I wasn’t supposed to be found. If you are reading these lines, it means that the wood gave way before my memory, that time has not managed to completely bury what I saw. My name is Lucienne Warman, I am 32 years old, a teacher in Reims, and I am writing in a place that should no longer exist in a civilized world.
The stones around me are thick and ancient. They have been the site of prayers for centuries. And yet, today, they remember something else . Something heavier than faith. I have neither a table nor a lamp, only a piece of worn pencil and its pages which I have kept against my chest.
The ink was diluted with dirty water because ink is lacking here, like everything else. I’m writing quickly because every footstep in the hallway could be the last I hear before he opens my door. I want someone to know. I want someone to be able to say one day that we existed as something other than a number in a vanished ledger.
On March 12, 1944, before dawn, they came to my house . I still remember the cold on the windowpanes, the silence of the street and the metallic sound against the door. Three shots first, then the butt of a rifle. I didn’t have time to get fully dressed. My neighbors opened their shutters a crack, but none of them spoke.
The soldiers searched the house methodically, overturning my classroom books, opening kitchen drawers, reading my students’ letters as if they were looking for weapons between the lines. They said they had received a denunciation. I never knew from whom. They handcuffed me in front of my own door. I didn’t shout.
I think I was already somewhere else. The military truck smelled of gasoline and mud. There were four of us women sitting on the metal floor, squeezing together so as not to fall at every turn. No one was speaking. We drove for a long time, leaving the city, crossing country roads until the silhouette of an old monastery appeared amidst bare trees.
The bells had been removed from the bell tower, the windows blocked. It was no longer a place of prayer, but a place of waiting. An officer was watching us at the entrance. He did not raise his voice. He spoke French calmly. It was more worrying than screams. His name was Klaus Reiter. He looked at us one by one like a teacher would look at an unruly class.
Then he said that we needed to cooperate for our own safety. We were led into a room lit by lamps hung too low. The stone floor was so cold that my feet immediately lost all feeling. That’s when they gave the order. We had to undress completely. Some hesitated, thinking it was just a routine check. But very quickly, we realized that this was not a simple exam.
The soldiers remained motionless around us. They were watching. The shame was not in the nudity itself, but in their gaze. in their stifled laughter, in the comments they made as if they were describing objects and not people. A young girl next to me was trembling so much that she couldn’t untie her dress.
A soldier helped him with a sudden movement. At that moment, I understood that something had just broken inside us. Not the body, but the place we still occupied in the world. We were no longer women, nor citizens, nor even prisoners of war. We had become matter. Then a German doctor came in. He asked no questions, explained no medical necessity.
The soldiers stayed to watch. I will not write the exact details here, only that this act had nothing to do with health. It was a lesson, a demonstration of power. One of us, Marguerite, fainted. They dragged him out of the room and we never saw him again . When it was all over, we were given rough clothes and led to cells in the basement.
The corridor was narrow, without windows. Each door closed with a heavy sound that echoed long after. In my cell, there was only a little damp straw and a wall sweating with water. I could hear another woman breathing behind the partition, but we couldn’t see each other. That night, I didn’t cry. I understood that crying would have meant accepting what he wanted to teach us. So, I decided to write.
If I were to disappear, these words would remain. And already in the corridor, I could hear their share returning for the following night. The night in the monastery was nothing like the night in the outside world. Up there, above those stones, there must still have been houses, lamps in the windows, perhaps even families sitting around a warm bowl of soup.
Here, night was not the absence of light, but waiting. The wait was so tense it seemed to vibrate through the walls. We quickly learned to recognize the hours without a clock. The most terrible moment was always the same, about 2 hours after the distribution of the meager evening meal when the silence of the building became total.
Then came the steps; he slowly descended the stone staircase. We couldn’t see anything from our cells, but the sound was clear, regular, impossible to mistake. The boots struck each step with precision, and that rhythm was enough to send a chill down your spine. Some women covered their ears, others murmured almost inaudible prayers.
I was counting not to reassure myself, but to prepare myself. The click of the key was always preceded by a short pause, as if the man behind the door was taking the time to listen to our fear before entering. The door opened, he never shouted. Officer Reiter simply pointed at a woman . No words, no motive. This simple gesture was worse than an order.
The prisoner would leave, often unable to walk properly, accompanied by two soldiers. The door closed and then the torment began for the one that remained: the imagination. We didn’t always hear shouts, sometimes nothing at all. And that silence was even more terrifying. After an immeasurable amount of time, the footsteps returned. The woman reappeared.
She moved slowly down the corridor, sometimes supported, sometimes alone, but always changed. No one asked any questions. She didn’t speak either. An invisible rule had taken hold. Surviving the night required silence. One evening, a prisoner named Claire, a librarian from Strasbourg, passed by my door.
The lamp in the hallway briefly illuminated her face. His left eye was swollen, his lip split, but that wasn’t the most visible injury; it was his gaze. She wasn’t looking at anything, not even the ground. She seemed to have left a part of herself elsewhere in that room at the end of the corridor. I then understood what Ritter was really after.
It wasn’t just physical pain, it was the transformation of solidarity into an unbearable burden. Each of us knew that the next one would be chosen. And when a woman returned without having screamed, we felt relief immediately followed by deep shame. She had suffered so that we might stay alive that night.
Thus I acquired a form of torture that I could never have imagined. We became witnesses to one another, and this silent witness tore us apart. A young seamstress, Anaïs, was taken away for three consecutive nights. The third time, she couldn’t even get up on her own. Two women helped him get back to his cell.
She sat against the wall and remained motionless until morning. No sobs, no complaints, only a shortness of breath. The next day, however, she shared her piece of bread with a sick prisoner. It was on that day that something unexpected happened. We started communicating. A light tap against the stone meant “I am still alive”.
Two knocks answered “Me too”. Sometimes, a whisper would pass through a crack in the wall. A crumb of bread slipped under the door meant to say hang in there . These gestures were tiny, almost invisible, but they prevented us from disappearing internally. Ritter wanted each of them to feel alone. We understood that remaining human required exactly the opposite.
Very late one night, someone started to sing softly. A barely audible French lullaby. Then another voice joined in, then a third. The guards heard nothing, but in the dark corridor, we were suddenly together, not free, not saved, but still present in the world. I wrote in this notebook then: “They can control our bodies, but they have not yet reached the place where compassion is born.
As long as we hear the voice of the other behind the stone, we will not be completely defeated.” I thought I understood the horror. I was wrong because a few weeks later they would find an even more cruel way. No longer to make us suffer ourselves, but to convince ourselves that the whole world had abandoned us. Spring arrived without color.
We cannot see the sky. However, we knew the season was changing. The air in the corridor became less sharp, the humidity heavier, and sometimes a distant smell of wet earth drifted down into the cellars. It was almost cruel because that smell was reminiscent of life. Up there, the trees were perhaps budding.
The markets were reopening, children were running in the streets while we remained motionless in the twilight. Then one morning, we were made to leave. This was the first time since our arrival that all the prisoners were gathered in the same place. The daylight blinded us. Several women instinctively raised their hands in front of their eyes.
Others simply cried without understanding why. The monastery courtyard was small, enclosed between high stone walls covered with ivy. A grey sky stretched above, immense after so many weeks underground. We were some who could barely stand. Their faces were gaunt, their clothes too big. Yet, in that moment of light, something resembling hope appeared.
Re arrived, accompanied by a young officer we had never seen before. He was wearing an impeccable uniform and was carrying a wooden crate. They set up a table in the center of the courtyard. Reitter observed each of us with the icy calm that characterized him. Then he announced in an almost gentle voice: “You are going to write to your families.
” A shiver ran through the group of letters. For a few seconds, no one spoke. Then muffled sobs arose. Some women clasped their hands together as if to thank God. After weeks of isolation, the idea of a loved one finding out that we were still alive seemed unreal. Paper, a pen, and ink were distributed. I held the sheet of paper between my trembling fingers.
I imagined my mother in Reince sitting by the window where she read every afternoon. She must have thought I was dead. Perhaps she had already gone through a period of mourning. Then Ritter explained the rules. We had to write exactly what he dictated. No mention of the monastery, no mention of the cells, no mention of the violence.
Only these sentences. I’m doing well. I am being treated properly. I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry. A woman timidly asked if she could add a few personal words. Reiter approached her slowly, leaned close to her ear and whispered something we couldn’t hear. The woman immediately recovered and began to write without discussion. I understood then.
The letter was n’t for our families, it was for us. I took up my pen. Every word burned my hand. Writing “I ‘m fine” when our nights were filled with fear made me feel like I was betraying the truth. However, I wrote because I knew that refusing would mean disappearing immediately. When all the sheets had been handed in, the officer carefully placed them in the box.
Reitter observed us for a long time. Your families will receive these letters very soon. We were taken back to the cells. That evening, the atmosphere was different. Some women spoke in hushed voices, imagining the reaction of their loved ones. A young mother smiled for the first time in weeks, convinced that her daughter finally knew she was still alive.
But I didn’t sleep during the night. I didn’t know why, but something sounded wrong, too perfect, too sudden. Reit never did anything without a reason. A few days later, the summonses began. They first called Jeune Viève, a schoolteacher. When she returned, she could barely walk . She sat against the wall, her gaze vacant.
I gently asked him what had happened. She did not answer immediately. Then she whispered, “They showed me a letter from my mother. She says that she disowns me, that she is ashamed of me, that I am a traitor.” She repeated phrases over and over, as if her mind refused to accept them. The next day, another inmate returned in tears.
Her husband announced that he was filing for divorce. A third group learned to hear more about her. The letters all arrived with frightening precision, written in an almost authentic, familiar style . The court sank into a silence heavier than ever. I then understood the magnitude of the trap. They had falsified the answers.
They didn’t just want to isolate us physically. He wanted to sever the last link that connected us to the world. If he convinced us that no one was waiting for us, all resistance would become useless. Some women stopped eating, others stopped speaking. One prisoner remained facing the wall for two whole days without moving.
She died shortly afterwards, officially of illness, but we knew the truth. She had died of neglect. I reread the letter that had been given to me. It supposedly came from my mother. However, one detail troubled me. My mother always ended her letters with “Your loving mother.
” Here, it was simply written “Mother”. So, I observed every line, an unusual expression, a false piece of information about the family home. Gradually, the evidence became clear. It was a lie. I began to whisper my doubts to the others very discreetly through the cracks in the wall. One woman noticed that the handwriting wasn’t exactly her husband’s, another that her sister would never have used certain words.
A fragile spark, reborn. The following night, we started again with the small taps on the stone, but this time it carried a different message. He’s lying. We’re waiting for you. For the first time in a long time , I felt something returning. No joy, not yet, but a silent strength. And Riter, without realizing it, had just lost what he most wanted to destroy: our reason for surviving.
A few days after the discovery of the lie in the letters, the monastery’s atmosphere changed as if the stones themselves were holding their breath. The guards spoke faster among themselves. Their voices became nervous and sometimes, very far away, we could hear a low rumble coming from the horizon. At first, I thought it was a thunderstorm, but these sounds came back every night, more regular, heavier.
The bombings were approaching. We knew nothing about the war. However, we understood that a huge event was brewing outside. What, for the world, perhaps meant liberation, meant the opposite for us, the impatience of our pretty ones. Riter became more present in the corridors. He still wasn’t shouting, but his eyes were observing every detail, every gesture.
He knew that something was still eluding us, a part of us that he couldn’t break. One night, we were all woken up at the same time. The doors opened abruptly, the lamps were switched on without warning, and the soldiers ordered everyone to leave immediately. Some women could no longer stand. They were pulled by their arms. We were led not into the courtyard, but even lower down by a staircase we had never used before.
The air was becoming increasingly cold, humid, almost unbreathable. The smell of mold and stagnant water filled my throat. We arrived in a large vaulted cellar, probably a former wine cellar. The ground was covered with a thin film of icy water. Reiter was already waiting for us in the center of the room, illuminated by a hanging lantern.
Around him, four soldiers held batons. He calmly declared that a conspiracy existed among us, that some prisoners were passing on information, and that he would discover the culprit. We knew it was false, but the truth didn’t matter here. He ordered us to kneel in the water. The cold was immediate, cutting like glass.
Some women moaned involuntarily. He walked slowly past each one, raising the lamp to face level, scrutinizing their eyes with almost scientific attention. At each stop, he asked the same question in an even voice. “Are you lying to me ?” may provide the answer. After every whisper, every silence, or every plea, a blow fell.
The lantern struck his forehead. Then the soldiers intervened, striking methodically without haste. It was not an explosion of violence, but a ritual. The lectures echoed in the cellar with a dull, regular sound. A woman lost consciousness. They woke her up by throwing water in her face so that the session could continue. I was waiting my turn.
The cold had numbed my legs, but my mind was becoming strangely clear. I understood that this scene had only one purpose: to force us to accuse each other , to offer a name so that the pain would stop. Some began to beg, not to be freed, but for the beating of others to stop. When he stopped in front of me, the light blinded me.
I looked up at him. I no longer had the strength to be afraid. He asked the question: “I knew that nothing would change my destiny. So, I simply replied that I wasn’t lying and that even if he made me disappear, someone would remember.” An unusual silence followed. The soldiers stopped moving for a moment.
Reiter looked at me for a long time then gave a very slight, almost satisfied smile. He murmured that he didn’t need to confess. only examples. He made a sign, I was roughly pulled up and, instead of being taken back with the others, I was led towards an unknown corridor. The other women stayed behind me, their gaze filled with a certainty that I shared.
I probably won’t be back. A low door was opened . It was completely dark . I was pushed inside. The door closed immediately, leaving a final metallic sound. The cell was so small that I couldn’t hold it upright. No bed, no straw, only damp stone. The darkness was complete, absolute. I held my hands out in front of me but couldn’t see anything.
Time disappeared almost immediately. I no longer knew if the hours were passing or if everything had stopped. Thirst was the first pain, then the cold, then the fatigue. To keep from losing my mind, I mentally repeated the names of the women I had known, their faces, their voices.
I took out my notebook, which had been hidden under my clothes. In total darkness, I continued to write, guided only by the memory of the gesture. I wrote that as long as these words existed, we would exist. And just as I was finishing these lines, I heard through the stone a very light knock, a discreet knock against the wall, then a second one. They were still there.
Me too. I don’t know how long I was in that cell. In total darkness, hours cease to exist . There is no longer morning or night, only fatigue and waiting. At first, I counted my breaths to measure time, but soon even that became impossible. Thirst dried my throat so much that every swallow hurt. My lips were bleeding.
I tried to collect the moisture from the walls with my fingers, but the water tasted of earth and rust and my body rejected it almost immediately. Hunger was slower, more insidious. She didn’t scream like she was in pain. It simply emptied the mind, weakened the will. Yet, something kept me awake. Every day, or what I imagined to be a day, I heard a signal: two small taps against the stone.
very faint, almost imaginary. The other women knew where I was. They couldn’t see me, couldn’t help me, but she reminded me that I wasn’t alone. I responded by gently tapping the wall with my weakened fist. This invisible dialogue became my only anchor in the world. For a moment, I heard an almost inaudible whisper through a crack, a voice I recognized as Anaïs’s.
She simply murmured, “Here again!” Then silence returned. Those two words were more powerful than an entire meal. After what seemed like several days, the door finally opened. The light burned my eyes. I fell almost immediately, unable to bear the glare of the lamp. Two soldiers helped me up without any particular brutality, but without any compassion either.
My legs refused to support me. They dragged me to the corridor. Ritter was waiting for me. He looked at me for a long time, no doubt observing the effects of isolation. His face showed neither anger nor satisfaction, only a cold curiosity like a doctor examining a result. He calmly asked if I was ready to talk.
I understood that he was hoping for “no” answers, an accusation, anything that would justify what he was doing. I simply replied that I had nothing to say. He remained silent for a moment. Then he declared that some people resist longer than others, but that no one resists forever. He ordered that I be taken back to the others.
When I returned to the communal cell, the women looked at me as if I had returned from another world. They asked no questions. Claire immediately gave me some of her bread. I wanted to take it, but she gently insisted. That piece was more than food. It was an act of resistance. Yet I noticed something different.
The monastery was no longer as quiet as before. The guards ran more often in the corridors. Sometimes we heard trucks arriving and then leaving. Voices were tense. One night, a soldier dropped a crate on the stairs and swore nervously, “We understand that war is truly approaching.” Then the disappearances began. Some women were summoned and didn’t return, not like before.
Before, they would return wounded, broken, but alive. Now, some doors opened and remained empty. No one explained anything. The guards even avoided our gaze. One evening, Claire was summoned. She She got up very slowly. Before leaving, she looked at me and murmured almost voicelessly, “If he takes me far away and screams that I existed.
” I promised him. It was the only promise possible here. She didn’t come back. That night, no one slept. We all understood that something was changing. The bombings were closer, and our belligerents seemed intent on erasing all traces of our presence. The idea gradually took hold, terrible and clear.
He didn’t intend to let us bear witness. I picked up my notebook and wrote down every name I could remember, every detail of the monastery, every face. If we disappeared, these pages would have to survive. And just as I finished, the sirens wailed in the distance for the first time, a long sound rising into the night.
Even the guards stopped marching. War was finally knocking at the monastery’s door. But we still didn’t know if it was coming to save us or condemn us forever. The following days were dominated by a new noise, a rumble. a constant, unsettling feeling that no longer stemmed solely from our fears, but from the real world.
The monastery walls sometimes vibrated slightly, and fine dust fell from the vaulted ceilings onto the damp straw of our cells. The guards tried to maintain their discipline, but we could see their hands tremble as they lit their cigarettes. Some spoke among themselves in hushed tones, believing we didn’t understand German.
But the words kept recurring: Front, advance, bombardment. One night, a closer explosion made the corridor lamp flicker, and for the first time, we heard a soldier run—actually run, without the calculated slowness they had always displayed before us. We tensed then, knowing that the war was no longer far away. Yet this proximity didn’t bring peace; it brought a disturbing urgency.
Reit walked past each cell more often, observing, counting, checking our faces as if he feared we would disappear before him. Then the preparations began. Crates were We went downstairs, files were carried away, and the acrid smell of burning paper rose up the stairs. They were destroying the archives.
That same evening, two women were taken away without explanation. The next day, three more. The silence that followed each departure was heavier than the blows of the past. We no longer cried, for crying meant admitting that there was no hope left. And yet, each of us understood what that meant. They were erasing the witnesses.
I felt a decision forming within me then, calm and final. If I was to die, my story must live on. I took advantage of a moment when a distracted guard hadn’t properly closed the distribution door to slip a few pages of my notebook under the stone I’d found near the floor, but I kept the rest close to me, sewn inside my dress with a thread torn from the hem.
The following night, we were all abruptly awakened. No roll call, no interrogation. We were ordered to leave immediately. Some women could no longer walk, and the soldiers helped them up. without unnecessary violence, as if they no longer had time for their usual brutality. In the courtyard, a truck waited with its engine running.
The sky was a uniform gray, and a cold wind blew between the walls. Re watched us one last time. His face expressed neither hatred nor anger, only a strange weariness. He announced that we would be transferred. No location was named. We climbed into the covered vehicle. Through a tear in the tarpaulin, I saw the monastery slowly receding into the distance.
For the first time in months, I saw fields, trees, houses. Life went on, indifferent. Some women wept silently, watching this world that was no longer theirs. The journey lasted for hours. We huddled together to avoid falling from the jolt. No one spoke. Fear had become too great for words. Finally, the doors opened in front of an isolated train station.
Cattle cars were waiting. We were immediately squeezed together. The transfer did not mean liberation, but something of Worse. We were made to get off. In the distance, another airplane roared, and the soldiers instinctively raised their heads to the sky. For a few seconds, their authority seemed fragile, almost human. Then the order was given.
We boarded the train cars. The air was heavy, there were no seats, no light, only a small, barred opening high above . The door closed with a sharp metallic clang. In the darkness, a woman took my hand. I didn’t see her face, but I recognized Anaïs’s voice. She whispered that if any of us survived, she would have to tell everything we had seen.
I promised her. The train started moving slowly, the wheels squealed on the rails, and the monastery disappeared forever behind us. No one knew where we were going, but deep down , I felt that this journey would decide not only our lives, but also the fate of my testimony. The train traveled for hours, perhaps days.
In the darkness of the train car, time It ceased to make sense. We were packed so tightly that we couldn’t all sit down at the same time, denying it. The air quickly became stifling. The small, barred opening let in a sliver of pale light and a bit of icy air, and each of us tried to approach it in turn, without arguing, with an almost solemn slowness.
Thirst was the first enemy. Our lips grew dry, our voices hoarse, and the murmurs gradually died away. Some women were gently delirious, calling for their children or reciting forgotten prayers. Others remained silent, conserving their strength just to stay upright. I continued to hold my notebook to my chest.
At times, I feared a soldier would open the door and discover it, but the door almost never opened. Only once did it slide open abruptly so that a bucket of water and some scraps of paint could be thrown onto the floor . Several women They did n’t even have the strength to bend down to pick up their share.
We shared everything instinctively. A sip of water passed from hand to hand like a sacred object. At night, if it was night, Anaïs grew very weak. She leaned against me, her head resting on my shoulder. Her breathing became irregular. She asked me to describe her mother. I had only seen her once, as a child.
Yet I described her at length, almost inventing details to give her an image of freedom. She smiled slightly. Then she murmured that she probably wouldn’t have the strength to go any further, but that it didn’t matter if someone else told the story. Her hand tightened on mine, then slowly loosened. She remained still. No one cried out.
We knew that drawing attention to ourselves wouldn’t change anything. When the door opened again, the soldiers removed several bodies without a word. They didn’t look at our faces. We no longer existed for them. Prisoners, only transport. Finally, the train slowed. The wheels screeched for a long time before stopping.
The door burst open , letting in a cold, gray light, barked orders, dogs, the sharp clatter of boots on gravel. We got off one by one, blinded, unable to immediately understand where we were. Before us stretched a vast space surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers, rows of wooden barracks, a continuous plume of smoke rising into the distance, and a pungent odor hanging in the air.
This was not a detention center; it was a camp. We were lined up. An officer walked past us, quickly scanning each face . A wave of the hand determined our direction. Some women were sent to the right, others to the left. I had no idea what these choices meant, but I understood they were irreversible. I was given a number. No one spoke.
My name was gone. Our hair was shaved. The strands fell to the ground, carrying with them the last vestiges of our former lives. We were given clothes that were too big, striped, and wooden clogs that hurt our feet with every step. Then we were led into a dark barracks where figures already there watched us in silence.
Their eyes were those of people who had understood something we didn’t. The first night, I heard neither interrogation nor blows, only the trump card, labored breathing, and in the distance, a continuous sound like a heavy wind. A prisoner whispered that we were at Ravensbrück. I didn’t know the name, but the way she pronounced it was enough.
I realized then that the monastery had been just a stopover. I secretly took out my notebook and wrote despite my trembling hands. I wrote the names of those who were no longer there, the journey, Anaïs, the train, the arrival. For I finally understood: here, people didn’t just disappear.
Not only that, they were forgotten. And if I stopped writing, we would truly disappear. In Ravensbrück, the days were no longer days, but a succession of order and exhaustion. Morning began before light. A trident-like sifless jolted us from sleep, if one could call those few moments of unconsciousness induced by exhaustion sleep.
We went out immediately for roll call, motionless in the cold, sometimes for hours. The wind cut through thin clothing, and many trembled uncontrollably. Some women could no longer stand. They were helped up, supported discreetly, because falling often meant never getting up again. I was no longer Lucienne Warman, the schoolteacher from Reince.
I was a number sewn onto a rough jacket. Yet, in my mind, I repeated my name every morning. I murmured it silently so as not to forget it. It was my last possession. Work occupied everything else. We carried stones, loads too heavy for our forces or standing for hours performing mechanical tasks under the constant watch of the guards.
The end never left us. The black bread and thin soup were merely a fragile sustain of life. The women spoke little, not for lack of thought, but because speaking cost energy. Yet even then, something remained. In the evenings, when we were crammed into the barracks, some still murmured memories.
One spoke of her garden, another of her son’s voice, yet another of the color of the mother she had seen only once. These stories were more important than the food. They kept us from becoming merely what the camp wanted us to be: anonymous figures. I continued to write. I did it at night, hidden between two bunks, using a tiny piece of pencil I found near a workshop.
My hands trembled with fatigue, but I traced each word carefully. I wrote for those who could no longer. I wrote for Anaïs, for Claire, for Jeun Viève, for all those whose names risked disappearing with us. I knew I would probably never see my mother again. I didn’t even know if the war would end before my own, but I understood now why I had to keep going.
One winter evening, a very weak prisoner asked me what I was writing. I told her I was simply describing what we were experiencing. She closed her eyes for a moment and whispered, “So, we won’t die completely .” Those words stayed with me. Weeks passed. Some women disappeared after illness, others after a roll call from which they never returned. I noted every absence.
This notebook became heavy not because of its weight, but because of what it contained. Proof that we had existed. Then one day something changed. First, rumors circulated, almost impossible to believe: bombings nearby, guards even more nervous, contradictory orders. One night, the sirens wailed.
longer than usual. In the distance, muffled thumps resonated without interruption. The guards shouted more than they commanded. I understood that the war was coming to an end, but for us, that also meant danger. Several convoys left the camp hurriedly. Many prisoners were taken away; no one knew where. I made a decision then.
Taking advantage of a moment of disorder, I hid my notebook in a crack in the floor of an old storage building where I had been sent to clean. I slid it in deep, as far as my fingers would allow. Then I wrote a final sentence in charcoal on the last page. If anyone finds these words, know that we were alive, that we were afraid, but that we had also hoped.
I put the board back in place. The next day, we were assembled for another transfer. I no longer had the notebook, but I was no longer afraid of losing it. It was now out of reach of those who wanted to erase everything. I don’t know what happened next to Me. My strength was waning, and my memories became hazy from that point on.
Maybe I fell on the road. Maybe I simply closed my eyes one night and never opened them again. But it didn’t matter the same anymore. Years later, someone lifted a forgotten board. They found fragile pages written by a trembling hand that refused to be silent. So, finally, we split open.
If you’re reading these words, remember, we weren’t just victims of a war. We were women with names, faces, lives cut short. And as long as someone repeats our names, the world we lost isn’t completely extinguished. Yeah.
