No Going Back

by Anna Patrick

  The hope she experienced in her new environment lowered her guard. At roll call the Oberaufseherin announced that she needed more workers on the night-shift and called for volunteers to step forward. Marta was the only one who did.

  Warmth enveloped her as she sat at a bench and a supervisor showed her what to do, stressing the need for concentration and nimble fingers. Red lamps lit the benches and black material covered the windows.

  At six am they finished and headed back to the camp where they were latecomers to the roll call. Eyelids drooping, she yawned and waited to get into bed. She had no chance to speak to Renata who joined her work crew as soon as roll call was over.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ The blokova was furious she’d disturbed a bed and boxed her ears.

  ‘But I’ve been on night-shift.’

  ‘You pile of shit. This isn’t a night-shift barrack. You can’t sleep during the day or you’ll get me into trouble. Now find yourself a broom and sweep the floor and make that bunk up before you do.’

  She scowled and muttered under her breath as she swept; her neck and shoulders tightened until her head ached.

  She longed for nightfall. Hard planks, lumpy straw, a thin blanket: none of them mattered. Every muscle, every sinew, every bone craved sleep. At roll call she felt herself swaying and balled her fists to stay upright.

  ‘Prisoner 44911 to join the night-shift crew.’

  Where could she hide? What could she do? This was unbearable.

  ‘Get a move on.’

  She shuffled forward, giddy with the effort and trudged, five abreast, to the factory with no idea how she got there.

  Sitting at her bench, she fantasised. Revenge on the crows would be sweet. They knew she hadn’t slept for 24 hours, no 36 hours or was it… Her head dropped forward and hit the bench. Shouts and blows followed and the supervisor, incandescent with rage, ordered her back to the camp.

  Inside the dark hut she crept into the nearest bunk and fell fast asleep. Renata found her in the washroom the next morning.

  ‘What the hell did you do that for? Why did you volunteer for night-shift? The blokova couldn’t believe it; the others said she talked about nothing else all evening.’

  ‘I imagined I would come back and have a restful day, sleeping on my own, without all the noises you get at night.’

  ‘So why are you here now?’

  ‘I fell asleep at the factory.’

  ‘Oh my God, Marta. What will happen now?’

  ‘Nothing good, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  They ate their bread and coffee with heavy hearts.

  After roll call they ordered Prisoner 44911 to stay behind on the Appell-platz. She stood alone, shivering for hours before two guards marched her out of the camp and up towards a series of bungalows. A neat garden filled with shrubs, lay either side of a path leading up to the first one.

  She stepped into a warm and tastefully decorated room; impressionist prints hung on the walls creating calm and colour; classical music played in the background. It was a delightful environment that could have belonged to Marta or one of her friends.

  Distracted by these pleasant thoughts, she never saw the first blow strike her to the ground.

  ‘Get up.’

  She staggered to her feet. A rubber truncheon hit her across the face. Knocked sideways she raised her hands up, desperate to protect her eyes, but the Ober kept snatching them away as she screamed at her for falling asleep. Blow after blow battered her into unconsciousness.

  The guards threw her onto the first available bunk. The blokova left her alone. When she came round, bruised and sore, it was time for roll call. Renata pulled her up and stood alongside her; when they returned she helped her line up for her soup and bread never saying a word.

  As they were eating, a Ukranian woman who worked in the kitchens slipped her two cooked potatoes. She clutched them to her chest and whispered her thanks before sharing them with Renata. After their meal and night-time wash, she went to sleep, never stirring until morning.

  Refreshed and determined not to put a foot wrong, Marta worked diligently next day considering all the while how to sabotage the work. Every three hours there was a bell and the civilian workers left the factory for a fifteen minute break to rest their eyes from the red lights.

  At midday they too had a break in which to consume their soup and some mashed potatoes inside the factory walls.

  ‘Someone has salted these potatoes.’

  ‘Yes, the soup seems thicker too.’ Marta rooted around her mouth with her tongue.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘My teeth are loose.’

  ‘Is that where they hit you?’

  ‘No, even my molars are loose. It must be the lack of proper food.’

  Weeks turned into months and Finow became as familiar to them as Ravensbrück had been.

  Marta eavesdropped the civilian workers talk about the progress of the war. She sensed they were getting anxious about the outcome although one or two continued to talk up their ultimate, glorious victory. Marta shared their fears about the advance of the Red Army; Irenka might want a communist future but not her. Nothing good came from the East and she wanted nothing to do with the Russians who had murdered her father and betrayed her country at the start of the war.

  A scream ripped through the air like a lightening flash and thunder followed in the crash of equipment and the thud of boots running across the floor. Marta had whipped round and glimpsed the slap. She turned her body away, clutching her arms to her chest, rocking faintly.

  Oh my God, Oh my God. What would happen next?

  Her breath came in bursts and the sound of whimpering rose unbidden from her depths.

  ‘Back to work.’ The supervisor rushed from bench to bench but even the civilian workers struggled to control their feelings whether of pity or outrage.

  ‘What’s happened?’ A tall woman, given to smiling at the prisoners, returned from the toilets.

  ‘That woman over there slapped an SS officer in the face. Look they’re taking her out.’

  Battling against chaos, the supervisor announced a ten minutes break and Marta rushed to find Renata and hugged her tight.

  ‘It’s Ewa, isn’t it? The poor thing. What happened? What made her snap?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Ewa irritated her fellow prisoners with constant talk of her beloved little boy and her desperation to survive and return to him.

  ‘As if we didn’t all have loved ones we want to get back to’ was a frequent comment muttered behind her back and sometimes to her face. She wasn’t perturbed by such animosity. Her son was her hope and gave her the strength to continue. Until today.

  Across the loudspeaker came the order: ‘All prisoners out into the courtyard.’

  The officer marched across to Ewa followed by the largest camp guards. He caught hold of her head and kept it in a vice-like grip, covering her mouth with his gloved hand. She looked like a bird caught in the jaws of a black panther. The others stood around, muscular and well-fed, breathing heavily and sweating with excitement.

  He gave the order, and they set upon her, tearing her limb from limb.

  Marta’s lips moved in silent prayer. Distorted by tears, the scene fragmented before her: a spray of blood; a scrap of material floating to the ground; an arm held aloft in triumph then flung against a wall, sliding down to rest akimbo.

  She had expected screams, but the air vibrated with the violence of snapped tendons, shattered bones and the sickening grunts and squeals of men playing tug of war.

  Marta was shaking uncontrollably as she returned to her bench; all the women fumbled with their tasks and work slowed to a degree which infuriated the supervisor, but which he could do nothing about.

  Back at the camp, evening roll call was mutinous as
word spread of the savagery. Was it chance that the numbers tallied so quickly that night or did the aufseherinen sense the dangerous atmosphere and call an early halt to proceedings?

  They returned to their barrack. Even the blokova was subdued. They consumed the soup and bread in mechanical fashion in silence. That night nobody fought over their rations. Washing in the cold water was vigorous as if they hoped to disinfect their minds and bodies of what they had witnessed. Nobody spoke but the sound of sobbing continued long into the night.

  20

  Work finished early on a Saturday and Sunday gave them the opportunity to visit friends in other barracks, walk around the grounds or gather their thoughts. Even the blokova relaxed and allowed them to sit or lie on their bunks.

  Often they set about killing lice; they dug them out from under the seams of their clothes and squashed them thumbnail to thumbnail. Spots of blood stained their dirty uniforms, but they felt satisfaction in seeing another one dead.

  The hut was quiet with just a murmur of voices in the background. For once nobody was arguing, nobody starting up a fight or seeking revenge for slights real or imagined. If you could ignore the stench and the discomfort, the unending hunger and the relentless anxiety that anything could go wrong, well if you could ignore all that, the atmosphere was almost pleasant. Marta leaned back and closed her eyes.

  ‘I can’t do this anymore.’

  ‘No, I dare say it makes little difference; kill one and half a dozen take its place.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand, I can’t do any of this anymore, any of it.’

  ‘Do we have a choice?’ Marta laughed sardonically.

  When she opened her eyes her friend was slumped over.

  She wasn’t sure how to react. Thoughts rushed through her head. Should she try sympathy or sternness? Encouragement or ridicule? Whichever way she needed to help her friend or risk watching her despair.

  Danuta had only taken so much before succumbing to blackness; she had good reason to go under with her experiences, but there could just as easily be a slow burn towards extinction.

  Leaning across she grabbed both of Renata’s hands: ‘What did you say when you killed that louse?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What did you say when you killed that louse?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘Well, that’s where you’re going wrong. Every time you kill one you have to say ‘Raus, raus, you filthy louse.’ It’s the only way, you can trust me on that. I’m something of an expert on the subject.’

  ‘Raus, raus, you filthy louse,’ she repeated and watched as Renata’s lips formed the words. Already, she saw a spark returning to dulled eyes. She held forth on the varieties of lice.

  ‘Now, the lice we find on each other, they’re German lice, no doubt about it. They can’t help themselves, they just have to invade Poland, so we get the German lice. If you had a magnifying glass, you would see their shiny black leather overcoats with little SS insignia on the collars and they carry miniature whips and dogs on chains. That’s why they’re so hard to kill: those chains get in the way of your fingernails.

  ‘There are lice in Poland too, but they’re too busy arguing among themselves to invade anyone, so you’ll find no Polish lice here, no matter what the guards call us. The French louse is a different creature altogether. It wears a little black beret, and it has an air of je ne sais quoi, but it only wants to settle on the well fed so you don’t see many of them around here.’

  Marta carried on energetically until Renata’s body relaxed and a smile twitched her lips.

  ‘You are completely insane, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I would argue that insanity is the only sane reaction to this little world of ours.’

  ‘Yes, Madam Professor, you always come back with a clever answer, but I would swap all your cleverness for the chance to get away from here.’

  ‘Renata, we will I promise. Every Sunday we will sit here and talk our way out of here into a different world and we’ll start right now.’

  ‘Oh Marta, really?’

  ‘Close your eyes. There. Guess what my favourite childhood treat was? Not cake or ice cream or chocolates or anything normal like that. No, it was a tomato and onion salad. Big red juicy tomatoes, cut into quarters and then into eighths, mixed with crisp, white crescents of onion, all salted to perfection and then the juice from a scented, bright yellow lemon squeezed over the top.’

  Marta emphasized the colours and scents and textures. Renata needed to see and smell and taste her words.

  ‘I used to love that. Gosposiu, dear housekeeper, I would say, please, can I have another helping and she would shake her head and say “All that sourness can’t be good for you” but she’d get me another plate all the same.

  ‘And she always gave me thick slices of bread and butter to go with it. She worried I would get tummy ache without something solid to soak up the juices, but I didn’t care.’

  Marta’s mouth salivated. It would be a long time before they received their crust and watery soup. Better to change the subject.

  ‘Did I tell you we used to live in a house on Hortensia Street in Warsaw? The garden there blossomed with every kind of flower. We had scented roses the colour of apricots growing up one wall and if you opened the windows in summer, the scent pervaded every room. I remember sunflowers against another wall, huge great heads turning towards the sun.

  ‘My mother loved her garden. Her gentle soul must have despaired of me because I was always getting into trouble, especially with the nuns at school. They expelled me twice.’

  ‘No!’ Renata opened her eyes wide.

  ‘Oh yes. One time I let loose white mice in the chapel. Oh my goodness, the pandemonium, the screams, the hysteria. Imagine the nuns running this way and that, except Mother Superior who tried to maintain control. They worked out who did it straightaway.’ Marta laughed at the memory.

  ‘Where did you get the mice?’

  ‘I don’t remember. I was only four or five.’

  ‘What? Nobody goes to school in Poland at that age. You’re just making this all up.’

  Renata sounded sulky.

  ‘If you’re going to tell me fairy tales, stick to Hansel and Gretel or some such nonsense. I’m off to the latrines.’

  Better anger than despair.

  Renata harboured her indignation and spoke little. Marta watched to see she still washed, still made the effort to remain human. The week passed. After a record number of recounts on Saturday night, the Ober dismissed them.

  Renata whispered: ‘Escape tomorrow?’

  A warm tingle spread through her body. It was going to be all right.

  ‘Yes, escape tomorrow.’

  Seated on their bunk they killed lice.

  ‘Once upon a time…’

  ‘Are you teasing me?’

  ‘Well you deserve it after sulking all week. You reminded me of my little Daschund. A most wonderful dog, typical of the breed who was your best friend until you told him off for something and then he sulked for days.’

  ‘Humph.’

  ‘I didn’t make anything up, Renata. Children normally start school at seven, but my parents sent me away early and to boarding school at that, because when they divorced they couldn’t look after me.’

  ‘Divorced! Oh my God, can you even get a divorce in Poland? That only happens in America, maybe even only in Hollywood. Honestly, I don’t know of a single divorced couple in the whole of Poland.’

  ‘And, of course, you know a lot of people in the whole of Poland?’

  ‘Oh, don’t tease me, it’s not commonplace, is it?’

  ‘No, though I expect there were others beside my parents.’

  ‘What happened? Why did they divorce?’

  ‘I’m not sure you’ll believe me, Renata, because it is an in
credible story, but it is the truth all the same.’

  ‘Go on, I won’t doubt you again.’

  ‘Imagine a family of considerable social and professional standing. My grandfather Stanislaw Wilhelm Paciorkowski whose Coat of Arms was Gryf and his wife Konstancja Alina Tymowska whose Coat of Arms was Sas enjoyed high society. Trained as a lawyer, he became a judge of the Supreme Court. He also wrote at least one learned tome and numerous articles relating to the law and government.’

  ‘Are they still alive?’

  ‘My grandmother died a year after my birth, but my grandfather reached the age of 82 and only died two years ago in November 1942. Mind you, it was a miracle he survived that long, because he refused to accept the curfew imposed in Warsaw and would go out whenever he pleased, with his top hat and cane, his luxurious moustache and white beard.’

  ‘Not someone who would blend into the background then.’

  ‘No, I’ve no idea why they didn’t imprison him or shoot him dead. People died for lesser things than breaking the curfew. Sometimes I wonder if they admired his noble bearing and absolute civility to everyone he met. Or maybe he reminded them of their grandfathers back home. Who knows?

  ‘I visited him once when he lived in an apartment with his daughter-in-law and granddaughter, but they didn’t make me welcome and there was a lot of unpleasantness over money and antiques I inherited from my mother which had mysteriously disappeared.

  ‘Anyway, my grandparents had four children: a daughter Haneczka born in 1889, a son Jerzy born in 1894, then my father Stanislaw born in 1898 and another son Tadeusz born in 1900. They also looked after a young boy from a humble background called Jan Zieja, who became a priest and is a living saint. He is the truest Christian you could ever hope to meet, but that’s another story.

  ‘My father, or Stas as his family and friends called him, studied law and political sciences at Warsaw University. He must have inherited some of his father’s love for words because he went into journalism. At one point he worked on the Illustrated Daily Courier.’

  ‘Truly? My mother loved that newspaper. There was a writer she particularly liked – perhaps it was your father? Imagine that. She used to settle down of an afternoon with a glass of tea and enjoy half an hour of peace and quiet reading its pages. There was hell to pay if you disturbed her during her special time.’