The door opened. Two figures blocked the faint moonlight. One of them pointed at me and said my number, not my name. Number 34. I got up slowly, my body heavy, my heart pounding. The other women looked at me with pity and relief that they were not her. I was led out of the barracks.
I crossed the courtyard covered in dirty snow, passed through the inner gates of the camp until we reached a wooded area at the edge of the perimeter. A place I had never seen before. I didn’t ask for anything. The questions were dangerous. I simply walked. When we stopped, I noticed there were other people there. dark silhouettes between the trees, smoking, waiting.
One of the guards pushed me forward. Another man grabbed my wrists and began tying them with a thick, rough rope. I tried to pull instinctively, but he squeezed harder and snarled something in German that I didn’t understand. They took me to two nearby trees, tied my left wrist to one, my right to the other, and pulled the ropes until my arms were fully stretched.
My body suspended between the trees like a grotesque, pregnant fig tree. The pain in my shoulders was immediate and unbearable. My stomach felt like a stone. I tried to put my feet on the ground, but the snow was deep and slippery. I took a deep breath, trying not to panic. “If you panic, you die,” I repeated to myself.
If you shout, they’ll like it. Don’t give them what they want. I stood there, suspended, trembling, while I heard muffled laughter and conversations in German around me. They weren’t in a hurry, they were having fun. One of them spat near my feet, another lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in my direction. I closed my eyes and tried to disconnect from my body.
A technique I had learned during the first few weeks of camp. Imagine that I was somewhere else, in my mother’s kitchen, listening to the ticking of my father’s clock, smelling the scent of fresh bread. But the pain wouldn’t allow it . The pain brought me back. I don’t know how long I stayed there. Maybe twenty minutes, maybe an hour.
Time loses its meaning when you are suspended between trees with frozen hands and the baby kicking inside you as if asking to be let out of this nightmare. My fingers were numb. My vision was beginning to darken at the edges. I knew I was going to faint and then I heard footsteps approaching, different footsteps, more hesitant.
I opened my eyes. A young soldier stood in front of me, holding a knife. He didn’t say anything, he just looked at me. Her eyes were brown, deep, filled with something I couldn’t name. It wasn’t hatred, it wasn’t desire, it was horror. He looked at my stomach, then at my tied hands, then at the other soldiers who were watching from a distance, waiting for the show to continue.
Then he took a step forward, raised the knife, and I closed my eyes, waiting for the blade. But what I felt was the rope loosening. He cut the rope from my left wrist first, then the one from my right, and my body collapsed into the snow. I fell to my knees, breathing in uncontrolled sobs, my hands burning with the blood that was starting to flow again.
He crouched down beside me and whispered something in French with a heavy accent. Get up, quickly, walk. I watched it without understanding. He held out his hand, I took it. He pulled me up and started to lead me towards the camp, but not in the direction of the barracks. He veered off to the side between the trees, away from the other guards who were now shouting behind us. He did not run.
He walked firmly, holding my arm tightly, but without hurting me, as if he were simply following orders. We went through a side fence that had a poorly repaired hole. He pushed me through and passed behind me and suddenly we were on the other side of the camp in the darkness of the forest.
