A group of ten women begins to walk away from the line, into the field by the side of the road. But they don’t make it very far before they hear footsteps running up behind them.
‘Halt! Halt or I’ll shoot,’ comes the bark of an SS officer.
Cibi turns round slowly to face the young soldier. He stops running and raises his rifle. Cibi places herself in his line of fire, shielding the women behind her.
‘You are so young,’ she says. If she is to lose her life now, she doesn’t want to do it on her knees, begging. She wants to look her killer in the eye. ‘You could just turn and walk away.’ Cibi takes another step.
‘If you take one more step I will shoot,’ he says.
Cibi takes another step.
‘No, you won’t,’ she whispers. ‘Shoot me and the rest of us will swarm all over you like angry bees. How many of us can you shoot before we tear your eyes out? I’m showing you some mercy, so run away.’ Her heart is hammering; maybe he can even hear it. No one is more surprised than Cibi when the soldier turns his back on the women and flees.
When she turns round, some of the women have covered their eyes, and Livi’s face is buried in Magda’s shoulder, Eva pressed against her belly.
‘Well, that was easy,’ says Cibi, letting out a breath. Her sisters run into her arms, both of them crying. ‘Hey, hey,’ she says, holding them away. ‘Come on, it’s OK. Let’s keep moving. It’s time to go home.’
CHAPTER 24
Germany
May 1945
I
n the late afternoon sun, the women watch the long column of prisoners shuffle away. No one else joins them, and they turn towards the field where the tall grass shifts in the afternoon breeze. It is a perfect summer’s day, thinks Cibi, despite the distant sound of bombing. The women exchange names and camps: two are from Auschwitz, Eliana and Aria are Slovakians like them; of the four Polish girls three are from Ravensbrück and one from Retzow – Marta and Amelia are cousins who found each other on the march. They are all in their teens.
At the far edges of this vast landscape of green, Cibi spies a spire in the distance: a village perhaps? But villages mean people, Cibi thinks, German people.
‘They’ll hand us over,’ Livi says. ‘The moment they see us they’ll fetch the SS.’
‘But we need to eat. If I don’t get something soon, I may as well go back and join the march and wait for a bullet to the head,’ Eliana from Slovakia says.
‘Let’s take a vote,’ says Cibi. She knows they can’t go on for much longer. But she can’t make this decision for them; her confrontation with the guard has shaken her, despite her bravado. ‘Hands up if you want to head to the village for food.’
Eight hands shoot up. It’s decided.
Cutting across the fields, the group joins a road which will take them directly to the village. They quicken their pace, and then they slow down. Sauntering towards them are two SS officers, rifles slung casually over their shoulders. Cibi tenses; will her wits save her life again, or will she get everyone killed this time? She hastens to the front of the group and leads the way, her head held high. As the men draw closer, she averts her eyes. The whole group is staring at the ground, but they keep on moving, keep walking. And then the men draw level and they too keep going, sparing them barely a glance as they stroll on.
No one says a word.
*
The village appears to be deserted. The streets are empty and every shop is shut and house boarded up. They make their way down a long street, towards a large building with its doors hanging open.
‘Maybe it’s a warehouse,’ observes Aria, the other Slovakian. To each other, they speak in German, each of them knowing just enough to be understood by the others.
Entering the cavernous space on tiptoe, the girls are fearful, peering left and right, under tables and up to the rafters, but there’s no one in there either. And then they are spreading out, entering rooms off the main hall, finding cleaning equipment, bags of cement, anonymous machinery.
‘Food!’ yells Magda. She has found the kitchen and is flinging open cupboards, pulling out drawers. She finds hard lumps of bread, some wizened scraps of cheese, soggy tomatoes and tins of sardines. Livi uses her knife to open the tins and they eat without speaking.
Within minutes the girls have devoured the lot.
‘I’m going to see if I can find out what’s going on,’ Cibi says. ‘We need help if we’re to get home. Everyone stay here until I come back.’ Cibi has washed her face and hands, dusted off her clothes, but she knows there’s no disguising her identity. She is a Jewish prisoner, an escaped Jewish prisoner. She looks like a skeleton and she is going to have to be very careful.