Chapter Seventeen 30 April 2015
Chapter Seventeen
After they left the train, it was as if her breath left her lungs in a whoosh of air as she lifted her head and looked up.
Aletta gripped the arms of the wheelchair while that familiar feeling of fear ran through her body, from the tips of her fingers to her toes.
Her knuckles hurt from the tight grip, but she couldn’t let go, even as the pain ricocheted through her bones.
Her daughter placed her hand on her shoulder, as people slowly began to move around them.
She looked at the gates, at the wall, at the guard tower stretching well above the wall, and took a deep breath.
She wondered how, after all these years, she could still remember what it had felt like to pass through that gate for the first time; she could still imagine her own mother by her side, could still taste the fear that permeated the very air they had all breathed that day.
Aletta nodded her head then, and her daughter began to push the wheelchair. This time, she didn’t see anyone who looked like her. They were all young people, well, young to her, anyway.
It’s because they’ve all gone. There’s barely a soul left alive anymore who survived this place. I am one of the last.
‘Stop,’ she said, surprised by the strength of her own voice.
Her daughter did so, leaning forward, her soft hair brushing Aletta’s cheek.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
Aletta gripped the arms of the chair more tightly as she pushed herself up, still holding on as she steadied her grip, determined to find enough strength to stand.
‘I need to walk,’ she said, hearing how raspy her own voice sounded.
There was no arguing about her decision, and she would thank her daughter for that later.
But her daughter did take her arm, leaving the wheelchair and guiding her towards the gate.
Their pace was only a shuffle, and she knew that many wouldn’t understand, but she needed to hold her head up and walk through those gates herself, even if her legs felt as if they might give out from under her.
Aletta was vaguely aware that a young woman was pushing her wheelchair, but she couldn’t turn to thank her. She had to focus on the placement of each foot, her gaze fixed ahead of her, finding a strength she hadn’t even known she still had.
‘You’re so brave,’ her daughter murmured beside her, and Aletta could hear the emotion in her voice. ‘I’m so proud of you, Mum.’
Her words gave her the final push she needed, and Aletta held her head high as they passed through the steel gates.
Once they were through the entrance, she saw her daughter move from the corner of her eye, letting go of her arm for a moment, but Aletta didn’t need her.
Not then. She barely even wobbled as she stared at the scene before her, at what was left.
Years ago, she’d been angry they hadn’t torn it all down, set fire to the camps that haunted all those who’d survived, and razed it to the ground, but now she understood.
As she looked at the people arriving, young and old, men and women, their heads bowed in silence, she understood.
Without these camps, without the evidence of what had been, maybe it would be impossible to believe it had ever happened.
Maybe no one would accept that atrocities had occurred in her lifetime, without seeing the crematoriums, without placing their own hands on the cold, haunted walls of the gas chambers, seeing it for themselves.
They all need to see to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.
‘Mum?’
She turned slowly and saw that her daughter had the wheelchair ready for her, and she was grateful to sit down now, and even more grateful for the soft blanket that her daughter tucked around her knees.
There were many awful things that had happened to her in her lifetime, but her daughter had made everything worth it from the moment she’d arrived.
‘Aletta Visser?’ a young man asked.
She looked up, blinking at the smiling man who was standing before her, holding a name tag.
Aletta nodded, and her daughter spoke for her, thanking the man and taking the name tag, pinning it to Aletta’s coat.
‘I’m John, and I’ll be your guide today,’ he said. ‘We have some other family members here, relatives of survivors, and they’ll be joining us on the tour.’
She looked up and saw a handful of friendly faces, their smiles kind as they moved closer. They all said hello and she watched as her daughter greeted them all, her own voice temporarily lost to her as she kept looking around, trying to take it all in.
Remembering.
‘Welcome everyone, to Ravensbrück memorial camp,’ John said. ‘Today is a very special day as we commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the liberation.’
She sucked in a breath. Seventy years. Seventy years had passed.
‘This camp was built as a women’s camp by the Nazis,’ John began. ‘During its operation, one hundred and thirty-two thousand prisoners were held here, and at its peak, there were around forty-five thousand prisoners held.’
She closed her eyes, listening to his words, knowing them to be true.
‘When the women arrived, they were all processed immediately by passing through––’
‘Oh no,’ Aletta said, her voice clearer than she’d heard it in years. ‘That’s not what happened.’
John turned to her, as did the rest of the group.
‘I’m sorry, I was just—’
‘Please, tell us,’ one of the women in the group said. ‘What happened when you arrived?’
‘Well,’ Aletta began, glancing back at her daughter before clearing her throat and continuing.
‘When we arrived, we weren’t all processed immediately.
We were made to stand out here for what felt like hours in our flimsy clothes.
It was so cold, it was as if the wind had teeth.
We were shaking so hard that it was almost impossible to stay standing, so we all pushed into each other, trying not to fall. ’
‘We’ve been told that most prisoners knew the fate that awaited them,’ John said, his tone kind, his voice low. ‘Is that your understanding?’
Aletta took a deep, shaky breath, aware that everyone in their small group had now turned to face her, that they were waiting to hear her answer.
‘The truth is that we didn’t know where we were or what was happening to us, not in the beginning.
And then we realised that those camps we’d heard whispers about, the camps that they said were just for the Jews .
. .’ She paused, struggling to say the words.
‘We learnt that they were for people like us, too.’