There is little surviving evidence to testify that almost half the pre-war population of Brest-Litowsk were Jews. There are no Jewish schools, shops, synagogues, or cemeteries. There are no Jewish names on the gravestones, no Jewish books in the Bavarian-style library, and no Jewish laborers. The Germans wanted their new Eastern rail hub to be at least superficially homelike if they could not yet live out an agrarian existence in the Heimat's countryside. So, the Jews of Brest-Litowsk were shipped off to Sobibor. Or they were walked onto the killing fields at Bronna Gora by SS men and Ukrainian Hiwis. Or they were shot and poisoned and beaten and murdered in a ghetto that is now a cluster of Berliner-style tenements.

Today, Brest-Litowsk is a junction for Reich-bound trains heavy with grain. When they stop to refuel, Ukrainian and Belarusian mechanics take to the job in quietly rebellious speech. They whisper about the old city, the way things used to be. They eat a slim ration of dehydrated meat, clock out, and walk past German soldiers to quiet homes and quiet beds. In private, the work-tired and dispossessed burningly wonder what they can do for tomorrow, today. They weep every now and then, but when early morning comes they wipe their faces, get over it, and return to work.