My name is Elena Vasilyeva. Now I 67 years old. The year on the calendar is 1990. I’m sitting at the windows of my apartment, I look at the gray autumn rain that washes away dust from Moscow streets, and I understand that it’s mine time is running out. Doctors say that the heart is tired, but they don’t know what’s on in fact my heart stopped still half a century ago.

All these years I lived like shadow. I learned to smile. I went out married I worked. I went to the shops for bread. But inside of me there was always that one the other Elena, the one who stayed there behind barbed wire. I was silent for 45 years. I was silent because the shame was stronger desire to speak. I was silent because I was afraid that if I told the truth, people will see me not as a victim, but as something dirty, something that is not allowed touch.

But today I have to do. I’m writing this because I don’t want to take this secret to the grave. My husband Andrey died 3 years ago, never having found out what I was hiding under my high the collars of their dresses. He thought that I’m just shy, which I don’t like open clothes due to a burn scar, how I lied to him on our first marriage night.

But it wasn’t a burn, it was brand. Words embossed in ink underneath skins that determined my destiny. The words that turned my beauty into curse. I want to tell you how it was. Like an eighteen year old a girl who loved poetry and the smell of the fields flowers, turned into a living commodity. I I want to tell you about the price we paid for being young.

Before when the sky turned black with smoke, I lived in a small village near Smolensk. It was the time that now it seems to me like a dream seen in another life. My world was simple and clean. I remember the smell of old books in rural library where my Father Mikhail. He was quiet an intelligent man who believed that enlightenment will save the world from cruelty.

How wrong was he? I remember how he adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose and read Chekhov aloud to me in the evenings, while Mom darned socks by the kerosene light lamps. I dreamed of becoming a nurse. to me I wanted to help people, relieve pain. I imagined myself in white starched robe walking on light hospital corridors.

I was naive, I I was happy. I was 18 years old in 1941 year. In the village they said that I blossomed. The neighbors joked that soon from the suitors there will be no lights out. I had long ones brown hair that I braided in a tight braid, and eyes the color of flax. I loved look at yourself in a little shaking mirror in the hallway, straightening the broken one strand.

I didn’t know then what exactly it was face, these eyes, this youth will become my verdict. I didn’t know what beauty was may be more dangerous than the disease. I remember that summer, hot, stuffy, filled the buzz of bees. And then the buzz has changed. It became low, rumbling, scary. It wasn’t bees, it was airplanes with black crosses on the wings.The war did not come to us immediately.

She sneaking up like a predator. At first there were rumors, refugees with bundles of things, frightened eyes of women passing through our village. Then somewhere in the distance rumbled. The father became gloomy. He forbade me to go far from home. “Elena,” he said to me, squeezing my hand with your dry, warm fingers.

“If they come, you must hide go straight to the cellar and sit there quietly, like mouse”. I nodded, but didn’t fully believe it, that this could happen to us. Evil seemed something distant, bookish. They entered our village in October. First we heard motorcycles. Engines crackle tore through the silence of the morning like a rough fabric.

Barking dogs. Alien barking speech. Germans. I I remember how my father pushed me into the cellar, where we stored potatoes and pickles. There it smelled of dampness and earth. “Sit here, Lena, don’t come out until I I’ll call you,” he whispered. His face was white as chalk. He closed the hatch cover and threw it on top old rug I was left in the dark.

I I heard the footsteps of heavy boots overhead. I heard the floorboards of our at home. I heard my father’s voice trying to explain something in broken German. A then I heard a blow, dull, heavy the sound of a falling body and silence. I sat there for what seems like an eternity. Cold penetrated under my thin dress.

But I don’t dared to move. I wanted scream, call dad, but fear shackles throat with an icy hand. Then the manhole cover swung open suddenly. The light hit me eyes, blinded me. I closed my eyes covered her face with her hands. Strong hands They grabbed me by the collar and pulled me out up like a kitten. I saw before of a young soldier in a gray uniform.

He looked at me in surprise, and then his lips stretched into a smile. He’s up to something shouted to his comrades. I didn’t understand words, but the intonation was clear. He found trophy I was pushed out onto the street. The house was turned upside down. Father’s books were lying in the mud.

The pages were fluttering the wind like stricken birds. It’s already outside gathered other women and girls. I I saw Svetlana, my childhood friend, with which we ran to the river together. She knelt in the dust. Her dress was torn on the shoulder. She cried silently swaying from side to side. I I looked for my father with my eyes, and I found him.

He lay at the porch with his face on the ground. His glasses lay nearby. One glass was broken. I wanted to rush to him, but the soldier hit me with the butt of a rifle between shoulder blades “Worverts!” – he barked. “Forward! We were herded into the back of a truck, like cattle. It was cramped. We snuggled to each other, trembling with cold and horror.

I clung to Svetlana. She grabbed me by the hand so tightly that the nails dug into skin. “Lena, what will happen to us?” – she whispered. I didn’t know what to answer. I looked at the retreating house, at the body father, which was becoming smaller and smaller less until it disappeared into the cloud road dust. At that moment I was not yetcried. Everything inside me froze.

I turned into stone. The road was long. We were brought to the railway station station. There were already carriages there, the same ones for transporting livestock, which are now became a symbol of our death. Us They pushed 60, 70 people inside. There was not enough air, it smelled like urine and sweat. old iron.

When a heavy door closed with a roar and we plunged into twilight, someone shouted: “It was a scream animal horror.” The train started moving. We drove several days. I lost track of time. Day took turns at night, but always stood in the carriage dusk We slept standing or sitting on squatting, leaning on each other. Water They almost didn’t give it. The thirst was excruciating.

The tongue is swollen and stuck to the roof of the mouth. In the corner An old woman was dying in the carriage. She she was delirious and calling for her children. Nobody could help her. We’re all slow stopped being people. The shame disappeared. When the bucket that served as the toilet overflowed, its contents splashed onto the floor with every push trains. We stood in this mud.

But the most That wasn’t the scary thing. The worst thing it was the way the guards looked at us, when the doors opened on rare occasions parking lots. They shined flashlights at us faces. They chose. I remember one stop somewhere in Poland. SS officer tall, with spotless collar, walked along the line, when we were kicked out for some air and carry out the dead.

He walked slowly tapping the shoe on the boot. He stopped opposite me. I lowered eyes looking at his dirty shoes. He raised my chin with the tip of the stack. I I was forced to look him in the eyes. They were cold, watery blue, completely empty. He looked at me like horse at the fair, turned my face left, right, said something to my assistant, he wrote something down in a notepad.

That’s when I first felt this sticky, appraising gaze, from which I wanted to rip my skin off. He doesn’t saw me as a person, an enemy, or even workforce. He saw something different. Shn,” he said quietly. Beautiful. This sounded like a curse. We have arrived in Ravensbrück at night, dogs barking.

Shepherd dogs they tore from their leashes, splashing with saliva. Shouts: “Schnell! Schnell! Spotlight light, cutting through the darkness! We were unloaded from carriages with blows and kicks. Those who don’t could go, they killed on the spot. I saw how that old woman from ours fell carriage. The shot sounded dry and casually.

Svetlana grabbed me, her shook. “Don’t look, Lena, don’t look,” she whispered. But I looked. I have to I had to remember everything. We were driven to large area. There were barracks around and high fences with barbed wire. I felt a strange sweet smell smoke. Back then I didn’t know what it was human flesh burns. We were ordered undress right there in the cold under the light of spotlights.

“Everyone undress naked, leave all your things,” he shoutedtranslator. The women cried and tried cover yourself with your hands. The shame was unbearable but the lashes quickly forced us submit. We took off our clothes last defense, our last connection with past world. I stood on the icy ground, trembling cold and humiliation.

There were hundreds of naked people around me frightened bodies: young, old, thin, full. But the guards weren’t looking at everyone. They walked between the rows, selecting our decorations, if anyone managed to get them hide. They tore off the crosses. Then the procedure began, which was supposed to completely kill the personality in us.

Us cut their hair roughly with clippers that They tore out their hair in clumps. I saw how my long brown hair, my pride fell on the dirty concrete floor, mixing with other people’s hair. When it was my turn, I closed my eyes. I felt the cold metal of the machine on to your skin. A minute later I held my hand on the head. There was a prickly hedgehog there.

I looked at Svetlana. She was bald. the ears seemed huge and defenseless. We have become the same, gray, faceless creatures. But even without hair, even in dirt and humiliation they continued watch. After a shower of ice and sickly, we were given striped robes. The fabric was rough and scratched the skin. On wooden pads on the feet, which They rubbed the calluses until they bled.

We were driven into quarantine block. There were no beds only straw on the floor, swarming in the sham. We lay down, huddled together, trying to keep at least a drop of warmth. I don’t I could fall asleep. I listened to heavy breathing hundreds of women, coughing, moaning. I was thinking about father, about his broken glasses.

And I thought about that officer at the station, about his word Shn. The first weeks in the camp merged into one an endless nightmare of hunger and work. Get up at 4 am. Opel, roll call, on where we stood for hours in the rain or snow. If someone fell, they beat him or poisoned by dogs. Breakfast, cloudy warm water, which they called coffee. Then work.

We dragged stones, carried carts with earth. Hands covered with blisters that burst and festered. My back hurt so much that… it seemed like the spine was now will crumble. But I was young. My body accustomed to village work, resisted death. I tried to be unnoticeable. I slouched, I got my face dirty soot to appear uglier and older.

I instinctively felt it was dangerous here to be noticeable, it’s dangerous to be here attractive. There was a woman among us named Olga. She was older maybe maybe forty years old. Worked before the war doctor in Leningrad. She managed to get to work at Revere, camp infirmary. Sometimes in the evenings she brought us a piece of extra bread or a rag to bandage wounds.

Olga looked at me with pity and concern. One day when we stood in line for gruel, liquid soup made from rotten rutabaga, she approached close to me and whispered, almostunclenching his lips. Elena, don’t wash my face too carefully. Don’t look up at the officers. Try to look sick. Do you understand me? I nodded, although not completely understood the full depth of her warning.

“They are looking,” she added. And in her I saw real fear in my eyes. They come and choose for other purposes, for special houses. I didn’t know what it was special houses, but I soon found out. In the camp there were rumors. They whispered scary stories about women taken from the barracks and which were never returned to general work.

They said that they are fed better, but they have eyes dead. They were called dolls. I drove away from yourself these thoughts. I only thought about how to survive until the evening, how not to fall on opele, how to warm frozen fingers. But you can’t escape fate, as mine said grandmother.

This day came 3 months later after my arrival. It was icy January 1942. The wind penetrated to the bones. We were lined up on the parade ground not for work. This was a special selection. Along the rows unusual guards walked with cages, and SS officers and doctors in white robes Among them was one who everyone was more afraid of fire.

Abersturm Bannfuehrer Wagner, tall, fit, with a face that could be beautiful, if not for the cruel fold at the mouth. He walked slowly, looking carefully at prisoners’ faces. I stood in the second row, trying to hide behind high polka. I lowered my head pulled her neck into her shoulders. My heart was pounding so loud that it seemed to me that he was knocking can be heard throughout the entire parade ground.

Wagner stopped. He said something, and the polka stepped aside. He saw me. I I felt his gaze physically, like the touch of cold metal. He made a finger gesture. Comher, come here. My legs became weak. Svetlana, standing nearby, gently pushed me. I took a step forward. Wagner came close to me. He smelled good tobacco, adecologne and leather.

This smell of cleanliness and satiety was unbearable among the washed bodies and death. He took my chin with his hand leather glove and lifted my face. He looked for a long time. He looked at mine cheekbones, my eyes, the shape of my mouth. He doesn’t saw in the neck, he did not see the dirt. He saw what was underneath it.

He saw that one Elena, who looked in the mirror in parental home. “Viltbistu” – he asked. “How old are you?” I was silent. I forgot German, which taught at school. I forgot everything. 18- I croaked in Russian. Translator quickly translated. Wagner smiled. This was not a person’s smile, it was the grin of a collector who finds a rare one copy.

He turned to the doctor standing next to the tablet, and said a phrase that is forever etched in me memory. The phrase that became the beginning my end. Too pretty for work. sorry let her rot here. Then he looked at me again, and his gazeslid lower to my chest, hidden under dirty robo. “Oakist zushen umfreyzusain,” he said quietly, almost intimate.

“You’re too beautiful to be free.” He checked something off the list. doctor I was separated from the others. me and several more girls, young with delicate facial features, those who, despite for hunger, retained the remnants of the former cuteness. We were not taken to a barracks, we were taken to side of the brick building we Previously they were only seen from afar.

Svetlana remained in service. I looked back and saw her eyes full of horror and tears. She I understood, but I didn’t. I walked and the snow creaked under my wooden blocks. I I thought they were leading us to execution. I I prayed that it was an execution, because that the unknown was worse than a bullet. We were taken to a room with a tiled floor.

It was warm there. It’s warm after months the cold seemed like paradise to me. But it was hell The room smelled of bottles and alcohol. There were instruments not for torture on the table in the usual sense. Medical tools, needles, ink. Us forced to undress. This shame again. But there was no crowd here now.

Just us five trembling girls and they are men in uniform and white coats. Wagner sat on chair, crossing his legs and smoking. He observed. A nurse came up to us a rude woman with a stone face. She She ordered me to sit on a high stool. I sat down. My feet didn’t reach the floor. I felt like a little girl scary doctor’s office, but this the doctor was not going to treat me.

Doctor came up to me. He had in his hands a machine that looks like a thick pen with needle at the end. She was buzzing like crazy wasp I cringed. Don’t move, Russian “pig,” he said calmly in German. He rubbed the skin on my left breast alcohol. The coldness of cotton wool, and then the pain. Burning, sharp pain, as if I was Hundreds of wasps stung at the same time.

I screamed. Wagner laughed. Be patient, – he said. Now you belong to the Reich. We must put a seal of quality. I watched the needle enter my skin, leaving behind a black trail. Blood appeared in small droplets, mixing with ink. I bit my lips so as not to scream, tasting your own blood in the mouth. Letter by letter. F, E, L, D.

I I didn’t know what that meant yet. I saw only pain and black lines, disfiguring my white skin. It took forever. When the buzzing stopped, the doctor wiped blood and covered the area with a band-aid. But I I managed to see it. Two words and a series of numbers underneath them. We were taken to a separate barracks.

There there were beds with sheets. They gave me food there real soup with a piece of meat. I was watching to this soup and I felt sick. I understood that this is a fee. Advance for what they are they were going to do to us. I lay down on bed, curled up, and she pressed her hand to her chest burning with fire.

Under bandage, under the skin forever remained these words. I didn’t know their translation yet,but I felt their heaviness. I stopped to be Elena Vasilievna. I stopped to be human. I became a thing with inventory number and purpose. In that I didn’t sleep that night. I listened to the silence of this strange, privileged barracks and cried. Not about the death of his father, not about the house.

I I cried for myself, for that girl who I dreamed of becoming a nurse. That girl died today in the office with tiled floor. All that’s left is shell. The beautiful shell they decided to use it. Too beautiful to be free – Wagner’s voice sounded in my head. Now I I realized that my beauty has become my cage, my curse.

And this tattoo on chest was the key that locked this cage forever. Tomorrow a new one will begin life. Life you can’t talk about out loud. Life I’ll try forget the next 50 years. But the ink is underneath are not washed off by the skin. They are eternal witnesses of my shame. First morning in the new barracks began not with a siren, but with which made the blood run cold, but from silence.

Strange cotton silence. I opened my eyes and saw above me not rotten boards upper bunks, and clean whitewashed ceiling. For a second I thought I died and ended up in some strange purgatory. But then the pain in my chest brought me back to reality. She was pulsating under bandage, hot and angry.

I sat down on beds. I was wearing a nightgown. Not rough striped robo, and soft fabric. It was so unnatural, so It’s wrong that I was shaking. In the corner there was a mirror in the room. In the camp of mirrors there wasn’t. We forgot our faces. Right here it stood like a mockery. I approached on his weak legs.

I was afraid look, but should have known. I I slowly peeled off the patch. The skin was inflamed, red, but black letters appeared clearly, as if printed in printing houses. Felhur. I ran my finger over the letters, feeling them relief. I didn’t know German that much ok to understand the exact meaning second word. But I heard the first one.

Field. Field. Who? The answer came through hour The door opened and she walked in matron. It was not the one who beat us with a whip parade ground It was in its purest form, with styled hair. Her name was Frau Elsa. She looked around us, me and others nine girls selected yesterday cold business look.

She doesn’t screamed. She spoke calmly, like housewife instructing servants. “You “We’re not here to carry stones.” – she said, walking between beds. The Reich takes care of its own soldiers. Soldiers need rest. You are theirs rest. She stopped in front of me noticing my gaze riveted to hers lips. She grinned.

Are you looking at your breasts, honey. Don’t you understand? She switched to broken Russian, mangling words. Felthure. Field It your title, your passport, your job. The world rocked, nausea set in throat, bitter and sharp. Word hit harder than the butt of a rifle. II remembered my father, his books, my dreams about white nurse’s coat.

All this happened trampled by one word embossed on mine body forever. Frau Elsa continued talk about the rules. We should have wash twice a day. We should have good to eat. We were given cosmetics. Cosmetics? In a place where people ate rats and chewed leather belts against hunger, we were given lipstick. This was the height of cynicism.

This it was a devil’s game. “If you will be stubborn,” she said softly, adjusting the cuffs. “If you don’t smile if you lie like logs, you will return to the general camp, but not in a barracks, in an oven. The choice is yours.” Yes my life began in a doll house. This there was a building on the outskirts of the camp, fenced off from the rest by high fence But we saw smoke.

Pipes The crematoriums were open around the clock. This one a sweetish greasy smell penetrated even through tightly closed windows, soaked our beautiful dresses, our hair, our souls. We lived in hell, furnished like cheap brothel. During the day they did not touch us. We sat in the room, afraid to look at each other into a friend’s eyes.

We ate soup in which real vegetables and bread floated in which had no sawdust. Every piece stuck in my throat. I felt a traitor. Behind the wall, 100 meters Svetlana died from us. She probably has already turned into a skeleton, covered transparent skin. And I was sitting here in warm, with painted lips and eating bread. This feeling of guilt was worse than hunger.

It was corroding from the inside. They came in the evening they, soldiers and officers who received visit tickets. It was organized with German pedantry. Queues, times, schedules. Us lined up in the hall. We stood in silk robes thrown over naked body. They walked and chose, as if on market, like that Wagner at the station.

Only now it was routine. I remember mine first. It was not an officer, just a simple one infantryman, young, with a pimply face and sweaty hands. He smelled like schnapps and unwashed body. He chose me by pointing his finger. I I followed him into a small room, reserved for meetings. There was a bed, a basin of water and a chair.

“Shoot!” – he muttered. I took off my robe. He saw tattoo He froze for a second looking at the inscription, and then dirty cursed and laughed. It’s official, that is. He’s rude grabbed me by the chest, squeezing the place where there was an inscription. It was painful, the skin was not yet healed.

I won’t describe what happened next. I learned this in the same evening. I learned to leave. Mine the body remained there, on the clasp bed, under the weight of someone else’s puffing men. And I flew away. I closed my eyes and imagined that I was at home. I thought boards on the ceiling. I remembered the lines from poems by Pushkin, which I studied at school.

I I remember a wonderful moment. I repeated them to myself while above me violence was committed. 2 3 10 minutes 15 minutes. There’s a knock on the door.Time’s up. Next. That night they there were three. When the last one left, buttoning up my pants, I crawled to the basin with water and began to rub the skin.

I rubbed chest, rubbed her stomach, rubbed her thighs. I I wanted to erase their smell from myself, their touch. I rubbed until I bled, but the feeling of dirt did not go away. It’s ingrained deeper into me than a tattoo. But most It was not the act of violence itself that was terrible. The most Medical examinations were scary.

Once every We were taken to the infirmary for a week. It was necessarily. The Reich was afraid of disease. Us They checked for syphilis and ganarea. If the girl fell ill, she was not treated, she wrote off. We all knew what it meant: an injection of phenol into the heart or a gas chamber. During one of these examinations I I saw Olga.

She worked as an assistant German doctor, Dr. Schultz, a little bald man with ice eyes. When I entered the office and took off robe, Olga dropped the metal one tray The ringing hit my ears. She looked on my chest. There was such a thing in her eyes horror, such pain that I wanted cover yourself with your hands. But you can’t.

I have to was to stand peacefully. Dr. Schultz looked at me indifferently, wrote something down into the map and went into the next room. We Olga and I were left alone for a few moments seconds She came up to me, pretending who adjusts the sheet on gynecological chair. “Lena,” she whispered, her lips trembled.

“What did they do to you?” “I now a field wife, Olga,” answered I am in a dead voice. “I’m a doll.” She She grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly. Listen me. You have to survive, do you hear? Don’t you dare give up. Eat, sleep when you can. Turn off your head. You are not your body. Your body is just a shell. Soul hide.

Hide it so deep that they don’t found. I’m dirty Olga. The tears that I couldn’t cry before, they approached eyes. I’ll never wash myself off. Look on this. I pointed to the tattoo. This is not dirt,” Olga said harshly. It’s theirs crime. This is proof. You must preserve this evidence, so that later, when it’s all over, submit an invoice.

At this moment I returned doctor Olga pulled back, again becoming a faceless shadow in a white robe. But her the words stuck in my head. Submit an invoice. I held on to this one thought, like a drowning man grasping for a straw, but not everyone could hold on. In the room with me there lived a girl from Kyiv, Tanya. She was only 16.

She was fragile, with huge blue eyes, looks like an angel. The Germans especially loved her. They called her Kline, baby. Wagner often called her to her not to the dolls’ house, but to her office She returned from there with bruises on the neck. silent, empty glance. One night, a month later after our relocation, I woke up from a strange sound.

Quiet rattle rhythmic grinding. I stood up elbows. In the moonlight shining through window bars, I saw Tanya. She was sitting on her bed and did something witha sheet. I called out to her in a whisper: “Tanya, what are you doing?” She turned to me. Her face was calm, frighteningly calm. “I’m more I can’t, Lena,” she said.

“I don’t I want to be a baby. I want to see my mother.” She I wove a rope from a torn sheet. I wanted to jump up, scream, call someone, but who? Kickers. They They will only laugh or punish us. I froze, paralyzed with horror. Tanya stood on a chair, threw a rope over beam under the ceiling. “Don’t look” – she asked.

“Just like it used to be Svetlana. Just sleep.” I closed my eyes. I was a coward. I didn’t stop her. I I heard a chair fall and heard a wheeze. I heard her body twitch. I was lying under the blanket, covering her ears with her hands and praying unknown to whom. They found her in the morning. Frau Elsa was furious.

Not because of death person, but because of the corruption of the state property. We were all lined up in corridor while Tanya’s body was being taken out. Weak girl! – Elsa said, passing by me. If anyone else decides to die without permission, I’ll send you to the penalty box block There you will beg for death, but she won’t come quickly.

After Tanya’s death something in me finally broke. I I stopped feeling even shame. I became automatically. Get up, eat, smile, lie down, spread your legs, get up, wash. Wagner came to check on us regularly. He liked to humiliate us not physically, but morally. One day he brought with him guests, two high officials from Berlin.

They were drunk and cheerful. Wagner ordered We should line up, naked. Look, gentlemen,” he said, pacing in front of us with a glass of cognac in hand. “This is elite, selected material. No diseases, no Jews. Clean Slavic blood that we have tamed.” He came up to me. And here is my masterpiece. He sharply pulled my hand, pulling me out forward. Show them.

I stood there, trembling cold and humiliation while three men looked at my breasts. Original – one of the guests, a fat general, noticed with Felthjur monocle. Very practical so that no one forgets her place. Exactly – Wagner chuckled. Even if she will survive even if she runs away, she will never will not be the same.

Anyone who sees her undressed, finds out that she belonged us. This is a mark on the soul, gentlemen, excreted through the body. He touched his cigarette of my shoulder. Just a little bit just to shake off the ashes. Sparks burned the skin. I didn’t flinch. I was watching straight ahead into the wall. I was remembering Olga’s words. You are not your body.

But in at that moment it seemed to me that Olga I was wrong. I have nothing left except the body. The soul burned like that ashes from a cigarette. A year has passed, 1943. News from the front reached us in fits and starts, in a whisper. They said that under The Germans were repulsed at Stalingrad. The attitude towards us has changed.

 

Officers became angrier, more nervous. They drank more They beat me more often. The dolls’ house also becamealarming. The girls disappeared. Someone got pregnant and disappeared. Someone got infected and disappeared. Someone just stopped liked and disappeared. There are only us left five from that first set.

One day in the evening when I returned after next service, I saw a group of new prisoners who were being driven past our fence. They looked like shadows, barely moving their legs. Among them I I saw a familiar profile. Heart missed a shot. Svetlana, she was alive, but god, how she looked. Skeleton.

The eyes are sunken, the skin is gray, covered with sores. She walked, supported another woman. I ran to the fence. There was barbed wire between us tension, but I forgot about it. Sveta! – I screamed. Sveta! She stopped slowly turned her head. Her look wandered until it focused on me. I stood in a clean dress with hair, which have already begun to grow.

With a blush they gave us beets on our cheeks so that we rubbed their cheeks for a presentation. She didn’t look at me with joy recognition, she looked with horror and disgust. Lena, her voice was like the rustle of dry leaves. Are you one of them? No, Sveta, no. I cried, clinging to the net, risking electric shock. me forced. I had no choice.

The guard escorting the convoy noticed a hitch. He ran up to Svetlana and hit her on the back with a baton. She fell into the mud. “Weiter!” – yelled he. “Move on, Carrion.” Svetlana got up with difficulty. She’s no longer looked at me. She turned away and wandered further, merging with the gray mass doomed.

This look, my look best friend, full of contempt. He was hurts more than a tattoo. He was sicker than violence. In her eyes I was not victim. I was an accomplice. I was full a whore while she was dying of hunger. I slid down the mesh to the ground, tearing nails on the ground. I wanted to vomit heart.

Why did I survive? Why me agreed to this soup, this job? It would have been better if I had died in the carriage then. Better I would have burned in the oven along with everyone else. Wagner was right. I’m a beautiful doll, but I’m rotten inside. I betrayed everyone. I betrayed my father’s memory. I betrayed Svetlana. That night for the first time I thought about to do the same as Tanya.

I have there was a belt from a robe, there was a beam. But when I tied a knot, it came before my eyes Olga’s face. submit an invoice. If I I’ll die, no one will know. Nobody talks about Wagner, no one will tell about tattoos, no one will talk about how we were turned into animals. Anger cold, fierce anger began rise within me, displacing despair.

I won’t give them that pleasure. I will Survive. I will survive to spite Svetlana, to spite Wagner, to the evil of the whole world. I’ll take it body, this is the brand from here, and I’ll poke it in face anyone who dares to say that there was no war. I untied the knot. I went to bed to bed.

I waited, waited for this hellends or when it becomes more scarier. I didn’t know what was ahead of me the most terrible test awaits, then which will put an end to my youth forever. April 1945 did not come with spring sun, and with the smell of burning and madness. The camp was in a fever. Security guards who used to walk with their heads held high heads, were now scurrying around like rats on sinking ship hung in the air electrical voltage.

We heard cannonade. At first distant, like thunder, then it gets closer and closer. They weren’t German guns, these were ours. In the house panic reigned among the dolls. Frau Elsa has disappeared taking their suitcases and loot gold. We were left alone in the locked barracks There was no water.

They didn’t bring food already 2 days. We heard how behind the walls shells are exploding in the camp. But the worst thing is happened at night. The door swung open kick of a boot. Wagner stood on the threshold. He was without furashka. The uniform is unbuttoned. B in the eyes of drunken rage and fear. In hand he was holding a gun.

We thought you’d wait their liberators,” he hissed, raising your weapon. You thought you’d tell them How did they warm the beds of German officers? No, there will be no witnesses. He pointed gun on Klara, a girl from Poland, who sat closest to the entrance. The shot deafened us in the cramped room. Clara fell without making a sound.

We screamed, rushed into the scattered hiding under beds, behind cabinets, as if it could have saved him from a bullet. Wagner laughed as he reloaded his weapon. He enjoyed this last act of power. You are a disgrace to the Reich, you are dirt. I will erase you. He aimed at me. I looked in black barrel of a pistol and saw in it your death. Time has slowed down.

I I saw how his finger turned white trigger. And at this moment the world exploded. It fell somewhere very close bomb. The building shook so much that plaster rained down from the ceiling. Glass flew into the room, showering us with sharp fragments. Wagner lost balance and fell, dropping the pistol. Darkness. Dust clogged my lungs.

I was coughing trying to find support. Let’s run. Someone’s the voice cut through the ringing in my ears. I jumped up. Wagner tried to get up, fumbling with his hand floor in search of weapons. I saw a fragment mirror, the same one in which I I saw my tattoo for the first time. It lay on the floor, large, sharp, like knife I grabbed it.

Without thinking, without remembering myself, I ran up to him. He raised to my eyes, and for the first time I saw in them not arrogance, and animal horror. “No” – he croaked. “I hit. I stuck a shrapnel in his neck. The blood is hot and sticky sprayed on my hands, on my face, on my beautiful dress. I hit again and also for my father, for Svetlana, for Tanya, for yourself.” He wheezed and fell silent.

I stood over him. It’s hard to breathe, like a hunted animal. I killed a man, but I didn’t feel it guilt. I only felt cold emptiness. We ran out into the street. Camp was in chaos. The barracks were burning. Crowdsprisoners, like ghosts, wandered to the gate, which was open. The guards ran away or changed into civil.

The death march has begun, but for For us it was a march to life. We walked several days without food, without water, muddy spring roads. I tore off yourself in the doll’s dress back in the camp, having found in someone’s dirty, lousy robe in a pile of garbage. I wore it to blend in with the crowd so that no one recognizes the beautiful one in me.

I buttoned up my collar, hiding your mark. On May 1st we saw tanks. There were red stars on the towers. Soldiers in dusty tunics jumped off the armor and ran up to us. They cried. Healthy, strong men they cried looking at us. Sisters, relatives, alive,” they shouted, hugging us, bony, dirty, smelly. Us They gave me bread and stew.

Someone was playing harmony. It was a joy that my heart was breaking. But I wasn’t happy. I stood to the side, clutching my Robe’s collar at the throat. I looked at the Soviet officers walking around with notepads, and me a new fear gripped me. Fear even more stickier than before the Germans. I knew that happens to those who were in captivity.

Traitors to the Motherland. Who am I? I’m not just I was a prisoner, I was Felthjur. If they find out, if they see tattoo, they won’t just shoot me, I will be humiliated before death. My own people, my liberators they will look at me the same way contempt, just like Svetlana. We were taken to the filtration camp, interrogations, NKVD.

Young lieutenant with tired eyes smoked a cigarette and leafed through my documents, which miraculously survived. “Where worked?” – he asked without looking at me. “At a garment factory,” I lied. My voice was firm. I learned lie to survive. In general, did the barracks collaborate with the Germans? No. Why did she survive? Many died.

I was young. The body is strong. He He raised his eyes and looked at me. I cringed. Does he really see? Is it really on me? written? “Take off your clothes,” he said. “Medical examination. I felt dark in my eyes. This is the end.” I started slow unfasten the buttons of the robe. Hands trembled. Faster! – he barked.

This At that moment another officer looked into the tent. Comrade Lieutenant, there is a train send. Lists are urgently needed. The lieutenant swore and waved his hand. Okay, get dressed, get out. Next. I jumped out of the tent, not feeling my legs. I was saved by a miracle or a curse that I decided that I should live and suffer further.

I returned home in the summer of forty fifth. All that’s left of our village is chimneys sticking out of the ground like black fingers. The house burned down. I’m at my father’s grave I never found it. Neighbors who survived looked askance. Returned from Germany, alive, that means served. The whispers behind my back stung more painfully nettles I couldn’t stay there.

I went to the big city where no one knows me I didn’t know. I got a job nurse to the hospital. The dirtiestwork to take out the vessel, wash the floors. I I did it with rage. to me it seemed that if I washed off the dirt around, I can wash myself too. But according to at night, standing in front of the mirror in my room in a communal apartment, I saw them.

Black letters. They didn’t fade. Felthura. I tried to reduce them with acid, I got it a chemical burn, a terrible scar, but the letters appeared even through scar tissue. They became a part of me. Andrey I met in 1948. He was a patient in our department. A front-line soldier who lost his leg near Berlin kind, quiet, with sad eyes.

He I didn’t ask unnecessary questions. He’s just started bringing me candy. Then invited me to the cinema. When he proposed to me, I wanted to run away. I wanted to scream: “No touch me, I’m dirty. I’m German litter”. But I really wanted warmth. I am so tired of being alone. I agreed. B On my wedding night I turned off the light.

I put on a nightgown with a high neck. “Lena,” he whispered, trying to hug me. “Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you.” Andrey, – I said, pulling away. I have burn on the chest, terrible. I turned it over boiling water on myself as a child. I’m shy. Please don’t ever ask me for it show and don’t touch there. I’m in pain.

He believed. He was such a pure person that I could not suspect such a lie scale. He kissed my hands and said, that anyone loves me. We lived together 39 years old. We didn’t have children. Doctors said: “The consequences of the camp exhaustion, but maybe it’s for the better.” I I was afraid that if I had a daughter, I I will see telekt letters on it.

All my life I lived in fear. I’ve never gone to shared bathhouse. I’ve never sunbathed on beach. I wore closed dresses even in heat. When I had fluorography done, I I begged the radiologist to come out while I I undressed and pressed my chest against screen so quickly that no one can do anything noticed. I lived a double life.

For everyone I was Elena Vasilievna, a veteran labor, respected woman. And for myself I remained that girl in the cafe room, which drives shame under the skin. Andrey died 3 years ago. While sorting out his things, I I found his front diary. There was record. Lenochka’s eyes are so full pain that I’m afraid to ask about past.

I know there was something there terrible, but I don’t care. She is my light. I sat on the floor and cried. He saved me. Not the Red Army, not doctors. He saved me with your love, which is not demanded the truth. And now I’m alone. I’m 67. The Soviet Union is collapsing like house of cards. On TV they talk about glasnost, open archives.

People begin to tell what they were silent about half a century. I hear other women’s stories those who went through hell and survived. And I I understand I’m not alone. There were thousands of us. Thousands of field wives, dolls, broken toys war. We were branded made us ashamed of what we have become victims. We have been taught that our beautywas our crime. But that’s a lie.

I I look at my photograph from those years, that’s why the face that Wagner liked so much. I It’s not my fault that I was beautiful. I don’t It’s my fault that I wanted to live. Yesterday I went to the doctor. He listened to my heart and asked to lower the jacket. For the first time in For 45 years I didn’t argue.

I unbuttoned buttons. I pulled the fabric down. Young the doctor, a boy of about twenty, froze. He looked at the scar through which blurry blue letters appeared Felthure. He looked up at me. They didn’t have contempt, there was shock and tears in them. “God!” – he whispered, grandmother, “for Why are they doing this to you?” And at this moment a weight lifted from my shoulders.

stone, which I dragged for half a century, crumbled into dust. He didn’t judge me, he pitied me me. I am not writing these lines for to feel sorry for me. I write them to witness a crime which has no statute of limitations. They thought what did they do when they branded me? me as your property. They thought that by calling me a whore they took away from I’m honored, but they were wrong.

Honor cannot be taken away by violence. Honor is what what remains in you when it’s taken away from you everything else. I survived, I loved, I retained the person within her, despite animal mark on the body. Wagner said: “You’re too beautiful to be free.” He was a fool. Freedom is not depends on beauty.

Freedom is ability to look in the mirror and not avert your eyes, even if there is a reflection there hell I’m Elena Vasilyeva. I was a prisoner number 75439. I was a field doll. But I didn’t die in that barracks. I’ll die here in my bed, a free man. And these letters on my chest. Let them will remain. It’s not my shame.

It’s theirs shame forever. These are my words and now you you know them. Via Ravensbrück, the largest women’s concentration camp Nazi Germany, more than 130,000 prisoners. Thousands of Soviet women were subjected there inhuman experiments, forced labor and sexual exploitation in camp brothels. Many of them were never able to return to normal life due to physical and mental trauma.

This story is an attempt break a decade of silence. Preserving the memory of these crimes is an act of resistance against oblivion and cruelty. This story is a work of fiction work. She is inspired by real sufferings and destinies of Soviet women during World War II. All names and the specific events described herein, serve to reflect historical tragedy.

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