This is how the book opens. It’s Chapter One, in full — about three hundred words.
July 1944. Ivan Roluk is driving a train carrying over a thousand wounded Nazi soldiers. His wife and son are in the caboose. So is the fourteen-year-old Jewish girl his family has been hiding.
The Moment of Truth
July 1944
Ivan Roluk looks behind him. The twenty train cars filled with over one thousand wounded Nazi soldiers snakes behind the engine car like a meandering river. In the caboose at the tail of the train is his wife, Maria; his son, Stephan; and the fourteen-year-old Jewish girl, Rachel. It is time to give them the signal.
He applies the brakes, slowing down the train. Then he blows the horn…once…twice…three times.
He looks back. Have they jumped out of the caboose? Or were those shadows he saw?
He hears a door slam. What is it? It sounds like the door connecting the engine to the first car, which is occupied by high-ranking Nazi officers. Is one of them coming up front?
The moment of truth has arrived. He releases the brakes and thrusts the throttle full ahead.
Ivan would never show it, but in his heart of hearts he is terrified. He loves his wife. He loves his son. He doesn’t want to die.
How did he let that little Jewish girl convince him? How did she have so much courage? Where did she get it from? Why was she so sure of herself, so sure of the plan?
There’s no more time for thinking. He leans out the open side door. The wind blows in his face. The ground speeds past him. He takes a step…
As he jumps, the thought keeps circling through his head: That little Jewish girl was not afraid, that little Jewish girl was not afraid, that little Jewish girl was not afraid….
That girl was my mother-in-law.
Read the rest — Run Rachel Run on Amazon →
Get new articles by email.
Leave a Reply