The Rabbit Girls(90)

We held her when she died. We wrapped her in our love, but we had to let her go. On the transport to ‘Pitchi Poi’.

Now it is just Hani and me. We shake and we sob and we scream in anguish at a forgotten world. But we also look to each other.

What next?

She doesn’t want to read on, she doesn’t want to know. But she promised her father and she needs to know what next. With a heaviness in her heart that ripples back to the loss of Michael, Miriam picks up the next letter.

I am now in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

‘You were in the same place?’ she says. ‘Dad, Frieda was in Auschwitz too. I wonder if you met each other there?’ She places her hand in his and he squeezes tight.

This is a special degree of hell. Babies thrown into a roaring fire, alive. Mothers and fathers jumping in after, everyone getting shot. Black flakes fall like snow. Ashes. The chimneys burn here all day and all night. This is our fate.

By some mistake we were neither stripped, searched nor showered. We kept our clothes, missed the showers and stayed side by side. We ended up in a line. A red cross is painted on my Ravensbrück uniform and Hani’s too. We stood for hours in the line, waiting, not sure what we were waiting for. A man, a prisoner, with a cap and a striped uniform like ours, sitting solitary, with a needle attached to a pen-like instrument. He heated the pen under a lamp, then dipped it into ink, and marked the skin on the arm with a series of dots.

We waited and Hani quaked.

‘I cannot let them mark me again.’

‘No, Hani, not now. I need you. Stay by me, we will be okay.’

I moved her in front of me, I held her there with both hands and I talked to her constantly. When she was in the chair she pulled away so hard she almost toppled the table, but I kept her in place. It hurt. The process. They have marked my skin again. This time with ink and not with a whip. More scars. We are now 72828 and 72829.

But my nine is joined almost like an eight and Hani’s eight doesn’t join. Perhaps, if you look from afar, we have the same number.

Then we were put in a block with eight women to a mattress, women on the floor; it is so packed in here it reminds me of the holding tent when we first entered Ravensbrück. Hani and I stay close, we try to understand how this place works.

All I know: it is a killing camp. We will not leave here.

We look at our numbers, maybe they will save us. But we both know that, just maybe, they can only save one of us.





HENRYK

Miriam is alive. She is alive. My baby is alive.

I hold on to that thought as I hear her broken voice; she is hurting but she is alive and Axel failed.

I try to hold on to this, this hope, as I hear Miriam read all that Frieda went through, for me. I can do nothing. I hear it all now. I squeeze the small hand held within my own. I thank Miriam with a heart full of love for the sacrifice she is making. I know this is my punishment. I must hear how Frieda died from the mouth of my sweet child. But not just how she died, the way she was tortured too. And how she loved me, even though I caused all of this.

I dreamed so often that I would throw a body in, waiting for the belch of the flames, then I would realise it was Frieda. And I would tumble and fall, leaping into the pit to find my love and to seek redemption. Because I am lost. And I fear that Frieda will never be found.

Because it was me. It was my name. My name upon her pure tongue. Her life has gone, for me.

And I am nothing, for hell has a name, and it is mine.





37





MIRIAM


She moves to the pull-out bed when he breathes evenly and restfully in sleep. She switches on the lamp and pulls out the final letters. First, a letter to her mother:

Dear Emilie

Please forgive us. I know you love Henryk, stand proud beside him, care for him.

I hope the diamond necklace bought your freedom. As I gave it to you, I was looking only at him. For if you had left for safety he would have gone with you. He chose you every day, and in doing so you had my love too.

I hope you are reunited, I hope that you have a future. Please love him with everything you are, there is no shame in needing, wanting, desiring and being fulfilled by another person. You don’t have to meet all your needs alone.

Thank you for allowing me into your world, even if it was only for a heartbeat. Take care of Henryk and love him enough for the both of us.

Truly

Frieda.

How accurately the letter reflects Mum and how honest it is. She tries to calm the fluttering in her chest, for Mum never read this, when maybe she should have. Mum was strong, she cared for Dad, she loved Miriam and she did everything alone. She needed to be needed and Miriam – small, fragile, petite Miriam – always needed her. Dad chose Mum, but are the choices we make for others or for ourselves? What if Dad had chosen Frieda? What if he had never had to make that choice?

Picking up the next letter, its original hard to read in the light, Miriam pores over the tiny script, words squeezed on to both sides of the page.

Henryk,

I was woken with force. Hani and me in our bunk with three other women. We slept holding the other so that we could stay safe.

‘Please hurry. We need you.’

It was a young girl. ‘My mama delivers the babies; we need your help. You speak Dutch, yes?’

‘Yes, I do and Hani too.’ I was fearful of us being separated so I clung to her.