We didn't know her name. Only that she lived in the third-floor flat, two windows across from the church bell that stopped chiming after the second raid. Her mother was quiet, always nodding politely in the stairwell, always carrying something—laundry, a loaf, a child half-asleep on her shoulder. We noticed them in the way we notice wallpaper or lamp posts or the sound of pigeons roosting in the attic. They were part of the backdrop, not the story.
Until they weren't.
That morning, the trucks came early. The soldiers had new uniforms—black, with gold trim, and boots that left wet prints on the tile. Their breath steamed in the spring air. They moved through the building with clinical certainty, as if they'd memorized a list we hadn't seen.
We heard the mother scream before we saw her. A jagged sound, rising and falling like someone dragging a nail across glass. The girl was wrapped around her waist, legs clamped like a vice, refusing to let go. Her face was contorted—not in fear, but in fury. That's what we remember. That anger. That wild, righteous fight.
Two soldiers pried them apart like splitting wood. The mother's nails scraped the floor. The girl howled, low and animal, until her voice broke. Then it was only silence. The kind that settles deep in your marrow.
We watched from our windows, behind curtains we'd sewn shut after the last search. Watched and did nothing. That part is important. That part is ours.
They left her behind. Alone. Her mouth open but no sound coming out. A small blue figure in the stairwell's shadow, surrounded by the echo of footsteps and laughter and metal doors slamming shut.
She didn't cry, not at first. Children don't cry when there's no one to catch the tears.
She reappeared two days later. We spotted her walking the length of the boulevard, arms wrapped around her stomach. Her dress was the same—blue, frilled, stained now with city grime. Her feet were bare. One ankle was swollen. She limped slightly, like someone walking on a twisted past.
She passed the bakery and stopped. We remember that vividly—her palms flat against the smudged glass, her breath fogging the window. Inside, the shelves were bare, the floor dusted in flour that no longer mattered. She lingered a long time, as though she could will the memory of bread back into being.
Then she moved on.
We think she was searching for someone. Her mother, perhaps. Or the version of the world that made sense. She checked doorways. Peered under tables left out in the street. Listened for familiar voices and found only gunshots and boots and the mechanical wheeze of loudspeakers repeating slogans in two languages, neither of them hers.
She did not speak to us. But she saw us. In windows. On balconies. Carrying buckets of water. Pretending not to notice her. Pretending not to be ashamed.
We said nothing. Did nothing. And so she passed out of sight again, a question mark trailing dirt through our neighborhood.
Someone said they saw her near the checkpoint that afternoon. That she approached a soldier. Tugged at his sleeve. Looked up and asked, in her broken child's voice, if she could play too.
He didn't hit her. That would've been easier to forgive. He just looked at her like she was something wrong, something rotting and out of place. Then pushed her aside—not hard, but final. Like sweeping dust.
She stumbled. Caught herself. Stared at him a moment longer, then turned away.
We tell ourselves that was the moment something inside her changed.
That night it rained. Cold needles slicing through the streetlight haze. We heard her crying beneath the eaves of the old print shop. A thin, broken sound that skipped like a scratched record. Someone left a blanket near the doorway. We still don't know who. She didn't use it.
By morning, she was gone again.
This time, she rode in the back of a transport truck. We didn't see how she got there. Maybe she climbed in by herself. Maybe the soldiers, annoyed by her wandering, tossed her in to be dealt with elsewhere. She was not alone. Dozens of faces crowded the dark canvas—men with sunken eyes, women with scarves tight around their mouths, children clinging to dolls with missing arms.
They didn't want her. That was obvious. They looked away when she sat. Made space, but only barely. Then the old woman—wrinkled and bird-thin—reached into her coat and offered the girl a piece of bread. Stale. Cracked. But still bread.
The girl took it. Bit down too hard. Blood mingled with crumbs.
She didn't flinch.
The old woman patted her lap. The girl leaned in. Rested her cheek there like she might have, once, against her mother.
The truck roared forward.
We do not know where it went. But we remember the direction. East, toward the old rail yard. Past the abandoned church. Past the billboard with the smiling soldier and the slogan we used to mock before it wasn't funny anymore.
They arrived near dusk.
Gray fences. Watchtowers like tired eyes. Barking dogs. Smoke from somewhere out of sight.
They were herded down like cattle. No names. No voices raised in protest. Just the shuffle of shoes and the quiet scrape of fear.
The girl stayed close to the old woman. Watched her lips move in silent rhythm—prayers maybe, or just names she was trying not to forget. Inside the camp, they were taken to a tent, one of many. It stank of mildew, of sweat, of bodies too tightly packed and hope pressed thin.
Someone told the girl they were going to bathe. The old woman whispered it to her, smoothing her hair with trembling fingers.
"We're going to take a shower now. You'll feel better after. You'll be clean again."
The girl nodded. She believed her. Children do.
They undressed. Stood shivering in lines, skin to skin, eyes cast down. The girl held the old woman's hand. Her knuckles were white.
The door opened.
They were ushered in.
We know what came next.
We have the documents. The photos. The testimony. We have diagrams etched in red pencil. Timelines. Numbers.
But that's not what haunts us.
What haunts us is this:
We imagine her looking up at the ceiling. The false showerhead glinting. We imagine her waiting for the water. For the warmth. For something to come and cleanse the filth and the silence and the not-knowing.
She closed her eyes.
And we tell ourselves she fell asleep.
That the hiss of gas was just a lullaby.
That her final breath was one of dreaming.
Because the truth is heavier than we can carry.
Because her silence is louder than our remembering.
Because she is still walking, somewhere, in the blue dress with torn hem, barefoot and blinking in a world that no longer makes sense.
And because we did nothing.
And because she saw us.
And because we looked away.