The Oasis

by Petru Popescu

"Mirek Friedman and Blanka Davidovich first met in Muhldorf, Germany, in the concentration camp known as Dachau 3b. Mirek, a freedom fighter in the Czech underground, saved Blanka's life by distracting the Nazi camp guards when it was discovered that she had used a fake identity to transfer from Auschwitz to Dachau, a camp where she would have a better chance of surviving. Though Dachau 3b was perhaps the only camp in Germany where men and women were not segregated at work, the punishment for personal contact was death. And yet in this hellish place two human hearts ingeniously found each other. As their romance grew, so, too, did the danger for Mirek, who had infiltrated the camp on a secret mission. Fearing that their liaison might be discovered and Blanka tortured, he did not tell her of his mission and escaped from the camp, promising Blanka that he would find her later. After the liberation, months went by, and Blanka feared that Mirek had been killed. Then one day, in Prague, he