the middle of the truck hugging myself and gagging.
There was no light. I braced myself in the dark because I thought they were going to take me somewhere any minute, and the truck would lurch into action and I’d fall over and have to touch whatever was on the evil floor. But nothing happened. Then I tried to get out, struggling with the doors until all my nails were broken – the sheets of metal interlocked and there wasn’t even a crack to feel air through. Near the front of the truck there were slatted air vents high up in the walls, but even if I’d been able to get the slats out, the opening was smaller than my head. Eventually I was so tired that I gritted my teeth and leaned in the corner below one of the air vents, where two walls propped me so I could still stand up. Then later I had to sit down.
Fernande is still here. She’s in the bathroom now. I couldn’t write about this if I were alone.
I took off my flying jacket and tucked up the edges carefully, so that only the leather of the back was touching the floor, and sat on that. It wasn’t very cold yet – still early September.
After a while I opened up my flight bag to count the papers that I’d handed over earlier and then shoved back in without looking – checking to feel that I still had my precious official letter of recommendation from the Luftwaffe, with its stamps and signatures – and beneath the pile of paper I found, mysteriously, two of my confiscated Hershey bars.
I am sure that Womelsdorff put them there.
I was starved enough to eat one, even in the grim stench of the transport truck – I didn’t dare eat both, because I didn’t know how long I’d be there. Finally I put my tunic back on and curled in my supportive corner as tightly as I could on the protective island of my flying jacket. I buried my nose in the silver paper that the chocolate had been wrapped in, sucking in the distant smell of Hershey and home to mask the stink, and managed to go to sleep.
I got woken up by the engine starting. Through the air vents high in the walls I could see that it was light. No one looked inside to see if I was even alive – I have always thought the truck driver didn’t actually know I was there.
We drove for about an hour and I couldn’t even tell what direction we were heading or how fast we were going. After the truck parked and the engine stopped, I sat in the dark for
another
hour. I didn’t know it, but the truck had gone through the gate, I was already inside.
I ate the last chocolate bar. We’d both travelled from the same place, me and that Hershey bar – I thought how incredible it was that we both ended up here together. I heard long, slow trains steaming and clunking past a short distance away, a comforting sound, like the freight line that goes past the lake at Conewago Grove. I heard other trucks coming and going, and orders shouted in German. I heard the siren and nearly jumped out of my skin.
We called it ‘the Screamer’. The first time I heard it I thought there must be an air raid going on. I scrunched myself up in a ball with my arms over my head – of course nothing happened. The next thing I heard, twenty minutes later, was the sound of hundreds of feet shuffling along at a weary jog, and a lot of shouting and dogs barking. I felt my way to the doors to try to find a crack to see out.
Then someone opened the doors. I clapped my hands over my eyes and stood teetering on the edge of the truck floor, completely blinded by sunny September brilliance. They didn’t give me five seconds. I hadn’t even opened my eyes before someone grabbed my skirt and yanked me off balance, and I crashed full length on to the cindered road surface. The fall took the skin right off both my knees and off the heels of both hands too. I rolled over and sat up, furious and stunned, rubbing my eyes with shaking, bloody hands. Within seconds I was surrounded by half a dozen frantic German shepherds straining at the end of their
There was no light. I braced myself in the dark because I thought they were going to take me somewhere any minute, and the truck would lurch into action and I’d fall over and have to touch whatever was on the evil floor. But nothing happened. Then I tried to get out, struggling with the doors until all my nails were broken – the sheets of metal interlocked and there wasn’t even a crack to feel air through. Near the front of the truck there were slatted air vents high up in the walls, but even if I’d been able to get the slats out, the opening was smaller than my head. Eventually I was so tired that I gritted my teeth and leaned in the corner below one of the air vents, where two walls propped me so I could still stand up. Then later I had to sit down.
Fernande is still here. She’s in the bathroom now. I couldn’t write about this if I were alone.
I took off my flying jacket and tucked up the edges carefully, so that only the leather of the back was touching the floor, and sat on that. It wasn’t very cold yet – still early September.
After a while I opened up my flight bag to count the papers that I’d handed over earlier and then shoved back in without looking – checking to feel that I still had my precious official letter of recommendation from the Luftwaffe, with its stamps and signatures – and beneath the pile of paper I found, mysteriously, two of my confiscated Hershey bars.
I am sure that Womelsdorff put them there.
I was starved enough to eat one, even in the grim stench of the transport truck – I didn’t dare eat both, because I didn’t know how long I’d be there. Finally I put my tunic back on and curled in my supportive corner as tightly as I could on the protective island of my flying jacket. I buried my nose in the silver paper that the chocolate had been wrapped in, sucking in the distant smell of Hershey and home to mask the stink, and managed to go to sleep.
I got woken up by the engine starting. Through the air vents high in the walls I could see that it was light. No one looked inside to see if I was even alive – I have always thought the truck driver didn’t actually know I was there.
We drove for about an hour and I couldn’t even tell what direction we were heading or how fast we were going. After the truck parked and the engine stopped, I sat in the dark for
another
hour. I didn’t know it, but the truck had gone through the gate, I was already inside.
I ate the last chocolate bar. We’d both travelled from the same place, me and that Hershey bar – I thought how incredible it was that we both ended up here together. I heard long, slow trains steaming and clunking past a short distance away, a comforting sound, like the freight line that goes past the lake at Conewago Grove. I heard other trucks coming and going, and orders shouted in German. I heard the siren and nearly jumped out of my skin.
We called it ‘the Screamer’. The first time I heard it I thought there must be an air raid going on. I scrunched myself up in a ball with my arms over my head – of course nothing happened. The next thing I heard, twenty minutes later, was the sound of hundreds of feet shuffling along at a weary jog, and a lot of shouting and dogs barking. I felt my way to the doors to try to find a crack to see out.
Then someone opened the doors. I clapped my hands over my eyes and stood teetering on the edge of the truck floor, completely blinded by sunny September brilliance. They didn’t give me five seconds. I hadn’t even opened my eyes before someone grabbed my skirt and yanked me off balance, and I crashed full length on to the cindered road surface. The fall took the skin right off both my knees and off the heels of both hands too. I rolled over and sat up, furious and stunned, rubbing my eyes with shaking, bloody hands. Within seconds I was surrounded by half a dozen frantic German shepherds straining at the end of their
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