The Sixth Lamentation

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The stout figure in the witness box was dressed in black and wore round bottle-end glasses. She did not require the interpreter and answered Mr Penshaw’s questions with a disturbingly loud and deep voice.

‘Your name, please, Madame?’ said Mr Penshaw ‘Collette Beaussart.’

‘You were born in Paris on 4th October 1918?’ ‘Yes.’

‘You are now seventy-seven years of age?’ ‘I am.’

‘You are a Knight of the Legion of Honour?’

‘I am.’

‘You were decorated by General de Gaulle at the Invalides in 1946?’

‘I was.’

‘Please confirm the following. You were a journalist and condemned the Nazi leadership prior to the fall of France and afterwards. You were arrested on 18th February 1942. You were deported. You are a survivor of Drancy, Auschwitz and Ravensbrück.’

‘I am.’

Before calling any evidence, Mr Penshaw told the jury he intended to present the first witness, Madame Beaussart, out of chronological order so as to give them a constant reminder of what the case was really about. ‘And so, ladies and gentlemen, in the coming days when you are listening to bare, lifeless facts about train timetables or the method used to fill in a deportation record, remember well what Madame Beaussart will now relate.’

Lucy listened with a sort of proprietorial desperation. She had recognised the name. Collette Beaussart was the political prisoner Agnes had written about. They’d both got typhus and saved one another through talking … about jam. This was the woman who’d claimed Agnes was part of the group to which she belonged, the politicals who were transferred to Ravensbrück. Lucy wanted to stand up, to claim the witness as her friend. But a wall had been built. She would listen, like everyone else; and watch her go, like everyone else.

Madame Beaussart was twenty-four when the gates of Drancy closed behind her. She witnessed the arrival of children taken in the Vél d’Hiv round-up, after separation from their parents. She saw them depart for the East. ‘I saw them come. I saw them go.’

The courtroom was utterly quiet, save for Madame Beaussart and the soft scuffle of pen upon paper. Lucy was on the edge of her seat.

‘They came in boxcars, all of them under thirteen or fourteen years, the youngest just over a year or so. They were filthy their bodies covered with sores. Many had dysentery. Attempts to clean them were futile. Some were seriously ill with diphtheria … scarlet fever. One of them, naked, asked me why her mother had left her behind. I said she’d only gone away for a while …’

Madame Beaussart’s voice, loud, wavering, uncompromising, described the horrors of trying to care for the abandoned.

‘Like the rest of the prisoners, they slept on dirty straw mattresses until their time came to move on. Them their heads were shaved.’

At dawn, Madame Beaussart and other internees brought the children from where they lay to the courtyard. Some didn’t even have shoes. In groups of fifty they were packed on to buses. Each bore the number of a freight carriage. A thousand left at a time for the station at Bourget.

It was Schwermann who, with others, supervised their departure.

‘He paced back and forth, impatiently, lists in hand, his face like stone, barking orders. I can still see the children … and I hear now the engines that took them away.’

Mr Penshaw sat down.

‘Madame Beaussart,’ said a yielding, compassionate voice. It was Mr Bartlett. He stood perfectly still, rotating a pencil between his fingers. ‘Should you wish to sit down at any time, please do not hesitate to ask his Lordship.’

‘Thank you, but no.’

‘Could you please describe what you can recall about the appearance of the camp at Drancy?’

‘I can remember it all.’

‘Then choose the details which you remember best.’

‘I said I can remember everything, sir. I cannot forget:

‘You remember the armed guards?’

‘They were French, my own countrymen. ‘‘The provision of electricity?’

‘Almost entirely lacking.’

‘How many prisoners to a room?’

‘About fifty:

‘Sleeping on what?’

‘Bunk beds, planks. Many slept on plain straw ‘

‘If I may say so, Madame Beaussart, your memory is without fault.’

Lucy glanced at the judge, his head still, his hand writing down every word as it fell.

Mr Bartlett picked up a sheet of paper. He seemed to hover over its contents, then spoke in the same even, encouraging voice.

‘Do you recollect anything in particular about Mr Schwermann’s appearance?’

‘He was very handsome, with blond hair standing out against his black uniform.’

‘Let me test your memory again, Madame.’ Mr Bartlett was smiling winsomely ‘Do you recall the leather riding breeches?’

‘Yes, I do. They shone.’

Mr Bartlett paused to look at the sheet of paper.

‘You would agree this form of dress was distinctive?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Idiosyncratic?’

‘Yes.’

‘Utterly memorable?’

‘Yes.’

‘Almost a caricature of a German officer, the sort of thing you’ve seen in the films?’

‘No, not in films. I don’t watch them. I can’t bear to. I have pictures of my own and they’ve never gone away I cannot forget that man and what he did. Never, never, never.

Madame Beaussart covered her mouth.

‘Would you like a glass of water, Madame?’

She nodded. And with shaking hands she tried to drink, spilling water over her fingers.

The judge put down his pen, saying, ‘Do take your time.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, ‘I’ve waited all my life for this moment.’

‘We all understand,’ said the judge.

Mr Bartlett waited until Madame Beaussart was ready to continue and them he handed the sheet of paper to the usher, to be passed on to the witness.

‘Would you be so kind as to look at this photograph?’

The witness took off her glasses and produced another pair from a small pouch.

‘That is the man you have been describing, isn’t it?’

Without hesitation she replied, ‘Yes, that is him. Schwermann.’

‘And of that you are sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘His appearance is etched in your memory?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look again, Madame. Is there nothing that causes you to doubt your judgment? It was, after all, over fifty years ago.’

‘I will never forget the man who forced those children on to the buses.’

Inching towards the jury, Mr Bartlett said: ‘Madame Beaussart, you have been right about everything you have told the court today Except in one important detail. But let me make it plain, I do not challenge your candour. The man in the photograph did supervise deportations from Drancy. He has already been convicted by a German court, in a trial you were unable to attend because of a serious illness from which, thankfully, you have recovered.’

Madame Beaussart, bewildered, could not speak.

‘You have correctly identified someone else, not Mr Schwermann. I will supply the details to the court in due course.

He sat down, the flap of his silk gown disturbing loose papers laid out neatly on the table before him.