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whichever comes first. And I don’t want to die like Kaz, left in the middle of the field screaming until we couldn’t hear him. By the time we got there, it was too late. He died all alone. I don’t want to die like that. I don’t want to die at all. It’s a beautiful night tonight. Boys and I are in a small village in Italy, right near the French border, drinking wine and smoking. No one is saying much. But I think we are all thinking the same thing: we don’t want to die; we want this war to be over. Most of the time, we are walking or fighting or cold or hungry, but in times like this, when it’s all quiet, I tell myself that I’m fighting for you, so that you don’t have to walk down the street ashamed of who you are, so that you can be free, but I don’t know what that means. I so goddamn wish that this was a dream. When we wake up, we’re all back in our house, not the camp, but our house, in Seattle, with Mom and Dad and Grandpa and you.
    Your brother, Nick.

April 1945
    The sky without Grandpa
    is empty.
    The room without Grandpa
    is unfamiliar.
    Life without Grandpa
    has no laughter.
    Roses are dull. Birds no
    longer sing.
    Our family is torn apart:
    Nick is away,
    fighting the war,
    Father is quiet
    in his sadness,
    Mother doesn’t talk
    as much as she used to,
    and I feel
    more alone than I have
    ever felt.

April 1945
    Dear Mina,
    This is not a letter you will ever read.
    This is a letter I will never send you.
    Today, we opened the gates of hell.
    As we approached the camp,
    scarecrows, or so we thought, began to cheer,
    and we knew then, that these weren’t scarecrows
    or skeletons, but men so skinny their clothes
    barely hung on their bones. More of them came out,
    limping, ghost-like, wearing identical
    striped shirts and pants. None of us could
    speak. We’ve never seen anything like this—
    this nightmare—in our lives,
    not in a battlefield,
    not in the villages we marched through.
    One old man sat slumped against a barrack,
    his eyes barely open. I thought he was old
    until I saw his face; he was my age,
    though most of his teeth had rotted,
    and his body was so skinny he weighed less
    than you do. It was snowing
    but he did not seem to care.
    I forgot how cold it was. When I reached
    over, he opened his eyes, so slowly, and smiled.
    Then he sighed, and fell into my arms.
    Just like that. And died.
    This is hell, Mina, where men die as soon
    as they are freed. This is hell when men do
    this to each other. I never thought anything like
    this was possible. I can’t close my eyes; instead
    of this place, I see the camp back
    home, where you are, surrounded by barbed wire,
    by guard towers, just like here, and you and Mom
    and Dad as skinny, and horrible-looking,
    as these men. They call this place
    Dachau. This is hell. I don’t know what war is
    anymore. I don’t understand anything. Is there
    anything left to live for?
    Your brother, Nick.

VE Day, 1945
    A photo of sailors in the newspaper,
    smiling widely.
    A man swoops a woman down to the ground, kissing
    her like they are in the middle
    of a dance.
    A photo of New York filled with so many flags
    and people that all the buildings
    are hidden under the cheers I can’t hear.
    Waves of flags, American flags
    all in midair. Still.
    A picture of a fat Italian man—Mussolini—
    hanging upside down
    from a lamppost somewhere in Italy.
    Next to him are two more bodies, one a woman
    and another a man.
    A picture of German soldiers with
    their arms raised high, their eyes
    downcast. A little girl with a white flag
    and an American flag, smiling.
    The war has ended. Nick can come home.

July 1945
    A woman killed her baby
    today because she was
    afraid of leaving the camp.
    Her husband wrapped
    the baby, her head
    as soft as a rotten tomato,
    and begged the doctors
    to fix her. The baby
    was dead. The mother
    was afraid of leaving.

August 1945
    The day the bomb fell on the city
    of Hiroshima, the sky here was so blue
    that it hurt the eyes. The