It would’ve been a beautiful day, but the sun, usually impossible to gaze directly into, was but a soft yellow disc thrown and stuck in the dark fog. Its brightness varied as the stacks belched black at different rates throughout the morning.

Josef had overheard it was expected to be busier than usual as a large train had just arrived from the west. Indeed, he saw three winches break before noon due to the added strain. Each was fixed promptly.

The red-brick-turned-black crematorium, with its 120 ovens, was loaded to capacity and the air was torrid and reeked of a smell no human should ever have to endure. A large cart was wheeled in with the next load from the chambers. Josef always worried that he’d die from exposure to the remains, but figured it all the same in the end. He sometimes wished for Death at this point, but he couldn’t bear knowing his wife and daughter had survived him due to his cowardice, so he continued his morbid duty.

He knew the Sonderkommando usually only lasted four months anyway before being exterminated, only to be quickly replaced.

The infants went in first as kindling. Then the emaciated and elderly. Then the healthiest — some still clinging to life as the Zyklon B swirled in their lungs. These were the most difficult. They grabbed Josef’s clothes and gasped half-heard pleadings over the roar of the incinerators. A cold pistol-barrel on the back of his neck inspired Josef’s muscles to contract, sending the doomed into the orange glow. The screams were sometimes enough to give even the guards pause.

Josef managed to open and shut the fiery portal 127 times before dusk. Only a few more hours and he could at last close his eyes and imagine his Sonja’s hand gently stroking his own.

The last cart came in just before the whistle blew.

As he picked up his daughter and hugged her lifeless body, he wept. She was naked and her right arm refused to lift off the cart as it was still tightly clasped around her mother’s hand — a sterling silver thimble compressed between their palms. As he placed their suddenly light bodies softly onto the sliding table, leaving their hands neatly finger-sewn, he threw his gaze around the room then back towards his girls. They were his and he was theirs and He would be with them.

The overloaded crematorium was difficult to navigate and the guard could not make it to Josef before he was able to climb onto the cradle and nestle himself to the right of his wife and their daughter, his left arm around them both. He did not fight the heat as he forced himself and his family through the small door. His tears evaporated and the skin on his hand boiled as he grabbed the iron handles and pulled it shut.

Two guards looked through the grates half amused, half bewildered as Josef kissed his daughter on her right cheek. He kissed his wife’s lips as his uniform became part of him. Josef lied down and looked to his left. Before his sight left him, his mind was gifted with a perfect impression, in profile, of his beloved Sonja and their Anna.

A small stream of sterling was forming under two delicately folded hands. Josef reached over and made three.

The flames licked his face and he smiled.