The Rabbit Girls(43)

I felt naked walking to her office. I had not bathed in days; there was no water for bathing, because we needed it to drink. It was so hot. I smelled like bodies – hot, dirty bodies. I washed my hands to rid myself of the sand and grime and the little water left I drank. I pinched my cheeks and licked my lips to try and plump them up. I had sand in my teeth.

The Blockova caught me, vanity is punishable. She whipped the back of my hands. My eyes watered from the bite of it.

The office was quiet, and I was faced with a woman: blonde hair, clear skin. Pressed, dark uniform.

I could be her.

I think we are but a circumstance apart. Lipstick, hair lacquer, her hat pinned on to her hair. I pulled off my kerchief revealing patchy hair growing thick and light. I realised I was staring. I did not know where to start. I cried tears I didn’t know I had.

I spoke words that crippled my heart. My shaved head, my broken hands, my empty stomach reveal who I am. I will do anything to be free. Even disown the name I had taken so easily.

The truth is ugly.

Only eight weeks ago I answered to the name Emilie Winter – I chose to be with you, as Emilie hid away. I was proud to stand next to you. To be arrested with you. To walk with you, even if it was to here.

I am ashamed, but I stood and emulated all that I hated.

‘My family are pure Aryan,’ I mumbled.

Her impenetrable face, marbled, watching me.

‘Heil Hitler!’ I said. The salute, one I had not done for so long, felt like treachery, treason of the heart and mind.

I was selling my soul. My only worry: was it enough?

She had papers in front of her.

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Eight weeks, ma’am.’

‘What do you want?’

And in that moment, although I knew I wanted a bowl and a better job than shifting sand; I wanted the Blockovas to treat us better; I wanted the women in charge not to be criminals; I wanted to DO something.

I said very quietly: ‘Please, I want to go home.’

‘Women do not get released from Ravensbrück.’

That was it.

But just as I turned to leave, she called me back.

‘It would be nice to have eyes and ears in the camp, you understand? Bring me information, illegal behaviour, rule-breakers, slackers, there are several underground goings-on. Women “hiding” within blocks, spouting lies.’ She looked up. ‘I can make things better here for you if you help me. Do you understand?’

I nodded.

‘Return next Wednesday with something to tell me.’

I left.

I was marched back to the block. I thought of Bunny, Wanda, Stella, Eugenia. What was the price of my freedom?





HENRYK

I was forced into the wagon, forced with so many men. I looked for Frieda. I stood by the barred window and looked out for her. We all clambered to see out of the window to catch another glimpse of those we had been parted from.

We saw nothing.

I rested my head back on to the wood of the wagon. The door was shut tight. What had I done?

I was sent to Auschwitz. I did not know the meaning of ‘Auschwitz’ as it is talked of. I only knew I was in hell. Every night, I would close my eyes and there we were under that bridge, Gleis 17, waiting for a future, never knowing that future would be apart.

And for me, this time that all have forgotten, or chosen to forget, is entwined with Frieda, and to pull on a thread is to lose myself in the tapestry where I bit a man’s hand for the bread held tight within it. Where I threw bodies into the crematorium, not questioning if those bodies were dead or alive.





MIRIAM

She places the letter face up and looks at the four names that jump from the bottom of the yellowed and curling page. Bunny. Wanda. Stella. Eugenia. She wonders if any of them got out alive and who was this person, Frieda, who could even think about giving up such vulnerable and broken women?

Is Eva right not to trust anyone? When Miriam herself believed her parents always told her the truth, now the lie bleeds into every memory she has. Who were the people before she called them Mum and Dad, and who was Frieda to them?

The ‘rabbit girls’ are all in pieces. Their legs operated on.

Wanda has a scar through both her legs from inner ankle up to knee.

Eugenia has a deep scar, a loss of a lot of flesh taken from her left leg.

Both their legs have healed.

Bunny, however . . . the sweet smell of rotting flesh is strong, it is the heart of our bunk. She covers her legs with a blanket. Her legs have not healed from whatever they did to them. She will never walk again; she doesn’t have enough bone left in her legs to stand.

None of them talk about what happened, aside from Eugenia, who whispers in hurried urgency. Her stories make my blood run cold, even now, putting her words to paper, a spike of fear runs along my skin.

Operations without consent, waking in agony, shards of glass in their legs, broken bones, the smell and then the infection.

On Eugenia’s round, only she and another woman, Katya, survived – all six other women succumbed to the infection forced into their skin, bone and blood supply. Many died on the operating table.

They couldn’t move – restrained in the bed, with legs not their own. No water, no painkillers. They lay there and prayed for death.

Katya survived. A drunken doctor stitched up her legs and she was released back into the main camp. Four months later she was ‘chosen’ and killed. Her legs were proof that they had used her as a human guinea pig. Many of the other ‘rabbits’ who survived have suffered the same fate.