My Name is Eva(54)

‘I’ve seen those cards, dozens of them. They’ve got those three stark letters on them. It just means East, doesn’t it? It’s like they don’t belong to any known country.’

‘You got it in one,’ Ken said. ‘They brought seven million slave workers into Germany from eastern Europe. They wanted cheap labour for their plane and ball-bearing factories, their textile mills and mines, and workers for their sugar beet and cabbage fields. And they were all given the same basic card, lumping them wholesale into one indistinguishable group.’

‘Seven million… It’s hard to imagine.’

‘Those damn Germans didn’t care where they came from originally. They didn’t think of them as individuals with a past, a culture and a heritage, they were just OST – a person from the east. Their original province, their town, their village, none of that mattered to the master race. They just printed OST in thick black letters beneath their photograph. The only ones who didn’t get given OST cards are those from the concentration camps and their ID is tattooed or branded on the inside of their right arm.’

Ken looked angry and flung his cigarette end angrily onto the railtrack. ‘Those poor bastards were denied their identity for nearly six years, ever since the first Nazi blitz into Poland and elsewhere. And they stayed that way until the Allies renamed them. It might not seem much, calling them displaced persons, but it’s a damn sight better than just OST.’

‘It gives them a shred of dignity, I suppose.’ Eva sighed. ‘Names and identities matter. And calling them displaced persons does at least recognise them as human beings. It’s a small but significant act of humanity.’

‘They bloody well deserve it,’ Ken said. ‘There’s been no sign of humanity for them for the last few years. Treated like cattle, they all were. Branded, numbered, beaten and starved.’

‘I’ve seen it, Ken. It’s unbearable. So many dreadful scars, broken noses and teeth. And the tattoos are awful, but some of them were branded with red-hot irons. They’re left with the most hideous, livid red scar tissue that’s disfigured the whole arm, from the wrist to the elbow. How could they have done that to their fellow human beings? They’re just ordinary people like them.’

‘Don’t let it get to you, kid,’ he said. ‘We’re doing good work here. We’ll do our best to help them find their relatives and maybe they’ll be able to go home or start a new life elsewhere.’

‘I certainly hope all that tedious form-filling is going to achieve something. These people really deserve a chance to rebuild their lives and find happiness.’

Her eyes followed the lines of new arrivals, collecting their bundles of meagre possessions and trudging towards the main camp, where fresh bread was baking and warm beds were waiting. ‘The wretched aftermath of war,’ she murmured. ‘But seeing all this, I know it’s all been worthwhile. Even for those of us who’ve lost loved ones. It balances the books, somehow.’

‘Keep your chin up, kid. And get a stiff drink when we’ve finished.’ Ken winked at her and carried on directing the arrivals to their new accommodation.





50





Eva, 4 December 1945





In Their Footsteps





‘I’ve got an important new job for you,’ Sally said, bursting into Eva’s office. ‘Put that pen down and come with me right now.’

It was the end of the morning and everyone who needed to leave the camp that day had already collected their passes. Eva put on her coat to follow Sally outside into the icy tracks that criss-crossed the camp. ‘What’s going on?’

‘We’re opening a shoe shop.’ Sally laughed. ‘We’re going to sort out shoes, I mean boots. Come on, it’ll be fun.’

‘Real boots?’

‘The real thing. A large consignment’s just arrived and you know how much we need them. Have you seen what some of our inmates are wearing when they arrive here?’

‘Haven’t I just! They’re making do with whatever they can find. Pieces of rubber tyres are very much in vogue this season. So are clogs.’

The girls laughed as they ran through the snow to the warehouse, where boxes of ex-army boots were being unloaded from a lorry and tipped onto the concrete floor. Camp residents were already gathering outside, hoping they would be the lucky ones to receive sturdy footwear to help them survive the long cold winter.

‘We’ve got to sort them into pairs, if we can,’ Sally said. ‘It would help if we could group them by size too, but I doubt we’ll be able to do that.’

‘We can probably make a guess,’ Eva said. ‘What size are you?’

‘I’m a dainty five and a half.’ Sally tugged at her own boots, straightened her thick ribbed socks, then slipped her feet into a pair of large army boots from the pile. She could only take a few steps before she almost fell over, laughing. ‘Shall we just say very large and medium large?’

Eva picked up two boots from the muddy pile and banged them together. The dried mud encrusted in the tread fell to the floor. ‘I think we should get rid of some of this dirt as we go along – they’re all thick with it.’

‘Pity there’s nothing smaller for our ladies. They’re good boots, though. The men will be glad of them, however dirty they are.’