’s orchestra was considered among the privileged prisoners. The so-called camp elite, who wore civilian clothes and were allowed to keep their hair intact. The fortunate ones, who didn’t have to break their backs in the quarries or fear the dreaded selections. Nazis’ pets, well-fed, and spared the abuse that the others had to endure daily. “A swell arrangement; whatever is there to complain about?” Zippy’s words, exactly. But there was little dignity in such a humiliating existence, when one’s very reason to live was taken away. Not just taken but snatched, in the middle of the night, in the cruelest of manners; suffocated, burned, dumped into a lake, in a pile of ashes, until nothing remained of it but the memory.

The memory and the pain—dull, never-ending, slowly poisoning her very blood.

Aware of the vial sitting snuggly in her pocket, Alma smoothed her dark locks with one hand and fixed her white lace collar. Tonight, she was giving her last performance. She might as well look the part.

In the hazy afternoon, Block 10 stood silent and hot. From time to time, an inmate nurse made her unhurried rounds, checking for fresh corpses. Every other day, there were always a few new ones. Not that Alma counted—she had her own fever to worry about—but she heard the nurses pull them from the beds, through her broken sleep, now and then. Some had already been sick when they’d been herded along with Alma onto the train in Drancy, the French transit camp. Some got ill during their journey and no wonder, either, for they’d been packed like sardines, sixty persons per cattle car. Some had died from botched experiments already here, in Auschwitz.

Slowly, Alma roved her gaze over the room. It was rather big, with beds standing so close to each other the nurses had trouble walking between them. But worst of all was the stench, the atrocious, overpowering stench of stale sweat, thick breath, gangrenous flesh, and soiled clothes that made one want to retch.

Unlike the others, Alma’s group hadn’t been sent to quarantine upon arrival. Neither were they marched straight to gas; instead, they had the doubtful fortune to land here, in the Experimental block—a two-story brick building with windows shuttered closed to guard its sinister secrets from any curious outsiders.

Sometimes, the nurses took pity on them and opened the windows for a few precious moments to ventilate the premises. Though, most of the time, that did more harm than good. Attracted by the smell, swarms of flies and mosquitoes rushed inside and attacked the emaciated bodies with ravenous hunger, spreading more disease and torturing the moaning women with their incessant buzzing and biting. More infected wounds, more corpses taken away by the shaven-headed attendants, one of them invariably marking down the numbers of the deceased in her papers to present them later to their superior, SS Dr. Clauberg. The infamous German order, enforced by the Jewish inmates. Alma was quick to see the irony of such a sad state of affairs.

On her first day in the block, she had naively tried asking for some medication for her fever but was only laughed at. Gathering as much dignity as was possible given the circumstances—a rather difficult undertaking when one had just been shorn like a sheep and given a number instead of her name—she inquired about the X-ray machines she had noticed in two ground-floor rooms, but that question was also ignored by the inmate nurses.

“Mind your own affairs.” That was the most she got from Blockälteste Hellinger, a blond woman with a severe face and an armband of a block elder on her left bicep. It appeared that the nurses, even though prisoners themselves, weren’t in any rush to make friends with the new arrivals.

“I understand that this is not the Hotel Ritz, but hospitality leaves a lot to be desired here,” Alma had noted coolly to her.

Caught off guard, the nurse had looked up from her clipboard and blinked at the new inmate. The entire block had hushed itself instantly. All eyes were suddenly on her. It occurred to Alma that talking back must have been a rare occasion here.

“French transport?” Hellinger measured Alma icily. She spoke German correctly but with a strong Hungarian accent. “I should have guessed. The most stuck-up broads always arrive from there.”

“I’m Austrian.” Alma smiled.

“Better still. Old Empire ambitions. The SS will adjust your attitude quickly enough, Your Highness.”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

Much to her surprise, Hellinger shrugged indifferently. “Makes no difference to me. I was appointed as a block elder to mind the order, not bother my head about you lot. Half of you will croak by the end of next week and the other half will be chased through the chimney in the next three months and that’s if you’re lucky to last that long after the procedure.”

The procedure.

Alma was aware of the post-op ward next to theirs, but the access to it had been restricted.

“Sign me up as a volunteer then,” she said out of pure spite. Like a cornered animal, she was snapping her teeth in a last attempt at useless self-deception—not so much to injure the enemy, but to persuade herself that she wasn’t afraid. “It’s all the same to me. The sooner it’s all over, the better.”

Alma had expected the eruption to follow—the inmates were beaten on the slightest of provocations here—but the block elder remained oddly silent. Hellinger appeared to consider something for some time, then motioned Alma after herself. Eyeing her retreating back with suspicion, Alma followed the head nurse into the dimly lit corridor, where she was standing by the door to the post-op ward, holding it open for Alma. When Alma approached apprehensively, she made a mocking gesture with her hand—After you, Your Highness.

In the ward, the air was even fouler. Hellinger stopped at the first bunk, on which a woman lay with a face so ghostly white and beaded with sweat, it resembled a posthumous mask of melting wax.

With a chilling casualness, Hellinger yanked the hem of the woman’s robe upward. Alma felt her stomach contracting in revulsion; yet, she applied all her powers to prevent the emotion from showing on her face. Black crust covered the raw, red skin where the blisters had burst on the woman’s abdomen. Just above her pubic bone, a long, crudely sewn cut rose in ugly bumps, emanating a sickening stench.

“Bloodless sterilization,” Hellinger explained in a dispassionate voice of a college professor. “An extreme dose of radiation applied to the ovaries, followed by their surgical removal to see if the procedure was successful. The X-rays are so powerful, they cause extreme burns. The surgery itself is performed mostly without anesthetics. As you can see, this case is badly infected; not that Dr. Clauberg is concerned about it. They’re trying to calculate the optimal dose that won’t cause such burns, but so far, this is what we’re ending up with.” She covered the woman’s abdomen and gave Alma a pointed look.

For a long time, Alma stood motionless. “Is there a system to it?” she asked at last, finding her voice again. “Their method of selection of inmates, that is.”

“They’re Germans.” Hellinger smiled for the first time. Though, to Alma, it appeared to be a grimace. “Everything’s in perfect numerical order. So far, they’ve completed it on numbers 50204 to 50252.”

Alma looked at her left forearm, where her own number, 50381, was tattooed in pale-blue ink.

Hellinger looked at it also. Her features softened a little.

Alma glanced up sharply. Determination was back in her black eyes. “Could I ask you for a favor, perhaps?”

Hellinger gave a one-shoulder shrug.

“Is it possible to get a violin here?”

“A violin?”

Apparently, asking for a musical instrument in Auschwitz was just as unheard-of as talking back to one’s superior.

“Are you a violinist or some such?”

“Some such. I haven’t played in eight months. I understand that I don’t have much time. I should very much like to play one last time, if it’s at all possible. If such matter as the condemned person’s last wish is still respected in this place.”

Hellinger promised to see what she could do. She stole a glance at Alma’s pale hand, as if considering taking it into hers for an instant, but changed her mind at the last moment and left the ward abruptly. Giving hope to the condemned was simply cruel.

Alma remained standing before that unmoving ghost of a woman and envied the ones who were gassed upon arrival.

Same endless days. Same block routine that drove one to distraction. Muddy water for breakfast—the Germans called it coffee. Dr. Clauberg making his rounds—“Open your mouth, show me your teeth.” A French woman praying in Latin in the corner, rocking back and forth with her hands clasped so tightly, her knuckles turned white.

More muddy water for lunch—the Germans called it soup. The fortunate ones discovered a piece of a rotten turnip in theirs. Sylvia Friedmann, a Jewish prisoner-nurse and Dr. Clauberg’s first assistant, reading out the numbers from her list. The woman in the corner rocking faster; thrashing and howling as the two orderlies dragged her out of the ward and along the corridor. Stifling, oppressive silence.

Hellinger collecting the bedsheets and nightgowns for disinfection. Naked, shorn women standing to attention—Dr. Clauberg again, squeezing at their breasts this time. Someone must have reported a pregnant woman. Dr. Clauberg, grinning like a vulture, rubbing his fingers in front of the woman’s face—“Milk!” She went quietly, no orderlies this time.

Dinner time. A piece of sawdust bread and a smear of margarine on their palms, licked apathetically by the women. A Belgian girl on the neighboring bunk, her head covered with the blanket, crying for her mother softly—suppressed, pitiful whimpers into the wool, as though so as not to disturb anyone with her grief.

Night. Tears, tears from every bunk around her, hushed prayers, names of the loved ones repeated for hours on end—in endless Kaddish she could no longer bear to hear.

Stillness at last. Silver moonlight spilling from the shuttered window onto Alma’s arms. An invisible violin at her shoulder. Her fingers fluttering over the fingerboard like the wings of a butterfly. A bow in her right hand, kissing the violin’s strings. Outside, the Sankas, camouflaging themselves as Red Cross trucks, taking the bodies away from the neighboring Block 11; Alma had seen them briefly through the cracks in the shutters, setting off in the direction of the crematorium. Inside her head, Strauss, Tales from the Vienna Woods.

Music.

Peace.

Serenity.

A world, in which a place like Auschwitz didn’t have the moral right to exist.

“Alma? Alma Rosé?”

The young nurse with a fresh, pretty face, whom Hellinger brought to the ward, spoke German with a strong Dutch accent. A warm wave of memories, of happier times in Holland where several Dutch families sheltered her from the Nazis, washed over her. Seasons changed in war-ravaged Europe, but not her hosts’ loyalty. Risking their own lives, they had concealed Alma from the Gestapo and asked for nothing in exchange—only for a bit of her marvelous music. Alma was only too glad to oblige; she owed her life and freedom to those brave, selfless people. Repaying their hospitality with her music was the least that she could do. They had moved her from house to house when the rumors of the Gestapo raids swelled to disturbing proportions, but no matter where she was hiding, she had invariably felt welcome and at home.

Naturally, Alma recognized the young girl’s face before her; Alma would never forget the kind smiles of the ones who had kept her safe for so long. Though, it took the girl much longer to recognize her. Alma hadn’t seen her reflection in days—or was it weeks?—but she could very well imagine what a sorry sight she presented. No longer a celebrated violin player in an elegant evening gown with an open back; that much was obvious.

“Magda, do you know who this is? This is Alma Rosé herself!” The nurse was beaming at Blockälteste Hellinger in apparent delight. “She’s a violinist, very famous in Austria!” Misinterpreting Alma’s silence, the nurse rushed to explain, “My name is Ima van Esso. You played at our home in Amsterdam. In 1942, a Telemann sonata; remember?”

Of course, she did. A warm house heated against all German regulations; an illegal gathering of music aficionados; mismatched, elegant chairs assembled in a semicircle; women in evening gowns and men in dress suits, all eyes on her—the woman they had adored and risked the wrath of the Gestapo just to hear her play once again.

“You accompanied me. The flute.” Somehow, Alma managed the words. The memories cut. It was strange to be holding Ima’s hand in hers again. It was a mirthless reunion for all the wrong reasons. The last time they parted ways, Alma was still a free woman.

Ima presented her with a radiant smile. “Yes! It’s so kind of you to remember. I was such an amateur… most certainly you felt I was beneath your best effort.”

Alma felt the beginning of a quiver in her bottom lip and bit into it, hard. “Nonsense. You played excellently.” Alma was proud to hear her voice so calm. The self-inflicted pain worked its magic, as it always did.

Magda Hellinger whistled softly through her teeth. “A celebrity, then? Why didn’t you say so when you asked me for the blasted violin?”

“Does a person need to be a celebrity to play the violin in this place?” Alma asked, sharper than she had intended.

“Not necessarily, but it helps while trying to obtain one,” Hellinger explained. “To organize things in Auschwitz, it requires a lot of work. It will cost me, getting a violin for you. The only person who knows anything about music is this little Fräulein. Don’t hold it against me, but I had to verify it with her first.”

Ima was already pulling at Magda’s sleeve as she searched the Blockälteste’s face with her pleading eyes. “Oh, Magda, dear, please, do get it for her! You will fall over with amazement once you hear how splendidly she can play. A true virtuoso; you take my word for it. You’ll feel as though you’re in the Vienna Philharmonic at once—”

“Vienna Philharmonic, my foot,” Magda grumbled under her breath, throwing a glance in the direction of the door. “Even if I get one through Zippy, how is she to play it here in secret? Or do you suggest we stage an open concert here, right under Dr. Clauberg’s very nose?”

“Dr. Clauberg and the SS Blockführerin leave at six.” Ima refused to surrender. “They won’t come back till the next morning. The compound shall be all but deserted. We’ll put a couple of girls as door watchers so they can alert us at once if someone approaches the block.”

“What of Block 11? Don’t you think they’ll hear her play?”

After a pause, Ima shrugged, a gentle, tragic smile appearing on her face. “They’re all condemned men there. Do you truly believe they’ll report to the SS the last beautiful thing they heard before going to the wall?”

Much to Alma’s astonishment, the very next day Magda presented her with a violin. With the slyest of looks, the block elder produced it from inside the pillowcase and held it before bewildered Alma’s eyes with visible pride.

“Zippy sends her regards.”

Alma grasped at the violin’s neck with hunger other inmates displayed only at the sight of bread. “Who’s Zippy?” Alma inquired, out of politeness mostly.

All her attention was riveted to the instrument, to which broken pieces of straw still clung from where it had been extracted from its hiding place. Slowly and with great reverence, Alma’s fingers caressed the lines of the violin. It had been eight months, eight excruciatingly long months, since she had held her own Guadagnini—her faithful companion that she had to leave for her lover’s safekeeping in Utrecht.

Something caught in her throat when Alma remembered Leonard’s warm hands on her wet cheeks and his assurances that she would surely be back before she knew it and that her violin should be right there, with him, awaiting her return, just like he was…

With a sudden chilling cynicism, she wondered whose bed her Leonard was warming now, much like Heini before him. In the course of the past few years, Alma had grown used to the men’s betrayals. Only violins stayed loyal. Her Guadagnini was with her when first husband Váša asked for a divorce; it was still with her when her lover Heini had fled, leaving her to fend for herself in pre-war London. The idea of Alma being the breadwinner in the family didn’t appeal to him, much like the discomfort of having to start from the blank slate with a woman he used to swear he loved more than life just weeks before they left their native Austria, with Alma’s father in tow. Poor Heinrich, Alma mused with a smirk, didn’t even have the guts to look her in the eye before beating his hasty retreat. She ran from Austria to save her life; he ran back to Vienna to save his—the life of comfort devoid of any unnecessary hardships.

“Who’s Zippy?” Magda snorted softly, a conspirator’s look about her. “That’s for me to know and for you not to find out. Now, put it away and don’t even think of touching it until I tell you personally that it’s safe. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“You ought to say, Jawohl, Blockälteste.” When Alma looked up at her sharply, Magda softened the order with an unexpected smile. “You don’t have to give me their idiotic military response when it’s just us girls here. But you ought to say it when the SS wardens, Dr. Clauberg, or Dr. Wirths are present. And you ought to reply in the same manner to them, too, or you’ll get it from them, with a whip across your back. Well, not from Dr. Wirths; he’s essentially a reasonable man and not violent by nature. In fact, it’s thanks to him that we have bedsheets, nightgowns, towels, and even soap in our block. But the others, they’re far from being so charitable. They’re big on discipline, the SS.”

As though not having heard her, Alma continued to stare at the violin with a blissful smile.

Magda Hellinger had already turned to take her leave when she heard an unexpected, “Thank you, Blockälteste.”

In spite of herself, Magda discovered that she was grinning. “You’re welcome, Your Highness.”

That evening, the setting sun colored the underbellies of the clouds tender-pink. All over the camp, silence lay once the outside gangs had been marched in. Inside their cages, the guard dogs slept, locked up for the night. Only Block 10 was in wild excitement. Women, the ones who weren’t bedridden that is, moved their cots to free the space for a makeshift stage in the front of the room. Violin in hand, Alma shifted from one foot to the other in great impatience, her nerves strained to the utmost as though she were to play before the Vienna finest again and not this pitiful, suffering herd.

At last, everything was arranged. Perfect silence descended upon the Experimental block. Stepping in front of her audience, Alma brought a bow to the strings and closed her eyes. The first long, tentative note probed the stillness of the descending night. It cut itself short, hesitated, then suddenly gained force and unraveled in a crescendo of runs and, all at once, the very name—Auschwitz—had ceased to exist for its victims. They weren’t here any longer; eyes closed, dreamy smiles on their exhausted faces, the women swaying slightly in time with the music, each immersed in her own world where beauty once again had its meaning, where lovers twirled them in their arms to a Viennese waltz, where their loved ones still lived, despite all, for music is eternal and so are the memories.

In the corner, Ima was weeping soundlessly, holding her mouth with her nurse’s kerchief. Leaning against the wall, Magda was rubbing her chest as though it physically pained her, being reminded of the fact that something existed beyond this cruel world where her kind was being slaughtered in hundreds of thousands. Yet, she smiled, for along with the pain, the hope had ignited in her once again—hope that perhaps nothing was yet lost if such beauty could still find its way even behind the Auschwitz walls.

Her fingers abuzz with the music, Alma opened her eyes and grinned mischievously at her stunned audience.

“What are you all waiting for?” Her voice suddenly cut through the reverent silence. “Am I playing for nothing? It’s not just rude, it’s practically amoral to sit still when the waltz is being played. Dance. Well? Up and dance, ladies! I refuse to believe they made you forget how to dance.”

For the first few moments, the girls exchanged bewildered gazes. The very idea appeared outrageous. But then Magda herself made a resolute step toward one of the cots, bowed theatrically, and offered one of the women her hand with a gallantry that would make any Old Empire gentleman proud.

“Madame Mila, would you do me the honor?”

Without any hesitation, the girl whom Magda addressed as Mila, enclosed her narrow palm into the Hungarian Blockälteste’s hand. Giggling with disbelief and delight, they began twirling around the small space near the improvised stage, barefoot and tangling in their long nightgowns. Soon, another couple joined them, and another, as Alma looked on, misty-eyed and finally at peace for the first time in months. With the power of her music, she made these women free for a few precious moments. Now, she could die happy.

“Your Highness!” Despite the teasing manner in which Magda had addressed Alma, there was a definite measure of respect in her voice now.

Not only that, the block elder had somehow managed to ensure that Alma would be exempt from the experiments just so the Block wouldn’t lose their precious violinist who made them forget the horrors of their incarceration each time she played for them. Alma had a strong suspicion that such a preferential treatment had something to do with Sylvia Friedmann, Dr. Clauberg’s first assistant, who had become a sort of a permanent fixture at their “cultural evenings” as of late. Most certainly it was her who had agreed to strike Alma’s name from Dr. Clauberg’s list after Alma played her favorite Slovakian songs the nurse had requested.

“What do you say to playing for a slightly different audience tonight?” Magda’s voice was bright with an artificial cheerfulness in it, but her eyes, averted in discomfort, betrayed the block elder. Behind her back, two newcomers, scrawny like scarecrows, were shifting from one foot to another. “These two girls are from the women’s band,” Magda continued. “It’s them, whom you hear playing every morning when the outside Kommandos—the work gangs—walk through the gates. ‘Work sets you free’ and all that rot. The SS think marching to work ought to be celebrated with music.” An expressive roll of Magda’s eyes was a clear enough indication of her attitude toward the infamous slogan that was emblazoned above the camp gates—Arbeit macht frei. “That was the reason why they organized camp orchestras in the first place.”

Alma remained silent.

“Good afternoon, Frau Rosé.” The younger woman stepped forward. A striped dress that hung loosely over her frame only emphasized her emaciated state. Oddly enough, her head wasn’t shaved—Alma could see the auburn curls neatly tucked under her kerchief. “It’s such an honor to make your acquaintance. We’re all huge admirers of your talent.”

“My name is Hilde, and this is Karla,” her friend introduced them both. Just like Karla, Hilde spoke Alma’s native language but with a Prussian accent instead of Alma’s soft Viennese. She also wore the same striped dress and kerchief. It occurred to Alma that it must have been the band’s uniform of sorts.

At once, they began talking over each other:

“We heard from Zippy about the tremendous success of your cultural evenings—”

“She plays in our little orchestra, you see—”

“I play recorder and piccolo—”

“And I’m a percussionist, but, to be truthful with you, all we can produce is the most atrocious Katzenmusik that the local Gestapo can use as a form of torture and brassy marches that are only good enough for the Aussenkommando—the outside gangs—to march to.”

“Sofia, our band leader, tries to organize us the best she can, but we’re like monkeys to an organ grinder.”

“And it just so happens that today is one of the SS wardens’ birthdays and we thought—”

“No.”

Startled by such a categorical dismissal—the first thing to fly off Alma’s lips that she kept pursed into a tight, unyielding line—the two girls exchanged anxious looks.

Next to them, Magda only snorted softly with good-natured disdain. “I told you she’d refuse. Her Highness doesn’t realize where she is yet. If she were assigned to an outside gang for a couple of days, where they’d make her hurl rocks from one pile to another purely for the SS’s amusement, that would teach her fast enough how not to turn her little nose away from such opportunities. But we have spoiled her here already.”

“I’m not playing for those Nazi pig farmers,” Alma said. Seeing the band girls’ faces transform with growing horror from such insults being thrown around with such carelessness, she grinned darkly. “Pig farmers,” Alma repeated slowly and with great relish. “That’s precisely what they are. The scum of the earth that crawled out of all the crevices and flooded the entire continent with their filth. You wish me to play for them? Why would I waste my talents? They wouldn’t recognize good music if it hit them full-on in their faces.”

Chalk-white and wide-eyed, Karla was already shaking her head so vehemently her auburn curls came loose from under her kerchief. “You mustn’t say such things here! People will report you to the Kapo, or an SS Blockführerin, for a piece of bread and it will all be over for you!”

“All the better. Report me yourselves, if you like. Makes no difference to me.” It wasn’t mere bravado; she truly didn’t care one way or the other if the SS took her to the wall and shot her for her long tongue.

Magda was outright laughing now. Have you seen anything like it? her very face seemed to reflect. “Highness.” She stepped closer to Alma’s bed. “Don’t be daft. Get up.”

Alma didn’t move.

“Well? Shall I help you find your legs? What’s the difference who you play for, us or the wardens?” Magda pressed.

“There’s a great difference for me.”

“The girls are right; someone will report your refusal to play and you’ll land yourself in the neighboring block for your arrogance, where the camp Gestapo will make things hot for you.”

“They can beat me to death, if such is their wish. It’ll change nothing. They can kill me, but they won’t make me play.”

“I’ve seen pigheaded people in my life before, but this is something new entirely.” Magda shook her head. “I did what I could,” she told the band girls before taking her leave. “That’s your trouble now. I have my own affairs to attend to.”

For some