In Sosnowiec, Vladek and Anja move from one hiding place to the next, making occasional contact with other Jews in hiding. Vladek disguises himself as an ethnic Pole and hunts for provisions. The couple arrange with smugglers to escape to Hungary, but it is a trick—the Gestapo arrest them on the train and take them to Auschwitz, where they are separated until after the war.[16]
Art asks after Anja's diaries, which Vladek tells him were her account of her Holocaust experiences and the only record of what happened to her after her separation from Vladek at Auschwitz, and which Vladek says she had wanted Art to read. Vladek comes to admit that he burned them after she killed herself. Art is enraged, and calls Vladek a "murderer