On May 2 the Red Army reached Berlin. Because of the large paved square next to Friedrichshaller Strasse 23, the Soviets requisitioned the building and designated it a military command headquarters. They set up multiple rocket launchers on the square and commenced firing on the inner city. The noise was indescribable.
Lilly went on the offensive. “What am I supposed to do with my small children?” she barked at the Russian officers and turned up her coat collar to reveal Felice’s yellow star, which she had sewn there. “We nix Nazis, we Jews. War over, you our liberators.”
Finally, the third officer she spoke to understood her, and Lilly was in fact assigned beds for all eight members of her household, in the basement of the post office on Kolberger Platz. They spent two days and two nights in the camp with roughly one hundred other women and children. Every fifteen minutes the Russians came for more women, who were taken upstairs to the post office where the officers had set up quarters, and were raped. But many of the soldiers simply carried out their “conquests” on the spot.
Lilly was sitting on a chair next to her sleeping children.
“You, Frau, come!” A rifle butt bored into Lilly’s side as a soldier pulled her to her feet.
“Matka,” another soldier cried, and used his weapon to push Lilly back down into her chair so hard that even days later a contusion was still evident. But children did not always offer protection. Many mothers were raped before their children’s eyes. Some women hid behind coarse jokes, or feigned indifference. “Ow, you’re ripping my panties,” a voice would say in the darkness. “He didn’t do anything to me at all,” another added, “probably didn’t know how.”
Many of the women were so paralyzed with fear that they prepared themselves to become victims even before it was demanded of them. When one weeping young woman gave Albrecht a piece of chocolate a Soviet soldier had given her, Lilly refused it saying, “Keep it, you paid a high price for it.” One soldier pulled the blanket off the bed in which Petel was snuggled close to Katja, and then huffed indignantly, having taken Petel for a man.
“Do you understand what’s going on?” Lilly asked Bernd.
“No,” he lied, and spared Lilly the explanation.
“They should be happy,” was Gregor’s callous comment. “They haven’t gotten any for a long time.”
Bernd Wust:
The officer took us along with him from the front of the post office on Kolberger Platz to the courtyard. It was a typical military existence, very interesting to me as a young boy. Three days later I could identify all of the epaulettes. Then they put us in the basement, and that’s where the rapes occurred. I didn’t know what was going on physically, I just heard them shouting. When I asked Mutti what rape meant—everybody was always talking about it—there was an outburst of laughter all around, I still remember that.
The Russians came down one set of stairs and twice it happened that one of the older men in the basement was brave enough to go up another set of stairs to complain to an officer. And then I saw the Russian officer beat one of his soldiers so black and blue that he barely survived. Another time someone else went up and came flying right back down the stairs again, because someone was lying in wait for him at the top.
Whereas most of the women found a dark corner to hide in, not daring even to step outside, Lilly was determined to leave the basement. A fearful Lucie tried in vain to restrain her.
“Don’t you understand, these are our liberators,” Lilly said.
On one of her outings, Lilly made the acquaintance of the area commandant, a Jewish lieutenant by the name of Kuczynski, whose sole dream was finally to be able to return to his work as a mathematician at the Kiev Observatory. When Lilly pretended to be an “Ivrej,” a Jew, he found a room for her in nearby Reichenhaller Strasse, in the home of a native Russian woman.
“But be careful, they don’t like us there either,” Kuczynski warned her.
The eight of them had one bed, in which Lilly and the children slept. Katja slept in an armchair, Petel in a chair, and Lucie, the physically weak “senior citizen,” got the deck chair. When Katja tried to claim the deck chair for herself, Lilly snapped at her.
“You’re supposed to be friends, how could you! You should be ashamed of yourself, acting this way!”
“It’s all right, Lilly,” Lucie placated her, reaching for Lilly’s hand in the darkness. In the difficult period of their shared “U-boat” existence, Katja had left Lucie for Petel. Now that their lives were no longer in danger, their unstable love triangle was beginning to crumble.
Kuczynski assured the women that they were under his protection and didn’t need to lock their door. One of the Soviet officers who went in and out of the building often played with the children. He drew a picture of four fir trees for Lilly, asking, “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Lilly answered.
Then he drew another fir next to them. “You understand?”
“No,” Lilly said.
He repeated his offer, this time with apples. When Lilly again pretended not to understand he began to get angry, but then laughed and trotted off. For security’s sake Lilly decided to lock the door after all. Shortly thereafter they all were startled when someone pounded at it. They waited with bated breath until they heard the sound of boots fading away in the corridor. When they opened the door, they almost tripped over three open tins of meat sitting on the floor outside.
Reichenhaller Strasse resembled a tent camp from the Thirty Years War, so crowded with horses that one could barely pass through them. Across the street was the ice cream shop they all knew so well, and home was quite near, yet the distance seemed insurmountable. It took five days for Lilly to gather the courage to go back to Friedrichshaller Strasse to get clothes for the children, taking Eberhard with her and holding his hand for protection. Barely had she started up the stairs when a Soviet officer was right behind them.
“Nooo, what you’re thinking is nix,” Lilly said, wagging her finger at him.
It was a standoff, the soldier speaking Russian to her and Lilly answering in German. Each time Lilly started up the stairs he was on her heels. Finally Lilly relented, but Eberhard got a piece of bread and a can of sardines in exchange.
Eberhard Wust:
There was a water tank on Kolberger Platz, and after the war people filled it up with all kinds of rubble that had been cleared away. We played there as children and were always finding something interesting. When the Russians came we had bread again for the first time. I can remember going somewhere with Mutti and bread was being handed out. I was given a piece that I was supposed to eat right away, which I didn’t want to do because the bread was too dry. It had been sliced with a knife, and cut into squares rather than slices. Hunger? You had to eat whatever was put on the table. I can remember that Mutti cooked gruel once, she seared some flour and mixed it with water, there wasn’t much more to it than that. But she put a lot of salt in it, and then made us eat it.
After one week they were allowed to return to their apartment, which was much the worse for wear. Both gramophones, the bicycles and all of their records had been stolen. Lilly later found some of their clothes and the silver in the basement. When Kuczynski was transferred out of Berlin he asked Lilly for Felice’s yellow star as a souvenir. Lilly made herself a new one, and every night in the hallway in front of her door she drew a huge Star of David in chalk, a magic token that she erased every morning, out of fear of her neighbors.
Ten days after the war ended Katja and Petel moved back into Katja’s apartment in the Steglitz district of Berlin. They found it exactly as Katja had left it in 1939, even the pictures were still hanging on the walls. Lucie Friedlaender, who had gone to school with Felice’s mother, moved in with Lilly. The corpulent woman talked incessantly of food.
Lilly’s diary, June 12, 1945:
Unfortunately, the food rations we were promised are not materializing. Sometimes I can offer the children only a watery soup with a few kernels of barley and maybe a few greens. Bread is scarce and bad, and I spend all day preparing the most impossible ersatz things to spread on it. I cook the soup on an inverted iron. We have electricity but no gas, nor do I have wood or coal for the stove. I’ve already chopped up some of the furniture I don’t need, for kindling. People comb the ruins for anything that will burn, fences are carried away by night. Everyone has an eye out for wood, for their warm meal.
And now, my beloved, I wait for you, anxious and afraid. All my dear ones wait with me. I tremble at every sound, every step I hear. My ears deceive me at every turn. I have run out of patience. My nerves are so strained waiting for you that I imagine I hear your voice everywhere, at home and on the street, saying, “Aimée.” Felice, for God’s sake, come. I can’t take it any longer. When am I finally to hold you in my arms again? Your Aimée, our children and our home are waiting and waiting. Come, this waiting is terrible.
Lilly began searching for Felice. Frau Kappler or Lucie watched the children while she wandered the bombed-out streets, where lilacs bloomed despite the pervasive aura of doom. She made inquiries, added to the postings for missing persons, had Felice’s name announced over the radio, wrote letters to people she heard had been in Gross-Rosen, searched for Felice through the UNRRA, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. On the way to the “Red City Hall” the horrible stink of corpses rose from the ruins of the bombed-out suburban train station at Potsdamer Platz. On Französische Strasse she discovered a lone hobbyhorse in a shop, and took it home for the children. As she was making her way home through the deserted streets, her trophy in her hand, a man came toward her.
“Good lord, girl, why are you walking when you can ride?” he said in a heavy Berlin dialect.
As Lilly was walking on Iranische Strasse once, she encountered a group of people dressed in striped prisoner uniforms. They were dancing and laughing, blocking the entire street. Lilly asked them where they were coming from and if they knew anything about Gross-Rosen. Across from the Jewish Hospital was a stately building with large French windows. It was here that those returning from the concentration camps were housed, in the light and spacious rooms of a sanatorium. Lilly posted a missing persons notice there and knocked at every door to ask about Felice. She also searched for the Dutch Jewish woman who had been assigned a bed next to Felice’s at the Trachenberg Hospital.
NEVER!
The hours pass so quickly by,
The clock hands turn indifferently—
It makes no sense, I don’t know why:
This waiting . . . have you left me?
With hope my days I justify,
I hate my night dreams fervently—
It doesn’t make sense, I don’t know why:
This waiting . . . have you left me?
I abandon myself to doubt, I cry,
I walk the alleys in jealousy—
It doesn’t make sense, I don’t know why:
This waiting . . . have you left me?
But deep within I know the reply,
And that is why I take it calmly—
It does make sense, I do know why:
While alive you would never leave me!
[LILLY, AUGUST 3, 1945]
On August 12 Lilly succeeded in reaching Irene in London by mail. The letter was delivered personally by Irene’s brother-in-law, Richard Cahn, who had changed his name to Collins and was stationed as a British soldier in Germany.
Dear Irene,
How happy I am that we finally can communicate directly with one another. It will pain you to know that I cannot report anything concrete about ’Lice. What I would give were that not so. . . . During the period following August 21 when I was alone so much of the time, I kept taking out the picture of the two of you to look at, so that you were in my presence at least visually. All of your pictures, as well as a number of papers (family record, wills, etc.), are in my possession, I always carried them with me everywhere—due to the many bombings—and constantly guarded them. I am fortunate—I don’t understand why, exactly—in having been spared house searches. Did your brother-in-law tell you that I have both of you “on the wall”? That might seem a bit strange to you, but please remember that I know you as ’Lice’s sister, and I ask you in all sincerity to accord me a bit of the affection you feel for your sister. You do not know me as well as I know you, of course, but I so hope that will change when—and I hope to God it is soon—we all see each other again, or get to know each other, as the case may be. . . . Dear Irene, your sister was so unbelievably brave, more brave than I have ever seen anyone be; I am absolutely certain that she was an angel to all of her fellow sufferers. The Russians reached their area at the end of January or the beginning of February, so we may assume with certainty that she is alive. Where could she be? Up until now only a fraction of those who survived have returned. She knows exactly how anxiously I am waiting for her, she wishes nothing more, after all, than to return home. I expect her any day, any hour—the waiting is terrible. I’ve already issued a message to her three times on the radio, and posted her picture in the camp on Iranische Strasse. I’ve done everything I could; each week I go to the Jewish community to see what I can find out. Perhaps one day I’ll be lucky.
Lilly’s diary, August 15, 1945:
I’m so afraid of August 21 approaching. If only I could give Irene more positive news than I communicated in the letter her brother-in-law, Richard Kahn, took with him to England. He is a soldier stationed with the occupation forces in Spandau, which, like Wilmersdorf, belongs to the British sector. I wrote to her about ’Lice, whom she knows so much better than I. I want the chance—oh God, help us—to call her ’Lice someday too. It sounds so sweet: my brave ’Lice.
Since we have been under British occupation the situation with rations has gotten much better. But there are still shortages, and because we aren’t working (everyone wants to) we get the least—card 5. Lucie as well.
Lately, I’ve had nothing but worry with her. She can’t sleep at night, and then she doesn’t get up until the afternoon. Once overly fastidious, she now neglects her appearance in every way; it’s hard to watch. And she complains constantly. Everything, but everything, is too much for her. She wasn’t in good health when she came to live with me. She said to me once that she feels her old nervous disorder returning. I’ve spoken volumes trying to get this idea out of her head. Sometimes I get quite rude. My heavens, I’ve got troubles enough. The children look pitiful, they’re always hungry. They don’t get enough vitamins or enough fat. They have nothing more than their little bit of rations, after all.
On August 17 Lilly received a postcard from Ilse Ploog in Berlin-Heiligensee that gave her hope:
Lilly,
Our “Stift” is alive! Arthur met a man on the train to Eberswalde who was with Stift in Gross-Rosen. He—the man—says he also met Stift later, in “freedom.” He recalls it quite well. Stift was intending to go somewhere—he’s forgotten where—for four or five weeks to recuperate. As I don’t know if I can make it up to your place tomorrow or the day after, when I come to town (which I absolutely must do because of the bread coupons), I at least wanted to send you this card as a preliminary report. It’s important, after all, and at one time I would have reached for the phone and called you in the middle of the night. But my time in Berlin is limited, for Arthur is sick in bed. I hope this card will prove to be superfluous, and that Stift has already arrived, and is in good shape. That would be the best news of all!
On August 17, Lucie took an overdose of Veronal.
Lilly’s diary, August 17, 1945, 1 a.m.:
At eleven at night I took her to the Martin Luther Hospital on a handcart. I spent an hour and a half just looking for something to carry her on. Then the fire department came to my aid with this two-wheeled cart. They almost didn’t want to admit Lucie, the hospital was so full, but I made a big fuss.
She must have taken the Veronal the night before. I knew that she always took something to be able to sleep, so I let her sleep late, it was my big wash day. I was in her room that morning because I received a card from Ilse, who wrote that Arthur had met a man in Eberswalde who said he knew you. I rushed into Lucie’s room with the card, in tears, but she was sleeping and I didn’t want to wake her.
That afternoon a woman arrived to deliver a half-pound of barley to her from Petel. Lucie was still asleep. The blackout shade was down, so I just opened the window a little. The room was hot and dark.
That evening around six I wanted to go out to visit friends, and when I went to her room again Lucie was still asleep in the same position. She had a blanket pulled up to her chin. There were drops of sweat on her forehead, so I uncovered her a bit and saw that she was fully dressed. It was then that I suspected she might have taken poison. I knew from Petel that she hoarded pills, and I knew that she was tired of living.
Had I not been so inexperienced about how people who have taken poison look in their sleep, I would have taken her to the hospital that afternoon. And now that I suspected something, I still couldn’t believe it. So I went over to Rosel’s and it got later, of course. When I came home at eight-thirty and Lucie still hadn’t changed position, I ran all over the building, but no one knew how to help me. Finally Bernd went to get the children’s doctor, Dr. Kain. He gave Lucie a shot and me little hope.
Subconsciously, Lucie must have been trying to get up. The whole time I was running around trying to find something to carry her in, which took over an hour, poor Bernd continually was trying to get the unfortunate woman to lie back down. She didn’t react to me when I spoke to her in a loud voice.
It was after curfew and the cart was hard to manage. We ran more than walked to the hospital, and were stopped three times by British soldiers. The night doctor gave Lucie another shot and told me to talk to her in a loud voice. I shook her and called her by name over and over again. She reacted with a vague “Ja.” I tried to bring her further out of her unconscious state, but she didn’t want to, she only became more fitful. The doctor gave up and sent me home after taking care of the formalities. Poor Lucinde.
Lilly:
Lucie didn’t survive our sudden freedom. I talked and talked to her about it. She would be the first to leave Germany, I said, and she really would have been. Her sister applied right away for Lucie to be able to go to her in Australia. Lucie’s other sister had been taken to Auschwitz right after she had been operated on at the sanatorium on Joachimstaler Strasse. I searched for information about her, too. She died during transport.
It was devastating to Lucie that Petel had left her, and that certainly played a role. Petel should have shown more concern for her. I was totally distraught at the time. I was crazy for a while there at the beginning. Every time the bell rang, every time I heard a step I thought it was Felice returning. And Lucie knew that. No one could have understood that better than she. I talked about dying; I didn’t want to live. And she said to me, “You know, Lilly, one doesn’t die so quickly.” She had made her decision then already.
Once I walked in and she was sobbing. I stroked her hair and put my arms around her. And she embraced me so hungrily that I’ll never forget it. I’ve regretted ever since not doing so more often. But I was always busy with the children and with preparations for some indeterminate meal or other, with food. And Lucie got more and more apathetic and couldn’t even eat anything anymore.
On August 18 Lilly received the first response to an announcement she had posted at the Jewish Hospital. The German script was shaky, as if that of an old man:
August 15, 1945
Fräulein Schragenheim took the same path as my daughter, and therefore probably was in Bergen-Belsen.
Further details in person. 12–1 p.m., 6–7 p.m.
Respectfully,
Dr. Grünberger
Iranische Strasse, Room 70
Lilly hurried to Iranische Strasse the next day. Dr. Grünberger, roughly forty years old, had recently returned from Auschwitz. He spoke in a kind, soft voice. “Puppe” (“Doll”), his daughter Hanne-Lore, had been at Gross-Rosen. The camp was shut down at the end of January 1945, and the women were sent to Bergen-Belsen. He promised to ask his daughter about Felice and to visit Lilly as soon as he could.
Lilly then rushed to the Neukölln district to see a Frau Linke, who also had responded to her notice. She had been with Felice in Theresienstadt. “They killed the young ones and left us old ones behind,” she said, weeping, adding that Felice had been an angel at Theresienstadt, simply incredible. She radiated great calm and confidence. And she was always together with a woman who wore pants, Frau Linke said.
Lilly’s diary, August 21, 1945:
6:30 a.m. One year without Felice. My heart feels heavy as lead. I’ll straighten the apartment now, and then make myself pretty. For you, Felice. Perhaps this terrible day of remembrance will bring us something better. Oh my beloved, I’m trembling, it pains me so. Lilo was here yesterday. Everyone, everyone consoles me and gives me hope.
Even Frau Linke, whom I saw on Sunday. Felice, who was the woman in the pants you were always together with at Theresienstadt? Was it that Sternberg woman? I’m bursting with jealousy, and Frau Linke smiled when she noticed, unfortunately. It’s ridiculous, I’m in the grip of paranoia. Have you, in the course of one year, so quickly forgotten your Aimée, who waits for you, trembling? I love you so much. I cannot give up even a tiny piece of you.
Around midnight:
I so would have liked to be alone today. I wanted only to wait for you. But Gregor arrived right after Rosel left. I walked with him for a bit and then went to see Lucie at the hospital. They had strapped her down tightly. The day before yesterday, in her struggle with death, or with life, she fell out of the bed and split her head open. I stood at her bedside, terribly sad, and stroked her hair. What else could I do for her? Perhaps it is best if she dies.
When I came home again, Käthe Herrmann surprised me with a visit. Today of all days! The good woman looked quite disheveled. I could barely contain myself talking to her: Hadn’t she ever noticed that you were Jewish, and Gregor, Ilse, Lilo and so forth and so on. Now, of course, she doesn’t want to have been anything back then. An hour later Dr. Grünberger appeared unexpectedly. Käthe shook his hand nicely. Just imagine, a Jew! I was so filled with spite I could have screamed. I felt that hysterical. But she wasn’t so comfortable when she had to sit there without batting an eyelash and listen to what they had done to all of you. It didn’t do her any harm to hear it. Basically I like her, as I know you do. She’s a nice person in spite of it all.
Just imagine, Dr. Grünberger, the good man, brought a loaf of bread, a tin of liverwurst, a half-pound of powdered milk, a quarter-pound of margarine and ten sugar cubes for us. What a joy, and such a sacrifice. I’m almost a total stranger to him, after all. He was a lawyer in Breslau, and is optimistic enough to believe that those dear “custodaryans” of his beautiful things will be returning them to him soon.
While I was walking him to the station, Petel arrived. She had just come from the Martin Luther Hospital, where the doctor had told her that Lucie probably would not survive the night. It was very strange for us to think that we might never see Lucie again alive. Petel was depressed and sad. What could I say to her? No one should accuse anyone of anything, but I couldn’t help thinking of the little piece of paper I found in Lucie’s handbag as I was looking for the papers I needed for the hospital. Though I’ve forgotten almost all the French I learned at school, I could understand enough to know that her words in French were a cry for help from Petel. If only Petel had looked after Lucie a little more.
And I’m sad. Though I had my problems with Lucie, she was here at least, and now I’m even more alone. Lucie is better off as it is. She was finished, and more than just psychologically. Hunger ration card number 5 did its part as well. It is scandalous that the Jews who survived get the same number 5 card as the worst Nazis. They’re only now in the process of remedying that. In the meantime Lucie starved to death. For as long as I live I’ll hold the Allies responsible for that.
I am terribly afraid that you’ve left the country. I heard this might be true. Is that what you’ve done? And I wait here, thinking the dumbest things. Do you know that it’s my life I’m waiting for? Come back, no matter where you are, and take me in your arms. Let us forget the world and its insanity. Dear and only God, give me my girl back again. One year alone, one whole year I have lived with my memories, one whole year, trembling with the hope of seeing you again. Good God, I almost can no longer pray.
Lucie Friedlaender died at the Martin Luther Hospital on Auguste-Victoria-Strasse during the night of August 21, 1945. She was buried in the Weissensee Jewish Cemetery on August 26, the second burial to be held there since the end of the war. Petel and Lilly were the only mourners. “As we walked along behind her I had the feeling that millions were following along behind us,” Lilly wrote in her diary.
In September Lilly received an answer to the long letter she had written to Irene on August 12:
I wrote to Frau Kummer last week, right after Richard’s first report of your meeting. She had not been able to do anything further for ’Lice, of course, but I so hope that she will arrive at your place soon. Nothing could have happened to her, don’t you agree? I spoke today with a friend of my mother, and she said that ’Lice could learn any language in five minutes and could get by in any country. I think so too, but I’d like to know where she is. . . . Did ’Lice really have something with her lung from the scarlet fever? Mrs. Kummer wrote something to that effect. The dear woman did everything she could for ’Lice. And it is certainly not her fault that ’Lice isn’t in Switzerland.
MEMORY
With each breath that I take,
I see you here before me.
Plunge into memory’s wake—
And end up weeping bitterly.
So I live in a time that no longer is there,
And today is immersed in yesterday.
I burrow into your sweet-smelling hair
And bear you joking and chatting away.
I wrap myself up, tuck into your arms,
I cannot resist your laughter—
Beguiled, enchanted by your charms,
It is sad to awaken thereafter.
[LILLY, OCTOBER 26, 1945]
Lilly’s diary, December 9, 1945:
I must believe that you are alive and that someday, perhaps quite soon, great and merciful God, you will stand at my door and say, “Aimée.” Then I will fall into your arms and cry the last tears I have left in me. I will make you forget everything that has happened in the past and give you the best that I have in me—my life for you until I die. Felice, my dear, come into my arms, I want to kiss you and feel your soft mouth upon mine. The memory of your mouth—I felt the whole earth move, and my blood as it coursed through my body. My willpower dissolved when I drank in your kisses, do you remember? I was no longer in control of my senses, consumed by my passion for you. I was lost in you, lost in the tumult of feeling, your mouth on mine, forever. I savored those wild kisses and became one with you. Our bodies pressed against each other, kindled by mutual desire. Your hands slid hungrily over me, stroking my breasts, my body, and then, then you took me. And I you. For the first time in my life I gave, I didn’t just take, I demanded. How passionately I loved your body, I loved it so much. I felt my way with my hands over the body I love so, and you strained against me, gave yourself to me, taut and hard at first, and then openly, freely you surrendered, moaning in excitement. Then I covered you in kisses, beside myself with desire. Everything coursed through and around us in the heat of the moment. I could have murdered you in an instant. I screamed, I was nearly mad, as were you, as were you, not content until we were numb with exhaustion. We were one, it was the fulfillment of our love.
Murder in the literal sense of the word. How we loved one another. My God, I’m already saying “loved.”
Shortly thereafter, at the end of 1945 or beginning of 1946, Lilly wrote a letter to Irene, which she copied before sending off, as she did with all of her important correspondence:
My Dear Irene,
I send to you and Derek my greetings and best wishes for the New Year, which hopefully will find you well. It is so nice that you found Derek, it is so good to have someone you love for yourself alone. If I wish anyone the best from the bottom of my heart, then it is you, sister of my beloved Felice! One day you will read the letters Felice and I wrote to each other and know what we meant to each other—one day. Since ’Lice was taken from me on August 21, ’44, I have dreaded the day when I must write to you, stand before you alone—I have given up hope since I found out that in January/February roughly seven hundred women from Gross-Rosen were transported to Bergen-Belsen and there—in Belsen—almost all of them died of typhus. Even today it is not one hundred percent certain that she was there. I wrote to someone named Hanne-Lore Grünberger, who was with ’Lice in Gross-Rosen, and who was sent from there to Bergen-Belsen, but she unfortunately has not yet answered; the situation with the mail is impossible at the moment. My dear Irene, I found out about the women’s transport to Belsen yesterday—it robbed me of all hope. As of yesterday I am the poorest of the poor, and I ask myself over and over again: Why? Why did God take this wonderful, gifted girl from me, and why did he allow me to survive this horrible war, why? All of us who went through so many awful things in Germany have only one thing in mind: getting away from this country and from these people. One can no longer live in a country where all of this was possible. For me it will not be easy to leave, especially with four children, but I always believe there will be good people to help me. I would like to begin a new life somewhere else in the world, start from the beginning, and that will not be easy. But I must leave here, because I can never forget.
On January 25, 1945, the Kurzbach camp was evacuated. The women spent eight days in the icy cold on a foot march in rows of five to Gross-Rosen. Two hundred women died along the way. They stayed in the main Gross-Rosen camp for two weeks, sleeping four to a cot and getting soup twice a day. After that they were transported in open cattle cars to Bergen-Belsen. The actual destination was Buchenwald, but that camp was too overcrowded to take in any more prisoners. Near Weimar they were bombarded by the British and there were casualties in the first and last cars. Once they arrived in Bergen-Belsen they had to strip naked and were given lice-infested rags to wear. Many prisoners there died of spotted fever, starvation, or diarrhea. Beate Mohr’s sister died of scarlet fever and dystentery.
“Don’t be sad,” Beate wrote to her mother after liberation. “Other people died too: Lotte Trier, Käte Pegner, Anne Marcus, Felice Schragenheim, Ruth Schönfeld. . . .”