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Chapter 15 All But My Life THAT WAS A DAY FULL OF TENSION. ALLIED PLANES WERE CONSTANTLY overhead, strafing the woods and our marching column. Obviously the pilots did not know who was marching, they saw only the green-gray uniforms of the guards. In the evening when we got to a barn, I saw Liesel. She had been wounded in the leg. "It's nothing," she said, "it does not even hurt.” The barn doors were closed, but the boards did not fit tightly so that light from the outside streamed in. We had stopped marching earlier than usual, probably because the guards were afraid of the planes. I tried to talk to Liesel and Suse, but somehow the tie between us was broken. Our group was not the same. With Ilse gone, it seemed that they felt that the three of us who remained couldn't last long. Suse planned to ride in the wagon next day. She declared herself unable to walk any more. Liesel, whose legs were covered with pus-filled scabs, agreed to join her. When morning came I started to follow Suse and Liesel into the wagon. Hanka pulled me back. "You can walk,” she said firmly. "Don't ride again.” Meekly I obeyed, though it seemed to make little difference to me. At first my legs hurt so that I thought I could not con- tinue, but as I marched on they felt better. Again and again I found myself turning to my left for Ilse, to my right for Suse. Girls I did not know were marching on either side of me. We spent another night in a barn. In the morning at least fifty more girls were dead. When we filed by to get some soup I heard a group of guards speaking excitedly. “Ist es möglich?” one of them asked, and an SS woman answered hysterically: “Ja, der Führer ist tot!” I felt myself tremble with joy. “Suse, Suse, did you hear?” I whispered. "Yes," she answered, “but I am sure that now they will kill us for revenge.” " I wanted to say no, but something prevented me. Perhaps, I thought, Suse was right. We marched on, waiting for something to happen. With Hitler dead, things had to change. “It is happening now," I kept saying to myself. “This is the end. One or two more days, and it will be over.” But somehow it did not matter so much any more. With Ilse gone I did not care, even though I had promised her that I would not give in. The third evening after Ilse's death we approached a little town in Czechoslovakia: Volary. It was a Friday, I learned lat- er. My legs were hurting terribly; I felt that I could not go on. The SS woman now in charge told us to stand in a row in a meadow. Those who were no longer fit she ordered to stand apart. I was swaying. "You cannot walk any more," she barked, pointing at me. 136