Making Bombs for Hitler

A Hitler Youth takes Lida and a small group of less-injured laborers through the burning camp to a truck, passing the bodies of dead prisoners along the way. From the crowded truck, Lida sees Allied bombers in the night sky. The countryside is alight with fires. They are going to another work camp deeper in Germany because the advancing Front is close. A toothless woman on the truck returns Lida’s crucifix. Zenia, Natalia, and Kataryna escaped: They looked for Lida but could not wait for her. Zenia asked the woman to return the cross. Lida hopes they are safe. She is thrilled to have the cross back. It was passed down to the oldest child through generations of her family and gives Lida a sense of protection and strength. Lida now feels she judged Larissa unfairly because Larissa had no choice in her fate of living with a Nazi family.

The truck stops in a quaint village. A German housewife peek out from behind a lace curtain in a cottage. Lida wonders what she thinks of them. A mustached man emerges from a cottage near a stone building and inspects them. He rejects the toothless woman, who is taken away.