My name is Raisa Sokolova. I am 82 years old. If you were to walk into my kitchen today, you would see an elderly woman cutting vegetables at a tall table. When I eat my soup, I do so standing, leaning lightly against the windowsill.
You might assume it is simply a habit of old age. Perhaps you would think my knees hurt from arthritis, or that I am simply stubborn. But that would be wrong. I do not stand because I want to. I stand because sitting has been impossible for me for more than fifty years.
For half a century I remained silent about it. I smiled politely at neighbors. I married. I raised a son. And no one—not even those closest to me—ever fully understood why I never sat comfortably in an armchair or rested on the sofa. I told people my back was weak. That was not true. My back is strong. What was damaged lies deeper, beyond what any X-ray can reveal.
Today I have decided to tell the truth. My legs are beginning to weaken, and I fear that when I fall for the final time, my story may disappear with me. There are experiences worse than death. There are wounds that reshape a person’s entire life. Mine began in the winter of 1944 in a place called Ravensbrück.
To understand who I became, you must know who I was before the world collapsed into war.
Before everything changed, I was simply a girl. I lived in Kharkov, a city that smelled of blooming chestnut trees and warm asphalt after summer rain. My father worked as an engineer at a factory, and my mother taught music to children. Our home was always filled with the sound of a piano. Those melodies were the walls of my safety. I dreamed of becoming a doctor.
I remember my hands from those days. They were soft and smelled faintly of soap and ink from my notebooks. I was in my second year of medical school when the radio announced the beginning of the war on June 22, 1941. I do not remember the date as a line in a history book. I remember it as the moment the music in our home stopped forever.
I refused evacuation. I told my father that my place was where people were suffering. I trained as a nurse. I saw terrible injuries and heard young soldiers calling for their mothers in their final moments. Even those scenes, however, did not prepare me for what would come next.
War at the front was harsh, but it was direct. You knew where the enemy stood.
What happened afterward had little to do with honor.
I was captured in the autumn of 1942 while helping evacuate wounded soldiers near Kharkov. A German patrol stopped our truck. They did not look at the Red Cross on my sleeve. They looked at us as if we were objects.
The journey to the camp began in crowded freight wagons meant for livestock. Hundreds of women were forced inside—young women, elderly women, even girls. When the heavy doors slammed shut, the sound echoed in my mind for years afterward.
Days passed in darkness. Time lost meaning. We stood so tightly packed that when someone died—and many did—the body remained upright among the living. There was almost no water and no space to move. The smell inside the wagon was overwhelming.
I remember a woman beside me named Olga, a teacher from Kyiv. To keep herself calm, she quietly recited poems by Pushkin throughout the journey. Near the end she fell silent. When the doors finally opened, she collapsed at my feet. She had already passed away.
We arrived at the station in Fürstenberg at night. The first thing I heard was not silence but the barking of guard dogs. Harsh commands echoed through the cold air.
We were marched through the forest until we saw the gates—high walls, barbed wire, and watchtowers. Ravensbrück was officially called a women’s camp. The name sounded almost gentle, but there was no kindness inside.
On arrival we were ordered into the yard. Under bright floodlights we were forced to surrender all personal belongings. It was the first lesson: individuality no longer existed. After cold showers and hurried haircuts, we were given rough striped clothing and wooden shoes.
My name remained outside the gate. Inside, I became number 34,509. A red triangle on my uniform marked me as a political prisoner from the Soviet Union.
Our barracks were meant for 200 people but held nearly 800. Wooden bunks were stacked in three levels, several women sharing one thin mattress stuffed with straw. Lice were everywhere. Sleep came only in fragments.
But the most frightening figures were not the insects or hunger. They were the guards.
Some were women in SS uniforms—well-dressed, well-fed, and confident in their authority. I struggled to understand how one woman could treat another with such cold indifference.
One guard in particular remains in my memory: a tall blonde woman with an expressionless smile. She seemed to enjoy the power she held.
Life in Ravensbrück followed a strict rhythm. Wake-up at four in the morning. Then roll call.
Roll call was often the first test of endurance. Thousands of women stood in rows for hours, sometimes in snow or rain, while guards counted and recounted the prisoners. Moving could result in punishment.
My legs would grow numb from the cold, but I learned to keep my mind elsewhere. I recited medical formulas or remembered my mother’s piano lessons. Inside my mind I built a small fortress where the guards’ voices could not reach.
During one of those endless roll calls I met Tanya, a young woman from Leningrad. She taught me an important rule: do not look directly at the guards, but never let your spirit collapse inside. Even if your body bends, your mind must remain upright.
We supported each other quietly—sometimes literally holding one another upright during long hours of standing.
Hunger was constant. A thin soup and a small piece of bread were often all we received. Yet I promised myself something simple: I would not forget who I was. I would wash my face each morning, even in icy water, and keep my clothes neat as long as possible.
Workdays lasted up to twelve hours. We carried stones, repaired roads, and sewed uniforms in factory workshops.
The greatest fear was not work. It was selection.
At any moment a prisoner could be chosen for punishment, transfer, or medical experimentation. Rumors circulated constantly about blocks where prisoners were used for research. Many women returned injured or did not return at all.
In February 1944 my life changed completely.
I was working near the railway unloading supplies when an elderly French prisoner dropped a heavy crate. A guard approached and began shouting at her. Without thinking, I stepped forward to help her stand.
It was an instinct—the instinct of a nurse.
The officer looked at me with surprise, as though an object had suddenly spoken. Then he smiled.
“You want to help?” he asked in broken Russian. “We will see how strong you are.”
That evening I was taken to the bunker.
The door closed behind me with a heavy metallic sound. The room contained little more than a table, a chair, and a bright lamp. The same officer was there, along with a guard.
They spoke calmly, almost politely, yet the situation carried an unmistakable threat. What followed was meant to humiliate and break my spirit.
When it was over, I was left injured and in severe pain. From that moment forward, sitting became physically impossible.
The next morning I returned to the barracks. During roll call the guards ordered prisoners to squat repeatedly as a form of discipline. I could not comply. Each attempt caused unbearable pain.
The guards struck me with batons, assuming I was refusing orders. But my body simply would not allow the movement.
Eventually one officer waved his hand and said, “Leave her. Let her stand.”
And so I stood.
From that day forward, standing became my only way to endure.
I learned small strategies for survival. At night I tied pieces of cloth to the bunk so I could rest without lying fully down. I ate meals leaning against the wall. Each hour spent standing felt like a quiet act of defiance.
Liberation came on April 30, 1945, when Soviet tanks reached the camp gates.
The guards fled in chaos. Prisoners gathered in the yard, unsure whether to celebrate or simply collapse from exhaustion.
For me the moment felt unreal. Freedom had arrived, but the damage to my body remained.
Returning home was difficult. Former prisoners were often viewed with suspicion. During an interview at a Soviet office, an official told me to sit down. I quietly replied that I preferred to stand.
I resumed work in medicine but eventually became a pharmacist. It allowed me to remain on my feet throughout the day.
Later I married a man named Mikhail, a war veteran who had lost his arm. He understood pain without explanation. He even built a special stool for me that allowed limited rest without pressure on my injuries.
Years passed. I raised a son.
In 1976 I was invited to testify in a trial in Düsseldorf against former personnel from Ravensbrück. When I entered the courtroom, the judge politely asked me to take a seat.
I held the podium and replied, “Your Honor, I cannot sit.”
For four hours I testified while standing. I described the camp, the bunker, and the events that changed my life.
When the trial ended, the man responsible avoided my gaze.
Now I am eighty-two. My legs ache with age, but I remain grateful for them. Each step reminds me that I survived.
My grandchildren run in the garden outside, and when I watch them I understand something important: survival itself can be a form of victory.
People often ask where I found the strength to endure.
My answer is simple.
When you lose the ability to sit down, you have only one choice left—to stand and continue forward.
My name is Raisa Sokolova. I am a woman without a chair, but I still have my dignity. My story is not only about suffering. It is about the resilience of the human spirit.
While I stand, memory remains alive.
More than 130,000 women passed through the Ravensbrück concentration camp during the Second World War. Only a small portion survived until liberation. Many endured forced labor and medical experimentation.
This story honors those women and preserves their memory.
Remembering history is one way to ensure such tragedies are never repeated.