Another time she was marching along the camp street with a detail on the way to work. I was standing by the side of the street, waiting to nod to her. Catching sight of me, she tore off her regulation headscarf and waved to me over the heads of the horrified prisoners and the amazed SS guards.
But the Communist women’s hatred of Milena had still other causes. The Czech Communists had frowned on our friendship from the start of our brief meetings. I had told Milena about the third degree the German Communists had put me through, and I was afraid something of the kind would happen to her. I was very much surprised when she told me that in spite of her break with the party the Czech Communists, far from treating her as a traitor, curried favor with and even found her light work in the camp infirmary. This they were able to do, because the SS management of the camp made things easy for themselves by entrusting the internal administration to the inmates. In most other camps, this internal administration was dominated by the criminal element, but here in Ravensbrück the politicals were put in charge. The SS appointed messengers, Blockalteste, assignment clerks, orderly room clerks, nurses, later even doctors, and of course the camp police. Inmates holding these “posts,” as they were called, became a class by themselves, intermediate between the SS authorities and the mass of slave laborers. In such positions they were able to help their fellow inmates very considerably, and many did all they could to mitigate the hardships of camp life, but others made common cause with the SS oppressors, and I am sorry to say that this was not unusual. Since the number of inmates increased steadily, the SS were always having to appoint more prisoners to administrative posts, and were open to suggestions from the inmates, who of course knew a lot more than the SS did about the qualifications of their fellow prisoners. It goes without saying that the Communist women reserved the good jobs almost exclusively for their comrades. Which makes it all the more surprising that they should help a political enemy—one more proof of the power of Milena’s personality.
But Milena’s friendship with me went too far for the comrades. Their spokeswomen Paleckova and llse Machova approached her. Did she know I was a Trotskyist, who was spreading infamous lies about the Soviet Union? Milena listened to their outburst of hatred and replied that she had had ample opportunity to form her own opinion of my reports on the Soviet Union and saw no reason to doubt their credibility. Soon after this warning, the Communists presented Milena with an ultimatum: She would have to choose between membership in the Czech community in Ravensbrück and friendship with the German Buber-Neumann. Milena made her choice, in full awareness of the consequences. After that the Communist women persecuted her as hatefully as they did me.
* Milena Jesenski, “Good Advice Is Worth Its Weight in Gold,” Pfiwmnosi (The Present), March 8, 1939.
2
STRONGER THAN ANY BARBARISM
… and this is another instance of your life-giving power, Mother Milena …
—FRANZ KAFKA, BRIEFE AN MILENA
Deep friendship is always a great gift. But if such good fortune is experienced in the desolation of a concentration camp, it can become the content of a life. During our time together Milena and I succeeded in defeating the unbearable reality. And because it was so strong, because it filled our whole beings, our friendship became something more, an open protest against the humiliations imposed on us. The SS could prohibit everything, they could treat us like disembodied numbers, threaten us with death, enslave us—in our feeling for each other we remained free and unassailable. It was toward the end of November, during our evening exercise, that we dared for the first time to walk arm in arm. This was strictly forbidden in Ravensbrück. It was dark, and we walked in silence, with strangely long steps as though dancing, peering into the milky moonlight. Not a breath of wind. Somewhere far away, far from our world, the wooden clogs of the other inmates shuffled and crunched. For me nothing existed but Milena’s hand on my arm and the wish that this walk might never end. And then the siren howled: Time to turn in. All the others ran to their barracks. But we hesitated, holding each other tight, unwilling to part. The bellowing voice of an overseer came closer. Milena whispered, “Come to the Wailing Wall later. So we can be alone for just a few minutes.” Then we parted. Someone shouted, “Damn bitches!” That was us.
At the appointed time I slipped away from the bustling crowd in the barracks. It didn’t even occur to me that this meeting might end with a flogging or solitary confinement or even death. It didn’t cross my mind that someone might see me. I ran past the lighted windows, came to the path beside the Wailing Wall. It was pitch-dark and I couldn’t see a thing. To muffle the sound of my wooden clogs, I groped my way to the edge of the path and continued on the grass. I saw something bright behind the leafless bushes that bordered the windowless wall of the second barracks. In my haste and excitement I tripped over a stump and fell into Milena’s arms.
Next morning, as usual, the roll call was interminable. Sometimes, because of her work at the infirmary, Milena was exempted. The three hundred occupants of my barracks were standing motionless and silent on the camp street, across from the infirmary, waiting for the SS duty officer to come and call the roll. I saw Milena in the corridor of the infirmary. She stepped up to a closed window, looked at me, laid one hand on the windowpane and moved it slowly back and forth in a silent, affectionate greeting. I was overjoyed. I nodded to her. Suddenly I felt terribly afraid for her. Hundreds of eyes must have seen what I saw. An SS guard might turn up at any moment. The long corridor had six or seven windows, and at each one Milena calmly repeated her loving gesture.
Because of her work in the infirmary, Milena was automatically assigned to No. 1 Barracks, the best in the camp, that of the “old” politicals, interned for their “subversive opinions.” One of its main advantages was that it was less crowded than the other barracks. At that time, as I’ve already said, I was Blockalteste of Barracks No. 3, that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Each barracks had an orderly room for the SS overseer, to which the Blockalteste also had access. It was the only room in which a certain privacy was possible. The SS overseer spent a few hours a day there, but at night the room was empty.
Sometimes Milena risked coming to see me, when she knew the SS overseer wouldn’t be there. As she was employed in the infirmary, she was able to enter the barracks during working hours on various errands. When that happened, I took her to the orderly room, and we were able to talk for a few minutes undisturbed. But that too was dangerous; the overseer was a permanent threat.
Our longing to spend more time together became more and more imperious. One evening during exercise period—it was autumn by then, and the nights were dark and stormy—Milena informed me of her plan. Half an hour after the SS guards made their night round, she would climb out of her barracks window and cross the camp street—where trained wolfhounds were let loose at night—to mine. I was to open the window for her. At the thought of the terrible danger she would be incurring, my heart skipped a beat. But her determination shamed me, and I agreed. Half an hour after the night round, I opened my barracks door and listened. I couldn’t see my hand before my face and it was pouring rain. As I listened for footsteps, my tense nerves made me hear menacing sounds on all sides: SS boots crunching on gravel, shots on the camp street. But this was a time of great activity in the barracks, and I had to avoid being seen. Every few minutes one of the three hundred occupants would go to the toilet, and then I had to hurry away from my listening post.
Suddenly the door was opened from the outside, and in stepped Milena, whistling softly It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go … I seized her by the arm and pulled her into the orderly room.
Her hair was dripping, the slippers she had put on to avoid making noise were soaked through. But what did it matter? She had made it. We sat down by the warm stove, which I had lit beforehand, and felt as if we had escaped from jail. We would be free for a whole night.
The dark, warm room gave us a sheltered feeling. Milena crept close t
o the stove to dry. “Your hair smells like a baby’s,” I whispered, laughing. And a little later: “Please, Milena, won’t you tell me about your home in Prague, when you were little. What you looked like….” Up until then Milena had told me very little about her life. But that November night, all by ourselves, as though safe on an island, I got her to talk.
Milena was born in Prague in 1896, and her earliest memories took her back before the turn of the century. Her mother was a beautiful woman with wavy chestnut-brown hair. In the morning, she often sat at the mirror in a long, soft dressing gown, combing her hair. “This is where she always kissed me.” Milena took my hand and put it on her hair. “Here, on this cowlick. I’ll never forget it. …” Until she was three, she was the only child in the family. She spent her days in the large apartment with the dark furniture. She wasn’t taken out very often. Mornings she sat in the dining room, and afternoons in the living room. She sat on high chairs at the high table, with her favorite toys spread out in front of her. “Were you, too, as a child, so fascinated by glass marbles with colored veins?” Milena asked me. “Did you think they were something absolutely magical?” We got to talking about bright-colored Bohemian glass beads, about the miracle of swift mountain streams, and I had difficulty in bringing her back to her childhood. “What did you look like when you were three? Are there any pictures of you at that age?” “Very pale and delicate, with precocious, defiant eyes in a little round face and a tousled mop of hair. I was neither a beautiful child nor a good one. In fact, I behaved very badly. My mother was the only one who really understood me….”
Milena’s mother, who died young, came of a well-to-do Czech family, the owners of Bad Beloves, a spa near Nachod. Milena was often taken there as a child. Her mother’s family did not, like her father’s, belong to the old, established bourgeoisie, but had gradually worked their way up the social ladder. Czech families like hers were distinguished by their enormous respect for every branch of culture, for science, art, the theater, and music, and they played a large part in the recent awakening of the Czech national consciousness.
Milena’s mother was thought to be “artistic.” In keeping with the taste of the day, she did peasant-style wood carvings, poker work, and furniture with rustic ornaments. Milena remembered that in her parents’ apartment which, like most homes of the wealthy Prague bourgeoisie, was full of imitation-Renaissance furniture, there was a chair that her mother herself had turned and carved, an extraordinary piece, with a triangular, leather-upholstered seat and a knob at the front, which the child could hold on to while sitting there. Her mother also favored colored peasant headscarves, and later on, when Milena began to travel on her own, there would always be a few of these scarves in her luggage. She would spread them out to give her hotel rooms a personal touch.
But even as a little girl Milena had had entirely different tastes from her mother’s. She remembered an incident that had made her weep. “That was when my mother took away the little pink-and-blue combs I had brought home from some parish fair and given me one made of genuine tortoiseshell, that I didn’t like at all. I also remember that my sailor’s blouse drove me crazy; I wanted one with lace and ribbons like the one Fanda, who lived next door, had….”*
“But I want you to know one thing,” said Milena sadly. “My mother never spanked me when I was little. She never even scolded me. Only my father did that…,”
She was shivering. She was cold and tired. The stove had gone out and the sounds of a new day in camp came in to us. Our time together was drawing to an end.
* Mikna Jesenska, The Way to Simplicity (Prague, 1926}.
3
JAN JESENSKY
The Jesenskys lived on the sixth floor of a house in the center of Prague. “The Pfikope’ and Viclavske Namesti [Wenceslaus Square] were right under our windows,” Milena began. “In those days there were still beautiful low buildings around there, dating from the late baroque period. The whole neighborhood looked like a small provincial town with its neat central square.
“The tension between the Czechs and the German-speaking Austrians took many different forms. One of them could be seen from our windows every Sunday morning. The Austrian students with their bright-colored caps would stroll on the right side of the Pfikope and the Czechs in their Sunday best would promenade on the left side. Now and then a crowd would form, people would start singing something or other, and you could feel the exasperation in the air. I saw all that from the window, but I didn’t really know what it was all about.
“Then came a Sunday that I’ll never forget. I saw the Austrian students come marching from the Powder Tower, not as usual on the sidewalk, but in the middle of the street. They were marching in formation and singing. Suddenly a crowd of Czechs appeared from Vaclavske Namestf; they too were marching in the middle of the street, but silently. My mother and I were standing at the window. She held me by the hand, a little more tighdy than necessary. As the Czechs advanced, I saw my father in the front ranks. I recognized him right away, and I was delighted to see him down there, but my mother was pale and tense. Suddenly a detachment of police came rushing out of Havirska ulice and placed themselves between the two hostile armies, cutting off both from the Pfikope. But both sides continued to advance. The Czechs reached the police cordon and were ordered to halt; then a second time they were ordered to halt, then a third time. … I don’t remember exactly what happened then. I only know that I heard shots and saw the peaceful crowd of Czechs transformed into a howling mob. Suddenly the Pfikope was deserted. Only one man stood facing the police rifles—my father. I can still see him standing calmly there with his hands at his sides. But beside him on the cobblestones lay something strange and horrible. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen what someone looks like who has been shot and crumples. He’s not human anymore, he looks like an old rag. My father probably didn’t stand there for more than a minute. It seemed years to my mother and me. Then he bent down and began to bandage the bundle of human flesh. My mother had closed her eyes and two big tears were rolling down her cheeks. I still remember that she took me in her arms and squeezed me as if she had wanted to crush me….”*
Milena’s father played a larger part in her recollections than her mother. All the experiences that marked her most deeply were connected with her father, whom she both loved and hated. And this to the end of her life.
Dr. Jan Jesensky was a professor at the Charles University in Prague and practiced dentistry on Ferdinand Street, one of the most fashionable streets in Prague. He came of an old but impoverished middle-class family, and had grown wealthy by working hard at his profession. He was regarded as an outstanding oral surgeon and founded a school that still bears his name.
Milena looked very much like her father; she had the same dimple on her chin and the same resolute mouth. They were also both strong-willed, unyielding.
Jan Jesensky taught his only child old-fashioned patriarchal manners. She had to kiss his hand in greeting and in speaking to him was not allowed to use the familiar form of address.
Dr. Jesensky was proud of his achievements and determined to play a leading role in the Czech society of Prague. Anything that might interfere with this, especially his family, had to give way.
Undoubtedly Milena’s love-hate for her father had its roots in her early childhood. When she was about three, a son was born to the Jesenskys. Without knowing it, the sensitive little girl must have sensed what this new child meant to her father and mother. It was a boy and she was only a girl. She would stand behind the door and listen anxiously to the sickly baby’s screams. Sensing her parents’ anxiety, she too trembled for the baby’s life. When he died, she thought her parents had loved only him. How much his death had meant to her can be judged by the fact that Franz Kafka in his love letters to Milena speaks of her little brother’s grave, which he visited.
Her father often spanked her when she had been naughty or obstinate. But once he threw her into a big chest full of dirty washing and left the lid
closed over the screaming child until she thought she would smother. From then on she lived in terror of her father.
Jan had a ferocious temper; in his frequent fits of rage he shouted threats and obscenities. He did his tyrannical best to break Milena’s spirit and force his opinions on her. In public he posed as an ultraconservative eccentric. He dressed in the old-fashioned style of a provincial nobleman, and never went out without a frock coat and the low-crowned top hat that went with it. He got up at four in the morning and took a cold bath; by half-past five he could be seen in the Kinsky Gardens, wearing his monocle and accompanied by two big dogs. He took his afternoon nap not on a soft couch, but on a hard, old-fashioned sofa. And he never failed to mention his Spartan virtues as a means of impressing, if not seducing, the ladies. In the afternoon he appeared, every inch the Herr Professor, in his elegantly appointed dentist’s office. Jan Jesensky was an unfortunate mixture of great ability and dishonest, brutal egoism. Every evening he went to his club and lost hundreds of crowns at cards.
In Ravensbrück we were allowed to write letters. The writing paper, which we had to buy at the canteen, carried the letterhead—Ravensbrück Concentration Camp—and just below it the regulations governing the inmates’ correspondence with the outside world. There were different kinds of paper for different categories of inmate. The “old” politicals, who had been arrested before the war, were allowed to write sixteen lines twice a month, and on their paper the letterhead and regulations were printed in red. In addition to the usual regulations, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ paper, printed in green, had the words: “I am still a Jehovah’s Witness”; they were allowed to write only five lines. All those arrested during the war had a black letterhead; they were allowed to write sixteen lines but only once a month, and the replies of their correspondents were limited to sixteen lines.
Milena Page 2