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CHAPTER 3
Vorkuta Gulag, Siberia
The temperature is dropping. It hasn’t been sudden,
more a gradual change noticed at night when Cilka
and the others have found themselves snuggling into each
other. They are all in summer clothing. Cilka doesn’t know
what month it is, though she guesses August or September,
and she does not know where they are going, though the
language at each stop is Russian.
One day bleeds into the next. Illness creeps through
the carriage. Pitiful coughing drains the women of what
little energy they have. Conversations become fewer and
shorter. At the last few stops, men had taken pity on the
cargo, had stripped and thrown in their kal’sony, as they called it, off their own bodies. Cilka and Josie had pulled
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the loose, still-warm undergarments up over their goose-bumped legs, waving a weak thank you.
It has been three days since they last stopped when the
train screeches to a halt, the heavy doors flung back. A
vast, unpopulated landscape of dirt and yellow-green grass
lies before them.
This time it isn’t one or two guards greeting them.
Dozens of men in uniform, rifles at the ready, line the
length of the train.
‘ Na vykhod! ’ they yell. Get out!
As the women struggle to their feet, many collapsing
on legs no longer capable of bearing weight, the shouting
continues.
Cilka and Josie join the others outside for the first time
in weeks. They link arms with two older women who are
struggling to stand. They don’t need to be told what to
do; with a line forming in front of them they know which
way to face. They can see some crude buildings in the
distance, on the broad, flat plain. Another camp, thinks
Cilka, surrounded by nothingness. But the sky here is
different – an impossibly vast grey-blue. They trudge along
with the flow of the others towards the far-away buildings.
Cilka tries to count the number of carriages, some
disgorging men, some women and children; people of all
different ages, in varying states of ill-health and distress.
Some who’d been on the train since the beginning, some
who’d been added along the way.
Time stands still for Cilka as she remembers lining up
to go into the other place. That line led to an existence 22
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that bore no end date. This time she knows her end date, should she survive to see it. Fifteen years. Will having an
end date make the labour more endurable? Is an end date
even to be believed?
Before long, Cilka is standing in front of a large woman
dressed in a thick khaki uniform. Her own clothing is still
too light for this weather. They must be far north. She
can barely feel her hands and feet.
‘ Imya, familya?’ the woman barks at Cilka, scanning a list on a clipboard. Name.
‘Cecilia Klein.’
Her name ticked off, Cilka follows the line into a large
concrete bunker. Immediately she looks to the ceiling for
the tell-tale signs of showers. Will it be water or gas? Her
relief at not seeing anything threatening is palpable and
she holds on to Josie to steady herself.
‘Are you all right?’ Josie asks.
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. I thought we might be going to have
a shower.’
‘I’d love a shower – it’s what we need.’
Cilka forces a small smile. There does not seem any
point in explaining what she had feared. Looking at the
bafflement on the faces around her, it dawns on her that
few of them will have gone through something like this
before. Only survivors from that other place, or those from other camps, carry the burden of knowing what may be
in store for them all.
As the room fills, several male guards enter.
‘Clothes off. Now.’
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Women look around for guidance. The words are whispered through in different languages, and they catch on
as several slowly start removing their clothes.
Cilka whispers to Josie, ‘You have to take your clothes
off.’
‘No, Cilka, I can’t, not in front of men.’
It seems Josie had only had her head shaved in prison,
not the full ordeal. Cilka knows that all the hair on their
bodies will be shaved.
‘Listen to me. You have to do as you’re told.’
Cilka starts undoing the buttons on the front of Josie’s
dress. Josie pushes her hand away, confused, looking
around at the other women in various stages of undress.
The naked women hold their hands in front of their pubis
and across their breasts. Slowly Josie begins to undress.
‘Hurry up,’ Cilka says. ‘Just drop your clothes where
they are.’
Cilka looks up at the men standing in front of the doors,
yelling out instructions. The smirks and nudges between
them sicken her. She looks down at the pile of her clothes
at her feet. She knows she will not see them again.
The men in front of the doors part as four other guards
enter, each dragging with them a large hose. The blast of
freezing water sends the women crashing into each other,
screaming, shouting, as they are knocked down, bundled
together by the force of the water. The smell of chlorine
becomes overpowering and the screaming changes to
gagging and coughing.
Cilka is smashed up against a cracked tiled wall, grazing
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her arm as she slides to the ground. She watches as sadistically the guards target older, frail women who attempt
defiance by trying to stand firm. They go down fighting.
Cilka curls up in the foetal position and stays there until
the hoses are turned off and the laughing guards leave.
* * *
As the women pick themselves up and shuffle towards the
door, several grab at a dripping article of clothing to cover themselves. They exit the building and are handed a thin
grey towel to wrap around themselves. Barefoot on the
gritty cold ground, they walk to a nearby concrete building
identical to the one they have just left.
Cilka sees Josie in front of her and hurries to catch up.
‘Will they give us new clothes now?’ Josie asks.
Cilka looks at Josie’s drawn, desperate face. There is
much worse to come, she thinks. Maybe, momentarily, she
can cheer her.
‘I hope so – grey is not my colour.’ Cilka is pleased
when Josie stifles a snigger.
They are roughly pushed into four lines and screams of
protest inside are heard by those waiting to enter. Several
terrified women break from their line, scared by the
screams ahead. They become game for the warders to fire
at. The shots miss but send the women scurrying back
into line. A source o
f entertainment.
She feels Josie trembling beside her.
Cilka and Josie enter the building and see what is
happening to the women in front of them. Four men stand
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behind four chairs. Several strong, large women, also dressed in khaki uniforms, stand nearby.
She watches as the woman in front of her approaches
the chair and is forced to sit down. The woman’s hair is
roughly gathered together and swiftly cut close to her head
with a large pair of scissors. Without missing a beat, the
man exchanges the scissors for a shaving blade and scrapes
it across the woman’s scalp. Blood trickles down her face
and back. One of the nearby women is yanked to her feet,
turned around and placed with one of her feet on the chair.
Josie and Cilka watch in horror as the man, with no sign
of emotion or care, shaves her pubic area. As he lifts his
head, indicating he is done, the female guard pushes the
woman away and motions for Josie to come forward.
Cilka quickly moves over into the next line so she is
next to be shaved. She can at least be beside Josie as this
humiliation is played out; she has been through it all
before. Together they walk to the chairs. Without instruc-
tion, they sit. Cilka keeps her eyes on Josie as much as
she can, wordlessly offering comfort, her heart aching as
she sees tears falling helplessly down Josie’s cheeks. She
can tell this is the first time Josie has been subjected to
anything this brutal.
Their heads shaved, Josie is slow to stand and the back
of a female guard’s hand slaps her across the face as she
is pulled to her feet. Cilka places her own foot on the
chair and stares at the man in front of her. Her glare is
met with a thin toothless grin and she knows she has made
a mistake.
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As Cilka and Josie walk away, grey towels their only cover, blood trickles down Cilka’s inner thigh, her punishment for daring to be brave. Josie begins to vomit.
Gagging, bile and watery liquid is all she can throw up.
They follow others down a long corridor.
‘What next?’ Josie sobs.
‘I don’t know. Whatever it is, don’t argue, don’t fight
with them; try to be invisible and do as you are told.’
‘That’s your advice? Just take it, whatever it is, take it?’
Her voice rises, anger replacing shame.
‘Josie, I’ve been here before, trust me.’ Cilka sighs. But
she also feels relief at Josie’s display of strength and defiance. She will need that fire in a place like this.
‘Does this have something to do with the numbers on
your arm?’ Josie asks.
Cilka looks at her left arm, which is holding the towel
across her body, tattoo exposed for all to see.
‘Yes, but don’t ever ask me about that again.’
‘All right,’ Josie says. ‘I trust you. At least no one is
screaming ahead of us now, so it can’t be so bad, right?’
‘Let’s hope it’s getting something warm to wear. I’m
frozen. I can’t feel my feet.’ Cilka tries to bring lightness to her tone.
As they approach a room at the end of the corridor,
they see piles of grey towels dropped at the entrance. Once
again, blank-faced female guards stand nearby. Ahead of
them they hear male voices.
‘ Ty moya,’ You are mine, Cilka hears a guard call to one of the women just ahead of them in the queue. The woman
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behind her, older, shuffles forward. Cilka and Josie are coming up to their turn.
‘Move on, you old hag,’ a guard shouts at the woman.
Cilka’s heart thumps. What is happening?
‘Hey, Boris, what are you waiting for?’
‘I’ll know when I see her.’
The woman in front of Cilka turns back to the younger
girls with a look of pity, whispering, ‘The bastards are
picking who they want to fuck.’ She looks Cilka and Josie
up and down. ‘You’ll have no problem.’
‘What does she mean, we’ll be picked?’ Josie asks.
Cilka shakes her head in disbelief. Can this be happening
again?
She turns to Josie, looks her in the eyes. ‘Listen to me,
Josie. If one of the men chooses you, go with him.’
‘Why? What does he want?’
‘He wants your body.’
She hopes she will be able to explain to Josie later that
he can have her body and that is all; he cannot have her
mind, her heart, her soul.
‘No, no, I’ve never been with a boy. Cilka, please don’t
‘No, you wouldn’t. You have to live. We have to live.
Do you hear me? Do you understand?’
‘No, I don’t understand. I didn’t do anything, I shouldn’t
be here.’
‘I’m sure most of us shouldn’t be here, but we are. If
you get chosen to be the property of just one man, the
others will leave you alone. Now do you understand me?’
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Josie’s face is tight, puzzled. ‘I-I think so. Oh, Cilka, this has happened to you before, hasn’t it?’
‘Lift your head up, don’t look afraid.’
‘A moment ago you told me to be invisible.’
‘That was then, this is now; that’s how quickly things
can change.’
Cilka raises her own eyes towards the men.
Birkenau Administration Block, 1942
Cilka is sitting beside Gita, each working diligently, their eyes meeting fleetingly, small smiles shared. Cilka was pulled out of the selection line, and chosen for this work, rather than the Kanada. And she is grateful Gita is now working
here, too. But she hopes she can also get Magda into the
warmth, somehow. Gita’s hair is still cropped close to her head but for some reason Cilka has been allowed to grow
hers. It feathers down over her neck and ears.
She doesn’t see the two SS officers approach them and
with no warning she is grabbed by the arm, jerked to her
feet. As she is dragged away, she looks back at Gita, her eyes pleading. Every time they are separated it could be the last time they see each other. She sees an officer approach Gita and strike her across the head with her hand.
She tries to resist as she is dragged outside and across to the women’s camp. She is no match for the two men. It is
quiet in the camp – the women all out at work. They walk
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past the barracks where the women live until they come to an identical building, but this one is surrounded by a brick wall. Cilka feels bile rise in her throat. She has heard that this is where women go to die.
‘No . . . Please . . .’ she says. ‘What’s happening?’
There is a shiny car parked on the dirt road outside. The officers open the gate and go into the courtyard. One of the officers knocks loudly on the door to the left-hand building, and as the door opens they throw her inside, slamming it
behind her. Cilka is sprawled on a rough dirt floor and
standing in front of her, in front of row
s of empty crude wooden bunks, is the man she recognises from the selection, the senior officer, Schwarzhuber.
He is an imposing man and is rarely seen in the camp.
He taps his tall leather boot with his swagger stick. From an expressionless face he stares above Cilka’s head. She
backs up against the door, feeling for the door handle. In a flash, the swagger stick is hurled through the air and
strikes her hand. She cries out in pain as she slides down to the floor.
Schwarzhuber walks to her and picks up his stick. He
stands over her, dwarfing her. He breathes heavily as he
glares at her.
‘This will be your new home,’ he says. ‘Stand up.’
She gets to her feet.
‘Follow me.’
He takes her behind a wall where there is a small room
and an individual wooden-slatted bed with a mattress on it.
‘You know each block has a block leader?’ he says.
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‘Yes,’ she says.
‘Well, you are to be the leader of block twenty-five.’
Cilka has no words, no breath. How could she – how
could anybody – be expected to be the leader of this block?
This is the block where women spend their final hours
before being sent to the gas chamber. And will she ever see Magda, see Gita again? This is the most terrifying moment of her life.
‘You are very lucky,’ Schwarzhuber says.
Taking off his hat, he throws it across the room. With
his other hand he continues to hit his leg firmly with his stick. With every whack Cilka flinches, expecting to be
struck. He uses the stick to push up her shirt. Oh, Cilka thinks. So this is why. With shaking hands, she undoes the top two buttons. He then places his stick under her chin.
His eyes seem to see nothing. He is a man whose soul has
died and whose body is waiting to catch up with it.
He holds out both his arms and Cilka interprets this
gesture as ‘undress me’. Taking a step closer, still at arm’s length, she begins undoing the many buttons on his jacket.
A whack across her back hurries her up. He is forced to
drop his stick so she can slide his jacket off. Taking it from her, he throws it after his hat. He removes his own singlet.
Slowly, Cilka begins undoing his belt and the buttons
beneath it. Kneeling down, she pulls his boots off from over his breeches.
Pulling the second one off, she becomes unbalanced,
falling heavily on the bed as he pushes her. He straddles her. Terrified, Cilka attempts to cover herself as he tears her 31