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“A TIME OF SADNESS IS RISING
OVER THE HORIZON”
How naturally what’s needed comes from you, always!
—KAFKA, BRIEFE AN MILENA
In the hot summer of 1941—the SS had introduced night shifts in the tailor shops—the undernourishment and weakness of the prisoners became increasingly evident. Their legs were swollen, covered with boils and abscesses. A few cases of paralysis were reported, possibly, we thought, brought on by Dr. Sonntag’s syphilis therapy. Not until there were twelve cases was Camp Commander Kogel notified. There were violent scenes between him and Dr. Sonntag. Rumors reached the camp of a polio epidemic in the vicinity. Dr. Sonntag imposed a quarantine. The prisoners were confined to their barracks, no work was done, and no SS overseers were allowed inside the camp. At first prisoners were delighted but then the paralysis spread; every day more women were carried off on stretchers and placed in a special barracks. The victims all showed the same symptom: sudden inability to stir a muscle. But strangely enough, none of the “old” politicals were affected; most of the victims were asocials, Gypsies, and “Polack lovers,” that is, German women convicted of “consorting” with foreigners. A week later, if I remember correctly, there were a hundred cases. I shall never forget the two weeks of quarantine. Glorious summer weather, deep-blue, cloudless skies. Except for two daily exercise periods the prisoners were confined to their barracks. Milena volunteered for service in the “paralytic shack,” a punishment barracks enclosed in a barbed-wire fence, which had been evacuated for this purpose. Every afternoon, relying on the protection of my green armband, I made my way to it by a circuitous route. Milena would be expecting my visit; she came out to the gate, and we would sit on the ground with the fence between us. Blessed silence. No bellowing overseer, no barking dogs to disturb the peace. The camp seemed enchanted. Two woodlarks hopped about on the path not far from us, and from somewhere we heard the monotonous summer song of the yellowhammer. The air shimmered with the heat and smelled of sunbaked earth. Time stood still. It was the hour of Pan. Milena began to sing softly, a tender, sorrowful Czech song: “Oh, green hills that were mine. Oh, joy of my heart! It’s a long time since I’ve heard birds sing. A time of sadness is rising over the horizon.”
We spoke of past summers, of childhood vacations. “Do you remember how wonderful it felt when the summer breeze blew your thin dress against your bare legs? And the soft grass under your feet when we ran barefoot across the meadows?” Milena on Mount Spicak, and I not far from the Czech border, at my grandparents’ house in the Fichtelgebirge. The same round hills in both places, the same dark pine trees and mountain meadows full of flowers. And now? I look at Milena’s bare feet, perfect in their beauty, like a statue’s. And now they have to hobble over the coke gravel of the camp street. It wrings my heart.
As I was leaving, Milena handed me a folded piece of paper through the fence. “Read this, then throw it away.” This time it wasn’t one of her usual notes, addressed to “my darling blue girl!” It was a fairy tale she had written for me: “The Princess and the Ink Blot.” To get the feel of Milena’s mother tongue, I had been learning Czech. Milena had to write. She couldn’t resist a blank sheet of paper. For a while we exchanged letters every day. The paper was stolen from the office of the infirmary. We would reply “by return mail” during the next exercise period. Milena had a remarkable command of German; I was amazed at the richness of her vocabulary. Once she wrote a sort of preface to the book we were planning. I wanted to hide it, I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. But Milena insisted, and it was only when I realized that I would be endangering her as well as myself by keeping it that I finally destroyed it. Thus not a single line has been preserved of what Milena wrote in Ravensbrück. Once, when I told her how miserable this made me, she laughed and said, “I’ll write it all over again as soon as we get out. It will be as easy and natural as peeing.”
Milena wasn’t always so optimistic about the future. Like all journalists, she hoped to write something better than newspaper articles someday. She felt she had it in her but feared that the opportunity might never come. “Do you think I’ll ever accomplish anything?” she would ask me. “Or have I wasted my life to no purpose?” And she would add: “You have nothing to reproach yourself with. You’ve lived a full life, and that’s more important than any scribbling…. How I envy people like your mother, raising five children. That is really a full life.”
During the quiet quarantine weeks, we talked about poetry and prose. She deeply loved the poetry of her country, it had played an important part in her development. But when I told her how much poetry meant to me, she declared categorically that the age of poetry was over, that there could be no excuse for writing anything but disciplined prose; most of all she admired Kafka’s prose.
After two weeks our blissful quarantine came to a sudden end. Another SS medical officer, a specialist, no doubt, came to Ravensbrück and lost no time in diagnosing mass hysteria. Dr. Sonntag was in disgrace. He avenged himself on his false “paralytics” by subjecting them to electric shock. The first batch were quick to jump up and go about their business. When the news got around, terror restored the remaining paralytics to good health. Only a few unfortunates, suffering from articular rheumatism or tertiary syphilis, failed to respond to this treatment.
In 1941 the first Ravensbrück “book” appeared. Conceived by Anicka Kvapilová, it was dedicated to Milena. It was an anthology of remembered Czech poems, written in pencil on stolen paper and carefully bound in stolen toweling, colored with light-blue tailor’s chalk.
But AniCka did not stop there. She couldn’t help it. She had to produce, though her literary activities put her in constant danger. She was the only prisoner to keep a diary and she collected the songs of all the nations represented in Ravensbrück. One of her most touching works was a little volume of Christmas songs in many languages, which she had heard the prisoners singing. The words and music of every single song were carefully inscribed and each song was decorated with a vignette. Her next work was entitled “Songbook for the Hungry”; it was a collection of recipes from all countries, lovingly bound in blue velvet stolen from the overseer of the SS private tailor shop, who had planned to make a new evening dress out of it.
In addition to her own writings, Anifka collected those of the other Czech women. She kept them in a big cardboard box which she dragged around with her as a mother cat does her kittens. She kept having to find new hiding places for it, and it was the cause of a serious fight with Milena, who feared it would get her into serious trouble and wanted her to destroy it. But like many gentle souls, Ani£ka was uncommonly obstinate. She never argued, she just quietly did what she pleased. She kept her box, and its contents grew. New artists appeared on the scene. Nina Jirslkova, a friend of Milena’s, formerly a dancer and choreographer at the Prague Osvobozene Divadlo (Free Theater), discovered a talent for caricature. The result was the “Ravensbruck Fashions Magazine,” a series of comic drawings. The first showed the new arrival, a lamentable figure with shorn head, wearing a long, striped sack-dress and enormous wooden clogs. The ensuing pictures embodied fashion hints for the demanding inmate. Shorten—secretly, of course, for it is strictly forbidden—the sack-dress. Take in the waist; here a few safety pins, filched wherever possible, will come in handy. Puff up the bust—here you will need all the resources of the dressmaker’s art. Then you will be in fashion, your feminine morale will benefit. Further sketches illustrated the acme of Ravensbruck elegance, attained in 1943 when some of the inmates received parcels from outside. In conclusion the artist showed, side by side, a poor, bedraggled, parcel-less, “proletarian” prisoner and a supercilious representative of the “propertied class,” dressed fit to kill.
Another of Nina’s caricatures dealt with the struggle of each against all in the overcrowded barracks. In one sketch two hundred women are crowding around a small cast-iron stove, each trying to find a place for the soup she is trying
to warm in a tin cup. A battle rages: Faces are convulsed with rage, one pushes another aside, the pile of cups on the stove totters and collapses.
Another sketch bears the caption: “I am in daily contact with the duchess.” It shows an inmate climbing down from her upper bunk and putting her foot square on the face of the “duchess,” who is lying in the next tier below.
18
PROTÉGÉES
I remember well one of Milena’s numerous protegees, because I helped Milena to carry out her plan. This was Mischka His-panska, a young Polish woman and a gifted painter. Her artistic talent was known to us from some of her drawings. She was a timid, delicate girl, and every day on outside work, hauling stones and shoveling sand, was a threat to her health. Out of regard for her talent, Milena resolved to help her, to make it possible for her to draw undisturbed. So she stole paper and pencil from the infirmary and forged an inside-duty card for her. My part of the plot was to hide Mischka in a corner of the Jehovah’s Witnesses barracks. There she would sit at the window, doing bitterly realistic drawings of daily life in Ravensbruck and portraits of fellow inmates. Mischka, I felt, was in special danger because her propensity for self-pity seemed to invite illness.
The rhythm of our days was determined by the howling of a siren. It startled us out of our sleep in the morning, ordered us to roll call or to work, ordered us to fall in or fall out, and finally signaled the end of the camp day. We detested the “howler,” as we called it. It was operated by one of the SS overseers; she alone had the right to press the button which was situated outside one of the three infirmary barracks. Several times I had heard Milena say, “How I’d love to press that button, just to see what would happen.” I had imagination enough to describe the inevitable consequences, but that didn’t discourage her. One morning she got up in the dark, crept over to my barracks, and whispered to me, “This time it’s going to be me that makes everybody jump out of bed.” A few minutes later the siren howled. I pulled the blankets up over my head and shook with laughter. That was typical of Milena. Just once she wanted to be “the flounder,” as in the fairy tale of The Fisherman and His Wife. Actually there were no consequences, because no one imagined that a prisoner would dare to do such a thing. The SS overseer, the official button presser, said nothing, probably for fear that she had overslept and would be punished for it.
When deprived of their freedom, the weak often take flight from reality. Some began to live entirely in the past, spoke of nothing but their homes, and suffered from a kind of split personality which made it difficult or impossible for them to adapt to camp life. Others tried to escape the reality of the camp by reverting to childhood and behaving like irresponsible children. I was struck by the change in the inmates’ reaction to horrible news. When the prisoners heard about death sentences and experimental operations, or about sick women being shipped to the gas chambers, their shock and consternation were shortlived; soon they would be laughing again or joking about the trivia of everyday life.
If a prisoner succeeded in adapting to camp life, in coming to terms with the loss of her freedom, her personality would undergo a slow change. The most dangerous stage, through which almost all prisoners passed, was resignation, acceptance of their fate. At this stage, prisoners lost their sense of solidarity and with it their self-respect and their hostility to their taskmasters. Some became submissive to the point of identifying themselves with the SS and became their willing tools. One of the most depressing aspects of concentration camp existence was the way certain prisoners came to revel in the exercise of power. In a matter of days, prisoners given authority over others would change beyond recognition. Dejected victims became domineering, self-assured tyrants, who made life hell for their fellow prisoners.
In this third stage of concentration camp existence, the memory of freedom paled; one had to think hard to recapture it. When I thought of freedom, I still saw a grassy path through the woods, sprinkled with bright spots of sunlight. When I spoke of this to Milena one day, she said, “What an incurable girl scout you are. I am an inveterate city slicker. My idea of freedom is a little restaurant somewhere in the Old Town of Prague.”
Some ten years before she ever saw the inside of a concentration camp Milena wrote in one of her articles, “I don’t know who said that people were made better by suffering. But one thing I do know for sure: it’s a he.” Ravensbrück confirmed her in this opinion. Most prisoners showed no sign of betterment, let alone ennoblement through suffering, and too much suffering could make beasts of them.
The asocials included numerous mental defectives, some of whom would not have been acceptable to any community, let alone a community of prisoners. One of these was a woman named Zipser, who was incapable of adapting to camp life and whose only response to her hopeless situation was hatred. She grumbled, she plotted, she denounced. Everyone, the SS as well as her fellow prisoners, hated and despised her. As a special humiliation, the SS assigned her to the cesspool gang, which was made up chiefly of Gypsies. On the very first day, Zipser, offended and angered by her demotion, picked a quarrel with the Gypsy women, who were total strangers to her. The Gypsies were not prostitutes, as she was, but passionate, spontaneous children of nature. Infuriated by her constant attacks, they soon avenged themselves in their own way. One day, they pushed her into the cesspool and held her under with poles until she suffocated. The SS overseer looked on without lifting a finger. Later on, when the crime became known, all the participants were arrested. Too much suffering had made murderers of these simple, primitive women.
But they were not the only ones who were transformed into monsters by camp life. Those with a sentimental, hypocritical streak were also susceptible, especially if they had power over others. Women who wanted to please everyone, including the SS, and were eager to make things as easy as possible for themselves, could easily become criminals.
In the political barracks there was a woman who had been taken into “protective custody” by the Gestapo for “malicious mischief.” By gossip and defamation she had made enemies in the apartment house where she lived, including some National Socialists, who had denounced her, whereupon the Gestapo had sent her to Ravensbrück. But confinement did not improve her; on the contrary, it provided her with a rich field of activity. She came to be hated by everyone in her barracks, especially by the Blockalteste, a sentimental political with “a heart of gold.” A Blockalteste had no easy time of it in any case, and if among her four hundred charges she had a troublemaker like this embittered old woman, it would have taken strong nerves and strong moral principles to make her overcome her personal dislike and treat the woman fairly. These qualities were lacking in her, and in the end, to make things easy for herself, she became an accessory to murder.
The old woman, who suffered from rheumatism and hated everyone, had only a small space in the barracks that she could call her own. This was her bunk with its straw tick. She took meticulous care of it, kept it spotlessly clean, and defended it against any encroachment. One morning she failed to get up. Since her companions ignored her, it was only when she soiled the tick she had taken such good care of that anyone noticed she was sick. Like thousands of prisoners, she suffered from diarrhea. When it became known that she had soiled the floor on her way to the latrine, she was showered with abuse from all sides. Not a word of sympathy for the old woman’s sufferings. Only hard words. And as far as her diminished strength permitted, she snapped back. The Blockálteste decided it was time to get rid of this “asocial element.” She sent her to the infirmary. A hint to one of the assistants sufficed to have her given a lethal injection, thus ridding the barracks of her disturbing presence.
I can only wonder whether Milena, after her bitter experience in Ravensbrück, would have been so hopeful as to write, “I do not believe that hypocrites do better in life than forthright people, and I do not think the world is so evil that only the wicked can succeed in it.”
In the infirmary, Milena kept the card file of the VD patients an
d gave them their pills. The greater number of them were asociáis, prostitutes, or so-called “bed politicals,” who had been arrested for cohabiting with foreigners. All the asociáis were despised by the Ravensbrück authorities, and those with venereal disease were regarded as the scum of humanity. AH, especially the syphilitics, could expect the worst. Dr. Sonntag used them as guinea pigs in his barbarous experiments, and many died. Samples of the new arrivals’ blood were sent to Berlin for examination. The results came to Milena’s office. Her courage and generosity can be appreciated only if it is taken into account that in the demoralizing concentration camp atmosphere there were few who saw fit to put themselves out for others, least of all for asociáis. Since she regarded the asociáis as neither more nor less than human beings in need of help, she had no compunctions about falsifying results and entering positive cases of syphilis as negative. In especially severe, infectious cases, she would arrange for surreptitious treatment. Every time she intervened in this way to wrest victims away from the SS, she risked her own life. If her forgeries had been discovered, she would have been lost. Not only did she do her best to save these women’s lives, she also befriended the poor creatures, talked to them, and listened to their troubles. In many of them she discovered sparks of humanity.
Our friend Lotte, a German political, already had four years in prison behind her and was in very poor health. Milena knew that sufferers from tuberculosis were released from the camp. In the winter of 1942 she had a wild idea. She would help Lotte obtain a discharge. With her consent she put her name on a positive sputum specimen and had her moved to the tuberculosis ward. A certificate of discharge was duly made out and signed by Dr. Sonntag, and we all eagerly awaited the outcome. Every evening we stood by the window of the TB section and talked with Lotte. We already thought of her as a free woman.
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