Ruthie darted her eyes left to right, making sure none of the guards saw her pick the red apple out of the garbage. She hid the fruit in the pocket of her burlap wrapper, so rough that it chafed the skin on her neck and arms to a tender, raw red, but the makeshift covering kept the cruel winter's wind from sweeping across the fields and freezing her solid. Ruthie walked across the dirt to the other building. A mountain of work awaited her.
She picked up her tools and continued hammering nails into the standing two-by-fours. She and her compatriots, eighteen women altogether, would finish the building by the end of the week. Otherwise, there'd be hell to pay with the guards. Already rumors flew, they'd be sent east if they didn't finish in time. Worse rumors flew, of course, that the guards would pick and choose -- half would live, half would get on the train. They'd all been warned before they'd been picked up in Cologne and brought to this camp in the Polish veldt: the further east your train traveled, the more people died.
Ruthie hadn't seen her family in eleven months. She wondered if Oma and Opa had survived the raid, but had no idea. She knew Mama had been killed at the house, fighting off the S.S., but Papa had surrendered and had been taken away, just like she and her sisters. They'd all gone separate ways, so she had no idea. Perhaps she'd find out when the war was over -- if, indeed, she survived herself.
Lean hunger seized her abdomen. When she thought no one was looking, she reached into her pocket for the apple, but Ruthie didn't see the guard around the corner, staring at her as he cocked his gun.
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