by Anna Patrick
The lunchtime siren brought a new shock as they found out how meagre their portion of soup was.
‘Ah so this is our delicious soup – a consommé that’s never seen a piece of meat in its life. Well, who would have thought?’ said Marta, raising her eyebrows.
‘Oh God, it’s inedible.’
‘All the same eat it. There may be some nourishment in it and we need to keep our strength up.’
‘I can’t, Marta; it is beyond disgusting.’
The doors to the barracks opened and ghosts – for what else could you call these Godforsaken creatures? – wandered in, holding out their bowls and mumbling. Festering sores on their arms and legs, eyes wild like a trapped animal, they had the effect of lepers on the other prisoners, who drew back from them in horror.
So much for the strict quarantine, thought Marta, as she too stared at the wraiths. Danuta poured her soup into the nearest bowl; others followed and even Marta who had swallowed several spoonfuls gave up and donated the rest to these repulsive creatures who drank the soup and looked for more.
‘Get out you miserable, stinking pigs,’ shouted the room senior heading for the nearest trespassers with her club raised high and they half-ran in front of her and out the doors.
‘I see you’ve met our little pieces of jewellery, our schmuckstücke. Don’t bother feeding them, ladies, they’re already dead.’
‘I cannot believe what I have just seen.’
‘No. That was Dante’s Inferno staged in front of us.’
Her words triggered the memory of Ludek describing the Grand Guinol, the Parisian theatre of horrors where realistic portrayals of rapes, murder and savagery of every kind made audiences faint or vomit.
Only they weren’t the audience; they were the players; the extras.
‘What else is waiting for us out there? That’s what keeps bothering me. What’s yet to come?’
‘Come on, let’s get these bowls washed, although I’m not sure it’s worth the effort.’
The wood of the bowls had furred up over time, but they went to the washroom to follow the rules. While they stood there, Irenka, a fellow inmate from Montelupich joined them and shared information that would save their lives.
They learnt never to leave any of their utensils lying around because someone would steal them and without a soup bowl or drinking cup they would starve. In fact, they needed to keep all their possessions with them at all times and until they sewed themselves some bags, they would need to insert them inside their clothing.
Now Marta understood the strange shapes she had seen.
‘How do you know all this?’
‘I’m a communist. We look after our own so we’ve already had a visit from one of our group who arrived here last year. We’re helpless on our own, but if we stand together than we have a chance against these Fascist bastards.’
She told them how to address the SS auxiliaries or women guards as Frau Aufseherin and the head guard, if they were unlucky enough to merit her attention, as Frau Oberaufseherin. Then she told them the camp jargon: blokova for a block senior; stubova for a room senior; kolonkova for a work detail senior. A good blokova could make life a great deal more comfortable, but some blokovas were dictators and when they weren’t beating you up themselves, were all too quick to report you for punishment by their aufseherin.
She described the different categories explaining that their current blokova was a criminal; she earned her green triangle by murdering her husband while he lay asleep in bed. Marta and Danuta exchanged glances. Besides the asocials and politicals there were also Jehovah Witnesses who wore a lilac triangle and Jews who wore yellow triangles sometimes with another, red one, superimposed on it.
‘Don’t let them see you helping another prisoner. It’s against camp rules. If someone collapses at roll call, leave them there. The overseers excuse no one from roll call. If you need the toilet, you must hold it in and if you can’t you’ll just have to let nature take its course.’
‘No wonder it stinks around here,’ said Danuta. Irenka shrugged her shoulders.
‘The smell will be the least of your worries. When you’ve been here for a while you should be able to organise things for yourself, barter food for extra clothing, that kind of thing. That is forbidden too, but everyone does it, so if you’re careful it must be possible. If you put the word out you need something, you’ll find someone will approach you with a price for it. The price will be so many rations of bread unless you have something useful they want in exchange.’
Marta thought of the packet of cigarettes she had hidden and wondered if she could still get it back, but then remembered they were being quarantined. Maybe it was for the best; it was one thing to hide something, quite another to go searching for it later and risk a beating.
‘Try not to get ill, though I realise that’s not under your control. If you do, then avoid going to the Revier or camp infirmary. There are no medicines and you could end up worse off than if you’d just kept going.’
With those ominous words, she wished them luck and left them reeling with all this new information.
Roll call that night took several hours to complete. Tempers frayed as the blokovas organised their prisoners into ranks with shouts and blows; eventually all were standing correctly, and the counting started. The blokova checked and rechecked her numbers; when she was satisfied they were correct, she stood on the right flank of the block and waited for her overseer.
‘Attention,’ she called out as her particular Frau Aufseherin appeared and the prisoners tried to stand up a little straighter to bring the whole tedious experience to an end. All the blocks had to be counted correctly, so the waiting continued. Marta observed the row of black crows, whose adamantine faces looked them over, as if they were so much vermin.
Disgusted by the sight, she turned her gaze to the beautiful sunset; awed by the radiant colours she remembered the scarf she had left behind for others to enjoy. It had been the right decision: none of their clothes or possessions survived the registration process, not even her special prayer, Our Lady’s Dream, which she had written out and placed in her pocket.
Roll call ended, and they trudged back to their barracks for their final meal of soup and bread. The soup was still disgusting, but Marta dunked her bread, ate it and spooned up the liquid methodically.
‘To think I complained about the prison soup,’ said Danuta. ‘This is my punishment: for complaining then I have to eat this watery pigs’ swill now.’
They made their way to the washroom together; they rinsed their bowls and spoons and then held each other’s things as they went to the toilet.
Danuta scowled as she returned from the latrines and did her best to wash her hands.
‘This is so disgusting. How are we supposed to wash when there is no soap? How are we supposed to dry ourselves when there are no towels? How are we supposed to maintain basic hygiene when there is no paper to wipe our derrières?’
‘So long as we can use posh words like derrières we’ll be fine.’
‘I would happily say bum if only someone would give me some paper for it.’
It was a welcome moment of levity and both grinned as they headed for the sleeping quarters where a new challenge faced them: bodies occupied all the bunks and none of them looked willing to give up the little space they had.
‘Oh, my God. We will have to organise ourselves better tomorrow.’
‘Never mind tomorrow, where are we going to sleep tonight?’
Their stubova walked past and seeing their hesitation banged her club against the tiered bunks; rather than risk a blow to the head, everyone shuffled along and both women found bunks to get into even if their inhabitants grumbled and poked elbows and knees into them.
She longed for sleep, but all the different scenes of the day refused to leave her mind.
Soon the sounds of snor
ing and moaning, of quiet weeping and helpless cries pervaded the barrack and made sleep even more distant. She put her arms around herself and tried to sense Ludek’s presence as she had done so many times in prison, but the magic no longer worked. Even his face seemed less defined as she brought his features to mind. She feared she would never see him again.
A hand groped its way towards her bowl and she lashed out with a violence she didn’t know she possessed. No thief would make her starve; she curled up and cuddled her utensils.
Shouts of ‘Get up, Get up’ startled her awake. Her first action was to pat her stomach and check she had everything. She staggered out of the bunk and waited for Danuta to emerge.
‘Sleep well?’
‘Like a baby.’
Grimacing, they both headed for the washroom. They stripped and washed in the cold water before wiping off the water with their hands and dressing.
By the time they finished, coffee and bread was being handed out in the dining area and they lined up for their share.
‘Before the war I used to love a milky coffee first thing in the morning,’ said Danuta. ‘I used to dunk my pastries in it. It was heaven in a mouthful.’
Marta nursed her mug of watery brown liquid and doubted whether remembering such delicacies would make their breakfast more palatable, but said nothing and chewed on her bread. Encountering a hard lump she suspected it had more than its fair share of sawdust.
They made their beds and had just enough time to wash their cups before the siren sounded and they headed out for roll call. Their blokova was in a foul mood and yelled at her charges and punched several hard in the mouth and boxed their ears before she calmed down and was ready to start the count. Their aufseherin witnessed the aggression with glowing eyes: violence preceded order, as it should.
The morning roll call ended without incident and as the work crews were being assembled, Marta’s convoy headed back to the quarantine barrack. With nothing to do, they found places to sit and shared their thoughts.
‘Do you remember that woman who asked for water?’
‘Yes, I wonder what happened to her. I don’t think she’s in the barrack; at least I haven’t seen her.’
‘No, me neither.’
Irenka enlightened them later that day when she came to find them sporting a cotton bag containing her possessions.
‘You haven’t wasted any time,’ said Danuta, as she shifted her own things inside her dress.
‘I told you, we look after our own.’
‘Bully for you.’
‘We’ll sort out bags in due course,’ said Marta and asked Irenka if she knew what had happened to their water heroine.
‘The Oberaufseherin took a shine to her, and she’s now working in the administration offices.’
‘So no quarantine?’
‘No, she won’t need it where she’s gone. She’ll be in one of the elite barracks where they get a daily bath and extra rations and new uniforms when the old ones wear out. The SS don’t want their offices filled with smelly inmates who keep scratching because of their fleas and lice.’
Marta stopped; she hadn’t realised she was doing it, but now rolled up her sleeve and saw the telltale reddish brown spots.
‘Oh great,’ said Danuta, noting her own bites on her arms and legs.
‘My advice to you is not to scratch them if you can help it. You don’t want to get them infected.’ Irenka nodded to the two women and left to find her communist companions.
‘My advice to you… I know where I’d like to stick her advice and her fancy bag.’
‘You’re only jealous.’
‘Yes, I am. Who wants to spend their nights with a cup sticking into your breasts and a spoon wedged into your ribs?’
‘Well, put the word out and find out what they’re charging for bags.’
‘I will.’
After roll call that night a group of prisoners started to sing folk songs and the soothing sound gladdened their hearts. German songs only, ordered the blokova, but she didn’t try to stop them and singing became a welcome feature of their lives.
18
The days and weeks passed in a morale sapping routine of monotonous roll calls, disgusting soups and bread, petty fights and senseless bickering, often brought to an abrupt halt by the blokova yielding a stool leg or just her fists.
After nearly five years of rationing, none of the women had much fat to spare and most had lost even that during their recent stay in Montelupich; nevertheless, they all noticed how much thinner they had become since arriving at Ravensbrück.
‘And that’s without working,’ said Danuta as they compared the size of their arms for the sake of something to do.
‘I know and yet I think I would prefer to be doing something, anything, rather than sitting around here all day.’
‘Well, maybe not anything.’
‘No, you’re right. I’ve been overhearing the blokova’s conversations and I can’t believe some of the things they’ve been talking about. Do you know they actually have a road building crew here and a general construction crew? Can you imagine it? Women as thin as sticks, surviving on soup rations, expected to build a road or office buildings or anything else for that matter. It just defies belief.
‘The first day we arrived here, I thought I was hallucinating when I saw some of the inmates pushing a handcart with what looked like bodies on it. I wasn’t hallucinating. Apparently they have a corpse crew which goes around all the barracks collecting the dead.’
‘Dear God, how do they get away with it? Do people on the outside know about all this? What about the Red Cross? Can’t they do something?’
‘I don’t know. I’m beginning to wonder if anybody cares.’
The next morning’s roll call was particularly tedious as the figures failed to add up hour after hour.
‘I thought the Germans were supposed to be good at this sort of thing,’ said Danuta tugging at her headscarf as they headed back inside.
‘They are, only it’s not called counting, it’s called sapping the will of anyone who wants to leave this place alive.’
‘Perhaps if I think of it that way I’ll stop getting so bloody annoyed about it.’
When everybody was back inside, the blokova called for silence and said she had an announcement to make: today marked the end of their quarantine and their convoy would be transferred to different barracks as soon as they had undergone their medicals.
Most people reacted to the news quietly and speculated what it might mean for them and, most importantly, what kind of blokova they would get in their new barracks. Shortly afterwards, they were ordered out onto the Appell-platz to strip naked, leave their clothes and possessions on the ground in front of them and head to the Revier where they stood in serried ranks.
The siren sounded for midday soup, but they were not allowed to move. Prisoners walked past them, heads cast down. Two doctors left the building and strolled to the SS dining quarters without casting them a glance.
‘Why are they doing this to us?’
‘Because they can, just because they can,’ Marta whispered back, hatred mounting inside her.
She had visited the latrines earlier but somewhere behind her a woman could contain herself no longer and they all felt the shame.
Marta absented herself from the misery around her and remembered the niceties of Polish high society where rules dictated that your first visit to an acquaintance lasted only fifteen minutes and where you did not, under any circumstances, request a visit to the bathroom. Sublime politesse exchanged for sordid affliction.
The sun beat down on them; flies buzzed around them; an elderly woman fainted. Nobody dared help her and she lay in an awkward heap. Skins unused to the sun turned pink, then red.
The doctors returned belching and smelling of alcohol. When they deigned to come out, they l
ooked the prisoners up and down, ordered them to open their mouths and gave their teeth a cursory glance, before declaring them fit and well. The elderly fainter never regained consciousness, and they never saw her again.
They redressed, already pained by the touch of fabric on sunburnt areas, and stood waiting for the next instruction. The blokova consulted with the aufseherin and Marta wondered, not for the first time, why everything involving the Germans took so long while everything involving the prisoners proceeded at the double.
They separated the convoy into two groups and marched them to different barracks. Marta hoped she and Danuta would still be lodged together but she knew better than to look around and check. What would be, would be.
The new blokova, another green triangle, spoke in a German dialect Marta found hard to follow. A short speech, it comprised one rule and one piece of advice: don’t make trouble and don’t forget you’re the newcomers here.
She spied Danuta at the back of the room and they made their way towards each other.
‘I’m not looking forward to roll call. Can you imagine the chaos? We have no idea where to stand or how we’re supposed to fit in with the current inhabitants.’
‘Do you think we should use the time we’ve got now to wash so that we can get ahead of the others?’
‘I suppose we could ask.’
Marta made her way to the blokova’s room; one of the stubovas blocked her way and asked what she wanted. Marta requested permission to wash while the other inmates were out at work. The stubova said nothing then shrugged her shoulders with supreme indifference and turned away.
‘I don’t know if we have permission or not but I suppose it’s worth a try.’
Even with fewer people around, they guarded their things while they strip washed in the cold water; one or two others joined them.
‘I feel better for that.’
‘Yes, it was worth doing.’
‘You’ve caught the sun.’
‘Yes, I know. I wonder if we could get some soothing yoghurt around here.’
‘Well, why ever not? That sounds an excellent idea.’
