After the initial adrenaline of her flight had worn off, Ruby’s pace slowed. There was no one following her, and the underbrush grew trickier to navigate as she moved deeper into the forest. She couldn’t see the sun, and she was no longer certain of which direction she was going. Her body burned, her head throbbed, and her vision was blurry with tears. “Nadia,” she repeated over and over as new tears spilled. What had her friend done? Had she known, when she encouraged Ruby to flee, that this could happen? Was that what Nadia was trying to tell her, that she was prepared to die to protect her?
By the time night fell, the world was spinning. Ruby stopped near a creek, filled the bottle Herr Hartmann had given her, and drank it all down. She ate half a potato but vomited it back up almost immediately. She sat and leaned against a fallen tree and told herself she would rest for just a few minutes before moving on. But before she knew it, the night had closed in. Sleep overtook her, and her slumber was rich with nightmares about Nadia’s blood spattering the foggy German afternoon.
When she awoke, daylight was streaming through the trees, and Ruby sat up with a start. How long had she been out? There was no way to know; she had no watch, and she couldn’t see the position of the sun in the sky. She struggled to her feet, made her way back to the creek, and drank more water, followed by another half potato. This time, the food stayed down, but she knew she was still feverish. Her stomach swam; her forehead burned. But at least some of the dizziness had receded, which had to mean she was getting better.
She changed into the dress and shoes Herr Hartmann had given her, and she was surprised to realize just how well a child’s garments fit her. Had she really lost that much weight? She knew, as she looked down at her body, that the answer was yes. She was skin, bones, and belly. Herr Hartmann had also included a kerchief, which she tied around her head, knowing that her short hair might give her away as an escaped prisoner.
Ruby sat for a few minutes to gather her strength and to talk to the baby, then she stood and began heading in the direction she thought was west. It was possible, she realized, that she might even be trudging back in the direction of the camp, right into the arms of a search party. Then again, did they know she was missing? Perhaps the guard who had shot Nadia was humiliated that he let Ruby go. Maybe he didn’t say a word to anyone. She would have been missed at roll call this morning, but by then, surely they would have considered it too late to hunt for her. She only hoped that Herr Hartmann’s complicity in her escape hadn’t been discovered.
As she walked, Ruby begged God to deliver her safely into the hands of someone who would help her rather than turn her over to the authorities. After all, she knew that Ravensbrück wasn’t near anything but the Polish border, and heading east seemed foolish; the Germans still had a stranglehold on Poland, and there were, in fact, more horrific concentration camps located there. Before she’d fled, the camp had started receiving shipments of prisoners from Auschwitz, and those women looked even more skeletal than the women at Ravensbrück. They died by the hundreds each day, some dropping dead right in the middle of their forced labor, some simply failing to wake up in the morning.
“Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,” Ruby began to sing shakily as she walked, her hands protectively around her belly. “Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird don’t sing, Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.” Ruby couldn’t remember any more of the lyrics, so she sang the ones she knew again and again.
Eventually, hours later, Ruby came to a broad road on the edge of the forest. She stopped in her tracks, unprepared for the risks that came with a return to civilization. But she might pass as a local laborer instead of a prisoner. The problem was that she knew very little German—only a few words. She certainly couldn’t pass herself off as a German civilian, but perhaps she could make someone believe that she was a refugee from somewhere else. The other alternative was to melt back into the forest and press on in a different direction, but already, Ruby felt wildly lost, and she had the feeling she would starve to death or succumb to her fever long before she found her way to safety. No, her best bet was to try to hitch a ride with someone heading west and to hope that whoever picked her up would take pity on her. It was her only chance.
She began to walk along the road, head down, heart thudding. She wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing, but she was certain she had no choice. Several cars whizzed by, their drivers ignoring her entirely, and then, in the distance, she saw a small truck whose hood featured a white square emblazoned with a red cross. She blinked a few times as it drew closer, sure at first that she was imagining things. Could it be a German Red Cross vehicle?
She stepped into the middle of the road and began waving her arms over her head. “Bitte stoppen!” she cried in German. “Please, stop!”
To her relief, the truck slowed and came to a halt beside her. The man in the driver’s seat looked barely older than Charlotte, and she could see that his gaze was concerned rather than angry. It was a good sign. He said something to Ruby in German. She shook her head and murmured, “Ich verstehen nicht.” I don’t understand. He tried again, repeating his words more slowly, but still she shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said in French. “I don’t understand.”
Something in his expression changed, and he looked her up and down. “Prisoner?” he asked in French.
“No,” she said quickly. “Laborer. Er, Arbeiter.”
The man looked skeptical, but he turned to confer in German with the other two men in the truck. Finally, nodding, he turned back to her. “Get in,” he said in French, nodding to the back of the truck. “We take you as far as we go. Then you exit.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Ruby said, a wave of relief sweeping over her. “Thank you so much. Vielen Dank!”
“Bitte,” the man said with a small smile. He paused and asked in French, “You are sick? Ill?”
Ruby’s mouth went dry. Yes, the truck likely had medical supplies, but what would she do if they refused to transport her because they didn’t want to be exposed to her fever? No, it was more important that she get as far away from Ravensbrück as possible. “Just very tired,” she said as firmly as she could. “And hungry.”
“Yes,” the man said. He turned and said something to the man in the passenger seat, who rummaged in a bag and withdrew an apple, a piece of bread, and a piece of cheese. “Here. You eat.” He nodded again to the back of the truck, and Ruby, momentarily stunned by the bounty of the feast, mumbled a thank-you before grabbing the food and climbing in. She ate greedily as the truck began to pull away, and although she felt nauseated, she closed her eyes and willed the food to stay down. Her baby needed it. Soon, lulled by the truck’s movement, she fell into a deep sleep.
It was dark by the time she awoke to a man shaking her shoulder. It was the driver of the Red Cross truck, she realized, and he was saying something to her. “I—I don’t understand,” she managed to say as she struggled upright.
“You go here,” he said in French. “We go that way.” He pointed down the road, and although she wasn’t sure why she couldn’t continue with him, she knew better than to talk back.
“Thank you very much for the ride,” she said. “Where are we?”
He took a moment to process her question. “Very near to Swiss border. Swiss is that way.” He pointed down the road in the darkness.
“Switzerland?” She sat up straight now, her heart thudding. It wasn’t the direction she had intended to go, but wasn’t this better? Switzerland was neutral, and she’d be more likely to find help there than she would have if she’d headed north to occupied Denmark. Switzerland adjoined France too, which meant she wasn’t so far from home. “Thank you,” she said to the man, who was glancing not so subtly at his watch. “Danke. Thank you very much.”
“Bitte,” he said. “Viel Glück. Good luck.”