Mayer describes the slow thump of footsteps descending the cellar stairs. The questions of confused children. A tired family yanked from their beds. And then silence in the cellar as their captors leave and go into an adjacent room and drink enough vodka to finish the task. Mayer describes in detail, and with shaking voice, what gunshots sound like in an enclosed space and how the smell of gunpowder can drift beneath a closed door. He tells of screaming and crying and the dull thud of gunmetal hitting human flesh. The worst sound, he explains, was the silence afterward and the knowledge of
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