Odette was French. She was brought to Auschwitz in January 1944. At that time I was still on the block for newcomers. Odette was about fifteen years old, and her mother could not have been older than thirty. They resembled each other, and the mother was young enough so that they looked like sisters. They were both very pretty—slim, with brown eyes and prominent mouths. Since they spoke only French they did not understand the orders that the sztubowa barked at them, and as a consequence they absorbed many a beating. On several occasions I served as their interpreter; it was perhaps for that reason that they trusted me.
Marie—that was the mother’s name—was a seamstress. Odette was still a student. They were Parisians. The husband had been shot very soon after the Germans entered Paris. I did not ask why they were arrested. They did not have to confide in me.
One evening, she said to me, “You probably think that they arrested Odette and me because of my activities. Would you believe that it was my little Odette who was fighting against the Germans? I don’t know how they happened to get on her trail, but when they came to arrest her I let them take me. It didn’t work. They just waited in the house for somebody else to show up. When Odette came they took her too. To this day they don’t know who’s who. That’s how we escaped one severe beating. This way we share the beatings. Now we are in Auschwitz, which we won’t be able to survive, because I have a weak heart and Odette is too brave.”
Meanwhile, I envied them because they were together. When they cuddled up together, lying on the hard bed, they must have dreamt that they were together in their own home. They went through the selection. Later on, when I went to the hospital I failed to see them.
The spring of 1944 was cold and ugly. I remember how we yearned for warm weather. It was not absolutely vital to us, but we hoped for warm weather for the sake of the women who were coming to the infirmary with frost bite on their arms and legs. Many of them had pneumonia but continued to work. They were afraid to go to the hospital ward because very often selections were carried out there.
I worked in the infirmary, but at night I slept on the hospital ward, where I was registered as a patient. Usually I came to the block late, after supper. The light was dim, the air full of groans and heavy with misery and suffering. That evening I returned earlier than usual; it was not even supper time yet. The blokowa, who treated me as an equal, met me at the entrance. She took my arm, and we returned to the block together. She was making her evening rounds. I stood at my bed.
Suddenly I heard terrible shouting coming from the blokowa. How they could scream! Shouting was the symbol of leadership in the camp, so they were always screaming at the top of their lungs. Later I heard the sound of a beating taking place, accompanied by a weak voice of protest. I approached the direction from which the sounds were coming. Odette was standing in front of the blokowa, red as a beet. Her mother lay on the bed next to her.
“Tell them that this is my mother,” she cried out in anguish. “They don’t want to believe me. This is my mother. My mother.”
The new arrivals had been taken to field “B,” and from there they had been taken to the komando that was working in the unionfabrik, a munitions factory. The work was very difficult; the mother fell ill.
“Her heart, her sick heart,” sobbed Odette.
For a week the mother had been lying in the hospital, and she was getting weaker every day.
“What shall I do? How can she be saved?”
Odette grabbed my hands and looked into my eyes, waiting for me to give her an answer.
I could only help her by coming to visit them in the evening. They whispered endearing words to each other, because Odette could not bring her anything else. Mancy examined Marie thoroughly and confirmed that she would not be able to survive in Auschwitz. Every morning, when the komando was on its way to work, and was waiting as usual at the exit gate, Odette would storm into the area and go straight to the block where her mother was lying. She said, “Good morning,” kissed her mother, hugged her, and was gone. She had to catch up with her komando at the gate.
I remember the exact night that Marie died. Odette came at her usual time, and it was just after she left that Marie started feeling bad, and in a few minutes she was no longer alive. In the morning the sztubowa walked around the block, dragging out the dead. Their shirts were taken off and their naked bodies were thrown in front of the block. Later, the leichenkomando would collect the dead from the side of the block and stack them in a big pile near the infirmary.
That day snow and rain were coming down, and Marie’s corpse lay rotting in the mud in front of the block. Although her body had grown emaciated while she was alive, in death she appeared beautiful. I wanted to put the body someplace else before Odette came running in, as was her custom, to see her mother, but there was no other place. I could not return her to her bed because it was already occupied by another sick woman, and I could not put a corpse in bed with the other women. I tried to lay the corpse in the foyer, but the blokowa almost beat me for that. Once again Marie was lying in front of the block. I could not wait for Odette. I simply did not have the strength. I did not want to be there when she first caught sight of her dead mother, naked and covered with snow and mud.
I went to the infirmary. Maybe Odette would not come today, I thought, and by evening the mother would no longer be in front of the block. From a distance I kept an eye on the gate of the area. The gate creaked, and there was Odette running with all her might. She got to the block, and after a minute she ran out. Apparently they had told her about her mother’s death. She stood in front of the block, and there saw her mother. She sank down onto the snow and let out a scream so penetrating that I can still hear it to this day. She sat there for a few minutes and then fell on her mother’s corpse. Finally, she arose and ran to the komando. She had to be on time at the gate. Poor little Odette. She was now alone in this terrible world.
Odette did not come to the area any more. She lived on the second field, and I did not know what was happening to her. If she was not in the area that must mean that she was healthy. She had probably found a good friend in the komando where she worked.
It was the end of October 1944. We were still inspired by the heroic sonderkomando who had blown up one of the crematoria. In the evening that was the only thing we talked about. We did not know whether all of them had died or whether some had managed to escape. Late into the long nights of that October we could hear the barking of dogs. Evidently the SS men were looking for somebody. Several days after the event we heard the terrible news. Four young girls from the unionfabrik had been arrested on the charge that they had delivered the explosives used to blow up the crematorium. Odette was one of those arrested.
They were confined in a bunker where they were being tortured. They did not betray anyone. We knew that they must die. But what kind of death would the Germans cook up for them?
On a dark and rainy day, after all the komandos had returned from work, the four girls were hung on the gate, next to the sign, “Arbeit macht frei.”1 Marie rightly foresaw the death of her daughter: “She is too brave to live in Auschwitz.” Brave, but naïve.
1 “Work makes you free.”