The part you throw away

I'm cheating again, here. This excerpt (PDF) is, again, from the same project the last one was. Which is to say, it's something of a dead letter, for now. As this comes from the sequel to a book still far from sold, there's not much point, seems to me, to working on it now.

And in the event the project from which it comes does get to publication, it also seems likely to me much of the passage I'm excerpting here will hit the cutting room floor. No, there's nothing terribly wrong with it—rather, I quite like the writing, if I do say so myself, and that's why it's here. It's just that the details within, though useful for building a certain character, seem to me on reflection to be, probably, better treated as the kind of background better left implied rather than explicitly described.

That said, I hereby beg indulgence. Thing is, I had a lousy weekend for writing—much too busy, so, again, I've nothing truly new. And a certain very dear and once long-lost friend recently complained, after my last post of a snippet from this work, that she wanted to see more of it.

So. Here it is.

Side note: yes, I'm afraid I did have to do some research into the Holocaust to render this. Not pleasant. Found myself, in the middle of it all, thinking, 'Why am I doing this again? Do I really want to know all this?'

Yes, I know the old saying about those who don't learn their history. Still. Damn. It really is a boatload of awful in places, isn't it?