The Midwife of Auschwitz by Anna Stuart

Author:Anna Stuart [Stuart, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803142685
Published: 2022-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

ESTER

‘You’re doing what?’ Klara shrieked.

‘Moving,’ Pfani said calmly, rolling her rough mattress up off the floor of the kapo’s private room.

‘Moving where?’

Klara’s solid body twitched and she tried to reach for Pfani but the redhead dodged out of her way and headed down the barrack.

Ester nudged Naomi and Ana and they looked round from tending Zofia, a horribly skinny young Polish girl who was labouring on the brick stove. All summer long the cattle trains had kept bringing women into the camp, many of them pregnant. Those showing at initial selection were sent mercilessly into the death-queue but some escaped detection and ended up in Ana’s maternity ward alongside the poor girls who were preyed upon by the guards.

They came from all over, many from Russia and Belorussia, taken as hostages to the bitter German retreat. Those women, at least, had some strength, but birthing in Auschwitz was precarious for even the healthiest. Poor Zofia, sent in from the disbanded ghetto of Rejowiec a few months ago, was struggling even in the early stages. Ester moved to shield her as Klara marched furiously after Pfani.

‘Moving where, Pfani? You won’t get a kapo who treats you better than me, you know.’

‘I know.’ Pfani grinned and tossed back her hair. ‘I’m off to the Puff – soft beds, pretty clothes and all the baths you want.’

The other women sighed in envy.

‘What’s the Puff?’ Janina asked, coming up from the hospital end of the block.

‘It’s the brothel,’ Naomi informed her curtly, ‘for the Nazis.’

‘No!’ Janina looked at Pfani in horror. ‘You can’t go there – you’ll have to have those monsters all over you. Inside you!’

‘So? Didn’t you hear me – soft beds, pretty clothes and all the baths I want. That’s worth a bit of German sausage, I’d say.’

‘No, Pfani. What about your dignity? Your pride?’

Pfani sneered at the doctor.

‘Dignity and pride don’t keep you alive. I learned that a long time ago and it’s even more true now. I’m going.’

‘You’re leaving me?’ Klara looked so distraught Ester almost felt sorry for her and then remembered the kapo, beaded whip raised above her own pregnant belly, and hardened her heart.

‘Of course I’m leaving you,’ Pfani laughed. ‘What have you ever given me, Klara – a space on your floor and the chance to do your dirty work? Well, thanks, but find yourself a new skivvy. I’m off to do dirty work of my own.’

With a wave to Block 24, she strode out without a backward glance, her red hair flaming in the setting sun framed in the doorway. They all heard a Nazi car gun its big engine and then there was silence.

‘Owww!’ Zofia whimpered, snapping them back into their own world.

‘You’re doing really well,’ Ana assured her soothingly.

Ester wasn’t sure that was true. Tiny Zofia had arrived mourning a husband who’d been shot dead in front of her and a sister sent straight to the gas; she had never truly recovered so labour might be the last straw. However, Ana had

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