We moved like cattle, roaming around one another, moving down the line, spreading out, taking our places. But as I stumbled along, my gaze moved toward the two sick bays. Were they coming too?
I reached out and squeezed Brigitte’s hand. When she turned, I pointed.
“I’ll be back,” I whispered.
“Lena, no.”
“They’ll need help,” I said. “It’s okay.”
There were so many people milling about, no one noticed me hurrying to the medical buildings. But what I saw when I entered made me stop. Every single woman was still in her bed, no doctors or nurses to be found. I went to the next building and found the same. Stunned, I stepped back outside, staying out of sight as best I could, trying to understand what was happening.
A woman’s voice in the distance could be heard calling out names. German names. Men were shouting, military vehicles starting up, driving toward the front gates.
“What are you doing here?”
I jumped, my hand reaching protectively for my belly as I turned to face one of theaufsehrin.
“I work here,” I said.
“There is no need for that anymore.”
“But...” I frowned and waved toward the building. “There are patients. Is there new staff coming?”
“No. No one is coming.” Her eyes flicked down to my belly and back up, meeting my own with a dead stare. “You must decide. Stay, or go.”
I glanced at the door to the building, running my hand in a slow circle on my belly, and then nodded.
“I’ll stay,” I said.
She gave me a curt nod, turned on her heel, and left.
It took most of the day for them to get organized but I didn’t have time to pay attention, I was one woman caring for so many sick and injured, trying to make sense of notes made in charts, chemicals and medications administered, and women calling out to me in languages I didn’t understand.
“She wants water,” a woman told me as I stared, confused and near tears at a patient repeating a word I didn’t understand.
“Water?” I asked and then mimed drinking to the patient, who nodded.
And then there was the matter of food. I had no idea how I was going to get food to these women while the commotion outside was still happening. If I was seen and forced into line, or worse, shot, who knows if they’d ever get fed. Most of them could barely get out of their beds.
By noon I was soaked in sweat, my muscles straining to keep my body upright, my stomach grumbling, and my wits at their limit as crying and anguish filled both buildings.
I needed a moment.
Cracking the door open an inch, I made sure no one was around before stepping outside. Still the voices filled the air. Shouting, herding, crying, names being called out. There was a gunshot. A scream. A herd of feet. I pressed my back to the wall and closed my eyes. Waiting for more gunfire, but there was none. After a few deep breaths of the cool, clean afternoon air, I opened the door and resumed my duties.
After a while I noticed the quiet.
“I’ll be back,” I whispered to a woman, leaving the damp cloth I’d been patting her skin with on her forehead.
Again, I peeked out the door before stepping outside. But there was no one around, the air eerily still.
I crept down the line of buildings used for barracks, looking around as I went, the quiet and emptiness sending a chill up my spine. Where had they all gone? I turned a corner and inhaled, stopping and placing my hand against the building beside me to steady myself. In the distance I saw them. All of them. Walking. The thousands of women who had lived at Ravensbrück, now being marched out in one long line, flanked by several military vehicles, guns at the ready should any of them try to flee. I feared where they were headed as I searched the crowd for Brigitte and Agata. But there were too many and they were already too far.
“Where are they taking them?”
I jumped at the voice behind me and turned to see Jelena leaning on a cane, her stitched leg red but not as swollen as it had been before.
“I don’t know,” I said.
