The Tattooist of Auschwitz (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #1) - Heather Morris Page 0,64

away.

A woman stands aside as the girls enter her home. Once the door is closed they explain who sent them here.

‘Do you know who that was just now?’ the woman stammers.

‘No,’ one of the girls answers.

‘She’s SS. A senior SS officer.’

‘Do you think she knows who we are?’

‘She’s not stupid. I’ve heard stories about her being one of the cruellest people in the concentration camps.’

An elderly woman comes out of the kitchen.

‘Mother, we have some guests. These poor things were in one of the camps. We must give them something warm to eat.’

The older woman makes a fuss over the girls, taking them into the kitchen, sitting them at the table. Gita can’t remember the last time she sat on a chair at a kitchen table. From a stove the older woman ladles hot soup for them and then peppers them with questions. The owners decide it is not safe for them to stay here. They are afraid the SS officer will report the girls’ presence.

The older woman excuses herself and leaves the house. A short while later she returns with a neighbour. Her house has both a roof cavity and a cellar. She is willing to let the five of them sleep in the roof. With the heat from the fireplace rising, it will be warmer up there than in the cellar. They won’t be able to stay in the house during the day though, as every house can be searched at any time by the Germans, even though they seem to be retreating.

Gita and her four Polish friends sleep in the roof space each night and spend the days hiding in the nearby woods. Word sweeps through the small village and the local priest has his parishioners bring food to the house owner each day. After a few weeks the remaining Germans are flushed out by the advancing Russian soldiers, several of whom set up house in the property directly opposite where Gita and her friends sleep. One morning the girls are late leaving for the woods and are stopped by a Russian standing guard outside the building. They show him their tattoos and try to explain where they have been and why they are here now. Compassionate to their plight, he offers to place a guard outside the house. This means they no longer have to spend their days in the woods. Where they live is no longer a secret and they receive a smile or a wave from the soldiers when they come and go.

One day one of the soldiers asks Gita a direct question, and when she answers he immediately recognises that she isn’t Polish. She tells him she is from Slovakia. That evening he knocks on the door and introduces a young man dressed in a Russian uniform but who is in fact from Slovakia. The two of them talk into the night.

The girls have been pushing their luck in staying by the fire later into the evening. A degree of complacency has set in. One evening, they are caught off guard when the front door bursts open and a drunken Russian staggers in. The girls can see their ‘guard’ lying unconscious outside. Waving a pistol, the intruder singles out one of the girls and attempts to rip her clothes off. At the same time he drops his trousers. Gita and the others scream. Several Russian soldiers soon burst into the room. Seeing their comrade on top of one of the girls, one of them pulls out his pistol and shoots him in the head. He and his comrades drag the would-be rapist from the house, apologising profusely.

Traumatised, the girls decide they must move on. One of them had a sister living in Krakow. Maybe she is still there. As a further apology for the attack the previous night, a senior Russian soldier arranges a driver and a small truck to take them to Krakow.

•

They find the sister still living in her small apartment above a grocery store. The flat is crowded with people, friends who had fled the city and are now returning, homeless. No one has any money. To get by, they visit a market every day and each steals one item of food. From these pickings they make a nightly meal.

One day at the market, Gita’s ears prick up at the sound of her native language being spoken by a truck driver unloading produce. She learns from him that several trucks a week travel from Bratislava to Krakow, bringing fresh fruit