Kraków — Jagiellonian University Archive – May, 2014
The room smelled like paper and dust and something older he didn’t have a word for.
Lukas sat in a wooden chair that was a little too tall for him, his feet not quite touching the floor, gently swinging without him noticing. The table in front of him was covered in folders—thin ones, thick ones, some tied with string, others barely holding together.
Caroline stood a few feet away, leaning over a desk with a woman who spoke quickly in Polish. Lukas caught pieces of it. Not all of it. Enough to recognize names when they came up.
His name.
Not Lukas.The other ones.
Kowalczyk.
He liked the way it sounded. It felt… heavier than Whitaker. Like it had been around longer.
He wasn’t really supposed to touch anything, but one of the folders had been left open in front of him.
The paper inside was thin and yellowed, the ink uneven. Some of the letters were sharp, others faded like they were trying to disappear.
He traced one of the names with his finger without actually touching it.
He knew enough letters now.
Not all of them. But enough.
“Ko…wal…”
He frowned, whispering it under his breath.
“…czyk.”
That part he knew.
There was something else next to the name. Smaller writing. Messier.
A date. Maybe.
And another word he didn’t recognize.
Lukas glanced up.
“ Mamo?”
She didn’t hear him. Or maybe she was listening to the other woman too closely.
He waited.
Looked back down.
There were two names on the page.
Same last name.
One was scratched out. Not fully. Just a line through it. Like someone had changed their mind.
Next to it, written lighter, almost squeezed in—
another name.
Lukas leaned closer.
“Mom,” he said again, a little louder.
Caroline turned this time, mid-sentence, and gave him that look—half attention, half “give me a second.”
He pointed at the page.
“Is this one of ours?”
She paused.
Not long. Just enough that Lukas noticed.
Then she walked over.
She didn’t sit right away. Just leaned over his shoulder, one hand resting lightly on the back of his chair.
For a moment, she didn’t say anything.
“Where did you see that?” she asked quietly.
He pointed again, more carefully this time.
“This one,” he said. “And… this one. They’re the same. But not.”
Caroline pulled the folder a little closer, careful with the edge of the paper.
Her finger hovered over the crossed-out name.
Then moved to the one written beside it.
She exhaled, very softly.
Not sad.
Not exactly.
Just… something shifting.
We didn’t have this one before,” she said.
Lukas looked up at her.
“Is it wrong?”
She shook her head.
“No,” she said. “It means we were incomplete.”
He frowned at that. It didn’t feel like an answer.
She knelt down next to him so they were at the same level now.
“See this?” she said, pointing between the two names. “Someone changed it. A long time ago. Maybe when they found better information. Maybe when someone told them what really happened.”
Lukas looked back at the page.
“So which one is right?”
Caroline smiled a little, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“We’re going to find out,” she said.
He nodded, like that made sense.
Because it did.
You just had to look.
Behind them, the woman at the desk was already pulling another folder.
Caroline stood again, resting her hand briefly on Lukas’s shoulder as she turned back.
“Don’t touch the paper,” she added gently.
Lukas pulled his hand back immediately.
Then leaned in again anyway, closer this time, just looking.
The crossed-out name didn’t bother him as much now.
It wasn’t wrong.
It was just… not finished.
He liked that better.
The Kowalczyk–Liebke–Whitaker Record of the Lost (The Record), Whitaker Ranch, Killdeer, North Dakota – January, 2015
The ground was frozen, but not solid.
When Lukas stepped off the path, the top layer gave just a little, a soft crunch under his boots. The wind moved low across the field, flattening the grass in slow waves that never quite stopped.
He stood just behind the three pillars for a moment before moving past them.
He always did that now.
Not stopping. Just… passing through.
Elzbieta was already out there.
She wasn’t looking at him when he approached. She was looking down at one of the stones, a folder tucked under her arm, one hand holding it open against the wind.
“You’re late,” she said, without turning.
“I had to get my gloves,” Lukas answered.
It wasn’t entirely true, but she didn’t correct him.
She just nodded once.
He came to stand beside her.
The stone in front of them was larger than most of the others in this section. Not tall—just… heavier. The surface had already been worked once. He could see where the older carving had been softened down, but not erased.
There were still lines underneath.
Faint.
Like something trying to stay.
Elzbieta shifted the folder so he could see.
“Read it,” she said.
Lukas leaned closer.
The paper inside was newer than the ones he remembered from Europe. Cleaner. Typed, mostly. But there were handwritten notes in the margins—tight, precise.
He recognized some of the words.
Not all of them.
“Kowalczyk,” he said quietly.
That part was easy now.
He followed the line down.
Two names.
One above the other.
He hesitated.
“…Aleksy,” he said, slower this time. “And… Aleksander.”
Elzbieta nodded once.
“Which one?” he asked.
She didn’t answer right away.
Instead, she reached down and brushed a thin layer of frost from the stone with her gloved hand. The motion was careful, almost absent-minded, like she had done it many times before.
“For a long time,” she said, “we thought it was Aleksander.”
Lukas looked back at the paper.
“But it’s not?” he asked.
“It’s not that simple.”
He frowned at that. He didn’t like answers that didn’t finish.
She turned a page in the folder.
“There are transfer records,” she said. “Movement between districts. Names copied by different people. Some correct. Some not.”
Her finger tapped lightly near the margin.
“This one”—she indicated the lower name—“appears where Aleksander should be.”
Lukas looked between the two names again.
“So they wrote the wrong one?” he asked.
“Sometimes,” Elzbieta said, “they wrote what they were told. Sometimes they wrote what they thought they heard. And sometimes…”
She paused.
“…they wrote whatever they needed to finish the list.”
Lukas was quiet for a moment.
The wind picked up again, pulling at the edge of the paper.
“So which one is ours?” he asked.
This time, Elzbieta did answer.
“Both,” she said.
He blinked.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” she agreed. “It doesn’t.”
She closed the folder partway, holding her place with a finger.
“Aleksy is the one we can follow,” she continued. “We know where he went. We know what happened to him. We can place him.”
A beat.
“Aleksander…” she glanced down at the stone, “…we lost in the confusion. Earlier than we thought. Or later. We don’t know.”
Lukas looked at the stone again.
At the faint lines beneath the surface.
“So we change it?” he asked.
Elzbieta studied him for a moment before answering.
“We correct it,” she said.
That felt different, even if he couldn’t explain why.
She handed him a small tool.
He hesitated before taking it.
“I don’t want you to carve,” she said, as if reading his thought. “Just mark the line.”
He nodded.
The stone was colder than he expected when he touched it. Even through the glove, he could feel it.
He found the older name first.
The one that had been there longer.
He didn’t press hard. Just enough to follow the groove, to understand where it was.
Then he moved to the space below.
Where the new line would go.
His hand shook once.
Just a little.
He stopped, took a breath, and tried again.
Elzbieta didn’t say anything.
She didn’t need to.
When he finished, he stepped back.
It wasn’t much. Just a guide. Something for later.
Something someone else would deepen, clean, make permanent.
But it was there now.
“Is that right?” he asked.
Elzbieta looked down at the stone, then back at the page, then at him.
“Yes,” she said.
He nodded.
Not because he was sure.
But because she was.
They stood there for another minute, the wind moving around them, the field stretching out in every direction.
Lukas looked past the stone, across the others.
There were so many.
Some with clear names.
Some with parts missing.
Some with nothing at all.
He didn’t feel like it was finished.
But it didn’t feel wrong anymore either.
“That’s enough for today,” Elzbieta said, closing the folder fully.
Lukas handed the tool back without looking at it.
As they turned toward the path, he glanced back once.
The old name was still there.
You could still see it.
But now there was something else with it.
That felt better.
Hamburg, Germany — Neuengamme Memorial & Archive Complex – June, 2018
The room was smaller than the one in Kraków.
Lower ceiling. Thicker walls. The air felt still, like it didn’t move unless someone made it.
Lukas stood at the end of the table this time.
Not sitting.
He didn’t need to anymore.
The building sat just outside the old grounds, close enough that you could see the line of trees that marked where the camp had been.
Inside, it was quieter than he expected. Cleaner. Like everything had already been decided.
The folder in front of him wasn’t fragile.
That was the first thing he noticed.
The paper was heavier. Standardized. Stamped.
Not handwritten guesses.
Not corrections squeezed into margins.
Official.
Elzbieta set it down between them without a word.
She didn’t open it right away.
“You should read it,” she said.
Lukas nodded.
The heading was in German.
He didn’t need help with that anymore.
He scanned the first lines quickly.
Name.
Date.
Place of transfer.
He slowed down at the second page.
“…detained… administrative holding…” he read quietly.
“…transport reassigned…”
His eyes moved faster now.
“…Neuengamme.”
He stopped.
Not because he didn’t understand the word.
Because he did.
He didn’t look up.
Further down:
“…recorded death, 1944.”
There was no correction.
No second name.
No overwritten line.
Just one entry.
Aleksander Kowalczyk.
Lukas exhaled slowly, though he hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath.
“That’s him,” he said.
Not a question.
Elzbieta nodded.
“This is the first complete record we’ve found,” she said.
Lukas flipped the page back.
Then forward again.
Looking for something wrong.
Something that didn’t fit.
There wasn’t anything.
“No overlap?” he asked.“None we could confirm,” she said.
He nodded once.
“So he wasn’t…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“In Kraków,” Elzbieta said.
He shook his head slightly.
“That’s not what I meant.”
She waited.
Lukas looked down at the page again.
“We didn’t lose him,” he said slowly. “We just didn’t know where to look.”
Elzbieta studied him for a moment.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s closer.”
He let that sit.
The name didn’t feel different.
It looked the same as it always had.
Same letters.
Same order.
But it didn’t feel… open anymore.
“Do we move him?” Lukas asked.
Elzbieta didn’t answer immediately.
“No,” she said finally.
He looked up.
“We place him,” she clarified.
That made sense. He closed the folder carefully.
Not because it was fragile.
But because it wasn’t.
“Neuengamme,” he said, testing the word again.Elzbieta nodded.
“It changes his category,” she said.
Lukas knew which one.
He didn’t say it.
They didn’t speak again for a minute.
The quiet wasn’t empty.
It just… wasn’t unfinished.
“Okay,” Lukas said.
He picked up the folder and held it for a second longer than necessary before setting it back down.
Let’s fix it,” he said.
Elzbieta gave a small nod.
As they turned to leave, Lukas didn’t look back at the table.
He didn’t need to.
For the first time, that name didn’t feel like a question.
The Record, Whitaker Family Ranch – September, 2022
The ground wasn’t frozen this time.
Spring had come back to the field, softening the earth just enough that each step left a faint impression before settling again.
Lukas walked ahead of them without thinking.
He knew exactly where he was going.
The stone looked the same from a distance.
It always did.
Only when he got close did the differences show.
Aleksy’s name was already there.
Clean. Set. Finished.
Below it, the space for Aleksander had been marked months ago—just a guide line, shallow, barely visible unless you knew where to look.
Lukas did.
He set the folder down on the small flat of stone beside it.
Didn’t open it.
He didn’t need to.
His grandparents stopped a few steps back.
They didn’t come closer.
They didn’t need to either.
Lukas picked up the tool.
It felt lighter than he remembered.
Or maybe his hands were steadier.
He found the starting point without hesitation.
The first letter came easier than he expected.
Not fast.
Not slow.
Just… deliberate.
The sound was different now.
Not a scratch.
A cut.
He worked down the line, one letter at a time.
No corrections.
No second guessing.
The wind moved across the field, quieter than before, catching at his jacket and passing on.
Halfway through, he paused.
Not because he needed to.
Just long enough to look at the space between the two names.
Aleksy above.
Aleksander below.
Not confusion anymore.
Not a question.
A record.
He finished the last letter and pulled the tool back.
The edges were still sharp. Too clean. Someone else would come later to soften them, age them, make them match the others.
That wasn’t his part.
He stepped back.
“Check it, please,” he said.
She didn’t speak immediately. Just looked.
First at the stone.
Then, briefly, at the place where the old, uncertain lines had once been.
Elżbieta stood beside him, not touching the stone, but close enough that it was clear whose authority had guided the correction. Her husband remained just behind her, steady, as he always was—present without needing to be seen.
Off to the side, a few paces removed from the center, Jakob Whitaker stood with his hands folded loosely in front of him. No one called him that here. Not out loud.
Jack, to most of them.
But not here.
Not in this place.
Here, he was Jakob.
He watched the stone the way someone watches something already known, not newly learned. There was no surprise in his expression—only recognition. As if the correction had been waiting longer in him than it had in the records.
Lindsay stood closer, just behind Lukas’s right shoulder, her posture easy but deliberate. She had been here enough times that she no longer needed to be told where to stand.
Beside her, Alani remained quiet.
She didn’t step forward.
Didn’t interrupt.
Her eyes moved between the stone, Elżbieta, and Lukas—tracking not just what was happening, but what it meant. This was only the second time she had stood here for something like this, and it showed—not in discomfort, but in attention. In the way she watched, rather than assumed.
The wind moved through the grass, low and steady.
Elżbieta gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.
It was done.
He brushed a thin layer of dust from the surface with his glove, the motion automatic, familiar.
For a moment, the six of them stood there.
No one said anything.
It wasn’t finished.
It would never be finished.
But this part was.
Lukas picked up the folder again, tucking it under his arm the way he had seen Elzbieta do a hundred times.
As they turned back toward the path, he didn’t look over his shoulder
He didn’t need to anymore.
Last Dreams 