The Rabbit Girls(91)

Hani and I went with her, following her through the maze of blocks which are larger here, thousands of people squeezed in, rather than hundreds. I do not know any of the faces, yet I know all of them. The vacant stare. Accusatory: what was it that allowed you to survive, when my mother, sister, daughter, granddaughter was selected? They died and you live. Why? We all do that. It seems involuntary. Trying to assess what makes someone special just by looking at them. It’s luck, it’s got to be.

We heard the commotion before we saw what was happening.

A woman, Matka, was holding up her hands, in peace.

A young girl looked at her, wild, feral, she bared her teeth. She was pregnant and she touched her stomach with one hand and placed the other ahead of her to warn others off.

‘Mama,’ said the girl. ‘This is the Dutch speaker.’

‘I need to be able to see what is happening and explain to her to remain calm, baby will not come and the pain will be bad if she continues.’

I explained to the girl that her baby was coming, that Matka was here to help, but she started talking in such broken Dutch I was not sure I could make out many words at all.

I looked to Matka. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not sure she is speaking Dutch; I cannot understand her.’

‘Is Roma,’ said Hani.

Hani talked to her. The words passed through three mouths, from the girl, to Hani who translated in Dutch to me, and then from me to German for Matka while Matka’s daughter, Sylvie, watched.

The girl was fourteen years old, Elisabeth, she kissed Hani once, twice, three times and said she didn’t know what was happening.

‘The Germans put something in me, very painful,’ she said. ‘Am I going to explode, a bomb?’

Hani explained that it looked like she was having a baby.

Hani and the girl conversed and the girl’s face changed as she realised what was happening and allowed Matka to move closer.

Her breathing became more fluid. Matka was very patient with her. I watched her absorbing the situation and relayed everything Matka said to Hani who passed it on to the girl. Hani held the girl, comforted her with her touch and it worked. Elisabeth calmed and in no time Matka instructed the straw mattress be placed on the floor.

In a few loud, long moans, a baby was born, blue and covered in blood. My initial reaction was that the baby was dead, but it quickly pinked up and yelled to tell the whole block it had arrived. Matka put the baby into the waiting girl’s arms and instructed her to place it on her chest.

She used strips of cotton to tie off the cord.

The girl smiled, a layer of sweat pinpricked her forehead. She looked at the baby and cried; Hani cried, I cried. It was beautiful.

After a few moments, Matka massaged her empty stomach and more contractions started.

‘Is there more?’

‘No, just the afterbirth.’

It was delivered without issue. Matka placed it in a cotton sheet and she and Sylvie looked it over.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Checking it is all intact. It’s important.’

The baby and mother were cooing, pure exhaustion and bliss all over the girl’s young face, and Hani was at her shoulder.

Then Sister Klara entered.

The baby was ripped from its mother.

The baby was a boy.

Sister Klara took the baby by the legs, it hung upside down. Mouth open – wailing.

‘Look away,’ Matka whispered, but I could not.

Sister Klara left the block with the baby.

The girl tried to get up to follow, but her legs didn’t hold her. Hani and Matka supported her under her arms and she staggered towards the closed door.

There are no babies in Auschwitz.

Hani and I walked back to our block as the sun rose, snowflakes curled and fell among the ashes.

Innocence drowned.

We move about our day unable to remove the image of the baby floating in the bucket outside the block. Matka wrapped the baby with the afterbirth and took both away. Leaving the poor girl, the grieving new child-mum, alone.

Miriam feels a knot, heavy and cold, settle in her chest. She tries to breathe around it, but, like the centre of a web, it seems to hold everything together. To pull on a single thread will cause it to fall apart.

Despite Axel always being there, she had been alone after burying Michael, in a world of grief that no one would talk about and that no one could share. Then she shakes the thought away. And views the letter through Frieda’s eyes. Frieda, pregnant and knowing that this would happen to her.

The next two letters in Eva’s handwriting on beautiful clear white paper. The original in French from a triangle of paper the size of Miriam’s palm.

To the baby inside of me,

You were made in love, and I have loved feeling you grow. I will never be able to look upon your face with peace. There is no future for us, of that I am certain. However, I know that in another lifetime, in another world – we will find each other again. Mother and child.

Loving your father and knowing you, even if I’ll never meet you, have been the best and worst times for me.

They say love is beautiful, love is kind, but it is not. Real love hurts, its ferocity binds two people together even though they are bound to be torn apart. Love is cruel.

You are stronger than I ever thought was possible and just by surviving every day you helped me to see the sky, the purity of a raindrop, the flecks in the sun.