{"id":24,"date":"2012-02-02T23:17:19","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T22:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.susanneayoub.at\/?p=24"},"modified":"2022-03-21T10:58:26","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T09:58:26","slug":"das-maedchen-von-ravensbrueck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.susanneayoub.at\/en\/das-maedchen-von-ravensbrueck\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ravensbr\u00fcck Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Novel
\nVerlag Braum\u00fcller 2012<\/em><\/h3>\n

1934. Vienna is wracked by civil war. A little girl, eight-year-old Leni, moves amid the upheaval. Tanks besiege the housing complex where the members of the resistance are entrenched. Leni walks past them with a heavy milk can full of soup and dumplings for the fighters. Nobody stops her.<\/p>\n

It is the first illegal activity she can remember. Her mother sent her.After her mother\u2019s death, fifteen-year-old Leni takes over her work with the Red Aid. A year later she is arrested. Her group has been betrayed.<\/p>\n

Only her youth saves her from the gallows. She ends up in the Ravensbr\u00fcck concentration camp.<\/p>\n

Leni survives and returns to her hometown, devastated Vienna, where things haven\u2019t gone well for people, where no one wants to hear what happened in the camps, just as earlier they did not want to see the misdeeds the Nazis committed in plain view.<\/p>\n

Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not coincidental, Susanne Ayoub writes at the beginning of her new novel. It deals with the better Austria, the fates of Austrian women in the resistance against National Socialism.<\/p>\n

Translation Geoffrey C Howes<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWalter,\u201d Leni said in a firm voice. She was sitting on the interrogation seat in front of the desk, with him behind it, by the open drawer from which he took his whip from time to time and turned it playfully between his fingers. Now he let it fall onto the desktop. It made an ugly, metallic noise. Leni didn\u2019t look at it. She didn\u2019t want to think about the blows. He had to believe her. If he sensed her fear, it was all over.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the name. The man who pulled me in there is named Walter.<\/p>\n

\u201cAha.\u201d He stood up and came over to her. \u201cYou slut.\u201d He relished stretching out the word.\u201dWalter then, what did you get up to with that fellow? Did you do it with him?\u201d He grabbed her by the arm and shook her. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of Walters. Walter and then what? And don\u2019t you dare lie to Schiller again!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWalter Suchanek,\u201d Leni expelled.<\/p>\n

He yanked her up by the arm. \u201cYeah, why not just say so, you bitch? We haven\u2019t been wasting our time. Walter Suchanek.\u201d He pressed the bell button.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a confession. Now you\u2019re going to tell everything you know. But make it snappy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leni nodded in anguish. She felt the dampness on her thighs. She wanted to close her eyes, to be far away from this horrible person, who would only mock her in her distress. Now he glanced at the seat of her chair, the red spot she\u2019d left there. Between her legs, blood trickled to the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisgusting!\u201d Revolted, he pulled his hand away from her. \u201cYou filthy bitch, you\u2019re going to clean that up! Make sure it\u2019s gone or I\u2019ll break your back.\u201d<\/p>\n

He yelled until the door opened and his colleague, the one who had knocked her tooth out, looked in. \u201cIs she causing trouble again?\u201d he asked eagerly.<\/p>\n

Schiller went back to his seat at the desk. \u201cA little memory helper like that works wonders,\u201d he answered. \u201cNow she\u2019s thought of something after all. We put it down in writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

He cast a surly glance at Leni, who was trying to wipe up the blood with her handkerchief.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut first give her a cleaning rag. What impertinence!\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Novel Verlag Braum\u00fcller 2012<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":80,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanneayoub.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanneayoub.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanneayoub.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanneayoub.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanneayoub.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanneayoub.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3435,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanneayoub.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/3435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanneayoub.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanneayoub.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanneayoub.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanneayoub.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}