The narrator of the story, Simon, is in a Nazi concentration camp. His two closest friends in the camp are his old friend Arthur and a recent arrival, Josek. In his previous life, Simon was an architect, and Arthur was his closest friend and advisor. Josek is a businessman who has a strong sense of spirituality. They watch the daily deaths of fellow prisoners by illness, starvation, suicide, and the vicious whims of the armed guards, and they await their own seemingly inevitable deaths. The three have discussions about God’s role in their situation, with Josek attempting to take a philosophical view, believing that evil is a perpetual part of life. Arthur takes a more cynical view of the situation, yet he believes that one day the Germans will be destroyed for their crimes. Simon usually tries to referee the two sides when the discussions become heated.

Simon and Arthur are among a group of prisoners who are taken out of the camp during the day for work details. As the group is marched to the work site, they pass a military cemetery, and Simon notices that “on each grave there was planted a

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