now-familiar words set into the iron gates: Arbeit Macht Frei. This time, she read them in silence.
The women were led to barracks far bigger than the ones in the camp at Flossenbürg. Row upon row of them stretched away into the distance. It seemed to Claire that Dachau was as big as a town. In the centre of the camp, behind a cluster of trees, a tall chimney rose into the August sky, staining the blue with a cloud of grey smoke. It was a sight she recognised from the previous camp and she shuddered, knowing that this must be where the handcarts of corpses were being taken for disposal.
Vivi tugged at her sleeve. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s find a bunk before they’re all taken.’
After they’d queued for meagre rations of watery soup and a small hunk of hard black bread, they went back inside and their new hut senior called for the women’s attention. She consulted a clip board, telling each group where they had been allocated to work the next day. She looked at the numbers sewn on to Claire and Vivi’s jackets and consulted her list. ‘You two, report to the reception centre. You’ll be in the sewing room. Do you know what you’re doing?’
They both nodded.
‘Very well. Finish your food and get some sleep. It’s an early start in the morning.’
In the crowded bunk that they shared, top-to-tail, with two other women, Claire whispered to Vivi, ‘We’ll be alright in the reception centre here, won’t we? Just like we were before. Thank goodness for our sewing experience. It might just save our lives.’
Vivi brought her hand to her mouth, her body juddering as she tried to suppress her cough. When she could speak again she whispered, ‘We’ll be alright. Get some sleep now, Claire. It’s been a long day.’
Claire grew used to the rhythm of work in the sewing room at the Dachau reception centre. All day long, a continual stream of new prisoners was admitted and the sewing machines whirred as the workers attached the numbers and coloured triangles to the blue and white striped uniforms, one of each on the shirt just above the heart and one of each on the right leg of the trousers. It tore at her soul to have become a part of the grim machine processing each new inmate with ruthless efficiency and she felt a sense of guilt as she passed back each completed item to its recipient, meeting eyes filled with fear and despair. She tried to encourage them at first, with a kindly word or two, but the guard who oversaw the sewing room had shouted at her to stop talking and concentrate on her work. So now she had to make do with a faint smile instead.
She knew she was lucky, though. With only a short walk to the reception centre each day, she and Vivi conserved what little energy they were able to glean from the scant rations that formed the prisoners’ diet in the camp, and Claire felt a little stronger than she had done when she’d worked in the textile factory at Flossenbürg. At the end of the day, as they made their way back to the barracks, beneath the watchful eyes of the guards in the towers around the camp perimeter, she noticed that Vivi’s cough seemed a little better too, although maybe that was just because it was summer now. She knew as well, from what the other women in their hut said, that her work was a little easier than jobs in the factories and the surroundings were less harsh.
They’d been prisoners in these camps for more than a year, she realised, and for a moment a sense of desolation threatened to overwhelm her. Would they ever see Paris again? She glanced across to where Vivi sat at her sewing machine, her head bent over her work. As if sensing she was being watched, Vivi looked up and shot Claire a smile and a nod, reassuring her. We are together, Claire told herself, repeating the mantra that had kept her going through so many times of despair. Everything will be alright.
All at once, the guard, who had been leaning against the wall watching the women work, strode across to where Vivi sat and yanked her to her feet, hitting her hard around her head. The line of prisoners shrank back and one woman screamed at the sudden violence of the gesture.
Claire watched, horrified, as several yellow triangles fluttered