Page 118

The trucks drive out of the gates of Ravensbrück and into a blizzard, heading deeper into Germany, and away from the east and the advancing Russians.

Rechlin. Andrée has never heard of it.

She survived rue le Peletier, Fresnes, and the journey to and incarceration in Ravensbrück.

She will survive this too.

She must.

The truck drives on through the winter darkness and Andrée closes her eyes and hums so quietly only she can hear.

“Clair de Lune.” Josie’s song. The song that keeps her sane.

The song that reminds her she’s still human.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The forest is endless.

That’s Andrée’s first thought when they arrive at Rechlin and are marched through the gates to the worksite. Birch trees stretch in every direction, their branches heavy with snow. It would be a beautiful sight, if you could only forget why you’re here, forget the guards with their whips and dogs, and not least forget the cold biting through your thin dress and threadbare coat to your bones.

The work is brutal, but simple. They are to cut down trees, strip them of their branches and drag the trunks to the collection point, where they’ll be loaded onto wagons and taken away.

They’re given axes and saws. Most of the women have never held such things before. Andrée certainly hasn’t. She’s a piano teacher. Her hands know ivory keys and sheet music, not the weight of an axe blade or the bite of a saw.

But she learns. They all learn. Because the alternative is dying in this freezing forest with no one to bury you.

The first day, Andrée’s hands blister. The second day, the blisters burst. By the end of the first week, her palms are raw meat. But still she swings the axe. Still she pulls the saw. Still she drags logs through snow that comes up to her knees.

The cold is worse than anything at Ravensbrück. Here there’s no escape. The barracks are unheated. The thin blankets they’re given might as well be paper. At night the women huddle together for warmth, but it’s never enough.

January arrives with temperatures that plunge below well below freezing. The icy air makes Andrée’s lungs burn with every breath. This is a cold that kills. And still they work, from dawn to dusk. Often longer.

Andrée’s feet soon succumb. The shoes they have given her, if they can be called shoes, are little more than fabric wrapped around wooden soles. They provide no warmth and little protection.

By mid-January she cannot feel her toes. By the end of the month, her feet have turned black. She has severe frostbite, the kind that doesn’t heal.

Walking is agony. Every step sends fire snaking up through her legs. But she must walk, she must work. These guards don’t care about frostbite, about her pain. Their rules are simple: work or die.

So Andrée works.

“Happy New Year, Grand-Mère.”

Josie kisses Tina on both cheeks. They’re sitting at the dining table with weak chicory coffee that Josie has taken to drinking too, and the last of the bread Maurice brought them yesterday. Not much of a celebration. But it’s far better than nothing.

Maurice is a miracle worker—their rations are so meager that it’s barely enough to survive on, but he provides little extras every day or two. They never ask where he gets the food. He says little, but they know he’s watching over them, and it makes them feel a little safer, a little more hopeful.

“Happy New Year, ma petite.” Tina tries to smile. Tries to find hope in a new year, that 1945 might bring an end to their suffering. But she is overwhelmed by grief for Louis and worry about Andrée.

“Do you think the war will end this year?” Josie asks.

“I do hope so.”

“The radio says the Russians are advancing. The Americans and British too. They’re pushing the Germans back on all sides. It must end soon, mustn’t it?”

“It must, ma petite.”

“I haven’t wanted to ask . . .”