Journées “We see only clear nights, not days, A wan sky that frees boredom Is hidden on our heads; beyond the windows? Not the smallest vista, no murderous woman To divine the distance of a ray of sun. The sun no longer shines; it will always be night. Even in the morning when the […]
Tag: Ravensbruck
K.W.4: Chapter 10, part 2
November 11, 1944 On November 11, we drink champagne at the house. Even the baby takes a few sips while being held in the arms of our maid Thérèse. Later, the little boy will go to l’Arc de Triomphe with his father, and I, happy mother, start preparing a surprise for lunch. .…At eleven […]
K.W.4: Chapter 10 Part 1, The Anniversary of My Mother’s Death, and We Carry On…
[ Chapter 10 is a particularly long chapter. I was going to post the entire thing at once, but then decided that broccoli is easier to swallow when given smaller portions. So I’ve split it into two parts. It’s hard not to note, as I read through this memoir, how important poetry and literature are […]
K.W.4: Chapter 9, Experiences
[The words of Georges Huisman have been haunting me. I’m still bothered by how, in his introduction to my aunt’s memoir, he felt the need to explain that her book isn’t literature. “What is the importance of literary form or the ratification of a grand public?” he asks. It’s almost an apology for her testimony. […]
K.W.4: Chapter 8, Return to the Factory
[As you continue to read my great-aunt’s memoir, I’d like to remind you that in the United States today, we have a prison camp in Tornillo, Texas where approximately 2,500 migrant children are being held. This prison camp is being run by adults who have not been properly vetted by the FBI for working with […]
K.W.4: Chapter 7, Dreams and Nightmares
Thus, courts of justice acquit the strong, And doom the weak, as therefore wrong. Jean de la Fontaine, from The Animals Stricken with the Plague, a fable They’ve admitted me to the infirmary again. I’m lucky. I dream. For three months I haven’t opened a single letter; touched one book […]
K.W.4: Chapter 6, Skies
The strangeness of pale Northern skies: here, one can’t call it a blue sky, but a white sky. For three months I’ve seen every sunrise, the sumptuous ones in Ravensbrück, when the sky quickly sweeps away a somber blue as the invading purple strikes brusquely in every direction – perhaps too brusquely. And weeks ago […]
K.W.4: Chapter 5, Souvenirs et Documentation
[My aunt shows more of her spark in this chapter. She speaks derisively of other women who don’t rise at 4 am to strip naked in the square and bathe in the icy water. Hygiene is paramount, and seems to be an obsession with her. This caused me to vaguely remember that my aunt used […]
K.W.4: Chapter 4, The Seimen’s factory 12 kilometers from Berlin
[During World War II, Seimens, currently the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe, used slave labor in their factories which they built in Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, and other camps. After the war ended, neither the company nor any company executives were ever punished for their crimes.] Lagerde Siemenstadt, À 12 km. de Berlin 25 August 1944 […]
K.W.4: Chapter 3, Ravensbrück
[I am so lucky to have a family that sustains each other with love. Thanksgiving is a time to remember all the things you have to be grateful for, and this year I felt the kind of gratitude that makes me take deep, steadying breaths when I stop to think about all I’ve been given. […]
