Edwige was a former Auschwitz deportee turned block commandant.
I can still feel her whip cutting into my body, and her powerful slaps. I can still hear her hateful insults: “Hurry up and die.” “Pity is a crime.” “You are nothing but useless mouths.” “Kindness is futile.” “We are all enemies.”
Cries of pain, groans, and our exhausted silences irritated her and made her beat us harder. Older faces were particular grounds for cruelty: “You are stealing bread from the young ones!” she would yell. “Why is it taking you so long to die?” I saw prisoners collapse at her feet; she would kick them to death or finish them off with the riding crop.
She played the game of death so casually, more concerned with taking care of herself, and dressing up in all that she had stolen.
She gave out hot tea in the mornings with one hand, and randomly hit us with the other, yelling to try to get silence and minimize the chaos. She dished out only just enough to fill the bottom of our cups and used what was left in the huge kettle to do her ablutions in front of us.
At the end of a long day, there she stood at the door of the barracks, clean, fresh, and wearing a new outfit that she had traded our bread for. How many paid with their lives to fill Edwige’s wardrobe?
It took me thirty years to remember Edwige’s face. Spring has come back to my heart because I can now talk about her without being overwhelmed by a mudslide of hatred. She was the daily temptation to despair. She was the one among us who had been trained to be just like our executioners. But how could I forget the painful deaths of my fellow prisoners? How could I forgive her look of contempt and her cruel laughter at seeing that we had lost everything?
What became of her? I have no idea, but I know that for me she remains a troubling mystery.