Armageddon - Max Hastings [296]
Then her father was summoned. He left a large packet of diamonds in the custody of a Christian friend. “They are for you, my children,” he said to Edith and her brother. “They will make you rich.” But the diamonds were never seen again and nor was her father, last identified in a labour camp on the Austrian border. When next she went to see her mother, she found all the family furniture and china gone. There was one marvellous, terrible snapshot of hope. In October 1944 Admiral Miklos Horthy, Hungary’s ruler, announced that his country was abandoning the war. Edith’s mother embraced her in tears of joy, and said: “Tonight, I make a chicken.” But within a few hours Horthy was deposed by the Nazis. Germany’s grip upon Hungary became absolute. Mrs. Gabor sobbed once more, and sent Edith running back to the factory “overwhelmed with fear and heaviness. I felt what was coming.”
Her mother and six-year-old brother Georg were soon sent to join her in the factory, sleeping together in a bunk. Edith’s meagre ration had to suffice among all three, for her mother was too frail to work. When the SS one day separated women between sixteen and forty from the rest, her mother seemed perfectly resigned. She said to Edith: “You just go, and take care. If I don’t survive—” Edith interrupted tearfully: “No, no, you must! You must!” “If I don’t survive, do three things: bring up Georg and give him a good education and see he learns some languages; take care of my daughter’s grave”—this was a sister who had died as a child—“and visit my friend Ilona.” Then they parted for ever. “Be strong!” her mother shouted after her. Everywhere in the factory were people sobbing and saying farewells. Edith’s brother found himself pushed into a group with her mother.
The girls’ party was led to the station by Hungarian SS and loaded into boxcars. Red Cross workers, surprisingly, were allowed to give them some water and a big can of tomatoes. Then they embarked on a journey which lasted for days, without air or light or exercise, or any hint of where they were going. At last they saw a station sign bearing the name RAVENSBRÜCK. Polish “trusties” and dog-handlers marched them into the camp. “Where are we?” asked Edith in bewilderment. “My dear,” said another woman simply, “you are in a death camp.” She was confused by the sight of a bakery, until it was explained to her that this was the crematorium. In a tent, they were ordered to strip. Edith shed her Rumanian hand-made shoes, angora-trimmed coat, blouse and tailored skirt. She laid down her favourite compact and crocodile handbag. “You won’t need those again,” said an SS woman contemptuously. It was December 1944. They were marched naked to another building where they were given clogs and camp uniforms, to which they were required to affix their numbers. They were led to showers, where they found themselves expected to wash with bleach rather than soap. “More! More!” shouted an SS woman. “Dirty Jews!” The soldiers laughed. Most of the group were genteel, bourgeois, highly educated young women, who had never in their lives been seen naked by anyone save their families. Their heads were shaved. A woman screamed: “What would my husband say?”
They worked in the fields, struggling pathetically to drive spades into the iron-hard winter ground. One morning at Appel, an SS woman threw a bucket of water over Edith, for the fun of seeing her eyelashes freeze and turn to lead within seconds. Whenever an SS guard spoke to her, she was convinced that her last hour had come. For a time, she stopped eating. Friends forced bread down her throat. Nine children had come with their group. All were were taken away. The mother of one nine-year-old