He closed his eyes. A tear rolled down his cheek. They told me my mother died in the war, that I was an orphan, that my biological parents were killed in a bombing. “I know,” I whispered. “I know what they told you.” They lied to me. His voice shook with anger and pain. “Yes,” he said, opening his eyes and looking at me, truly looking at me for the first time.
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE“What’s your name, Maéis?” She nodded slowly, as if memorizing every syllable. My name is Mathias, and for the first time in 29 years, I heard my son’s name. Mathias and I had never been close. How could we be? I was a stranger to him. He was a man whose life was built on a lie, a lie I had destroyed. We met several times after that first meeting.
Polite coffee breaks, timid conversations. He asked me questions about Aurore and Séverine, about von Steiner. I answered honestly, even though it hurt. One day he asked, “Did you love me?” “A little.” I looked at this thirty-year-old man, this stranger who was my son, and told him the truth. I loved you from the first moment I felt you inside me, and when they took you away, a part of me died.
I’ve been looking for you my whole life. Yes, Mathias, I loved you. I still love you. He cried. I did too. But love alone isn’t always enough to heal wounds. Mathias had his own family, a wife, two children, a life completely different from mine. I couldn’t demand a place in his life. And I didn’t want to. I just wanted him to know.
We corresponded for several years. Then the letters became less frequent, and the music stopped. In 2005, I learned from his obituary that he had died of cancer. He was sixty years old. Despite this, I wasn’t invited to the funeral. I stayed at the back of the church, discreetly, unobtrusively. I saw his children cry, his wife break down, and then I understood.
My son had lived a life, a real life, despite everything, despite Funsteiner, despite the camp, despite me. And maybe that was enough. When I gave this interview for the “Historical Memory” project in 2010, I was six years old. I was physically exhausted, my voice hoarse, but my mind was still clear. They asked me if I had any regrets. I answered no.
Not because I was looking for Mathias, not because I knocked on his door, not because I told the truth, but because silence also kills, and some stories cannot be buried. Von Steiner was never brought to justice. The children born in that camp were never officially registered. Women like me never received recognition, an apology, or compensation.
We were simply erased. But as long as there is someone to tell our story, we will live on. I died five years after that interview, in 2015. I was 91 years old. I was alone, as I have been for almost my entire life. But my words remain. And today, decades later, thousands of people hear my story.
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGEPerhaps among them is a woman who recognizes something, a familiar pain, a silence she carries within. If so, I want to tell her: your story matters. Your pain is real, and you are not alone. The world has tried to erase us, but we are still here, in every will, in every precious memory, in every person who refuses to forget.
This was my story, Maéis du Rock’s story, the story of three sisters who survived the unimaginable. And now it is yours too, because as long as you remember, we will live. This story doesn’t belong to Maéis du Rock alone; it is the story of thousands of women whose names have been erased from history. Women who bear the scars of a war they did not choose.
