Prisioner nº 32269 

In O Martírio de Ravensbrück, José Milhazes stops to give an account of the characteristics of this German concentration / extermination camp. Located 90 kilometres north of Berlin, Leida had the 'privilege' of being the first of a list of Estonian inmates who - heaped in a cattle train - travelled for seven days to the terrible scene of stinking crimes.

The hairs on my skin bristle when I read that the Reichsführer Himmler had the delicacy to visit his work when he dressed and said goodbye -a few kilometres away- from his lover.

Starvation. Starvation. Starvation.

Terrible medical experiments (injected staphylococci, tetanus, different types of bacteria, wood, glass, metals ...) Tissue transplants from one woman to another one.

As judias e polacas eram as principais «cobaias humanas». Leida escapou às experiencias médicas por ter sido detida por «actividades subversivas» e não ser considerada judía, mas comunista.

Mr Milhazes also remembers the names of some women, well known for their work when they were free and writes footnotes in case if the person reading this feels desires to know more.

Not hypocritical, frivolous it seems to me the treatment that Stalin inflicts on the 24 German communist militants offered by the Soviet dictator to Hitler to reinforce the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: as these prisoners had an aspect that denoted the hardships and privations to which they had been submitted, they were given a stay in the Soviet capital, to recover a more human aspect.

What to say about Minna Rupp! German Communist who once appointed as Blockova (boss of Block), selected the prisoners to be sent to the gas chamber. Denounced after the war, she was sentenced to 25 years of forced labour in a prison in Dresden. One can imagine the situations of solidarity between the inmates with the moments of selfishness and fears. Collaborationist? Saving the own skin?

I´m obliged to give the title of a book that according to Mr Milhazes is the most complete investigation into the horrors in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Sara Helm, Se Isto É Uma Mulher, Barcarena, Editorial Presença, 2015.

Chapter that also expands with the aberrations suffered by many women by the Red Army and that the lords of the Kremlin prefer to hide and "keep alive the legend of the exclusively liberating role of the Soviets." Carte blanche. It was not only the Germans, but also Polish and French women who entered into a range of sexual activities that didn´t understand borders or allies.

In the penultimate chapter of the book, a sketch is made of the lives of some people who survived the concentration camps, but who were not well-liked by the Russian Communists because they were suspicious that they had come out alive from the hell of Ravensbrück. Warning.They could be spies sent by the Germans.

Leida, anxious to re-enter the PCR (b), is rejected by the organization of this party in Tallinn because she «works well in the position assigned to her» and until «it´s clear her behaviour in the territory occupied by the Germans.» She had to wait two years after returning to the country to be accepted in the PCR(b), then PCUS (Communist Party of the Soviet Union).

The book ends with a review of the situation of Soviet society -in the person of Leida- and clarifies that although the communist power proclaimed to the four winds equality of rights between men and women, we must go until 1988 to account for the 30% of the  PCR(b)  militants were women and that until that year there was only 4.4% of them in the Central Committee.

The complicated way that Leida has to travel to obtain the pension (or the increase of it), because she had to gather countless documents, witnesses that supported her, supporting documents, proof ... And she had to repeat it every time they denied.

The figure of Nikita Khruschov appears -let us not forget his help in the purge of some colleagues in the Moscow Oblast- and the effort in which the Soviets had to live in better conditions than they had in a shared apartment and began to build the "khruschovki".

The last paragraph of the book warns us of the totalitarian ideologies that are emerging today and that are presented as the real solutions to the problems of the world, which are again xenophobia, racism and everything that doesn´t match my thinking.

I ask myself the same question as José Milhazes.

Could it be that History does not teach us anything?

From my Borstal.

LDR

Os Blumthal: Uma História Real de Vidas Sacrificadas às piores Utopias e Tiranias do Século XX. 2018, José Milhazes e Oficina do Livro. Afragide. Portugal