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And, of course, they kneere singing to Róża

‘MUFFINS!’ yelled the girl at the

Instant silence A dozen hands dragged me off the table In five seconds ere all bent with our heads over our knitting and a guard stoured out

I got irl who handed it to me as we crowded round the druot Zosia and Genca to thank, because they’re dead,’ Róża inforirl who’d given me the bread lish, ‘Lisette is your Lagermutter now, your Camp Mother, and she’s mine and Róża’s also So we’ll treat you like a sister’

‘I’m Rose,’ I said

‘I know you’re Rose Rose Justice, American poet Well, I’m Karolina Salska, Polish film maker Not famous yet I worked as a projectionist before the war but what I really want to do is animation, like Disney, you know? You’ll pay for the bread by telling ht, ‘You have seen Fantasia, right?’

‘Well, yes, but’ What had happened in Fantasia? Mickey Mouse in a wizard’s hat and flying horses anddinosaurs? ‘It was about four years ago and I don’t remember the music’

‘Don’t worry, I haven’t seen it, but I knohat they play in every sequence, and Lisette is like a walking et her to hum and you can describe what happens, OK? Gitte sohts-out’

‘But –’

‘Look, I said don’t worry If you can’t re, you can teach me some new American dance tunes as co tables where the knitters worked – Róża curled up under the end of the table on the concrete floor with Lisette, and squeezed over to make room for me and Karolina It was their little family place for a quarter of an hour twice a day, a private nook under the table and out of the chaos of the hundreds of people trying to get to the soup and bread Karolina tried to let me creep in first, but I couldn’t sit I had to stay on e As Karolina shuffled in pasta Cas and saw the scar splitting her shin

‘You’re a Rabbit!’

She glanced up at one red ‘And I like to dance to American music’

I probably went red too ‘Oh! I didn’t mean you couldn’t dance! I was just surprised about your ared I patrol the anti-aircraft ditches and don’t have to go around with SS guards breathing down my neck all the ti her kerchief with the back of her hand as if it were her hair ‘I don’t limp,’ she said ‘One operation only, a bacterial infection, very neat They didn’t peel off the muscle or cut out pieces of my shinbone like they did to Róża –’

‘You were sick for longer,’ Róża interrupted ‘You couldn’t walk for eightstockings’ Listening to the Rabbits talk about their operations was like watching a horror e You sort of hoped you’d ured out as really going on, it orse than you thought

‘I can ithout lis weren’t even worth a picture, reot two snapshots all to herself, front and back’

‘What kind of pictures?’ I asked in an agony of confusion I didn’t think she meant art Did the SS o There’s a soldiers’ prison camp not far from here, and sos there, and people get to talk to the boys They got us a cas’

Róża said savagely, ‘They’ll kill us all eventually, but at least we’ve got evidence’ She let out one of her bitter cackles of laugher ‘If soets the pictures developed One of the French prisoners is hiding the filer to her lips, and both Róża and Karolina gave her their full attention, waiting expectantly

Lisette said so in Polish The second she’d finished, they all took a tiny bite of the stale bread, and a race They were crouching on a dirty concrete floor under a table and they said grace

I was astonished at the time Now I understand It was one of the ways Lisette held herself together