I was years old when I learned that hell doesn’t need fire. It is enough of a man who smiles while offering you clean water and three ways to die. My name is Arianne Davao. I have today 82 years old. I live alone in a small house near Chalon sur Sa in Burgundy. People who pass through my streets see me as an old lady discreet who takes care of her hydrangeas and hello politely.
Nobody imagines that I spent years carrying the weight of two deaths that I could have avoided. Nobody knows that in 1943, a German commander gave me three choice and none of them allowed me to remain human. I will tell something I never said to my children, nor to my late husband. something that I kept locked away me like you bury a body.
But now in this house silent, in front of this microphone, I decided it was time. Because the time has no power to absolve monsters and because if I die without speak, the truth dies with me. The Most people believe that the Second World War took place in trenches and battlefields, that horrors were happening in the distance in remote locations with unknown.
But evil does not choose its geography. He knocks on the door literally. It was a dawn November. I lived with my mother and my little one brother Henry in a village called Saint-Jangou the national in the hinterland of Sonloire. A peaceful place, forgotten by time where everyone knew each other by their name.
My father had died 2 years earlier of pneumonia. My mother worked as a seamstress. I helped with deliveries and I dreamed of studying nursing care from the end of the war. I naively believed that nothing really monstrous thing happened to people simple like us. I was wrong. That evening, I had just finished the dishes when I heard the trucks.
The sound of the engines cut through the silence of the village like a blade. My mother mended a coat in the light of a candle. Henry was sleeping in the next room. The noise got closer. then German ways, [music] hammer boots than the pavement. And then the door opened in a smash. They didn’t hit. They have just stoned. There were four of them impeccable uniform soldiers, face young, blank look.
One of them held a list. He called my name, Arian d’Avoldt. He pronounced it wrong but it was definitely me. My mother got up. She tried to say there was a mistake, that I was just a girl, that I hadn’t done anything. One of the soldiers got it pushed against the wall. She insisted. She grabbed my wrist hard, as if she could hold me there for always.
The soldier raised the butt of his rifle and hit him on the hand. I hear still this sound today. The bone that cracks, the cry muffled. Henry woke up crying. I don’t even have could move. I just looked at my mother, saw the blood flow between his fingers and understood that nothing would ever be like before. They dragged me out.
They wouldn’t let me take anything neither coat nor shoes decent. Outside, other girls were already pushed into a truck covered. I recognized a few of them. Simone, the baker’s daughter. Marguerite who worked at the pharmacy. Very young, all aged 16 to 22 years old, 17 in total. The selection was done in silence.
They have nothing explained. He simply pointed finger, took, threw in the truck. I saw Simone’s mother screaming. I have saw a soldier hit her too. I saw the fear on the other girls’ faces and I understood at that moment that we didn’t take us to work. We took us for something worse. The journey took hours the truck piled up like cattle, without space to sit properly, breathing in the smell of sweat, fear and urine. Nobody spoke.
We we only cried in silence. Simon me held the hand, she was 17 years old. She was trembling. When the truck stopped, it was already daylight. We are descended to a place that looked like a military encampment improvised. Wooden barracks. barbed wire fences, watchtowers, but it was not a camp official prisoners of war.
There was no flag, no register. It was something more small, moreover hidden, a black hole where the bureaucracy did not happen. An officer welcomed us. He was different from soldiers. Older, maybe 40, uniform, impeccable, gray hair, combed with care. He smiled. This detail stood out to me. He smiled in us observing how one evaluates pieces rare in a store.
His name was Commander Erich Stolz. I didn’t know than later. But at that moment, everything what I saw was the smile. If you are still here, it is because this story touches you. She should because what happened to these ten girls in this nameless camp could arrive at anyone. Evil doesn’t need permission.
He doesn’t wait to be guest. If this testimony upset, if you feel anything thing while listening to these words, leave a trace. Tell us where you listen to us from because memory only exists if someone remembers. The camp had no official name, no registration, no red cross. It was an administrative black hole where seven girls had been thrown away like worthless objects.
But we had the value, a horrible value, measured in youth and flesh. We have taken to a dark barracks and damp. No bed, only benches placed on the earth floor beaten. A smell of mold and sweat permeated the air. It was cold, a cold that entered the waters. A woman was waiting for us. Her name was Gerda.
German, forties, face closed, hair pulled into a tight bun. [music] She spoke French with a harsh accent. She explained to us the rules. No name, only numbers. No conversation after curfew, no direct gaze towards the officers. Absolute obedience. She marked our wrists with ink black. I was number 11. Simone the 9, Marguerite on 14.
Gerda said phrase that I have never forgotten. Here, you are no longer people, you are resources and resources must serve. Serve. This word would become our nightmare. The first days, we were put in work. Wash the officers’ linen, clean the latrines, prepare the meal. Exhausting work but bearable. We thought it was everything, that we were just a hand cheap labor. We were wrong.
The third evening, Gerda came to pick up a girl, the number, a brunette with eyes greens maybe years old. She was trembling. Gda taken to a separate building, more small, near the commander’s office. The daughter didn’t come back until the next day morning. She no longer spoke. She got sat in the corner and stared at the wall for hours.
No one dared him ask what had happened. But we knew three days later, it was the turn of ours, then another. A rhythm was established. Every week, Gerda came for two or three girls. Some came back broken, others never returned. We we understood the cruel mathematics of camp. Youth was currency. Our body was the payment. The Commander Stolz never shouted.
He doesn’t didn’t hit. He was observing. He smiled. He sometimes offered a piece of bread extra, [music] a little soap, a blanket, privileges lowercase letters that created a hierarchy toxic between us. Some girls accepted, others resisted, but resistance had a price. One evening, the number 6 refused to go with Gerda.
She struggled, she screamed. Two soldiers took him away by force. The next day we were ordered to dig a pit behind the barracks medical. We never saw him again. It was the lesson. To refuse meant to disappear. I spent my nights awake, my heart beating with every sound of footsteps. I prayed to be invisible, so that Gerda does not never say my number.
But prayer was never enough. One December morning, three weeks after our arrival, Gerda entered in the barracks. She looked around her, then she pointed finger. Number 11. Follow me. My senses froze. Simone looked at me terrified. I tried to get up but my legs were shaking. Gerda slammed fingers. Now I followed him.
We walked through the muddy yard. He was raining. A fine, cold rain. We arrived in front of the building of the commander. Gerda knocked. A voice replied in German. She opened the door and pushed me inside. Commander Scholz sat down behind a solid wood desk. A kerosene lamp illuminated his face. He was reading a document.
He looked up towards me and he smiled. Sit number 11. There was a chair in front of the desk. I sat down. My hands were trembling. He put the document down and looked at me silence for a few seconds. Then he opened a drawer and took out a glass. He filled it with water. water clear, clean, a forbidden luxury. He has pushed the glass towards me.
Drink, I don’t have not moved. He’s still sore. You are afraid from me, right? I don’t have answered. He continued. It’s good, the fear is useful, it keeps you alive, but fear alone is not enough. He You also need to know how to choose. He got up, he walked around the office. He leaned against the edge, arms crossed, dominating me with all its height.
You have three choices. Number 11. Listen to them good. He held up a finger. First choice, betray. You give me the names of girls who plan to escape. Yes, I know there is. You tell me who, when, how. In exchange, you receive a double ration, a mattress, maybe even a little heat. He held up a second finger. Second choice, serve.
You become useful for me, for my officers. You do this that we ask you without resisting. [music] You live better than others, you survive. He held up a third finger. Third choice, disappear like number 6, cleanly, without noise. Nobody will search. He leaned towards me. His face was a few centimeters from mine. I smelled of tobacco and water cologne.
So, number 11, what do you choose? I don’t know how many time I remained frozen on this chair. Maybe 10 seconds, maybe an eternity. Commander Scholz did not move. He waited, smiling, as if he had all the time, as if my life were that a game he already knew the outcome. My mind was spinning. Betray, serve, disappear. three doors all locked inside, three ways to die because even if I chose the betrayal or service, I will no longer be me. I would be a shadow.
One thing, I thought of my mother, of her wrist broken, to Henry who slept in peace this that night. I thought of Simone at the number 6, to all those girls who had been reduced to numbers and I understood something terrible. In this camp, no one chose anything. We suffered, we [music] paid, we survive or die, but we don’t never chose.
I looked up towards him. My voice came out, weak, broken. I can’t betray. He leaned head, amused. So, are you serving? I have shook his head. The tears were flowing now. I could no longer retain. I can’t. He got straightened. The smile grew slightly erased. So you disappear. I closed the eyes. I was waiting.
I was waiting for him call the soldiers, let him drag me outside, let him get it over with. But nothing happened. When I reopened the eyes, he looked at me differently. Not with pity, with curiosity. You are interesting number 11. Most choose immediately. betray or serve. But you prefer disappear rather than give in. He went back behind his desk.
He resumed the document he was reading early. Go ahead. I didn’t understand. What ? Go ahead. Return to the barracks. I stood up, trembling, in disbelief. He didn’t look at me anymore. I backed towards the door. Gerda was waiting outside. She brought me back without a word. When I returned to the barracks, Simon rushed towards me.
What did he do to you? What happened? I didn’t know not what to answer. I sat on my bench. I was alive. But why? Why did he leave me leave? The following days I tried to understand. Stolz didn’t summon me again, but he was watching me. Every time I crossed the courtyard, I felt his look. Every time I washed the laundry, I saw him at his window, motionless, smiling. He was playing.
It was a game for him. He loved to see how how long I would last before breaking down. Meanwhile, the camp continued its morbid rhythm. A girl disappeared every three weeks. Some died of illness, exhaustion, cold. Others were taken away and never came back. The favorites received rations doubles, but they never slept.
They had this empty look, this absence in the eyes. Simon and I started planning. Not an escape, it was impossible. The fences, dogs, towers guard, but a silent resistance. We hid food, we let us share our meager resources. We let’s try to stay human. One evening, a new girl arrived. Her name was Claire, [music] years.
She had been captured in a neighboring village. She was terrified. Simon and I tried to reassure him, to explain to him how survive here. But Claire didn’t understand not. She spoke of escape, of resistance, justice. We can’t stay here. We must do something. Simon explained to him gently. Do something is to die. But Claire didn’t want to listen.
She began to organize a plan. She was talking to other girls. She found allies, four in total. She wanted to dig under the fence, enjoy the night. run towards forest. I knew it was crazy. Simon too. But we didn’t say anything because deep down, we wanted to believe that it was possible. A week later Gerda came look for me again.
This time, it was different. She didn’t have me taken to the commander. She told me taken to a small annex office. Stolz was there, standing near the window. Plate yourself number 11. I sat down. He turned towards me. Five girls plan an escape. I want their name. My frozen sense. He knew. Of course he knew. I don’t don’t know what you’re talking about.
He has smiled. Liar. You know, I see everything in this camp. I know what each of whispers to you at night. I know who cries, who prays, who plans. He approached me. Give me them name and I’ll let you live. Refuse and I put yourself in the same category as her. It was the same ultimatum. Betray or disappear. But this time there was no third option.
I thought of Claire, of his face full of hope, to Simone, to all these girls just trying to stay alive. I opened my mouth and said two names, not all, just two. Two girls who I barely knew. Two girls which were part of the plan but I could sacrifice to save the others. Stols noted. He nodded head. Well, are you learning? He sent me away.
That night the two girls were taken away. We never saw them again. Claire and the two others tried their escape three days later. They have been caught before even reaching the fence. Shot on the spot. Simon told me looked the next morning. She knew. She didn’t tell me anything. But she knew. I had betrayed.
I had chosen and this choice destroyed me more than anything Stolz could have done me. The weeks that followed, I became dead alive. I continued to work, to eat, to breathe. But inside, something had broken. Simone spoke to me more. The other girls avoided me. She didn’t know exactly what I did, but she felt that I was different, that I had crossed a line.
Stols, he seemed satisfied. He summoned me twice more, not to ask me to betray, just to speak. He loved that, talking, philosophize. He told me about his life Germany, his wife, his children, like if we were two normal people having tea. It was unbearable because he almost treated me with respect, as if I had earned something thing in ced, as if we were accomplices.
One day he told me something something I never forgot. You know number 11, war does not of monster. It reveals those who were already there. You and me, we we are the same. We do what he necessary to survive. I wanted to scream, to tell him that he had wrong, that we were not the same. But I didn’t say anything because deep down, I was afraid he was right.
The camp has continued like this for months. Winter was terrible. Several girls are died of cold, hunger, disease. We had gone from then at 5. In March 1944, the Allies intensified their bombing in the region. We heard the explosions in the distance. The soldiers Germans were getting nervous. The camp gradually emptied.
The officers left carrying their documents, burning evidence. One morning in April, Gerda brought us together. [music] The camp closes, you will be transferred. We thought we were being sent to a camp bigger. Maybe Ravensbruck, maybe Auschwitz. We thought that it was the end, but that’s not what happened. The next day, trucks arrived, but not military trucks, Red Cross trucks, soldiers allies.
The Germans had left in the night. They had fled. We were free. Free. This word did not want say nothing because freedom, when we was broken from the inside, it’s just another kind of prison. We have taken to a field hospital. We fed us, cared for us, questioned us. American officers want testimonies, evidence, names. I I told them everything except one thing.
I never admitted that I gave two names in Stolz. After a few weeks, we were sent home. Some girls no longer had a home, no more family. They were placed in orphanages, homes. Simon is returned home. She never told me spoke again. I returned to Saint-Jeanou. My mother was still alive. Henry too. They got me welcomed but they didn’t recognize me physically.
I was there but the girl who left in November never came back. My mother tried to understand. She asked me questions. I responded with silences. [music] She ended up stop. Henry was too young. He thought that I had just worked in a factory. I tried to get my life back. I found a job in a bakery. I met a man, Paul, kind, patient.
We are married in 1948. We had two children, a daughter Éise and a son, Mark. I never spoke to them about camp. Never. Paul knew that I had been a prisoner, but he did not know not the details. And I never wanted let him know. For decades I have lived with this secret. Two names, two girls, two deaths on my conscience.
Paul died in 2003. My children have grew up, left, founded their own family. I was left alone in this house and one day, in 2006, I received a letter, an envelope anonymous posted from Berlin. Inside, a photo, an old photo in black and white. It was stolz, in uniform, smiling.
On the back of the photo, someone had written in German the LPT north. He still lives. My blood froze. Stolz was alive. He had never been judged, never condemned. He disappeared after the war like so many others. I burned the photo. But the message was clear. Someone knew. Someone is remembered. It was at that moment that I decided to testify.
not for justice. It was too late for that, but for the truth, so that these two girls are not forgotten, so that their death has meaning. I have contacted an organization that collected testimonies from survivors. They agreed to register and that’s what I do now. I speak for the first times in sixty years.
I speak today. Sitting in this little house, in front of this microphone, I wonder if anyone will really understand what I lived. If anyone can imagine this what it’s like to carry two deaths during 63 years old. Because the dead, they not disappear. They stay. They accompany you. Every morning when I wake up, I see their faces.
I don’t I don’t even remember their names anymore, but I remember their eyes. After the war, many people wanted forget, rebuild, move on thing. But we can’t rebuild on rotten foundations. We cannot don’t forget when the memory eats away at you from the inside. I tried for years. I tried. I smiled at my children. I cooked.
I garden, I lived. But I wasn’t really living. I was just an empty shell pretended. Paul tried to help me. He took me in his arms when I was doing nightmares. He didn’t ask any questions but I saw in his eyes that he knew something was devouring me. One evening, in 1987, he asked me directly Ariane, what happened passed there? What do they have for you? done? I almost told him everything, but the words got stuck.
Because to say was to live again and to live again was die again. So I have lied. Nothing just forced labor. He didn’t insist but I know he didn’t didn’t believe me. My children, they don’t have never asked any questions. For them, I was just a mom. An ordinary woman who had experienced the war like millions more.
Élise became teacher, brand, doctor. They have their own life, their own family. They come to see me once a month. We talk about everything and nothing, never of the past. But the past cannot be left behind forget. He always comes back. In 2010, I saw a documentary on television on the Nazi camps. He showed Auschwitz, Dacho, Ravensbrook, but not our camp because our camp had no never officially existed.
Not archives, no register, just a black hole in history. And that’s it which kills me. That these girls are dead into oblivion, that no one knows, that no one cries. That’s why I testify today, not for me redeem. I know I can’t, but so that they exist, so that their name, even if I don’t remember it more, be engraved somewhere.
I’m going die soon. I’m years old. My heart fatigue. My lungs too. The doctors say I might have another year, maybe two. But before leaving, I wanted to tell the truth, the whole truth. I did not choose to betray. They got me forced but I still betrayed. And I bear this responsibility. I will carry until my last breathing.
Stolz once told me that we were the same, that we did this what was needed to survive. Maybe that he was right. Maybe in this camp, we have all become a little monsters. Not because we wanted, but because it was the only way to stay alive. But here it is the difference between him and me. He doesn’t have never regretted.
Me, I regret every day. So, to you who are listening to this story, I ask a question. A question to which I have never found an answer. If you had been in my place, what would you have done? Would you have resisted to the end, at the cost of your life? Or would you have given in to survive leave this shame forever? I don’t know.
And that’s the worst part. I don’t I still don’t know if I was right or wrong. All I know is that two girls are dead and it’s me who gave their name. I am Arianne from Avo, I am twenty years old and I have never been free since that December night where a German commander told me that I had three choices because in reality I had none.
Arianne’s voice Daveau died in 2011, 5 years old after this recording. She is left in silence in this same small house in Chalon sur Saunne, surrounded by its hortancias and the weight of a secret which she wore for more than six decades. But before you close your eyes last time she did something that few survivors dare to do.
She spoke, she testified, she offered his truth to the world, as heartbreaking be it. What you just heard is not that a story is a fragment of humanity snatched from oblivion. This is the proof that the war is not ending never really for those who have it lived. The bullets stop whistling, the camps empty, doors open, but the scars remain engraved in the flesh, in the spirit, in every sleepless night, in each glance lost towards a past which refuses to die.
Arianne has never sought to be forgiven. She knew that there is no forgiveness for certain choices, even when these choices are just illusions imposed by monsters. She just wanted these two girls she didn’t even remember more names exist somewhere. Let it not be erased by the silence. Let us know that they lived, that they were afraid, that they died alone in a false one without a cross, without prayer, without dignity.
Today we carry this memory. We who listen, we who feel, we who are upset by these words. Because if we forget, if we let these stories disappear, then the monsters win twice. A first time when they destroy lives and a second time when these lives sink into oblivion. If this testimony touched you, if you feel something right now precise, whether it is sadness, anger, compassion or even confusion, don’t stay silent.
Leave a comment, tell us where you listen to this from history. Share your thoughts, your emotions, your questions because the collective memory lives only by those who choose to remember. Subscribe to this channel if you believe that these voices deserve to be heard. Each subscription is an act of resistance against forgetting.
Each like, every share, every comment is a way of saying “I remember, I in turn testify.” These documentaries exist so that stories like those of Ariadne never really die. And before leave, ask yourself this question, even that Ari has asked himself all his life. What would you have done in his place? Would you have resisted until death? Would you have given in to survive? Would you have carried this shame during? There is no right answer, there is no never had.
But ask the question, it is already honoring those who had to live with their response. Arian Davau will not be never forgotten. Not so much as someone listen to his voice, not so much as someone remembers his ten daughters, this unnamed camp, of these three choices impossible. Thanks for listening, thanks to remember you and above all thank you for bring this memory to life by sharing with the world.