Bocche inutili

Ester is in Fossoli concentration camp. A 40-year-old Italian Jew, she’s on her own after the round-up in the Roman ghetto where her entire family were arrested, including her new husband.

Ester is trying to survive at Fossoli while waiting to be moved to another concentration camp. Her fears and anguish are increasing by the hour, as the violence perpetrated by the German soldiers, who have just taken control of the camp, escalates. She makes friends with Ada, who helps her thanks to her secret postal setup, but unfortunately she’s moved to the sickbay, leaving Ester without the one person who provided a bit of comfort.

Ester doesn’t lose heart though, and along with the other women in her dormitory she tries everything to avoid having to get on that lorry that will take her to certain death – Auschwitz.

14 October 1944, Ravensbrück railway station in the province of Brandenburg, 90 kilometres north of Berlin.

A goods train reaches the station and the wagons open to reveal a mass of people who seem barely human. All women, suffocating due to the lack of air typical of cattle trains, with wounds from the barbed wire covering the vents, spirit crushed by the incomprehensible shouts and barking mastiffs.

We can spot Ester among the women, alone in this interminable journey which is bringing her and many others to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, known as the “Women’s Inferno”.

Once taken to the block and her dormitory, Ester meets the new roommates who will be living this hell alongside her. They have two things in common – their gender and their nationality. In the swirl of emotions that include fear, terror, dread and bewilderment, she wants to keep at least one hope alive – to be accepted by these people who, like her, can’t even recognise themselves any more.

From inside the block the only glimpse outside is through a window. The worn panes are the thin membrane that separates the horror unfolding outside with the only semblance of life inside created by the closeness of the women, who have only been left with their sense of sisterhood to make life worth living.

At night Ester feels sick. She almost vomits but manages to keep it at bay. Lia, one of her roommates, realises what’s happening, and we discover that Ester is in the third month of pregnancy. Ester and Lia agree to keep it secret, in the hope of the new life surviving.

But can anyone really be trusted when life and dignity are at stake? Will Ester be betrayed? Will she and her baby survive?