Soon, Mother stopped waiting in the food line for our mealtime rations. To keep us both from starving, I had to take over that responsibility in addition to my schoolwork and camp chores. It was in the queue for our meager daily meal when I first spoke with Mrs. Kan. She and I exchanged smiles or sympathetic glances on occasion, and I knew that she was one of the members of Mother’s fifty-worker unit in the furniture factory. I never learned why Mrs. Kan was imprisoned with us, or how it was that she lived in one of the family units when I never saw a husband or children with her.
That night when I got to the food line, Mrs. Kan was already there, standing apart from the other prisoners and holding some small twigs that prisoners sometimes picked for firewood. As soon as I reached my plac
