Return to Ravensbrück

I looked down at the letter inviting me by name, Frida Schmidt to the rededication of the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp memorial. The letter’s edge wobbled, exaggerating my trembling hand.

I groped behind me, seeking the chair back, and fell on to the seat.

As a sixteen-year-old, I had run from those gates into the spring of 1945 when the SS guards herded several thousand German nationals out of the camp. I’d never returned; nor did I wish to: I knew its miasma of suffering, cruelty and evil. It had drained the life from my mother through a decade of starving imprisonment as she struggled to keep me alive.

I dropped the letter on my desk, the memories spreading the trembling across my body.

Breathe, Frida.

They moved us to Ravensbrück from Lichtenburg in May 1939, amongst the first to walk through the gates into the camp. We’d been imprisoned since May 1935 when my communist parents were arrested. I learned after the war that father was executed within days. There is no grave to visit and I have only shadow memories of him – no face, but a smiling voice in a child’s ears.

When they opened the Ravensbrück gates and pushed us towards them, we ran, terrified into the woods, expecting to be shot down as escapees; but there was no gunfire. After two days in the woods moving away from Ravensbrück, I was found by a Soviet unit. I was lucky not to be shot out of hand, but the commander recognised the meaning of my ‘striped pyjamas’. Some weeks later, I was back in my hometown of Leipzig, a city I barely recalled, now shattered into heaps of charred rubble.

Much has happened since then. I married unwisely but was gifted a beautiful daughter, Colette – Col, who has been the centre of my life.

I folded the letter into the envelope, placing it in my desk – time to think about this after the weekend. Nothing must dampen the joy of the next few days: Col, Willi and their three-year-old daughter, Liliana, were visiting from Leipzig.

Time to clean and prepare their rooms.

*

That first evening, once Lili had been bathed and read to, Col sat beside me. For several long seconds our eyes engaged. “Well, Mutti, are you going?”

I gave her my best blank look – to no avail; we knew one another too well.

She took my hand, stroking it in loving support. “To the Ravensbrück rededication?”

“How did you find out about that?” I sent her a sharp look and tried to jerk my hand away, but she held on.

“I wasn’t snooping, Mutti. Lili knocked it off your desk.”

I sighed. “Why would I want to return to that terrible place? It robbed me of my childhood and my mother – the grandmother you never knew.”

Col’s eyes echoed my pain. “I understand. I do.” She stopped, staring across the room. “No-one would want to visit such a place. But ... perhaps you need to.” Her eyes returned to mine. “Perhaps … we all need to.”

I flushed in shame. I’d been thinking only of myself – I’d not thought about her needs ... or Willi’s. Ravensbrück was part of this family’s history.

She looked across the room at Willi, who had his head in an engineering journal. “Willi ... Willi.”

He looked up, dragging himself back from the technical paper he had disappeared into once he’d settled Lili.

“Please would you come with us to Ravensbrück? There’s a rededication of the memorial and Mutti has been invited to attend.”

Willi eyes moved between us and I felt his love. “Of course.”

During the weekend, somewhat mysteriously, my return to Ravensbrück became a thing, despite never actually agreeing to it.

*

We walked to Ravensbrück from the village, Lili sometimes pattering along holding tight to Willi, Col or me. Mostly she rode in her pusher, looking around smiling and chattering about everything she saw, oblivious to the infectious silence spreading between us adults. At the gates, grasping memories locked my feet to the ground ... until Lili’s bright voice freed me. I presented my letter of invitation and was given a name badge. Then we walked into the camp, the summer sun glinting off the distant lake clashing with my grim memories.

Through the short ceremony of rededication, Col and Willi stood close, each holding tightly to one of my hands. At three-years-old, Lili sensed her grandmother’s deep emotion and the solemnity of the occasion, even if she could not yet understand. She saw the tears on my face and hugged my legs. Willi reached down and picked her up, settling her on his hip and the four of us melted together, sharing our breath and love in this place of evil.

Lili stared at me from Willi’s arms. “Why is Oma crying?”

I brushed her cheek with a finger. “I’m crying because this place has many sad memories.”

Lili’s eyes moved between the three of us. “Why did we come to a sad place?”

My smile was watery. “Even sad places are important, Lili.”

Lili remained silent, unconvinced.

Col turned to me. “Please, take us where you need to go.”

My mother, like everyone who died here, had no grave, so with my family in tow I tried to find the place where our barracks had stood – but so much had changed during the Soviet occupation I could not be certain of its location. Disappointed and drawn inexorably towards it, I turned towards the Kommandantur. It held the cells I had slopped-out for over a year; the place where the SS Officer had pinned me to the wall minutes after he had executed my English friend, Colette.

The hatred I had been fighting for years welled up, constricting my throat.

Col heard me struggling to breathe and drew me to her. “We can go as soon as you want to, Mutti. Don’t punish yourself.”

I swallowed; my throat relaxed enough for a shuddering breath.

I gave her a nod and set off towards the brooding structure. Inside, my feet pulled me until I stood before Colette’s cell. From here she was led to her execution, that November morning some thirty years ago. The cell door was closed; I sank to my knees, trying to open the hatch through which we had talked. But it was jammed and my fingers scrabbled uselessly.

“Please, don’t open that.”

I looked up to see one of the museum staff.

She saw the badge that identified me as a former inmate; embarrassment and confusion stopped her for a moment. “Were you imprisoned in this cell?”

I shook my head. “No ... an English girl started teaching me English though this meal hatch ... before she was taken through the door down there one morning and executed.” I gestured towards the door at the end of the corridor.

Willi leant down, offering a hand to help me up. “This was Colette’s cell?”

I nodded, blinking back the tears and jagged memories of that morning.

“Excuse me ... did you just mention … Colette?” An English voice came from a small group near us.

I turned. “Who just asked about Colette?” I asked, with perhaps a touch of possession.

She was my Colette.

A tall, grey-haired man blinked in surprise. “Umm ... that was me. Did you know Colette – an English girl?”

I was unsure how to handle this, jealous of my memories of Colette. “Please forgive me, but who are you to be asking about Colette?”

“We are Colette Roberts’ parents.” The woman on the man’s arm drew herself up. “Who are you?”

“I am Frida Schmidt.” I touched my badge. “I was imprisoned here. The Nazis had me working in the cells for the final year of the war.” I pushed up my sleeve, showing them the blue prisoner number. “Colette started teaching me English.” I stopped, unsure if I should say more.

The couple glanced at one another before the woman turned back to me. “There’s more, isn’t there?” It was soft, pleading.

I turned back to Colette’s parents, guiding Col towards them. “Please allow me to introduce my daughter, Colette, named to honour your courageous daughter.”

Mrs Roberts leant forward, eyes full of forlorn hope. “Do you know what happened to our Colette?”

I stopped, searching my dark memories. “I think she arrived here in early September 1944.” My Colette’s hand found mine.

Mr Roberts glanced at his wife. “She worked as a radio operator for the Special Operations Executive. We know she was dropped into France in late May 1944. She was captured in August and sent here. But the record we found is stamped ‘NN’ and mentioned Ravensbrück but there is no record of her being here ...” He limped to a stop, his voice full of fearful hope.

Willi and Col shared a meaningful glance and Willi walked off, pushing Lili in her stroller. They didn’t want Lili to hear what I was going to say – though she would probably not understand it.

I turned back to the Roberts. “The ‘NN’ means Nacht und Nebel – night and fog. This was stamped on the files of people who were to disappear without trace. It was part of the Nazi’s terror tactics.” There was no gentle way to say this, so I took Mrs Roberts’ hand, hoping to soften my words. “You know Colette is dead and there will be no grave?”

After a moment, she nodded, a single tear in the corner of her eye.

My heart was thudding from the deep sorrow I felt, for the Roberts, for Colette … for myself and everyone else sent to this hateful place. I tried to slow the beating with a long inhalation. “My morning task was slopping out these cells. When I arrived that morning, Colette’s cell door was open – and unguarded.” I gathered both Mrs Roberts’ hands in mine. “I knew what that meant.”

Mrs Roberts glanced at her husband and swallowed. “Please, go on.”

“A few minutes after I arrived, an SS officer came back through that door.” I gestured with my head towards the end of the corridor. “He saw me standing in tears at Colette’s cell door and mocked me for mourning a spy, pinning me by the throat against the wall with a hand that stank from the gunshot.”

I took several gulping breaths, trying to corral my emotions.

“The SS officer was Vogel.” My eyes closed, the memory of him in his immaculate black SS uniform morphing into his picture in the Australian newspaper. “Somehow, he escaped the attentions of the Allies at the end of the war. He turned up in Australia but disappeared and is presumed to have died when they found his car abandoned.”

I turned back to the cell. “This was Colette’s cell – and if you wish, we can go to the execution yard where …” I swallowed the saliva filling my mouth. “That man ended your brave and beautiful daughter’s life.”

And I survived …

The guilt and shame caught my throat, tears threatening to spill down my face. The Roberts shared a glance and then nodded to me.

The doorhandle was stiff, but it turned, revealing a small courtyard with concrete walls and an earth floor. As our small group walked into the yard, the hatred, anger and guilt I had struggled for years to shed erupted inside me. I screamed without sound at the sky and fell to my knees, the silent wail ending in sobs.

Arms surrounded me: Col and Mrs Roberts were kneeling with me, holding my face so close to theirs we were sharing our breath – and tears.

After a while, a hand gently wiped my face. “My dear, what you’ve been through,” Mrs Roberts murmured.

I squeezed my eyes closed, embarrassed at the scene I was making in front of a mother who had lost her daughter in this yard.

A hand caressed my cheek and my eyes rose to Mrs Roberts’.

“Thank you for being our daughter’s friend.” She swallowed, controlling her emotions. “Thank you for sharing with us your part in her story.”

Mr Roberts lifted her to her feet and Col helped me to mine, concern written on her face.

I scrabbled a tissue out of my handbag to blow my nose, then turned to the Roberts. “It was your daughter who started teaching me English.” I let my eyes move between them. “She knew her fate and yet never showed fear.” I took several breaths before continuing. “I used to sit outside her cell, talking through the meal hatch ...” I dribbled to a stop, silenced by the memories.

“And you named your daughter in her memory.” Mr Roberts’ hand clasped mine. “Thank you.”

“She deserves so much more …”

Mrs Roberts gaze engaged an unseen past. “That was the case for the thousands herded into this place.” Her eyes were bright with pride and tears. “And our daughter played her part in ending this horror.”

Col’s arm crept around my shoulders. “Are you all right, Mutti?” Her eyes were full of love.

“Yes, Liebling,” I took a breath, letting it out slowly. “Yes.” I was drained – but that dangerous cyst of hatred within me was gone. “Yes … I think I am, for the first time since I left here.”

We walked back into the cell corridor. At Colette’s cell I leaned my forehead against the door. I could find no words for her, but I dripped my farewell in tears onto the pitted steel.

“Let’s find Willi and your grand-daughter.” Col’s hand squeezed my shoulder.

I breathed several times and turned. Col handed me another tissue.

The Roberts murmured quietly before Mr Roberts pulled a card out of his pocket. “This has our addresses in England and Paris.” He handed me the card. “Please, stay in touch.” His face was full of raw emotion. “Thank you for being there for our Colette.”

Mrs Roberts drew me into a hug and kissed both my cheeks. “Thank you.” Then they walked away down the corridor.

“Where next, Mutti?”

My smile wavered. “Let’s find Willi and Lili.”

They were chatting happily about the birds swimming on the lake. Willi picked up Lili and drew us into a hug. We shared several breaths before I turned my back on Ravensbrück and we started walking to the village.