The pain in my shoulders was immediate and unbearable. My stomach felt like a stone. I tried to plant my feet on the ground, but the snow was deep and slippery. I breathed deeply, trying not to panic. “If you panic, you’ll die,” I repeated to myself. “If you scream, they’ll like it. Don’t give them what they want.” I stood there, trembling, as I heard muffled laughter and German conversations around me. They weren’t in a hurry; they were having fun. One of them spat near my feet, another lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in my direction. I closed my eyes and tried to disconnect from my body, a technique I’d learned during the first few weeks of camp. I imagined I was somewhere else, in my mother’s kitchen, listening to the ticking of my father’s clock, smelling the fresh bread. But the pain wouldn’t allow it; the pain brought me back.
I don’t know how long I was there, maybe twenty minutes, maybe an hour. Time loses all meaning when you’re suspended between trees with frozen hands and the baby kicking inside you as if begging to be released from this nightmare. My fingers were numb, my vision was starting to blur at the edges. I knew I was going to faint.
And then I heard footsteps approaching, different footsteps, more hesitant. I opened my eyes. A young soldier stood before me, holding a knife. He said nothing, he just looked at me. His eyes were deep brown, filled with something I couldn’t name. It wasn’t hatred, it wasn’t desire, it was horror. He looked at my stomach, then at my bound hands, then at the other soldiers watching from a distance, waiting for the show to continue. Then he took a step forward, raised the knife, and I closed my eyes, waiting for the blade. But what I felt was the rope loosen. He cut the rope from my left wrist first, then my right, and my body collapsed into the snow.
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