The first night that no one ever sp*ke of, and which br*ke him.
He never called us by our names. He said a number like someone announces a crate, a package, a spare part. But the first night we didn’t have Not even a number yet. We were not only silhouettes torn from their life. bodies that we move, that we sort, classify. My name is Éléonore Vassel, I am years old and what I’m going to say now, history books left him out field, the documentaries cut it to montage and the survivors buried him so deep that they ended up believing that it was necessary to remain silent in order to continue
breathe. However, in several camps French prisoner under command German, there was a ritual not official, without signature, without register, but repeated with the same coldness. They called it an evaluation, not for measure ourselves like workers, to sizing us up like cattle, even before that our hands do not touch a shovel, even before our mind finds a reason to resist.
When I arrived at the camp, it was in May. Three days earlier, I was still in my father’s bakery Baumont sur Sart, packing breads still warm. My mother had me sewed a light blue dress. I had tied my hair with a white ribbon. At 6 a.m. I heard the trucks before seeing them. The diesel roared in the narrow streets.
Then the boots hit the cobblestones like hammers. They didn’t hit, they opened the door. Three soldiers. one kept a list, another pointed out to me with the finger. One word, shaket. Raos. I couldn’t take a coat. I couldn’t kiss my mother. She has wanted to get closer. We pushed him away against the wall.
My father appeared, he received a blow. He fell to his knees, looking for air. And I was pulled out so fast that my bare feet grated the ground, the skin burning with each not. In the truck, there were already women. I recognized Madame Colette, the teacher. Margaot who worked at the grocery store, Simone, my neighbor of childhood.
in total, most of them very young, the eyes too green, breathing too much short, hands trembling, no one shouted, we cried silently or we stared into space because we already felt that the worst part was not the trip or even the camp. The worst part was what he did before giving us a number. The trip lasted two days, but in my spirit, it never had an end or beginning.
Time had dissolved in the noise of engine and the smell of bodies piled up. We were pressed against each other others, unable to sit still at the same time. Some remained standing for hours, legs trembling, until another take their place. There was neither speech, only sips of water distributed as a rare favor.
At one point, a girl behind me whispered his mother’s name again and still like a prayer that refused to die. Nobody cares about it because everyone thought of the same name, the same face, the same door she would never see again maybe never. At night, the cold entered our waters. During the day, it was heat and thirst.
The humiliation had started even before arrival. When the truck stopped for Last time it was dark. First I heard the metal, a heavy, slow grinding, like a jaw opening. Then the dogs, then the dry, fast routes, foreign. The air smelled of wet earth, smoke and something else. Something that I didn’t understand yet but my body recognized immediately.
Accumulated fear. The fear that remained there long after that those who had felt it had disappeared. The truck doors opened abruptly. The light blinded us. We shouted. We pushed. A woman fell. A another was pulled by the hair. My legs were numb but I was moving forward because staying still meant attracting attention.
Before us stood a portal huge topped with words in German that I didn’t know how to read. Later, I will learn what it meant. a lie engraved in iron. We were lined up in four rows. Guards in gray uniforms passed in front of us like inspectors. She wasn’t looking at our faces, she looked at our bodies. She stopped, murmured, noted.
When one of them arrived in front of me, she lifted my chin with a stick. She turned my face left then right as if she was looking for a fault. She wrote something on her notebook, then she gestured to the right. Six other women joined me, others were sent elsewhere. We don’t did not yet know that this gesture was coming to decide on our first night.
The barracks where we were taken was smaller than the others. Not more comfortable, no, but different. Too clean, too quiet. The windows had bars and the light hanging from the ceiling flickered slightly as if even she hesitated to stay. There were seven of us, separated from the 40 others without explanation.
No one dared to ask the question yet burned everyone’s lips. Why us? A guard came in, closed the door behind her and we observed how we observe objects lined up on a table. His French was broken but sufficient. You have been chosen, she said. Tomorrow, indoor work, cooking, serving, not factory, not field.
Some girls exchanged a relieved look, almost grateful. Me, I felt my stomach squeeze because in one place like this, nothing was given without reason. She continued. Tonight, evaluation. The word fell heavily. Assessment. It echoed in my head like an echo came from far away, like a bell cracked. We were then taken to a room with a cement wall.
The water of the Shower was freezing. They ordered that we take off our clothes. Nobody protested. We already had understood that protesting changed nothing. I had never been naked in front of unknown. I was shaking, not just from cold. They observed every gesture, checked our arms, our hair, our skin, not like doctors, like inspectors.
When it was over, they threw me a gray dress, fine, empty, as if it only served to cover the minimum. When I returned to the barracks, the others were already seated, dressed in the same way, their eyes searching for an answer that no one could give. Time passed without measure, then door opened. An officer entered grandly, silent.
His impeccable uniform contrasted with our trembling bodies. He walked slowly in front of us. He doesn’t didn’t speak. He was watching. He stopped in front of me and without touching me, he made me understand a truth that I will never forget never. That night we weren’t there to work. We were there. for be judged.
There remained in front of me a few seconds, not long, but enough to that time itself seems to stop. His gaze drifted from my face to my shoulders, then lower, without haste, without emotion, as if he did not see a no one, but one thing he had to check the status. I felt my breathing become irregular. My fingers tightened on the fabric of the gray dress as if this thin piece fabric could still protect me.
He says something in German. Its voice was calm, almost indifferent. The guard translated in a neutral tone: “Get up!” My legs refused first to obey. Then, slowly, I got up. The wood on the floor was cold beneath my bare feet. Turn around. I turned around. Every gesture seemed unreal to me as if I was observing someone else to act in my place.
He took a step around me. I could hear the leather of these boots squeak slightly. Stop. I stopped. The silence in the room was so deep that I could hear the frantic beating of my own heart. He came closer again. I felt this presence behind me, close, too close. Then he walked away, a simple hand gesture like a decision taken.
The guard placed a mark on his notebook. It was then that I understood that something thing had just been decided, not explained, not announced, decided. He continued towards the others. A girl blonde, very young, maybe 16 years old, began to shake violently. A another closed his eyes, murmuring something something I didn’t understand.
Nobody screamed, nobody begged because we already understood that begging didn’t exist here. After a few minutes, he made a sign towards two of them. The guardian grabbed them gently, almost politely. “Follow!” The two girls stood up. Their legs no longer seemed to be belong. They left the room without a word.
The door closed behind her. The silence returned, but it was no longer the same silence. It was a silence filled waiting. And for the first time since my arrival, I understood that the Night was just beginning. The door remained closed. The sound of the bolt rang again in my head long after he had disappeared.
There were five of us. Now, five silhouettes sitting on lilies narrow lit by this pale light which didn’t warm anything. Nobody spoke but we all listened. Every noise, every step away, every breath. Time stretched, distorted, maybe an hour, maybe only a few minutes. Then finally, departure returned to the corridor.
Slow, irregular. The key turned, the door opened. One of the girls came back. She was the youngest. She entered without looking up. Her dress was wrinkled, her hair defeated. She walked to her bed and sat down mechanically like a puppet whose the wires were cut. Nobody asked any questions because we already had the answer.
She stared at the ground motionless, his hands were trembling slightly. I held mine out towards her, hesitated, then placed it gently on his arm. She doesn’t react. His eyes were open but empty as if part of them had remained elsewhere. The second girl did not return immediately. The silence became even heavier.
The air itself seemed denser, difficult to breathe. Someone was slowly engulfed in the shadow. Then the door opened again. The second girl entered. She walked slowly but straight, too straight, as if she refused to let her body show what she felt. She lay down without a word, turning the back to the rest of the world.
That night, no one slept. We sat waiting for something we could neither name or prevent. And deep inside me, a cold certainty settled down. What was happening here was not exception. It wasn’t a mistake, it was a system and we had just entered it. At night had not yet finished swallowing us. There were five of us.
But I already knew that this number was only a suspended moment, a fragile illusion. The door could open at any time and it opened without warning, without noise. The guard entered, followed of another officer younger than the first. His face was smooth, almost ordinary. That was what terrified me the most. He didn’t look like a monster, he looked like a normal man.
His eyes roamed the room slowly, stopping on each of us. Not like a human gaze, like a look that chooses. He says something thing in German. The guardian replied. Then she pointed. Not me, not this time. Another girl. She jumped like a surprised animal by an invisible trap. She didn’t beg no, she did not resist.
She got up simply as if his body had understood before his mind that resisting cannot was no longer of any use. She walked past me. I felt the air move around of her. I smelled his soapy scent cold. The door closed behind her and silence returned. But this silence was no longer the same. He was filled with something new, certainty.
We understood now. It was not not a single event, it was a mechanics, a routine, a night that was going to repeat itself over and over again until there’s nothing left to break. I looked at my hands, she trembled slightly. I hugged him against me. I was trying to remember the warmth of the my father’s bakery, light in the morning, the smell of warm bread.
But these memories already seemed to belong to someone else. Not to me, not to girl that I was still yesterday. The door remained closed for a long time, then it opened. The girl came back. She doesn’t didn’t cry. She didn’t speak. She sat down slowly. And in his eyes I saw the same thing than in those of others.
Something had died out, not his body, not again, but something more deep, something that no words could describe. And I understood then that the first night was not only used to choose, it served to transform, to teach us from the beginning that our will mattered more, that our voice did not exist more, that our ancient world was finished and that from now on we were more than breathing shadows again.
Dawn came without light. The sky was gray, colorless, like if he also refused to watch this place. The siren screamed suddenly, tearing the fragile silence. My heart leapt in my chest. The guards opened the door. Their face was closed, indifferent, as if the night had never existed, as if nothing had happened.
Get up,” one of them ordered. His voice was cold, mechanical. We got up. Our bodies obeyed before our minds. In the corridor, dozens of others women were already walking. Their look was down. Some were shaking. Others seemed absent, as if they had left their souls behind her. We were taken into a large room where piles of gray clothes were placed on tables.
A guardian threw a uniform towards me. The fabric was rough, worn, too big. Get dressed. I took off the dress that had been given to me the day before. For a second I remained still. It was the last piece of the person I had been. Then I dropped it to the ground. I put on the uniform. He smelled of dust and cold. We were given wooden shoes.
They were too hard, too heavy. When I walked, they hurt immediately my feet, but no one didn’t complain. In the courtyard, hundreds of women were lined up. The wind was blowing through our clothes too purposes. Nobody spoke. We had become silent. Not because we were ordered to, because that something in us had taught that talking changed nothing.
An officer climbed onto a platform. He spoke in German. A prisoner translated: “You are here to work. You will obey. You will survive if you are useful.” Then he added a shorter, simpler sentence. You no longer have a name. At that moment, I understood that the first night hadn’t just taken something, she had created something thing, a new version of us.
A version which survived without hope, a version that breathed without living. I looked down at my hands. They were always the same, but she no longer belonged to me completely. And in the silence of this courtyard, I did a promise. I will survive, even if I were to become a shadow do it. The days began to fade confuse.
In the morning, the siren, the cold, the shovel, working hours, then at night and sometimes the door that opened again. But something in me had changed. The fear was still there, but she was no longer alone. There was other thing now, a decision, a refusal silent to disappear. completely. He could control my body, my movements, my days, but I refused to let my spirit die.
I was assigned to the officers’ kitchen. It was a separate, warmer building. The smell of food was almost there unbearable. Not because she was bad, but because it reminded us of life from before. I cut bread, I washed plates, I served men who did not didn’t even look at me or worse who looked like I was nothing.
Some laughed, some talked about their home, their family, as if the world outside still existed. One day an officer placed a cup in front of me and said in French: “You will survive if you learn to forget.” I didn’t answer, but deep inside me, I knew he was wrong. Forget would have been real death. So, I memorized everything, the faces, the voices, the looks because one day someone should know.
The weeks passed, some women disappeared, others arrived. The camp breathed like a creature alive, swallowing lives and spitting out shadows. Then one morning, everything changed. The guards were nervous. We heard noises distant, explosions. The front was approaching, the war was approaching and for the first time since my arrival, I have experienced something that I hadn’t seen in a long time in the eyes of the guards. Fear.
A few days later they left, not all, but enough. The camp slowly. Then a new silence settled. A different silence. not that of oppression, that of fa. When the Allied soldiers arrived, they did not immediately understand what that he saw. We were standing, but we weren’t really alive anymore. One of them looked at me, he said nothing, but his eyes filled with tears.
I didn’t cry, not that day, because I knew that surviving was not not the end of the story. Surviving was the beginning of memory and memory would be my weapon, my testimony, my truth because they tried to us erase but they had failed. My name is Éléonore Vassel. I have survived the first night and I didn’t never forgotten. Yeah.
