Page 81 of Cilka's Journey

“A long time to be there, yes. For three years I lived in hell—the abyss. Although I have been here just as long now.”

“Tell me about the number on your arm.”

“That was our introduction to Auschwitz. They took my small bag of belongings. They took my clothes. They took my youth, my identity, and then they took my name and gave me a number.”

“How… how did you…?”

“Survive?” Cilka begins shaking. “In a place that was created for one reason only, to exterminate us? I’m not sure I can tell you.” She holds her arms around herself.

“Cilka, it’s all right. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“Thank you, Yelena Georgiyevna,” Cilka says, and then forces herself to ask something. “Do you know why I’m here?”

“No. I don’t. I don’t know why anyone is here, and I have no need to ask. I’m sorry if that makes me sound like a coward.”

Cilka clears her throat.

“I am here because I slept with the enemy, or that is what I was charged with. Sleeping with the enemy. Working with the enemy. For me, there was no sleeping. He—they—came into my bed and sometimes slept, after they…”

“Raped you?”

“Is it rape if you don’t fight back, don’t say no?”

“Did you want them to have sex with you?”

“No, no, of course not.”

“Then it is rape. I take it these men had some kind of power or control over you?”

Cilka laughs. Standing up she walks around the room.

“They were senior officers.”

“Oh. I see. This was in Auschwitz?”

“Yes and no. It was another camp down the road from Auschwitz but still part of it. It was called Birkenau.”

“And… for three years?”

“Two and a half. Yes… And I never said no, never fought back.”

“How could you fight a man? I’m sure they were bigger than you.”

“That’s an understatement. One of them, I didn’t even come up to his chin, and there was, there was…”

“Was what?”

“The gas chambers, where everyone went. Went in alive and came out the chimney. I-I saw them every day, every day that was my future if I didn’t…”

“So, you’re telling me you spent two and a half years being raped by the men in charge of the camp in which you were a prisoner, and for that you are now here?”

Cilka sits back down on the chair. Leaning forward, she stares Yelena in the eyes.

“I gave in.”

Yelena shakes her head.

There is more, Cilka thinks. Can she say it? Tell her all of it? Telling her this much has already exhausted her.