The Amber Room [antikvár]

Prologue ^ --- i'' Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria -» April 10,1945 the prisoners called him ears because he was the only Russian in Hut 8 who understood German. Nobody ever used his given name, Karol Borya. 7x0—Ears—^had been his label from the first day he entered the camp over a year ago. It was a tag he regarded with pride, a responsibility he took to heart. "What do you hear?" one of the prisoners whispered to him through the dark. He was cuddled close to the window, pressed against the frigid pane, his exhales faint as gossamer in the dry sullen air. "Do they want more amusement?" another prisoner asked. Two nights ago the guards came for a Russian in Hut 8. He was an infantryman from Rostov near the Black Sea, relatively new to the camp. His screams were heard all night, ending only after a burst of staccato gunfire, his bloodied body hung by the main gate the next moming for all to see. He glanced quickly away from the pane. "Quiet. The wind makes it difficult to hear." The lice-ridden bunks were three-tiered, each prisoner allocated less than one square meter of space. A hundred pairs of sunken eyes stared back at him. All the men respected his command. None stirred, their fear long ago absorbed into the horror of Mauthausen. He suddenly tumed from the window. "They're coming." An instant later the hut's door was flung open. The frozen