Angels of Stockholm: Short Stories

Marina cut her small ration in half, sharing with the sick (possibly dying) young girl she had been trying to look after. The girl was too weak to leave the cramped, dirty sleeping quarters to work in the camp. Marina feared the girl would be sent to the gas chamber if the guards deemed her incapable of labor. Marina was beginning to think this might be worse than Auschwitz, where she and many other women and children had come from in the fall of 1944. She had hoped the transfer would have improved her chances of survival, but it appeared now there wasn’t much difference between one labor camp or another. Hope was in short supply, but not totally eradicated. Marina had heard rumors recently in the camp. Rumors the war was ending and the allies had won. Rumors of liberation. But she, like the other prisoners, had heard about liberators coming to save their lives before and it never seemed to happen. - from the Angels of Stockholm