Roll Call

Anna Burdówna: Crow and Cock (1941)
(Original language: Polish)

Tell me, crow, for what purpose
the siren competes with me?
It howls day and night, like a wolf to the herd.
Does it concern the weather?

No, my rooster, for other reasons,
namely - different roll calls.
There stand for hours frozen and trembling
Four thousand in rows.

Unknown author: Solo Alone

Here we stand for roll call in the morning, at noon and in the evening
Sickness, sorrow and death
fear, terror and hardship
are here our daily bread.

Denyse Clairouin: Roll Call (1944)
(Original language: French)

The sky is black, the earth is black, hard is the frost, heavy my heart. Sad victims of expiation, nourished by hatred and rancor, we wait. The pale light of dawn.

Aleksandra Sokowa: Roll Call (1943)
(Original language: Russian)

The lips blue, the mouth wrinkled,
teeth chattering miserably,
yet the ranks are thinning,
the wind makes way.

Badge of Maria Hiszpańska
Prisoner number 10219 with red angle (political prisoner) and the letter "P" for "Poland". The artist Maria Hiszpańska-Neumann was imprisoned in Ravensbrück and in the Neubrandenburg subcamp.

Number of a Jewish prisoner
From Auschwitz concentration camp, found on the grounds of Ravensbrück.

Grazyna Chrostowska: Roll Call (1941)
(Original language: Polish)

We still stand
In mute voiceless silence,
The world seems plain
And also clear as on the hand,
The picture ... Unhooked wagons at the edge.

Sonja Prins: Ravensbrück
(Original language: Dutch)

Night in the cattle shed. Who notices there
When another one has died without light?
She no longer needs to stand roll call when morning comes.

Striped concentration camp prisoner clothing
Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück.
Signatur: V286B2

No 47275 with red angle (political prisoner)
The dress belonged to the communist Frenchwoman Odile Roger, who was imprisoned in the subcamp Neubrandenburg.

Michalina Wosniak: Ravensbrück Anthem
(Original language: Polish)

It doesn't matter that we are on first-name terms with death
and walk arm in arm and laugh at our own tears ...
Freedom awaits us, we see it beyond the bars,
like the color of blood floating in the river towards the horizon.

Silvia Salvesen: Christmas Eve at Ravensbrück (1944)

This is a hell of Folie Bergere.
Sirens wail ugly and loudly
German culture, German roll calls
"dobranos, gute Nacht, bon soir."
21 nations, 21 thousand souls in this muddle.

Elzbieta Popowska
(Original language: Polish)

During the roll call with bated breath
we fish out voices coming from afar,
if the forest does not resound with terrible echo,
In the chest the heart beats so fearful.
God have mercy on us.

Prisoner dress with sewn on identifier
Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück
Signatur: V310B2

Hetty Voûte & Gisela Söhnlein: Ravensbrück New Year's Eve 1944
(Original language: Dutch)

The siren calls, line up, you Vughter women,
It's time to stand roll call again.
Forget the diarrhea, agony and ulcers.
Be a Teuton and join our ranks.
Line up in hordes of thousands,
Ask not why, but line up foolhardy.