Summary

The chapter opens with Skinny's escape from the marching columns as the Germans go into retreat. The narrator recalls his attraction to her when they were first re-united in Prague. There is a reticence to talk about her experience, and the pair, along with their friend, Ervin Adler, realize that the end of the War does not necessarily mean the end of their ordeal as they are still questioned by strangers about what had happened to them. Skinny does, however, tell the narrator about her father's suicide and the deaths of her mother and brother.

An aircraft crashes outside No. 232 Ost and the guards run out to try to rescue the pilot. Although he is alive when they reach him, he dies shortly after. Madam Kulikowa discusses Auschwitz-Birkenau and alternative medicine with a Major as she gives him a massage. Skinny and Estelle...