by Valpy, Fiona
Those who were still alive were ordered into lines and herded alongside the train to a high, white gatehouse. As they walked, one of the other women fell into step alongside Claire and Vivi.
‘Are you the ones from Flossenbürg?’ she asked, keeping her voice low so it wouldn’t be heard beneath the sound of shuffling feet. ‘I saw the name when we stopped at the station.’
Claire nodded.
‘And you?’ asked Vivi. ‘Where have you come from?’
‘Further north,’ replied the woman. ‘A place called Belsen. I’m hoping this camp will be a bit better. It certainly can’t be any worse.’
‘Do you know where we are?’
‘I heard one of the guards say we were being sent to Dachau. Away from the bombing in the north. They’re building new factories here, to replace the ones that have been destroyed. So they need more workers.’
‘Silence!’ roared a guard. ‘Keep moving there!’
As they filed through the archway of the gatehouse, Claire lifted her eyes to read the now-familiar words set into the iron gates: Arbeit Macht Frei. This time, she read them in silence.
The women were led to barracks far bigger than the ones in the camp at Flossenbürg. Row upon row of them stretched away into the distance. It seemed to Claire that Dachau was as big as a town. In the centre of the camp, behind a cluster of trees, a tall chimney rose into the August sky, staining the blue with a cloud of grey smoke. It was a sight she recognised from the previous camp and she shuddered, knowing that this must be where the handcarts of corpses were being taken for disposal.
Vivi tugged at her sleeve. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s find a bunk before they’re all taken.’
After they’d queued for meagre rations of watery soup and a small hunk of hard black bread, they went back inside and their new hut senior called for the women’s attention. She consulted a clip board, telling each group where they had been allocated to work the next day. She looked at the numbers sewn on to Claire and Vivi’s jackets and consulted her list. ‘You two, report to the reception centre. You’ll be in the sewing room. Do you know what you’re doing?’
They both nodded.
‘Very well. Finish your food and get some sleep. It’s an early start in the morning.’
In the crowded bunk that they shared, top-to-tail, with two other women, Claire whispered to Vivi, ‘We’ll be alright in the reception centre here, won’t we? Just like we were before. Thank goodness for our sewing experience. It might just save our lives.’
Vivi brought her hand to her mouth, her body juddering as she tried to suppress her cough. When she could speak again she whispered, ‘We’ll be alright. Get some sleep now, Claire. It’s been a long day.’
Claire grew used to the rhythm of work in the sewing room at the Dachau reception centre. All day long, a continual stream of new prisoners was admitted and the sewing machines whirred as the workers attached the numbers and coloured triangles to the blue and white striped uniforms, one of each on the shirt just above the heart and one of each on the right leg of the trousers. It tore at her soul to have become a part of the grim machine processing each new inmate with ruthless efficiency and she felt a sense of guilt as she passed back each completed item to its recipient, meeting eyes filled with fear and despair. She tried to encourage them at first, with a kindly word or two, but the guard who oversaw the sewing room had shouted at her to stop talking and concentrate on her work. So now she had to make do with a faint smile instead.
She knew she was lucky, though. With only a short walk to the reception centre each day, she and Vivi conserved what little energy they were able to glean from the scant rations that formed the prisoners’ diet in the camp, and Claire felt a little stronger than she had done when she’d worked in the textile factory at Flossenbürg. At the end of the day, as they made their way back to the barracks, beneath the watchful eyes of the guards in the towers around the camp perimeter, she noticed that Vivi’s cough seemed a little better too, although maybe that was just because it was summer now. She knew as well, from what the other women in their hut said, that her work was a little easier than jobs in the factories and the surroundings were less harsh.
They’d been prisoners in these camps for more than a year, she realised, and for a moment a sense of desolation threatened to overwhelm her. Would they ever see Paris again? She glanced across to where Vivi sat at her sewing machine, her head bent over her work. As if sensing she was being watched, Vivi looked up and shot Claire a smile and a nod, reassuring her. We are together, Claire told herself, repeating the mantra that had kept her going through so many times of despair. Everything will be alright.
All at once, the guard, who had been leaning against the wall watching the women work, strode across to where Vivi sat and yanked her to her feet, hitting her hard around her head. The line of prisoners shrank back and one woman screamed at the sudden violence of the gesture.
Claire watched, horrified, as several yellow triangles fluttered to the floor from Vivi’s lap, scattering like the wings of broken butterflies on to the bare boards at her feet. The guard shouted, and two of her colleagues came running in from the room next door.
‘Traitor! French whore!’ the guard screamed. She reached down and scooped together the triangles of yellow cloth. ‘How many of these have you exchanged for blue ones? Don’t deny it! I’ve been watching you. I saw you do it. And you’ve been leaving off the yellow ones when there are two to be sewn on, as well. I can have you shot for this.’ She glanced around at the terrified seamstresses and prisoners who had all frozen in their places. ‘Let this be a lesson to you all. Don’t you dare think you can disobey orders.’
In the stillness, the sound of Claire’s chair scraping on the floorboards as she stood up made everyone turn to stare at her. Vivi’s face was white and a trickle of blood ran from her bottom lip, but she looked pleadingly at Claire and shook her head, almost imperceptibly, wordlessly begging her to stay where she was.
‘You too?’ snarled the guard. ‘Are you also a traitor? Or do you simply want to volunteer for hard labour alongside your friend here?’
Claire opened her mouth to reply, but just then Vivi called out, ‘No! Leave her. It was me, on my own. No one else knew.’
‘Take her away,’ snapped the guard. ‘And you,’ she spat at Claire, ‘sit back down and get on with your work. I’ll be watching you, so don’t think you can try any such clever tricks, either.’
‘Please . . .’ said Claire.
‘Silence!’ roared the guard and she pulled her revolver from its holster. ‘I will shoot the next person who opens her mouth. Now, are you going to get on with your work or do I have to clear the whole lot of you seamstresses out of here and allocate your cushy jobs to others who won’t be so ungrateful?’
Slowly, numbly, Claire sank back down into her seat and bent her head over her sewing machine, her tears falling on to the blue and white striped shirt on the table in front of her, as Vivi was frog-marched out of the reception centre.
Claire was frantic. No one knew where Vivi had been taken. The senior in the barracks just shrugged when Claire begged her to try to find out. ‘She shouldn’t have been so stupid as to try to trick the guards. Pulling that stunt, hiding the yellow triangles to try to save prisoners. After she was so lucky to have that job, as well.’ She shook her head. ‘She’s probably in the crematorium by now.’
It must have been about two weeks later – Claire had lost track of time, and another prisoner had taken Vivi’s place in the shared bunk – when Vivi reappeared in the barracks one evening. She was thinner than ever and her cough had returned. Her clothes hung like rags from her frame and she walked with a stoop, seeming to have crumpled in on herself. Claire ran to her, and helped her to the bed, making the grumbling woman who’d taken Vivi’s place move to another bunk. She fetched some soup and tried to give it to Vivi, but Vivi’s hands shook so badly that she couldn’t hold the bowl without spilling it. ‘Here,’ Claire soothed
her, ‘let me.’ Little by little she spooned the watery brew of potato peelings and cabbage into Vivi’s mouth.
Later, when she’d regained her strength enough to speak, Vivi told Claire that she’d been put in solitary confinement for two weeks. She’d lain alone in the darkness, listening to the moans and cries from the neighbouring cells, and kept herself going by repeating over and over the words that she and Claire had whispered to each other so often: I’m here. We’re still together. Everything will be alright. ‘As long as I knew you were okay, I could bear it,’ she said.
Claire had helped Vivi to lie down. ‘You’ll get better now,’ she said. ‘I’ll look after you. Will you go back to work in the factory, do you think?’
Vivi shook her head. ‘They’ve told me to join the labour detail tomorrow morning after roll call.’
‘No!’ Claire’s eyes widened in horror. ‘You haven’t got the strength to do that work. It will kill you.’
‘That’s exactly what they’re hoping. When the guards took me from the sewing room, one of them pushed me up against the wall of the reception centre and put his pistol to my head. But then, just as he was about to pull the trigger his colleague stopped him. “A bullet is too good for a French whore like her,” I heard him say. “We can get some more work out of her – let her die a slower death.”’ She stopped, struggling for breath as painful coughs seized her body.
‘Hush,’ Claire urged her, ‘don’t try to talk. Rest and get your strength back.’
Vivi continued, as though her friend hadn’t spoken. ‘But I don’t intend giving them that satisfaction, Claire. Now I’m back with you, I’ll be stronger. We’ll keep each other going, you and I, won’t we? Just as we have always done?’ Vivi smiled at her, but even in the darkening hut as night fell, Claire could see that her eyes were deep pools of sadness.
Claire couldn’t bear to remain at her job in the reception centre, sewing the numbers and triangles on the uniforms of new prisoners. After another month, she plucked up her courage and spoke to the senior in the hut, asking to be transferred to work with Vivi.
The woman regarded her with surprise. ‘Do you know what you are asking? Your friend has been allocated to the women’s heavy labour detail, by order of the camp’s Kommandant. It’s a wonder she is still alive. It’s only because the summer has been kind that any of those poor souls have survived. But winter’s on its way now. It will decimate them.’
‘Please,’ Claire said firmly. ‘I want to be transferred. There are plenty of others who are desperate to have a job in the sewing room. Let me be with Vivi.’
‘Very well. But don’t come and ask me for your comfortable job back when the snow begins to fall and you’re expected to spend ten hours a day shovelling the roads clear. I hope you know what you’re doing.’
Claire did indeed realise that it was very likely that neither she nor Vivi would survive the winter working with the cohort of prisoners assigned to hard labour duties. But as she’d watched the work take its toll on Vivi she’d had time to think about what it would mean if Vivi were no longer here. And she knew she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she had to spend those long, dark nights in that crowded bunk without her friend there to whisper, ‘I’m here. We’re together. Everything will be alright.’
Claire had no choice. She would rather die with Vivi than live on without her.
1945
The city had been liberated and Paris returned to French governance, but Delavigne Couture had closed its doors for the final time. Mademoiselle Vannier announced to the seamstresses on the first floor one morning that there would be no more work coming in once they’d finished the commissions they were working on. She told the girls, though, that Monsieur Delavigne had asked around on behalf of his workers and there was an offer from a larger couture house which still had plenty of work coming in. Anyone who wanted to could begin there the following week.
Later that same day, she had a quiet word with Mireille, telling her that the building would be put up for sale, eventually, but that she could stay where she was for the time being, as it would be good not to leave the place completely deserted while things were still so unsettled in the aftermath of the city’s liberation. ‘I hope you will be coming with me to work at Monsieur Lelong’s? You are one of our best seamstresses, Mireille. I know you will be welcomed there.’
Mireille considered for a moment. She longed to go home and see her family, but the war continued to rage across Europe, and there were still skirmishes on French soil as the last of the German troops moved to consolidate their final defence of the eastern border. Travel was risky and the railways were largely destroyed where Resistance fighters had sabotaged the lines to prevent the efficient movement of German troops. It was probably safer for her to stay where she was for now . . . and if she was completely honest with herself, there were other reasons why she was reluctant to leave. She waited, daily, for news from Monsieur Leroux of Vivi and Claire. And then, what if the airman came back to look for her . . .?
And so she agreed. She would work for the new couture house and stay put in Paris for the time being.
Lucien Lelong’s couture house had survived the war and was now thriving, thanks to a designer with a reputation for brilliance whom he’d employed.
Mireille’s knees shook when she was introduced to this same designer, a Monsieur Dior. He was working on some new looks to mark a new beginning, he explained to the team from Maison Delavigne, as they were being given a tour of the atelier on their first day. ‘I am pleased to welcome you to Lelong. Maison Delavigne’s seamstresses have a reputation for perfection,’ he said. ‘And I expect nothing less.’
Mireille enjoyed her work with her new employers. It was still hard to come by some fabrics, but Monsieur Dior made the most of what was now becoming available. His ideas included softer outlines and subtle embellishments, and there was a little more fullness in the skirts of the gowns Mireille stitched. The atelier hummed with the sound of sewing machines and a sense of busyness that had long been absent at Delavigne Couture. Monsieur Dior’s reputation was growing rapidly and wealthy clients from around the world had begun to demand Parisian couture once again.
She couldn’t help thinking how much Claire and Vivi would enjoy working here, using their skills to breathe life into Monsieur Dior’s stunning evening gowns, as they painstakingly worked on their intricate beadwork. She wished they were here now, sitting at the sewing table beside her, exchanging an occasional smile when they looked up from their work, pausing to stretch cramped fingers and aching necks.
When would the war finally end? Much of France had been reclaimed now, but the Germans had consolidated their remaining forces in the Vosges Mountains in the east. The radio broadcasts that she listened to avidly announced that, despite last-ditch attempts by Hitler’s troops, the Allies were fighting their way across Belgium into Germany now. As she listened to the news each night, she wondered when she would hear the news she really longed for: news of her friends.
Monsieur Leroux still worked unceasingly to try to find them, through his contacts in the army and in the Red Cross. Surely he would track down Vivi and Claire soon, she told herself. Only then would she be at peace.
In Germany, the winter had been another cruel one. At first, when Claire had joined Vivi on the hard labour detail, they’d pulled a heavy roller over the roads that had been built to link the new, underground factories that were being constructed in an attempt to protect production against Allied bombs. Wagon-loads of rubble arrived by train on the siding that had been built alongside the camp – rubble cleared from cities which had been targeted in bombing raids. The starving, skeletal prisoners were ordered to ferry it, barrowload by barrowload, to the road site. Harnessed like horses between the handles of the roller, Claire and Vivi had to throw themselves forward to get it to move at all and then, for hours on end, they trudged over the rough mixture of clinker and rubble, crushing it and flattening out the surface.
Then th
e snow had begun to fall and the women had been set to work clearing it with shovels to keep the roadways open so that the prisoners could walk to the factories each day. It was hot work, which made sweat soak their striped jackets, rotting the fabric until the seams frayed. But at the same time their fingers froze around the handles of their heavy shovels, bleeding and turning black at the tips where frostbite nipped them.
As the ground froze and the snow continued to fall, the factories at Dachau had been commanded to increase their productivity. Like the crematorium, the munitions factory ran day and night. One day the kapo in charge of their work party told Claire and Vivi that they had been reassigned to work the night shifts there.
Their new job involved dipping metal shell casings in an acid bath to clean and toughen them before they were packed with explosives. The acid splashed and burned their arms, eating into what little skin still covered their jutting bones. Exhausted, they fell into their bunk each morning, just as it was vacated by its night-time occupants, pulling dirty, ragged blankets around themselves and huddling together for warmth. And each time they did so, they would whisper the words to each other that kept them alive, before falling into an uneasy, pain-wracked half-sleep. When she woke towards evening, Claire would lie listening to the labouring of Vivi’s breath, the faint rattle of her lungs mingling with the sound of the wind as it scoured the walls of the hut, and she would quietly pull the edge of her blanket over her friend, trying to will back her strength and protect her from the life-sapping harshness of the reality that surrounded them.