As soon as the service was over, Laura was instantly surrounded by members of the synagogue. Friends and strangers alike hugged her, kissed her, pinched both cheeks, and wished her mazal tov, the Hebrew expression of congratulations. She was pounded and pummelled from all sides, and she loved every minute of it.

Her mother had been the first to embrace her, still crying softly, and whispering in her ear how proud she was. Laura’s dad was next. ‘You were great, kiddo,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘Way better than I was at your age.’ Laura laughed before turning to hug Emma.

‘Was that the sad story?’ Emma asked, pulling away to stare into Laura’s eyes.

‘That was part of it.’

Emma nodded and then hugged Laura again.

‘But now it’s time for your party,’ said Laura. ‘You did great today.’ Emma beamed and danced off, twirling to show her dress as she went.

Laura searched the crowd. Where on earth are Adam and Nix? she wondered. She was desperate to find her friends when someone spun her around and grabbed her in the biggest bear hug. It was Adam. ‘You were fantastic!’ he said.

‘Thanks.’ Laura returned the hug warmly.

‘I told you this whole thing was going to be worthwhile,’ he added. ‘And now, we can party!’

Laura laughed and moved over to hug Nix. ‘I could never have done what you just did,’ Nix said admiringly. ‘You were great!’ Laura didn’t say a word; she didn’t have to. The three of them stood in the understanding and comfortable silence that only good friends can share.

Just then, Laura spotted Mrs Mandelcorn standing respectfully off to one side, watching the exchange with some hesitation. ‘You guys go on ahead to the luncheon,’ said Laura. ‘I just need to talk to someone. Save me a seat beside you,’ she added over her shoulder as she walked toward Mrs Mandelcorn and reached out to shake her hand. ‘Thank you so much for coming,’ Laura said.

Mrs Mandelcorn ignored the hand and gave Laura a warm hug. Then she wiped away the remaining tears from her eyes. ‘It’s you I must thank,’ she said in a quivering voice. ‘I had not expected to be this emotional during your speech, my dear.’

‘I didn’t mean to say anything that would upset you,’ Laura added hastily.

‘No, no. I’m not upset, just moved – deeply moved,’ said Mrs Mandelcorn.

Laura nodded. She was just about to ask Mrs Mandelcorn to join her family and friends at the luncheon when Mrs Mandelcorn’s sister appeared. ‘Are you coming, Sara?’

Mrs Mandelcorn nodded. ‘Yes, Hinda. I’ll be there in a moment. Will you get the car and wait for me, please?’ Her sister nodded and moved off.

Sara? Hinda? Laura froze. Her mouth fell open and she felt her head begin to spin. She reached out and grabbed Mrs Mandelcorn’s arm as the realisation of what had just happened began to sink in. ‘It’s you, isn’t it? You are Sara. It’s your diary – your stories.’

It was like seeing a ghost come to life before her eyes. Sara wasn’t dead. Sara was alive and standing in front of her. How could Laura have been so naïve not to have seen the truth before this moment? All the clues had been there – Mrs Mandelcorn’s age, her reluctance to talk about her past, the fact that she lived with her younger sister. Why hadn’t Laura paid attention to any of this? Had she been so caught up in her own life and her own issues that she had failed to notice the obvious?

Mrs Mandelcorn was smiling and nodding. Tears glistened in her eyes once more and she reached up to dab at them with her lace handkerchief.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ asked Laura. She still couldn’t quite believe that Sara and Mrs Mandelcorn were the same person.

Mrs Mandelcorn shook her head. ‘I wanted the stories to speak for themselves.’

‘But I would have done something more – introduced you in the synagogue, at least.’

‘Oh, no,’ Mrs Mandelcorn cried. ‘It has been hard enough for me to talk about these things with you. It would be impossible for me to be so public with my history.’

Laura shook her head, trying to compose herself. ‘Will you tell me what happened?’ she asked. ‘I have so many questions.’

Mrs Mandelcorn stared thoughtfully before replying. ‘This is a time for celebration, not sadness, my dear,’ she said.

Just then, Laura’s mother appeared from around the corner. She stopped and smiled apologetically when she saw Mrs Mandelcorn. ‘Laura, we’re starting the luncheon. Everyone is waiting in the social hall.’

‘Mom, this is Mrs Mandelcorn, the lady who lent me the diary.’ Laura was still dazed from her discovery of who this lady was. She couldn’t even begin to explain all of this to her mother.

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you. The diary has had an enormous impact on my daughter,’ Laura’s mother said. ‘I hope you are joining us for lunch.’

Mrs Mandelcorn shook her head. ‘Thank you for your invitation, but I think I must go. Your daughter was wonderful,’ she added.

Laura’s mother was about to say something and then stopped and turned back to Laura. ‘Honey, you really must come now.’

‘You start, Mom,’ Laura replied. ‘I’ll be there in a few minutes – I promise,’ she added as her mother nodded and walked away. Laura turned back to Mrs Mandelcorn. ‘I have to know,’ she continued. ‘You have to tell me what happened to Sara … to you.’

Mrs Mandelcorn nodded slowly and began to talk, carefully selecting her words, and picking up the pieces of her life from the moment the journal had ended. ‘We left the ghetto the morning after I buried my diary, January 10 1943. We walked in a long line toward the train station at Umschlagplatz. It was the saddest sight to see thousands of people walking toward the station – a miserable and ragtag group. I held onto my Bubbeh while my Mama and Tateh held Hinda between them. We all walked as slowly as we possibly could. Perhaps we thought we could slow the passage of time, delay the obvious for as long as it was possible.’

As Mrs Mandelcorn spoke, time seemed to move backward for Laura. She closed her eyes, imagining the years slipping away until it was as if a young Sara was standing in front of her – her friend, Sara, the young girl with whom she had been twinned and forever connected.

‘Hours passed before we boarded the trains,’ Sara continued. ‘I won’t even begin to describe the train ride. It was unbearable – conditions that no human being should have to endure; no food, no toilets, no air. But this was only the beginning. By then, Tateh had stopped talking, stopped trying to convince us that everything would be okay. Even Bubbeh wasn’t crying anymore. I think she was numb and as resigned to her fate as the rest of us.

‘We arrived in Treblinka the next morning and were ordered off the trains. Horrible guards were screaming at us and waving rifles in our faces. They lined us up and then quickly divided the line, arbitrarily moving people to the right or to the left. Tateh and Bubbeh were pushed to one side, away from Mama, Hinda and me. It was the last time I ever saw them. Tateh was right, you know. As long as we had all been together, we had all been safe. But now, my family was being picked apart, one by one.’

Mrs Mandelcorn paused and wiped her eyes once more. Laura didn’t even realise that she had reached out to hold the elderly woman’s hands, gripping them, hanging on to each word, hardly daring to breathe. Listening to Mrs Mandelcorn speak was like reading the final pages of Sara’s diary, the ones that had never been written.

‘I managed to stay with Mama and Hinda. How the Nazis overlooked a young girl of Hinda’s age, I will never know. Most of the young ones were sent straight to their death. Hinda was only eight, but she was tall, almost as tall as me by then. Perhaps the guards thought she was older than she really was. Perhaps that was one piece of luck that we still had.

‘We were only in Treblinka for a short time, though each day there, each hour, felt like a lifetime. Mama died one week after we arrived. I realised only later that she had already been ill in the ghetto – a chest infection that was never treated. Mama never once complained or let on that she was suffering. That was Mama – concerned for everyone’s wellbeing except her own. She died in her sleep in the cold and damp barracks that we were forced to live in. And then it was just Hinda and me.

‘Can you imagine, Laura? I was only thirteen years old, a child really, and responsible for the life of my little sister. That’s when I knew that we had to get out of Treblinka. A few days later the Nazis asked for volunteers to go and work in a nearby factory. People worried about volunteering for things in the concentration camp; you never knew if you were volunteering to go to your death. But I took a chance and stepped forward with Hinda. We must have looked strong, because we were once again put on a train and, this time, taken to a munitions factory where we were put to work assembling missiles and other explosives for the Nazis. It was backbreaking and there were many times when I thought we would not survive. But at least we were inside and fed once a day. That’s where we were when the war ended and we were liberated by the Russian army.’

Mrs Mandelcorn’s voice trailed off to a whisper. There was silence in the entrance hall of the synagogue. Everyone had either left the building or gone to the luncheon to celebrate Laura’s Bat Mitzvah. Her family was there waiting for her. Adam and Nix would probably wonder what was keeping her from the celebration. But Laura could still not tear herself away from Mrs Mandelcorn. There were still some unanswered questions.

‘What did you do?’ Laura asked.

‘We returned to Warsaw as soon as we could. It was the only thing we could think of, the only home we knew. There we found an aunt of ours who had also survived, and we moved in with her. Hinda and I were both so sick after so many months of being starved in the concentration camps. We needed time to regain our health. We also had to try and figure out what we were going to do with our lives. By then we knew that my Tateh and Bubbeh had been killed in the concentration camp. Someone told us they had seen them marched to the gas chambers with the first transport of people from the ghetto. I was desperate to find news of David. I wanted with all of my heart to believe that he was alive, but deep down, I did not have much hope. Most of the young Jewish fighters in the uprising were eventually killed. They simply did not have a chance against the Nazis with their weapons, ammunition and tanks. I never learnt what actually happened to David, but I will always believe that he died fighting, and he died free, just as he said he wanted. He was my hero.’

Laura fought to hold back her own tears. But there was still more that she needed to know. ‘How did you get your stories back?’ she asked.

‘It was many months before I ventured into the ghetto to try and retrieve my stories,’ replied Mrs Mandelcorn. ‘It was an eerie feeling to walk through those streets after the war had ended. Everything was a mess; bombed-out buildings, deep craters in the roads and piles of debris everywhere. All I kept hoping was that I would find my diary. I was terrified that it might have been buried under some wreckage and would be forever lost to me. Imagine my surprise when I came across the courtyard of our building and discovered that it was exactly as we had left it. I found the spot where I had buried the stories on my first try. As soon as I started to dig, I felt the diary along with Deena’s sketches. Her drawing of the sun setting on a lake is framed and hanging in my living room today.’

Laura gasped. She had seen that sketch, had been drawn to it on the first day she visited Mrs Mandelcorn’s apartment. ‘But what about Deena?’ Laura asked softly. ‘Did you ever find out what happened to her?’

At that, Mrs Mandelcorn finally smiled. ‘She survived. It was a miracle that anyone from that early transport lived. Her family was killed, but Deena managed to stay alive. She lives in New York City today, and yes, she did become a well-known artist. She has had many exhibitions of her art, and I have been there for all of them.’

One more piece of the puzzle had been completed for Laura.

‘I’m afraid that Poland at the end of the war was still not a friendly place for Jews,’ sighed Mrs Mandelcorn. ‘I learnt of an opportunity for Jewish orphans like Hinda and me to leave Europe for North America. We arrived here in 1947 and have been living here ever since. That’s the end of the story.’

Laura’s mother appeared once more from around the corner. ‘Laura dear,’ she said. ‘You really must come now. All of your guests are waiting.’

Laura nodded. ‘I’m coming, Mom. I’ll be there in just a moment. You’re really welcome to stay for the luncheon, you know,’ she added turning back to Mrs Mandelcorn once more. Laura felt weak and filled with a mixture of emotions. All her questions had been answered. All the pieces were in place. The end of Mrs Mandelcorn’s story – Sara’s story – had been terribly sad in places, just as Laura had feared. But Sara had survived, along with Deena and Hinda. And knowing that gave Laura some peace of mind.

Mrs Mandelcorn shook her head. ‘No, my dear. I really must go. Please don’t look so sad,’ she added. ‘Today you have honoured me more than you can imagine. But more than that, you have honoured my parents, grandparents and David.’

‘It doesn’t seem like enough – not for everything you went through,’ said Laura.

Mrs Mandelcorn reached up to touch Laura’s face. ‘It’s more than you can imagine.’

Laura nodded and then reached into her bag to pull out the diary. She opened it once more and gazed thoughtfully at the handwriting. Those words now meant even more to her than they had before. ‘Here,’ Laura said, thrusting the journal forward. ‘You need to have this back so you can keep it safe.’

Mrs Mandelcorn eyed her diary carefully and then looked up at Laura. ‘I think you should keep it now.’

The ghetto was in ruins by the end of the war.

‘Oh no,’ protested Laura. ‘It’s too valuable. I couldn’t …’

‘But I insist,’ said Mrs Mandlecorn, gently pushing the diary back toward Laura. ‘You’ve done something for me today, Laura. You’ve brought me some peace that I never imagined I would have. And in return, I’d like to give you the diary. It will always remind you of me. It’s yours to pass on one day,’ she added, ‘just as you have passed on my story today. That will be the best thing you can do for me.’

Laura clutched the diary with both hands and hugged it close to her chest. ‘I promise I’ll visit you,’ she said. ‘I’ll never forget you.’

‘I’m glad,’ said Mrs Mandelcorn. With that, she walked slowly out of the synagogue. Laura watched her leave, then turned to rejoin her family and friends.