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with the belt ready to descend.
    Without hesitation, my brother wraps his body around mine and shields me from what is coming.
    I am crying and struggling to break free, but my brother is holding me too tightly.
    I feel his pain worse than if it were my own.
    I am screaming so loudly that we don’t hear the door open until we see my mother pushing my father away. “Are you crazy, Borys? That’s enough!”
    He backs down, but not before saying, “Look at the mess your children made,” pointing to the pieces on the floor.
    She looks at us and signals with a tilt of her head for us to leave the room.
    â€œYes, I see,” she says wearily. “I’ll pick up another one for you tomorrow, all right?”
    Either he’s tired out by the whipping or is happy that he’s getting a new stein. Regardless, my father walks away grumbling about how useless we are.
    Was Damian protecting someone else when he was killed? I can picture how he would defend his supplies, the lifeline of the Jews hiding in the forest.
    I can’t believe that I will never see him again or hear the special way he says, “Lena.”
    It feels like the sorrow is in my bones.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    E VEN WITH OUR GRIEF, we have to be careful about how we tell people about Damian’s death.
    Our story to the neighbors is that he was killed in a robbery.
    Casmir makes the trip from Germany and comes to the house when he hears.
    He holds me and doesn’t say much. Some things are beyond words.

Part II
    B RONEK

Chapter 20
    M y brother and I have been inseparable from as early as I can remember.
    Although just a year younger, Dawid only comes up to my shoulder.
    I have protected him all my life.
    My mother says, “If you didn’t both come out of my own body, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
    One day, Dawid comes home from school with a bloody nose.
    â€œWhat happened?” I ask, outraged that anyone would hurt him.
    He says, “It was Resnit. He makes the kids give him a zloty every day or he beats them. I told him that I didn’t have any money, but he didn’t believe me.”
    I am furious.
    I say to my brother, “You won’t have to worry about Resnit after I deal with him tomorrow.”
    Dawid says, “I’m okay now, Bronek. Let’s just forget about it.”
    My brother avoids confrontation. He’s a peacemaker.
    Not me.
    The next day I go to school with Dawid and make him point out the bully to me.
    I walk over to Resnit and, without a word, punch him hard in the face, breaking his nose. Then I follow with another blow to the stomach, so now he’s fallen over.
    In a cold voice I say, “If you ever touch my brother again, I’ll kill you.”
    We live in Sokal, a small town on the banks of the Bug River in Poland. Word travels fast in a small place, and Dawid never has to worry about walking home from school after that.

Chapter 21
    I should be in school myself, but I prefer to go to work with my father. I think secretly, he’s happy that I want to be with him.
    Books don’t make much sense to me, as they do to Dawid.
    My father, a strong man, teaches me to be handy with a hammer and takes me to construction jobs with him. His men respect that he always does more than his share. He covers for members of his team who are ill and can’t do their job to justify the day’s pay. You don’t see men like my father every day, and I’m proud to be his son.
    Walking home from our jobs, my father shares his dreams with me. “Bronek, one day you and I will build our own house. We’ll use it to show people what we can do. If people see that a good house can be built for a reasonable price, then we’ll have lots of business and make lots of money—maybe enough to buy your mother a fur coat,” he says with a wink of his eye. “We’ll be partners and we’ll bring Dawid in too. With all