One More Step!

My feet had to keep moving, they just had to. I couldn’t risk a pause in step.

But I don’t know how I kept my legs going forward.

I knew that if I took a moment’s rest I could die.

Every heart beat, every crunching step in the snow, amplified and echoed in my ears as other sounds muffled into the background.

While my head kept repeating the mantra “just keep going, one more step”, my body was able to keep moving. Almost mechanical by now, some automatic force taking over my body and I really don’t understand how I continued. My feet were so numb in the worn slippers I wondered if I even had toes anymore.

I shuddered as the icy wind found it’s way through my jacket and thin dress and I felt my friend’s hand in mine. What once was a strong grip of resolve, was now barely a touch as we both struggled to walk. But the feel of her palm against mine is one of the only things that kept me upright. I knew if I stumbled, I’d bring her down with me and we’d both be dead. I couldn’t be responsible for her death.

Death. What does it even mean anymore?

It’s a word that has lost all meaning as I spent the last 4 years locked in its embrace, teetering on the edge of it, and being surrounded by it everywhere I looked.

Emaciated bodies, skeletons with skin, it’s all I saw unless the opposite was shoved in my face; sparkling clean uniforms with shiny brass buttons on healthy voluptuous bodies.

The difference was striking as the two lived side by side, now I think about it. One all powerful as the other cowered in fear.

I tugged on her hand and she cried out “Vivi, that hurts” but I couldn’t let her fall and she was slowing us down.

“Come on Grazi, we can’t stop”, forcing her ahead of me, one hand on her back gently pushing.

Grazia Dabrawska and I became friends when I arrived at camp.

I remember getting off the train with hoards of others, people milling about everywhere. I lost my family quickly as people got between us.

Searching for them frantically, I saw my father and brother being led off with other men. I found my mother and little sisters and sighed in relief as I tried to reach them. I was roughly shoved into a different line by a soldier.

I screamed out “Mutti” and our fingers caught for a second as I was swept away, away from the touch of her hand, away from the life I’d known.

I lost sight of mother as we were pulled in different directions. The look on her face, one of horror yet steely determination. I knew my sisters would be safe with her but I also somehow felt I’d never see them again.

My dear little sisters, who copied everything about me, the way I dressed, how I styled my hair, the way I spoke. Three little mirrors surrounding me every day. Their sweet innocence something I wanted to savour and treasure forever. My brother, much closer to my age, a year older, yet he had the look of a man already, at only 17.

And my mother and father, the steadfast rocks of our family. While father taught us the value of hard work through his job at the mills, my mother took particular notice and tutored me in the ways of a young German girl, blossoming to adulthood all too fast for her liking. But they had such kind loving souls too and knew how to soothe any hurt and made us laugh with stories of their burgeoning romance as teenagers themselves.

We would gather in the lounge room after tea and read books aloud or mother and father would reminisce to us. It was a childhood of warmth and love, and our family was very close knit.

It’s why I couldn’t let go of Grazi. She had become the family I lost. If I let her go, I’d be letting go of my mother all over again.

Grazia was the first friend I made upon arriving. Bewildered and lost, in a crowd of bewildered and lost women of all ages, I was staring around me trying to fathom what was happening when she approached. With closely cropped - almost bald, brunette tufts, and a beautiful smile, she felt like home immediately.

Before this though, we’d had our ‘orientation’: where my own head was shaved as I cried tears seeing my soft brown strands fall to the floor and my arm was inked. We had showered in cold water, while our clothes were taken away, to be replaced by soiled ugly and shapeless striped dresses. The patch on the front pocket stated my new ‘name’ and rank.

No longer was I Vivia Oetell, a name I was proud of because I was proud of my family, no, now my new name was forever on my arm and sewn to my dress along with the triangle and the letter A denoting me an A-social, a Jew, an empty mouth.

I was prisoner 46382.

So after this as we awaited being assigned blocks, Grazia found me. A forlorn bleak looking fragile chick amongst a crowd of plucked and displaced hens. She took me under her wing, showed me around and shared her ‘bed’ with me.

My feelings about my new home were surreal. We were in block 23, not a bad block according to Grazi but certainly not the best.

“Tie your bowl to your waist, and don’t ever lose it” she’d warned me as she showed me our sleeping quarters.

Our block was covered in bunk beds 3 bunks high, each 4 planks wide and 3 to a bunk. The mattresses were straw riddled with bugs and vermin and we had a thin musty blanket to share. I could reach my freshly tattooed arm out and touch the bunks next to us.

It was claustrophobic for me despite the open windows. Can you imagine a block stuffed full of unwashed women? Many died right next to us of dysentery, TB or typhus. One of my own bunkmates froze to death as our bunk was close to the window. We weren’t allowed to shut them even though this was Poland in the dead of winter.

I woke in horror the next morning to her frozen form but she was soon replaced by two more starved meagre bodies.

Four of us, crammed onto this tiny bed, body heat almost not existent, lice in our slowly growing hair and infections brewing from insect bites.

Our meals consisted of a cup of something they called coffee but was more like dirty water for breakfast, a slice of dry bread for lunch and dinner was a cup of very watery soup with - if lucky, a piece of potato or turnip. We were being starved while having to do backbreaking work each day.

This was not a place to get healthy. But that was the point wasn’t it? To kill us off slowly. Starve us of nutrients and of love, while beating us till every bone was in some state of fraction trying to heal.

They broke our bodies but we fought to save our spirits.

Many times, Grazi kept us going. She had so much life in her. Always half glass full no matter how they treated her. She was a fighter long before Auschwitz.

Her father died when she was an infant leaving her mother to fend for the two of them. Even as a child, Grazi had to find work, often helping her mother. Eventually her mother died from illness and my friend was on her own as a homeless 9 year old.

Once old enough, poor sweet Grazi began to sell her body. It was the easiest way to earn money and you would think that she would die inside from such ‘work’.

But no, every time someone defiled her, she vowed to make something of herself. She promised herself this was not going to be her life.

With her earnings she was able to go to school and was studying to be a nurse when they took her.

As an ‘asocial’ she was a prime target. Asocials were categorised as those on the bottom rung, prostitutes, gypsies, petty criminals (although stealing a loaf of bread was cause enough), Jews and the like. Those not worth anything. They called us ‘empty mouths’.

Yet these were the women that got the best jobs. As blockovas or as prisoner police, asocials were known to be the meanest of all POWS and many of them in power took delight in beating or punishing us just as the SS did.

Thankfully for us, our Blockova wasn’t like this. Grazia had made friends with her and as such, we were lucky to not be beaten if we lost a spoon or our ‘beds’ were not made exactly. Our blockova was Russian, the SS always put ‘enemies’ in charge of us although our Blockova was not so bad. I was in a Polish Block which somehow Grazi made happen despite me being a German Jew. She had made connections in the 8 months she had been here.

One of our bedmates was a Gypsy that had a tinkling laugh which sadly didn’t come very often. And our other was a timid quiet girl, perhaps 15, from the north of Poland. These girls stayed on the edges of camp life even though I’d learnt it better to have friends around you.

Sadly, the more friends we made, the more died only to be replaced. The constant turnaround of people was astronomical. Grazia was my constant though.

After almost four years I knew I could rely on her even in the worst of it. Just like now.

As liberation drew closer, the Russian rockets and tanks grew louder and the SS grew more panicked. They were shooting people indiscriminately now. A bullet had skimmed my arm as I ducked with an armful of clothes. A small graze with a lot of blood.

We were forced to gather and march out of the world’s most horrifying concentration camp and as we did, many raided Canada (where our former clothing was stored) and other areas for supplies.

While I grabbed what clothing I could from there, Grazia ran to the kitchen and the Revier to see what she could salvage.

When we met up again, we had a chunk of cheese, 2 loaves of hard bread, some bandages, a jacket each and one threadbare blanket to share. Quite a treasure trove.

I have never been more grateful for those items. The jackets kept us from frostbite on our fingers as we trudged through the thick snow and one of the bandages covered my wound, not deep but by now definitely infected. The smell of it wasn’t good after weeks of marching. All I could do was try to wash it out with snow the times we were allowed to stop!

I lost count of the days. It felt like we had been marching forever. We crossed into Germany weeks ago and have been heading north.

There was no comfort for me in treading German roads even though this was my homeland. It felt as foreign to me as the last four years. A parallel universe and soon I’d wake up from this nightmare to find Mutti and Pa, and my siblings crowding our dinner table.

I didn’t know how much longer I could go on. We slept where we fell on the roads in the snow. The only thing waking me, the sounds of shots ringing out as more people died.

They didn’t want us to survive and yet knowing how close our liberators were gave us the mental stamina to keeping putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how slow.

My feet were a mess of black frostbite and blood. Scratches and torn skin where I stumbled on the broken roads - sometimes I was thankful for the numbness as I’m sure I’d cry forever otherwise. My feet just felt like blocks of wood, thick, heavy and icy cold when I touched them.

At times, groups would be shunted off our northern trail heading left or right to other camps. And while we started the march thousands strong, those numbers had whittled away as people died of starvation, the cold, disease… and SS guns.

I took a deep breath and turned to Grazi, she was helping someone else and I banded together with them and as a trio we continued forward.

She started singing a Polish folk song and soon we were joining her, giggling like schoolgirls getting lost in the music and the friendships. Foolishly not thinking of anything but the song. Singing bonded us together and gave us the strength to keep going. I’d learnt many Polish songs living at Grazi’s side and I was starting to really enjoy myself until a bullet whistled past my ear barely missing me. I dived to the ground as more shots rang out.

Ok no singing allowed. Why must they force every good thing from our lives? Why?

As I silently complained I felt the steel of a gun on my neck and I froze. The muzzle ice cold metal, hard as rock digging into the tender skin of my neck.

This couldn’t be the end, surely. All I did was sing a song! I was imagining the bullet going through me, would I even feel it, being so numb with cold? My mind has a thousand thoughts of death racing around it as I braced for impact.

Then, thankfully, it was replaced by a boot that ground my face into the muddy snow of the road and I begged myself not to cry.

The soldier screamed “Kein Singen erlaubt” at me over and over but it was muffled from the snow I was buried in.

My tiny bowl was cutting into my hip but that was nothing compared to the kicking blows in my side. Each one taking breath from my lungs and I could feel blood from my face warming the snow beneath me. Then I felt love touching my fingers as Grazi reached out.

As they repeatedly kicked us she cried “Hang on, hang on Vivi, just a little longer”.

Then I was out. Unconscious.

When I woke, we were in an open cattle car on a train. My eyes could barely open, crusted over with dried blood. My jaw sent steering white pain through me when I tried to speak. I was stiff and ached all over unable to move; neither from pain or our cramped quarters.

I was cradled in Grazia’s arms with both our jackets covering me.

How did this happen? How was I still alive?

Looking around I could see so many dazed faces mirroring my own! I spotted our new singing friend across the way, she looked as I did; crushed and beaten till near death. She tried to smile at me and I nodded in return.

We were crammed into the car, some sitting like us but most standing. Frozen. Snow covered heads and faces streaked with mud and sheer exhaustion clouding eyes. Every face I see has questions and weariness. A weariness I’ve never seen before until now and I know it well.

We were given a loaf of bread each when we boarded the train and Grazia had saved mine for me. Hidden under our jackets. We shared bites together under those jackets. We had to hide the bread as Grazi told me of small riots that arose as women tried to steal off those who slept.

I convinced myself that each crumb of hard bread was delicious as I held it in my mouth to soften it. I savoured the texture on my tongue as I slowly chewed the tiny pieces I could put in my aching broken mouth. It tasted like cardboard but it was better than nothing.

My stomach never rumbled anymore. It had forgotten how to. I wondered if I even had a stomach anymore. Anyway, I took great delight in the tiny morsels I could eat. And for water, we ate snow. As it filled the top of our jackets that were our blanket we took great mouthfuls. It was the one thing we had in abundance.

I was so relieved to not be walking anymore, although this train took us further away from our liberators. No one knew where we were going although some said we had passed Berlin, still heading north.

We had stopped once or twice to empty the overflowing sanitary buckets and to remove dead bodies but were not allowed to get off to stretch our cramped legs. With no food and no space many people died on this trip. More than when we marched? Who can say, but for the first time in my life I saw people die standing in place.

I’d seen so many die in the last four years of living in this camp and before that, in the Ghetto of my once beloved beautiful northern city.

The death trucks rounded up bodies from each block every day. It was an assigned job and I’m glad I had been moved to work in the Admin building. It’s bad enough to see the living dead, to be surrounded by them. To know I was one of them was already too much for me.

But to see and carry and dispose of the dead, the emaciated, the skeletal shells knowing that before this horror, each body led a life. Whether good or bad, these women all had families, work, homes, and now were reduced to emptiness piled high outside the crematoriums or in the Revier washrooms because there was nowhere else to put them.

Their ashes were the grey snow that covered our heads as we moved about camp praying for their souls, and praying we wouldn’t join them just yet.

I’d seen enough dead and living dead to last a thousand lifetimes. If I ever make it out of this, how could I possibly explain to people who never knew?

~~~

The train was finally slowing and some murmured we had arrived at the Nazi Women’s camp of Ravensbrük. I couldn’t wait to move, to get off of this death train. Nothing could be as bad as Auschwitz was could it?

As we came closer, I could smell the spruce and pine of a northern Wald. Even though this wasn’t home, it smelt like it and I began to relax somewhat. Looking around I saw in the distance a lake glittering in the winter moonlight.

The train stopped as yelling began. SS banging the sides of our cars with wooden poles as others unlocked the gates.

Demands of “Schnell, Schnell!”

Hurrying us to climb down, many stumbled from stiff icy limbs, crashing to the ground where they were beaten for falling.

Grazi helped me as I gingerly tried to move my stiffened body. I knew that these guards would not take my injuries into account except to add to them. With help from a matronly lady, or she may have been in another life, I made it to the ground and hung tight to Grazi just as she clung to me.

We followed the stream of femininity to the bright lights ahead that were obviously our new home. The brilliance temporarily blinding me, I saw spots that turned into faces wondering aimlessly in small circles with unanswered questions.

After what seemed like hours of waiting, it appeared that there was no room for us inside and we were told to sleep here. The camp was already overflowing without our arrival and the SS didn’t know how to handle it.

It had been months of marching, walking, tripping along snowy bombed out roads, beaten and shot at, crammed into cattle cars and now, we were at our destination but couldn’t go in.

I felt almost as numb as my body was, and crumpled to the ground, silent tears slipping down and just prayed God would take me home, right here, right now.

I had lost the will to keep fighting. I missed my family so much and I suspected what had happened to them based on rumours.

Right now I couldn’t deal with the next chapter of this nightmare.

I just needed to lie down and rest. I just needed time to deal with this lastest blow.