War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 46

Chapter 20

T

he weeks passed and winter arrived, accompanied by snow and constant winds. Lotte was still wearing the prisoner’s dress that barely shielded her against the punishing easterly winds. At least she still had the plimsolls her sisters had given her for her birthday. They had been a genuine blessing during her time at the labor camp, especially during the endless roll calls every morning and evening. Lotte pitied the women who wore sandals or went barefoot, with rags wrapped around their feet as their only protection.

Once again, she stood by Irmhild’s side, doing her best not to stagger or faint. For hours and hours, they stood still, icy gusts tearing at their dresses. She had stopped looking when yet another woman – usually one of the older or weaker ones – fell to the ground. It never took more than a few seconds until an

Aufseherin

arrived, cracking her whip at the unfortunate soul.

The buzzing sound, though, followed by a bang and a slap and a muttered scream managed to send her off-kilter every time. Any woman too emaciated and sick to get up again was left lying on the ground in the bitter cold. Her frozen corpse would later be hauled away.

Roll call was the most dreaded time of the day because here they were exposed to the moods of the guards, and the vagaries of the weather. At least during work in the ammunition factory – gruesome and exhausting as it was – they spent the time inside the heated factory, protected from wind and ice. Sometimes, the free workers would furtively hand them a morsel of bread or cheese.

Lotte knew that as German citizens, she and Irmhild had been given preferential treatment. Others had to work outside, digging ditches in the fields or carrying bricks.

Every day, new women arrived in this nightmarish hellhole, but it seemed like the same number of prisoners perished in this cesspool of sickness and starvation. The vicious doctor attended the roll call for selection every other day. This could mean one of two things: either selection for horrific medical experiments or for the gas chamber. At night, Lotte could see the high red flame shooting out of the crematorium chimney, and the stench of burned bodies permeated every inch of the camp.

But the alternative was worse. The ambitious Doctor Tretter was in his late thirties. Working on a groundbreaking advance in treating gas gangrene victims – both to please Hitler and for his treatise to become a professor of medicine at the University of Berlin – he regularly needed new human guinea pigs for his abhorrent experiments.

He usually chose Poles. Those women had been given the nickname

Króliki,

rabbits, and the entire camp pitied them for what they had to endure. Their screams reverberated throughout the camp, shaking not only the flimsy walls of the barracks but also setting the teeth of everyone who heard them on edge.

Many times, Lotte had tried to block out the screeching sound by putting her hands over her ears – to no avail. After hours of screaming, the women would be returned to their barracks and left to suffer. No treatment whatsoever was given to them.

Lotte scratched

the wall behind her bunk with a stone. One hundred and five scratches. One hundred and five days since she and Irmhild had arrived.

Irmhild shivered next to her, and Lotte put her own blanket atop her friend. Irmhild had the chills and was burning up at the same time. Her sickness had started a few days earlier, but she had still managed to work through her shift at the factory. On the way back to the camp tonight, though, Lotte had been forced to half carry her friend.

“Typhus,” Verena said after a short glance. “I’m afraid she won’t make it through the night.”

No. No. Irmhild can’t die!

Irmhild weakly opened her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Lotte smoothed what little hair hadn’t fallen out back from her forehead. “Whatever for?”

“For leaving you. It’s my time. I can’t do this any longer.”

“No, don’t say this. We’ve gone through so much – you’ll be fine.” Lotte swallowed back her tears, trying to instill hope.

“I…” Irmhild stopped mid-sentence and coughed.

Lotte wiped her forehead with a wet rag and then started to talk to her friend about better times. When they lived in Kleindorf and complained about the teachers at school. How Irmhild had been smitten with a boy. Their summer days. Eating ice cream at the river.

When she couldn’t think of anything else to say, she looked down at her sick friend, gasping when Irmhild took her last ragged breaths.

I promise, one day I will avenge your death. I will make them pay. For you. For Uwe. For Rachel and Mindel

.

Lotte didn’t weep.

The women believed that anyone who wept at night would die the very next day. It was true. She’d witnessed it many a time. The moment a woman couldn’t hold back her tears anymore, her will to live was broken.

She hugged Irmhild one last time before speaking aloud, “She’s dead.”

Two women offered to take on the task of removing Irmhild’s body from the top bunk in exchange for her blanket. When Lotte only nodded, they grabbed her friend under the arms and dragged her towards the door of the barracks. Since it was already after curfew, she would have to lie there until morning, when the corpses were collected and either incinerated or tossed into a mass grave.

Alone now, Lotte wondered how much longer she would survive. She’d arrived at the camp, a healthy young woman on the cusp of womanhood, with shiny red hair and bright green eyes full of life.

And now? She wasn’t much more than a walking skeleton, her skin hanging from her bones like the dress hung on her frame. Her formerly beautiful hair had taken on a grayish-red color and was falling out due to the stress, exhaustion, and poor food rations.

The last time she’d taken a shower was on the day of her arrival, and a constant itching reminded her of the lice and scabies infesting her skin and hair.

This night she didn’t sleep, despite her constant exhaustion. Her mind was filled with memories of those who had already died. She saw Uwe’s smiling face and felt his tender lips on hers. She saw Irmhild laughing with delight as they celebrated having faked the identification papers. She saw Rachel, joyous upon receiving the news that the convent would accept them. All of them gone, save for herself.

How much longer can I survive? Now that I’m alone.