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‘Like fun!’

But of course, little Różyczka did need taking care of She couldn’t go without help I lay aithlike the beaters on an electricstupidly envious of Karolina’s bravery, elated that we’d got people out, fearful that theytruck – the transfer trucks were usually closed in and the gas chamber trucks were usually open-topped, but you never, never really knew

‘Elodie,’ Micheline uttered under her breath to ed off to work as usual

‘Elodie?’

She claether, because a caped turkey buzzard with a dog was keeping an eye on us

They’d closed the cauards and roadblocks at all the intersections as they tried to catch the wo By now, the second week of February, there were nearly twice as ot there Hundreds of people caain every day We had extra roll calls so they could try to count us – daylight roll calls, six in a day once – in le one of them takes place in a snowstor planes going over against a sky as blue as a su to be up there withto be back in my other half-remembered existence

Every day irls still had to go aroundour collection with carts and wheelbarrows up and down the Lagerstrasse It still had to be done – it couldn’t godone We had a new Kolonka who didn’t speak English and didn’t like to co at us, but as long as we did our job she didn’t sain I don’t have any idea if she ed to save her own skin I still don’t know

And now Micheline waselse and I was frantic orry

‘Elodie gives,’ Micheline muttered as we loaded the dead into the incinerator-bound trucks waiting by the ate any more – prisoners fro on the other side

That’s all she said Elodie gives Then Micheline hite-faced and tight-lipped again as we got herded aside and slapped and kicked until we took our clothes off The guards weren’t supposed to let us through the various blockades unless they searched the carts first But that was such a repugnant job that a lot of the time they’d just search us instead –with cold and embarrassment, stark naked with our ar suspicious The less cooperative ere, the longer theyal, and this included hardly daring to breathe a word to each other

And really, souards didn’t even bother to tell us we could get dressed again – they just walked off to pester so there at attention in our stunningly unattractive birthday suits until, after a quarter of an hour, Irina gotanyone’s pered dresses over our heads

I sighed ‘Clothes,’ I agreed

Later, as we carried a body together through a narrow aisle between befouled bunks, she grunted, ‘For the Rabbits’ She gaveon to the pile, like she wantedto say anything Micheline held eous eyes, a clear, yellon hazel with dark brown flecks

I thought back over the handful of words she’d sprinkled me with that day, like a puzzle or a radio serial, and caives clothes for the Rabbits’

‘Yes,’ I hissed ‘Oui’ Just to let her know I understood

This is what she meant: the women who sorted the clothes taken fro civilian outfits for all the re you needed if you were going to escape Not that anyone really escaped – there was that Gypsy girl they caught in the woods and her own block beat her to death because they’d had three days’ Strafstehen while the guards hunted for her Everyone knew about her But it didn’t stop you thinking about escaping

Just getting people out of Ravensbrück, even on a truck bound for another camp, counted Hundreds of the newest prisoners were transferred in or out without being put in quarantine or even getting issued with prison clothes, and civilian clothes would help the Rabbits blend in with the false numbers froet out, they could hide in the other blocks, replacing the dead

Lisette and Karolina had diploht term They were the only contact the camp officials had with the Rabbits That incredibly slippery character the caotiate with them This is the same stinker who on New Year’s Day told us over the loudspeakers that he was going to blow us all up Here’s what he tried to get the Rabbits to do for hi in an industrial accident’

‘Please, when the Soviets get here and turn this place inside out, could you tell them hoell you’ve all been treated, since it was the previous camp administration who authorised the first operations and the current administration who kept you alive’

‘Please, all of you coether to another, more comfortable, camp’

That was the best one We knew the camp they named had already been shut down, soDid he really think people were all going to clinated for the dooates towards – where? Around and around the outside walls of Ravensbr&uuas chamber? As if we had no idea what happened to the people they loaded into trucks and drove around the walls every day? You could hear the at the warehouse we had to paint black on the inside You could hear the sobbing and yelling when they et out of the trucks on the other side of the wall And then their worn and lice-ridden clothes would come back inside and Elodie had to sort them

We kneould happen when they loaded 200 of us into open trucks before breakfast

‘The co weasel,’ Karolina said ‘He’s scared and he’s desperate The Nazis are beaten and they know it, but they just won’t stop It’s like – it’s like Róża when she’s angry at soh she knows everyone will end up crying The coned stateenerous and huot his signed statements, then he can safely kill us and pretend it was an administrative error’