Eva's Story (15 page)

‘No! No!' I cried out in panic.

She grabbed hold of me and pulled me up off the bunk. She held me by my shoulders and turned me around to face her.

‘You are young and still strong enough,' she said looking firmly at me. ‘There is no one else. It is your duty. If you can carry bread, then you can carry out the dead.'

Through my panic and fear I could hear Mutti saying faintly, ‘Leave her, she's too young. I will do it.'

Suddenly I came to my senses. I knew that Mutti had no strength at all. That was the moment I grew up – it was time I looked after Mutti.

It was the worst task I have ever had to perform in my whole life. I carried out the dead. Some were friends with whom I had talked about our liberation. Many were so diseased and stinking that it took all my courage to touch them. It was now dark and the moon shone on the other bodies which stared at me open-eyed from stiffened mounds of dead flesh and bones. Here were faces I had come to know and respect. I looked on mouths now agape that had given me wise counsel and encouragement; eyes that had gazed on me, lovingly, remembering their own dead children. I had always tried to ‘stand in' for their loved ones and give back just a little of that love. There had been so little that we could give each other except love.

It was the first time I had been so involved with the dead and it horrified me to see the waste of people cut down in the prime of their lives. None of them were older than forty, many were much younger – women who had managed to retain enough hope to survive almost until the end.

I saw more people die in the next few days than I had seen in my whole time at Birkenau.

The sound of gunfire was intensifying in the distance, getting nearer all the time. I was with a sortie that went back to the kitchens next morning for a more thorough inspection. We were beginning to feel a little bolder now and started to move more freely around the camp site.

I spotted a hole in the wire fencing between sections of the camp.

‘I'm going to go through,' I said, assuming the electric current had been switched off.

Luckily, I was right and soon two others followed me. Everything on the other side was quite deserted but in there we came upon the barracks where all the provisions had been stored.

It was like the re-enactment of a story from the Brothers Grimm. The first barrack was stacked with clothing, every article of apparel you could imagine from boots to berets. The second barrack held blankets and eiderdowns, all shelved neatly like a Swiss laundry house. The third barrack held the food stores.

As we entered the last barrack we could see boxes of wrapped cheeses, jars of jam, sacks of flour, heaps of potatoes – food beyond our wildest dreams and we starving skeletons just grabbed what we could easily lay our hands on and sat there and ate.

Eventually we returned to the second barrack and helped ourselves to large blankets to use as sacks. Just like Santa Claus, we filled our blankets with all the food we could manage. We knotted the four corners together and slung them over our shoulders. Excitedly, I set off to return to Mutti with the greatest of treasures and as we stepped outside to carry back our plunder it started to snow again, soft white flakes falling on our heads.

It suddenly occurred to us that we could revisit the clothes store for warmer clothes. I found a splendid pair of black leather military boots, all polished and clean. I put them on my poor swollen feet. They were large men's boots with plenty of room, my first shoes without holes and protection at last from the bitter weather. I felt so smart as I plodded through the snow, keen to show them to Mutti. I did not notice any pain in my toes at all.

In the next few days we returned time and time again to find everything we needed, including all kinds of tools, hatchets, hacksaws, picks, knives. We distributed as much food and clothes as we could to the bedridden.

Mutti managed to accompany me the next day. She was eager to share my excitement although she was still very shaky. She held on to my arm as we trudged slowly through the thick layer of snow that had fallen overnight. She was amazed at the extent of the stock. She pulled out some clothes and found a dark blue woolly dress with a high polo-neck collar. Then she chose some long grey woollen stockings and a pair of black sturdy lace-up shoes which fitted her exactly. As she stood there with warm clothes covering her skinny body at last, and with her hair growing again, she asked, ‘Do I look alright?'

‘Mutti, you look marvellous,' I replied and we wept together.

The best find of all was two feather eiderdowns with snug, downy fillings. They were fairly bulky but lightweight enough to carry around. We wrapped them round our bodies and from then on we four became inseparable!

17 January Warsaw liberated

Water everywhere was still frozen. At first, we melted snow. We would collect it in mugs or bowls but the amount of liquid was too small for our needs. At the entrance to the camp was a little water reservoir, more of a pond in fact, which was covered with ice and snow. Olga suggested that someone should attempt to hack into the ice to try and draw out water.

I volunteered to try. So, wearing my sturdy boots, I marched with Olga down to the pond, both of us armed with axes and buckets. We were determined to succeed. Using up a great deal of our limited energy, huffing and puffing, we managed to hack the brittle ice until it cracked and flew off in large blocks. It was a long and arduous task as the ice was over a foot thick. At last the broken ice gave way and we found ourselves staring at clear water beneath. We whooped with joy. The hole was just large enough to immerse our buckets and, feeling like Eskimos, we drew up the precious liquid and carried it back to the barrack.

We coped for a few days in this way, raiding the stores for food and smashing the ice daily for water. There was still nowhere we could really keep warm. There was no place in the barrack where we could make a fire, cook food or heat up any water. Oiga and Mutti talked it over and agreed to try and find a place outside the camp to improve our living conditions.

By now, those who could fend for themselves were doing so and the dead had no need of us.

I had noticed an empty house near the camp walls where the SS guards had been billeted. It was a custom-made wooden house and we thought it was bound to have some heating facilities. We decided to go and investigate. Yvette, a young French woman, heard our discussion and asked if she could come along. We still felt very insecure and agreed, since four was a safer number. Just as we were gathering ourselves up to leave we heard someone screaming outside. The barrack door was flung open and a woman yelled, ‘There's a bear at the gate! A bear at the gate! Come quickly!'

Cautiously, we went outside towards the open gate and there, at the entrance, was the ‘bear' – a huge being, covered from head to foot in bearskin with a look of utter amazement on his face. We stood and stared at each other and then carefully, I edged towards him with joy on my face.

Our liberator stood at the entrance to the camp, alone and strong. With outstretched arms I ran to him and hugged against him... and although our languages were not the same, what I said to him and what he said to me was understood by us both. The Russians had come!

27 January 1945

Throughout that day our liberators entered the camp in small batches: sturdy Russian soldiers on horseback pulling armaments and provisions for the advance. They had little time to be concerned with the welfare of the inmates who remained. We hung around them, watching their every move, but the language barrier between us was too great for any real communication. We sensed they were eager to pursue the retreating Germans. They just stayed long enough to set up their field kitchen inside the compound. Soon there was the delicious aroma of hot potato and cabbage soup bubbling up from the cauldron and we were thrilled when they beckoned us to come nearer and handed us bowls of steaming soup. I could feel the warmth penetrating my body.

Now the Russians had arrived, our little group thought it would be quite safe to move into the quarters that had housed the SS. Late in the afternoon, we four walked through the camp gates. It was an eerie feeling. There were no guards to stop us, no dogs barking, only the sounds of horses neighing and the wind whining.

We came to the hut and tried the door. Amazingly it was not locked and we apprehensively entered
Herr Obersturmfuhrer's
living quarters. We inspected the two main rooms. They smelt clean and had the neatness of civilization about them. We all wanted to stay together for safety and companionship so we opted for the room with four bunkbeds, each with clean bedding.

More importantly there was a black iron stove in the centre of the room with its supply of firewood piled high in the corner. We could hardly wait to get it going. We stoked the wood, lit it and stood around watching the flames grow. Then, sitting on the floor in our first snug accommodation, we bathed in the wonderful feeling of at last becoming warm again.

We were thoroughly sleepy by now, mentally exhausted from the tension and excitement of the day and longing to lie between clean sheets once more. The room was glowing with heat and, for the first time in many months, we took off our outside clothes and climbed on our beds. Olga chose a bottom bunk and Yvette the one above it. Mutti slid between the sheets of her bottom bunk with a look of ecstasy on her face. I threw my eiderdown on to the top, climbed up after it and snuggled down in its familiar softness. But I couldn't get to sleep for ages. I lay watching the shadows dancing on the whitewashed walls convincing myself of what I had hardly believed possible. We had come through. We had survived.

We woke early. Outside the air was absolutely still and deadly quiet. When I looked through the window new snow had fallen during the night.

All water facilities in the hut were frozen and we had no food with us so we delegated Olga and Yvette to hack the ice in the pond for water while Mutti and I went to the stores. This time we discovered more underground rooms packed high with provisions. We filled two sacks with potatoes, carrots, onions and barley until we could hardly lift them and dragged them back across the snow.

Olga already had water boiling in a pan and she soon prepared a delicious pot of thick vegetable soup. When it was ready we guzzled it down like hungry wolves. I could not stop eating and wanted more – and then even more – but Mutti warned me not to eat so much. She was sure it would make me ill yet I could not stop myself. Mutti was right, of course. I was sorry later when, because my body was so unused to digesting food, I found myself doubled up with stomach cramp and diarrhoea. My abdomen had become terribly bloated and I moaned with the pain of it. I implored Mutti to do something to help me out of my agony.

‘Pierce a hole in my stomach to let the air out,' I pleaded.

But there was not much she could do except help me over to the toilet bucket where I spent most of the night.

After that experience I was much more careful with the amount of food I ate at one time. For safety we took turns in pairs to return to the stores to collect any provisions we needed, often to the background noise of distant gunfire and the overhead droning of Russian planes.

The weather was still bitterly cold, with water frozen solid in the pipes and on the pond and between us we shared the more strenuous duty of collecting water. When it was Mutti's and my turn we each armed ourselves with a pickaxe. The grey smoke of our breath froze on our scarves as we panted with the effort of hacking the ice away, even though it was a thinner layer that had formed over our hole during the night. It took us a good half an hour each time. We were still weak and quite exhausted and frozen by the time we drew up clean water. We only had one bucket so we had to return several times during the day.

Olga was the strongest of us, attacking all tasks with determination. She was full of enthusiasm and energy. Being Polish she was certain she would soon be returning to her home and family. Yvette, however, was very lethargic and miserable. She suspected that no one in her family had survived. Frightened of what the future might reveal she lay for many hours resting on her top bunk, occasionally sobbing quietly to herself.

We passed three days in this relative safety and comfort when towards night-time, after we had decided to bed down early, we heard a commotion outside and the door was suddenly kicked open. We sat up in our bunks, clutching at our covers, gasping in alarm, all our fragile sense of security immediately shattered. There in the doorway stood two strapping men dressed in long fur-lined leather coats. Great fur hats half hid their faces and their eyes glowered out from under their frost covered eyebrows. Here were two more of our Russian bears standing transfixed at the sight of us.

After our initial fright we jumped down from our bunks and rushed over to pull them into the warmth of the room. Olga spoke to them in Polish, offering them food and trying to get information from them, but they hardly responded. They were utterly exhausted. They told her that all they wanted was sleep. We indicated they were welcome to use our beds and quickly rearranged our own sleeping places; Olga and Yvette sharing a top bunk, Mutti and I the bunk underneath. Mutti pushed me against the wall and lay protectively on the outside. Deep down we were all quite scared of these men because we had heard so many stories of Russians raping women. But we slept soundly enough through the night and when we awoke next morning both Russians had disappeared.