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Poland, 1944.
Eighteen-year-old Zofia has learned that survival means expecting nothing-not kindness, not tomorrow, and certainly not love.
Then she meets Jakub.
Nineteen, starving, and determined to survive at any cost, Jakub has made himself one promise: never care enough about another person to have something left to lose.
But in Auschwitz, where people are stripped of their names, their families, and their futures, Zofia and Jakub begin stealing something their captors cannot understand.
Minutes.
A whispered conversation when no one is watching. Half a piece of bread. A hand held for only a second. And, eventually, an impossible dream of a life beyond the wire-a tiny kitchen, a window, two chairs, and two cups of coffee waiting on the table.
They know they may never see that life.
Then, as the winter of 1945 closes in and the war begins to turn, the camp descends into chaos. Zofia and Jakub are forced to confront the promise neither of them ever wanted to make:
If one of us lives, both of us do.
If One of Us Lives is a work of historical fiction about love, survival, memory, and two young people trying to remain human in a place designed to destroy humanity.