Max approaches the fence to give Magda some bread. He tells her about getting more rations by going to a certain Nurse Shulman. As it turns out, Max manages to bribe guards and make arrangements to make life at least easier for Magda.
May to June 1944: Two months after German tanks roll into Budapest, trainloads of Hungarian Jews begin to arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In just six weeks, 300,000 men, women, and children are selected at the platform and then killed in the gas chambers and burned in the crematoria or outdoor pits.
While working, Max overhears that the Nazis are now slowly emptying the labor camps, including the gypsy camp -- where Magda is held -- by the end of July.
Later, within the Sonderkommando barracks, they speak of the upcoming revolt which will be delayed to August -- two weeks to late for Magda and the gypsy camp. With this in mind, Max arranges again for Magda to meet with him.
Max tells Magda of how relatives of frontline soldiers and herself are going to be transported to a work camp before the liquidation of the gypsy camp. But in case something goes wrong, she has to hide in the corpse pile; he bribed the Leichenkommando -- the body carriers -- to take her to him.
With enough bribes, Magda gets on the transport out of the gypsy camp. The train goes to Buchenwald then to Ravensbruck where, the bribed Nazi guard reveals, human experiments are done.
August 2, 1944: "Zigeunernacht" or Gypsy Night. The Gypsy family camp is liquidated. 2,987 people are gassed and burned in the outdoor pits.
October 5, 1944: Max and the others receive a message from the resistance about the impending revolt. The revolt will take place on the seventh, where there would be fewer guards. For it to work, though, they have to wait until dark and wait for the signal.
October 6, 1944, Nurse Shulman informs Max that Magda and half of the transport are carried back to the gypsy camp and not given food and left to die.
October 7, 1944, the Liechenkommando brings the corpse pile from the gypsy camp to the Sonderkommando's custody. Within the pile, there Max finds Magda, in a very sorry state. He brings her back to their barracks. Not everyone is happy that the girl is there and wants to bring her down to the Nazis before they find her there. The argument is settled shortly and not long after that, a signal was sent -- the crematorium explodes, signifying the start of the revolt. The work detail turn on the Nazi guards and escape as far away as possible.
Magda and Max are among the lucky ones to escape with their lives.
On October 7, 1944, the Sonderkommando in Crematorium II and IV rise up, destroying Crematorium IV, killing three S.S. men, and wounding a dozen more. 200 Sonderkommando are killed in the camp during and after the battle. Another 250 who escape the camps perimeter are shot and burned to death in a barn near Rajsko.
Crematorium IV is never repaired. But on October 9, the killings resume. 4,000 Jews are killed in Crematoria II and V. And on October 10, the 800 Gypsies who had been transferred back to Auschwitz from Buchenwald are killed in Crematorium V.
The Allies never bomb the death machinery of Auschwitz. But in November 1944, as the Red Army draws near, S.S. Reichsfuhrer heinrich Himmler orders the dismantling of the crematoria.
January 26, 1945. The S.S. dynamite Crematorium V.
January 27, 1945. The Red Army liberates the camp and the 7,000 prisoners who remain.
Altogether, the Nazis killed approximately 6 million Jews and many millions of other innocent civilians.
At least a million people died at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In September 1948, Max returns to the Auschwitz grounds and unburies the jar containing his letter. "Please. Don't let this ever happen again."
THE END.
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