Chapter Thirty-One 30 April 2015
Chapter Thirty-One
Aletta stared out at the barbed wire fencing, swallowing away the lump in her throat.
She remembered seeing those white buses waiting, not wanting to believe that the miracle they’d hoped for had finally come true.
She closed her eyes briefly and saw Chloe, the way she’d turned and looked at her over her shoulder, smiling, holding out her hand; the hope that had been shining from her eyes.
‘We were some of the last survivors,’ Aletta murmured. ‘Almost everyone else was gone by then. So many of the women we’d met along the way, all gone.’
The tour guide turned to her, his expression kind.
She liked this man. He knew a lot about the Holocaust and the camps, but he seemed even more interested in hearing her memories.
She supposed that the more she said now, the more he would be able to share once all of the survivors were gone.
It was the reason she would keep talking, to make sure that he could pass on her story that so many others from those years shared with her, the next time he was standing here with a group of people interested enough in the past to visit.
‘How did it feel, being one of the last survivors?’ he asked, softly, as if he wasn’t sure whether to ask her or not.
‘The truth?’ she asked. ‘We felt guilty. There was guilt at surviving when others didn’t, but there was also just relief, especially on the day we left.
The three of us had survived and that felt like a miracle, and at some point along the way you stop thinking about everyone making it, and just think about yourself. ’
‘But you didn’t,’ her daughter said, her voice soft, the first time she’d spoken in front of the group. ‘You never stopped thinking about your mother and about your friend. It sounds to me as if the three of you never stopped fighting for each other, right up until the very end.’
Aletta let her daughter’s words wash over her. ‘I suppose, somewhere along the way, I started to think of us as one. There was no me without Chloe, no Chloe without Emma, and they felt the same.’
It had been little more than luck that they’d all made it to that final day, of course.
Luck that they had managed to live when others had perished; luck that Herr Weber had been their supervisor, that all three had been able to board those buses together.
Luck that Aletta and Emma were even there when Chloe’s name was called.
‘Ahead of the liberation, more than five and a half thousand women were transferred to other camps,’ the guide said.
‘The most fortunate, like Aletta here, were handed over to the Swedish and Danish Red Cross, but thousands were killed before then. It’s estimated that twenty thousand prisoners were forced on a brutal evacuation by foot ahead of the Soviet Army arriving here at Ravensbrück. ’
The guide looked to Aletta, but she simply nodded. She had nothing else to add to the sobering facts he shared.
‘I don’t know if I’d describe my mother as fortunate,’ her daughter suddenly said, her voice so quiet and the ensuing silence so loud, that they could have heard a pin drop.
Aletta looked up at her. ‘He meant no offence, and he’s not wrong. I was one of the fortunate ones, when you look at how things ended for so many others.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the guide said, his face stained a dark red, but Aletta just smiled and nodded.
‘Carry on, please.’
He took a moment to steady himself before continuing.
‘When the Soviet Army finally entered the camp, they found more than three thousand sick women and children, left here to die. What they found had a profound impact on those soldiers, and some described it as finding a camp of walking skeletons, tortured and treated more inhumanely than anyone could imagine.’
Aletta looked up at the guide, seeing the tears shining in his eyes, and then at her daughter, who was wiping her cheeks. Her daughter clasped Aletta’s hand, the warmth from her skin a welcome reprieve from the otherwise biting cold.
How I ever survived those winters here, in our flimsy clothes.
How I kept rising every morning. How I ever believed that we would be saved when so many others were not.
They were questions that Aletta had often asked herself, but today, the questions were almost overwhelming.
But being with her mother and Chloe had given her the strength to believe.
Because she’d been determined to live for them, as much as for herself.
‘That concludes our tour,’ the guide said, ‘although I’d be very happy to answer any questions you might have. I’d also like to thank Aletta for her bravery in sharing her story with us today.’
There were murmurs of thanks from the small circle gathered around her, and she waited until the group fell silent before speaking again.
‘But that’s not where the story ends,’ she said, hearing the shake in her voice and wishing it were stronger, as the small group that had been about to disperse was drawn back together.
Her daughter tucked her blanket more tightly around her legs as Aletta felt her eyes glaze with unshed tears, as she thought back to that day.
That day that had felt like a miracle, that was a miracle.
It was another part of her story that she’d tried desperately to forget, but today, she’d promised to tell the truth and make herself remember.
Her voice quavered. ‘There’s more.’