Women Hate Till Death by Hank Janson

Author:Hank Janson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Telos Publishing Ltd

9

It was the beginning that was the worst. Everything that happened was so totally unexpected and so unbearable, their minds almost cracked beneath the strain of it. Yet Marion and Doris were more fortunate than the others. They were young and healthy, had greater reserves of strength.

Slowly their soulless, routine existence began to take on a dim kind of meaning. Every day the women were roused at dawn, stumbled sleepy-eyed and shivering into the courtyard, where they lined up to answer the roll-call. They musta looked a pathetic crowd with their shaven heads, wearing only those sack-like garments. After roll-call they were split into working groups, were allowed five minutes to visit the latrine and a further ten minutes to gulp down black bread and luke-warm soup. Then each working party under the supervision of an SS guard was marched out to the field to work.

The work was back-breaking. It was potato picking, planting, ploughing, land clearance and road building. It was men’s work and undertaken with the strictest supervision.

No-one could slack. Any woman who fainted was not allowed to rest but was spurred into action as soon as she found the strength to climb to her feet once more. SS guards used fists and boots with merciless disinterest.

Midday they were marched back to camp for a ten minute meal of black bread and soup and were immediately hurried back to take up their work again. Always they laboured until just before dark, whether it was winter or summer. On return to camp at the end of the day they were allowed yet another ten minutes to eat the inevitable soup and black bread before being locked up in their sleeping quarters. There they remained until the following morning when the same soul-breaking tasks were once more re-imposed.

Yeah, it was tough for them. But it was the little things that made it even tougher. The food was inadequate and they were always hungry. There were no facilities for them to wash and no means to clean out their sleeping quarters. No concessions were made to the weather conditions as far as the prisoners were concerned. Their one sack-like garment was the only clothing allowed, winter or summer. When it rained, the SS guards, warm and dry beneath their belted mackintoshes, would march them to water-logged fields where they toiled with their bare feet sinking into the mud over their ankles, the rain beating down on them, soaking their garment until its rough, wet edges chafed and rubbed their flesh raw. In winter, the women picked grass, swathed it to their feet as protection from the icy ground. There were some women like Doris and Marion who were young and able to toughen, harden and acclimatise themselves to this hard living. There were others who became weaker, fell ill and died. More died than survived. At the end of a year, nearly two-thirds of the prisoners in Doris’s hut had died, so that the remaining ones had bunks to themselves.

Time can blunt most sensibilities.

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