No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home

Irene Finds Freedom

In camp, if it was not going the way I like, I never despair. I disconnect my thoughts. I don’t think about the tragic things. I think of something else which is more pleasant or nice for me. When I disconnect I think that just surviving is the most important and then forget about it. I have terrible fear. I suffered the most from fear. I was scared of everything around me, but when I disconnect, it’s like not me. Somebody else.

We eat potato soup, the skins. That saved us because that’s the most healthy part, but they didn’t know it. Once a week a piece of bread. All the women stopped menstruating.

As a girl I wasn’t very happy. My sister was dead and my father was dying. So my mother did everything for me. She picked my clothes. She pick my friends. She pick what I do, where I go, what I eat. In camp she picks nothing. For the first time, I have freedom.