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Authors: Fania Fénelon
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access only to the lowest pane. The searchlights cut through the night with their gleam and it all looked rather like a marshalling yard.
What had I come to look at through this window? To look outside is to look at life, but here it was to look at death. It was snowing, large lazy flakes which hovered idly before touching down. Suddenly, at the end of our roadway, a group of marching men appeared—soldiers of the Red Army. Twenty men. Their tunics thrown over their shoulders, they advanced in a solid block, shoulder to shoulder, perfectly in step, barefoot in the snow, eyes fixed on the middle distance, faces impassive. They seemed very big. They passed an SS man and, with a single movement, without changing pace, raised their shapkas to bare their shaven skulls. One of them at the head of the group was singing; his voice was beautiful, broad and deep, and the words reached me clearly:
“A train is taking me far from Moscow
Day and night, the sound of wheels…
From the pocket of my tunic I take out your photo.
Smoke will darken it…
That will make it all the dearer to my eyes…
I think of you, my dearest,
I know that we shall meet again.“
In their tatters the Russians came forward along the roadway and I feasted my eyes on them. I already saw my liberators superimposed upon them. For me, they were the Red Army on the march!
Silent as a cat, Bronia, an Aryan Russian, joined me at the window. A ray of light fell on her high cheekbone, her blond plaits (non-Jews weren’t shaved). She smiled at me, and her teeth were solid and white; one could imagine her on the plains of the Ukraine, sprawled on top of a haycart fork in hand or loading bales with her strong arms, a positive advertisement for the
kolkhoz.
“Bronia, where do they come from, who are they?”
“I heard about those men when I arrived in the camp in April ”43. In ‘41 the German army invaded my country and took soldiers prisoner. They were brought here, to Auschwitz. At that time it was just endless marsh with an occasional birch tree on the horizon. The SS decided that the Russian soldiers would build their own camp. But the Russians said: “No, we are soldiers and we will not build our own cage.” The Germans replied that if they wanted to eat and sleep, they would have to work. The Russians refused.
’Arbeiten, arbeiten,“
insisted the Germans. More blank refusals from the Soviet soldiers. They wrapped themselves in their greatcoats and lay down then and there, in the mud of those swamps. The SS continued with their side of the exchange but the Russians stopped answering. They died of cold and hunger, one after the other. We don’t know what the Germans did with the corpses. Perhaps they sank into the mud, this living Auschwitz mud—perhaps they are here, right under our feet… Twenty of them survived, still refusing to work. The SS knew when they were beaten: they offered them clothes and shoes, but the soldiers wouldn’t take them because they belonged to the deportees. The only job they agreed to do was to distribute the bread, very early in the morning.”
Bronia was silent. It was impossible to disentangle truth from legend in this tale.
“Look at those men, they are our bread passing by.”
Our bread, our hope, our certainty…
Seven thirty. The players were back now. I hadn’t gone with them.
“Oof! It’s better in here than outdoors!”
It was Flora, the Dutch girl, expressing her satisfaction. It sounded so selfish, so cynical, that I felt quite dismayed. Jenny’s voice diverted me: “They’re bringing the coffee. Get cracking, we’ve got to be on the job in twenty minutes.”
“We’re coming.” The girls were rummaging in their boxes. Clara was crouched over ours, keeping a sharp eye on the others. Her expression was savage and distrustful; she might almost have been defending the royal larder! As we had only just arrived, our reserves were pathetic, a bit of bread and my margarine ration. With the crafty
What had I come to look at through this window? To look outside is to look at life, but here it was to look at death. It was snowing, large lazy flakes which hovered idly before touching down. Suddenly, at the end of our roadway, a group of marching men appeared—soldiers of the Red Army. Twenty men. Their tunics thrown over their shoulders, they advanced in a solid block, shoulder to shoulder, perfectly in step, barefoot in the snow, eyes fixed on the middle distance, faces impassive. They seemed very big. They passed an SS man and, with a single movement, without changing pace, raised their shapkas to bare their shaven skulls. One of them at the head of the group was singing; his voice was beautiful, broad and deep, and the words reached me clearly:
“A train is taking me far from Moscow
Day and night, the sound of wheels…
From the pocket of my tunic I take out your photo.
Smoke will darken it…
That will make it all the dearer to my eyes…
I think of you, my dearest,
I know that we shall meet again.“
In their tatters the Russians came forward along the roadway and I feasted my eyes on them. I already saw my liberators superimposed upon them. For me, they were the Red Army on the march!
Silent as a cat, Bronia, an Aryan Russian, joined me at the window. A ray of light fell on her high cheekbone, her blond plaits (non-Jews weren’t shaved). She smiled at me, and her teeth were solid and white; one could imagine her on the plains of the Ukraine, sprawled on top of a haycart fork in hand or loading bales with her strong arms, a positive advertisement for the
kolkhoz.
“Bronia, where do they come from, who are they?”
“I heard about those men when I arrived in the camp in April ”43. In ‘41 the German army invaded my country and took soldiers prisoner. They were brought here, to Auschwitz. At that time it was just endless marsh with an occasional birch tree on the horizon. The SS decided that the Russian soldiers would build their own camp. But the Russians said: “No, we are soldiers and we will not build our own cage.” The Germans replied that if they wanted to eat and sleep, they would have to work. The Russians refused.
’Arbeiten, arbeiten,“
insisted the Germans. More blank refusals from the Soviet soldiers. They wrapped themselves in their greatcoats and lay down then and there, in the mud of those swamps. The SS continued with their side of the exchange but the Russians stopped answering. They died of cold and hunger, one after the other. We don’t know what the Germans did with the corpses. Perhaps they sank into the mud, this living Auschwitz mud—perhaps they are here, right under our feet… Twenty of them survived, still refusing to work. The SS knew when they were beaten: they offered them clothes and shoes, but the soldiers wouldn’t take them because they belonged to the deportees. The only job they agreed to do was to distribute the bread, very early in the morning.”
Bronia was silent. It was impossible to disentangle truth from legend in this tale.
“Look at those men, they are our bread passing by.”
Our bread, our hope, our certainty…
Seven thirty. The players were back now. I hadn’t gone with them.
“Oof! It’s better in here than outdoors!”
It was Flora, the Dutch girl, expressing her satisfaction. It sounded so selfish, so cynical, that I felt quite dismayed. Jenny’s voice diverted me: “They’re bringing the coffee. Get cracking, we’ve got to be on the job in twenty minutes.”
“We’re coming.” The girls were rummaging in their boxes. Clara was crouched over ours, keeping a sharp eye on the others. Her expression was savage and distrustful; she might almost have been defending the royal larder! As we had only just arrived, our reserves were pathetic, a bit of bread and my margarine ration. With the crafty
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