‘What happened to your sister?’

Livi saved my life in Bergen-Belsen. During the commotion after liberation, I ran a high fever and fell unconscious. She found a doctor among the liberated prisoners, who seemed to be in need of a doctor himself. I remember his face, when he said, ‘Yes, you are sick, and many of the sick die here.’ I understood then that I too would die. I submitted to my fate, closed my eyes, and after that I remember nothing more until my sister stood by my bedside, and I understood that I needed to learn to walk again. I had been unconscious for several weeks, and Livi had helped nurse me back to life.

In the summer of 1945, we came to Sweden, and here we both stayed. Livi married young, she was just 17 years old when she met her Hans, who was 27. He was also just a child when he’d had to leave his parents in Germany to save himself. He came to Denmark, and from there to Sweden, with the Danish rescue action. They had their first child when Livi was 19, and then another two. He was taken ill with Alzheimer’s disease and died in 2000.

Nowadays, Livi and I live close to each other. When we were younger, we saw each other every day. Today, we both have difficulty walking, so we speak on the phone instead. Every morning around nine o’clock, one of us calls, and we see each other as often as possible. She is approaching her nineties, though she still visits schools to talk about our life stories.