a lot of forest out there.’
‘But the Allies have agreed. There are processes. There will be more trials like Lünenburg and sentences will be passed if people are found guilty.’ At least I hope there will be after the horrors I witnessed in my previous posting, Eva thought.
‘Sure, kid, we all hope so’ – he shrugged – ‘but in the meantime, there’s still a lot of people running around without the right papers, a lot of people with hazy, incomplete stories of where they’ve been and what they did, and some of them are the good guys and some of them are the baddies. It’s just like the Wild West out there, kid.’
‘You mean they’re taking the law into their own hands, don’t you? Handing out rough justice.’
‘Sort of. Official justice takes time, the machinery has to be set in motion. And some of these fellas are going to make damn sure they disappear while that’s happening, so maybe some of the Poles want to get on with the job and make sure the buggers get what’s coming to them. The way it works is like this, someone gets wind of a kapo who beat the shit out of the poor bastards in the camps, someone else finds an eyewitness and next thing you know’ – he shaped his fingers into a pistol gesture – ‘pow, pow! Kapo kaput, job done.’
Eva was aghast, picturing an execution in the snowdrifts the previous night, then said, ‘And we can’t do anything to stop it?’
‘Easier not to, I’d say. It’s going to keep happening, no matter what we try and do. And it could be far worse. I met some Americans not long ago and they said in the early days they handed some of the low-ranking SS over to their former prisoners for them to execute. And of course, it could get very nasty now and again. Sometimes they did the business quick and easy, sometimes they took their time about it. The Americans once saw some revenge-crazed Poles out of the camps beat an SS man senseless, then feed him into the crematorium. They strapped him down, slid him in the oven, turned on the heat and pushed him in and out until he’d been burned alive.’ He finished his thin cigarette and pulled at the wisp of paper stuck to his lip.
‘That’s absolutely horrific.’ Eva shuddered. ‘But they can’t do anything like that here, can they?’
‘No, thank goodness. The bread ovens are too busy feeding everyone.’ He laughed at his joke. ‘So, let’s be grateful we only hear the occasional shot, clean and simple.’
Eva glanced again at her neat piles of paper, her ranks of pens and pencils, and said, ‘I must be stupid. I hadn’t really thought it through.’ Is that what I should have done? Rough justice?
He shook his head. ‘You’re not the only one, kid. We’re only picking up the pieces. We can’t really know what it was like for them in those hellholes.’
‘I’ve been trying to tell myself that. I want to know and yet I don’t – I just want to help people get back to some kind of normal life.’
‘Sure. And you’ll do a great job, that’s for certain.’
He turned towards the door, then added, ‘And you’re going to have help here, Polish aristocracy.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The Countess, we call her. She’s quite something. Many women perished in Ravensbrück, but if it hadn’t been for her persistence and courage, a whole barrack of them would have. She’s a tough wise old bird and she’s coming to interpret for you.’
‘Oh, great. Thanks, Ken. And I’ll try not to worry if I hear any more shots tonight.’
He laughed and pulled his collar up around his ears. ‘We’ll know how busy the vigilantes have been when spring comes, when the snow’s finally melted.’
It took Eva a moment to realise what he meant, then as he left, she looked out of the window at the thick forest stretching for miles around the camp and the distant slopes iced with snow. Traces of footprints would soon disappear under fresh snowfalls and what was hidden under the dark branches in the drifts would stay well-hidden until spring.
48
Eva, 14 November 1945
Countess Komorowski
A sudden tap at the door interrupted Eva’s vision of frozen corpses awaiting the thaw of spring and she turned to see an elderly woman wearing a patchy fur coat with a sheepskin thrown over her shoulders, elegant in her bearing despite the ragbag of her clothes. Her thin grey hair was