I discovered that the human body could be compared to a stopwatch when I was twenty years old. I'm not referring to a metaphor; rather, I'm discussing something specific, quantifiable, and mechanically repeated: nine minutes. Each German soldier had that amount of time before the next was summoned. There was no clock hanging on the wall of Room 6, no apparent frame, and yet we all knew with dreadful certainty when those minutes finished. Once the mind has stopped thinking, the body learns to measure time.
Élise Martilleux is my name. This is the first time, at the age of 88, that I have consented to discuss what truly transpired between April and August of 1943 in that building, a renovated administrative office close to Compiègne. This location is hardly mentioned in any official registry. It was only a sorting station, a transitory bridging point to more significant camps, according to the few papers that do discuss it. However, those of us who were present are aware of the true nature of what was happening beyond those gray walls.
Born and bred in Senlis, a little town northeast of Paris, I was a typical child, the daughter of a seamstress and a blacksmith. During the 1940 French catastrophe, my father perished. Sewing clothes for German officers was how my mother and I managed to survive—not voluntarily, but because the alternative was starvation. I had chestnut hair that fell to my shoulders and petite, smart hands. With the innocence of childhood, I thought that if I kept my head down and didn't draw attention to myself, the conflict wouldn't really affect me.
However, three Wehrmacht troops came on our house early on April 12, 1943. The sun had not yet risen. They said that my mother had been accused of running a covert radio station. It was untrue, but in those gloomy times, the truth didn't matter. Simply by virtue of my presence, my age, and the fact that my name was on a list that someone had created in a chilly, nameless office, they also took me. Along with eight other ladies, we were hauled on a freight truck. No one said anything. We were shaken by the gravel path as the engine screamed. I clasped my mother's hand as though we could still defend one another.
We got there about ten in the morning. It was a three-story, gray structure with little windows. It must have once been a beautiful facade, but today it was impersonal, icy, and devoid of all compassion. After being removed from the vehicle, we were arranged in a line in the courtyard. We were tallied twice by an officer. Then they shoved us inside. They stripped us nude. We shaved our hair. We were given a gray shirt and nothing else. They led us into a spacious ground floor room.Twelve young ladies, ages eighteen to twenty-five. Even now, I can still picture their faces: Simone, 23, a philosophy student with an unwavering look; Thérèse, 22, tall and dark, praying in a quiet voice; Marguerite, barely 19, blonde hair cut short, sobbing softly.
On the stone floor, we were given tiny straw mats. Mold, perspiration, and disinfectant gave out an oppressive odor. An cop came in late in the afternoon. He had a flawless uniform. He had a flawless accent when speaking French. He didn't yell since it wasn't necessary. He spoke in a composed, almost official tone. According to him, the structure provided logistical assistance for soldiers traveling through the area before departing for the Eastern Front. They needed "moral support," he claimed, since they were worn out. That's precisely what he said. Then he explained that this role will be assigned to us, the inmates.
Rotations would occur. Each soldier would be entitled to precisely nine minutes. The allocated room was Room 6, at the end of the passageway. Any opposition would result in an instant transfer to Ravensbrück. We were all familiar with that name. A thick, oppressive quiet descended as he left and the door shut. Marguerite spat on the ground. With her eyes closed, Thérèse started to pray. I looked at the door, trying to figure out how this could have happened. How could men determine that nine minutes was sufficient to ruin someone?
None of us slept that night. We lay there in the dark with our eyes open, listening to choked sobs and rapid breaths. We were anticipating the morning. The calls began. A guard called out a name as he opened the door. The girl got up and trailed along. Some stumbled back, while others did not come back at all. In the afternoon, Marguerite received a call. She stopped talking when she came back. For hours, she sat in a corner and gazed at the wall. Nobody was brave enough to talk to her. We knew.
On a Tuesday morning, I heard my name called for the first time. The sun was shining through a hole in the wall, creating a narrow blade of light on the chilly stone floor, which is why I remember it. "How can there be sunshine in a place like this?" I asked myself. "Martilleux!" the guard yelled as he opened the door. My heart stopped. With trembling legs, I carefully stood up. I moved ahead by leaning against the wall. The other females gazed at me; some averted their eyes, while others seemed to be attempting to commit my face to memory in case I didn't return.
It was a long, narrow corridor. It smelt of chilly perspiration and dampness. Six doors were present. The final one was Room 6, which had a worn copper doorknob and was painted white. Nothing noteworthy or suggestive of the events that took place behind it. After pushing me inside, the guard shut the door. It was a little space, maybe three by four meters. A wooden chair, a high window obstructed by boards, and a narrow iron bed against the wall. The scent that stuck with me the longest was a blend of perspiration, dread, and an older scent that I'm still unable to identify.
There was already a soldier present. He was about twenty years old, blond, and had a worn-out expression on his face. He didn’t look me in the eye. "Take off your clothes," he urged in terrible French. I couldn’t move. My body was no longer mine. Observing this 20-year-old girl who was still unsure of how she got there made me feel as though I was hovering close to the ceiling. I complied with his louder repetition. I won't go into detail about what transpired next, not because I don't recall—I remember with an accuracy that still haunts me—but rather because certain things may be comprehended without words.
All I can tell is that the nine minutes was a rigid requirement, not an estimate. When the allotted time had passed, another guard knocked on the door, and the soldier walked out without saying anything or turning around. I lay on that bed for a few minutes. I gazed at what appeared to be a river-like fissure in the ceiling. In order to avoid thinking about what had just transpired or feeling my own body, I concentrated on that crack. The door then opened again. One more guard. One more soldier. Nine minutes, repeatedly. I counted seven times that day. 63 minutes total, seven troops. However, it seemed to continue forever for me.
I was unable to walk properly when they returned me to the common area. Thérèse offered me water and assisted me in lying down. She remained silent. What was there for her to say? The days that followed blended together. Calls, doors opening, footfall in the hallway, and that number—nine—were all that remained between dawn and nightfall. A few females attempted to tally the number of times they had received calls. My mind clung to everything rational or quantifiable, therefore I didn't choose to count. As if by counting, I could preserve some kind of control.
However, the waiting was worse than the minutes themselves. Hearing footsteps and wondering, "Is it for me this time?" without knowing when your name will be called Your heart stopped as you saw the door open and heard another name. And when it wasn't you, there was the awful humiliation of feeling relieved—relieved that it wasn't you and that you had a few more hours of rest until your body was once again yours. I believe that this is what they want to demolish in us: our humanity as well as our dignity. They encouraged us to think of ourselves as things, as digits on an unseen clock.
Thérèse talked one evening. She claimed to have read before the war about psychological torture, in which the executioners just set up a mechanism in which the victims killed themselves without ever touching them. She said that Room 6 was a location of psychological destruction and that's what they were doing to us. She was correct. However, she was unaware—as were all of us—that some of us would manage to resist, even in a setting that was intended to shatter us. It was silent, imperceptible, and absolute—not heroic or spectacular.
One of the girls in our group was called Simone. Her 23-year-old black hair was trimmed short in a boyish fashion, and she had an unwavering appearance. She attended the Sorbonne to study philosophy before to the war. She had been detained for handing out pamphlets advocating for nonviolent protest. At first, Simone didn't say much and would frequently remain in her corner, paying close attention to everything. However, Simone got up and took a seat in the middle one evening after we had all been returned to the room, shattered and empty.
"They can take our bodies, they can lock us up and use us like objects," she stated in a statement that would always stick with me. However, they are unable to take what we decide to hold within of us. They couldn't totally kill us, she said, as long as we retained a piece of our identity, our dreams, and our loves—as long as we remembered who we were before this place. "We will tell each other about our lives every night," she declared. They won't ever know our true lives, not the life we lead here.
And we did just that. We gathered in a circle on the chilly floor each evening when the guards eventually left us alone and the door shut with that eerie mechanical sound. Each one conveyed something: a childhood memory, a moment of delight, a book she enjoyed, a meal her mother cooked on Sundays. These circles developed into a spiritual rite for us. When Marguerite told us about learning to swim in a river in Brittany, her eyes brightened as she reverted to her carefree childhood. Thérèse talked of her spouse, a teacher who read her poetry by Rimbaud and Verlaine; she read passages that reassured her that beauty was still achievable. Louise recited the lullabies that her grandma had performed for her.
I explained my father's forge to them. He was a blacksmith in Senlis. I talked about the enormous anvil, the firelight, and the bellows that snored like live creatures. I used to be allowed to sit close to the fire by my father. "You see, Élise, iron bends under pressure," he would add. It deforms and resists, but it doesn't shatter. We can always reforge it, even if it appears to be destroyed. It recalls its previous state. I finally understood in that room with all those shattered girls. As long as we refused to forget who we were, even if we were being pummeled and twisted, we wouldn't fully crumble. Simone referred to it as "existential resistance."
Something really unsettling occurred one day. A soldier went into Room 6, but he didn't get too near. I was not touched by him. He did nothing but sit on the wooden chair. I was afraid that I would be penalized or that it was a terrible game. However, he did nothing but sit and stare at the wall. For three days, this took place. He talked on the fifth day. He murmured, “I’m sorry,” in hesitant French. He had trembling hands and was around twenty. He claimed that every time he visited this room, he thought of his sister, who lived in Munich and was my age. He claimed that the conflict turned people into monsters. Silently, I listened. There was a part of me that wanted to spit in his face, but there was also a part of me that saw a damaged human being imprisoned in a system that was bigger than any of us. Nothing can excuse Room 6, therefore I never forgave him. Seeing it made me realize that the system was a bureaucratic apparatus meant to stifle personal accountability.
The structure closed in August 1943. They put us on a vehicle and drove us to Ravensbrück. I have no idea how I managed to survive. Maybe because the stories lingered with me—the forge, the river, the poetry. I went back to Senlis following the liberation in April 1945. The house was robbed and deserted. The tools belonging to my father were missing. I stood there for an hour, unable to weep. That dreary hallway still held a piece of me. Eventually, I was able to find employment at a textile mill, where the cacophony of the machinery kept the insanity at bay.
I got to know Henri, a mechanic. He was a composed man who never inquired about my history. When I woke up screaming in the middle of the night, he was patient. Marie and Jacques were our two children. Despite my deep affection for them, there was always an unseen wall separating me from the outside world. Years ago, my "authentic" smile had been stolen. In 1989, Henri passed away. "Have you been happy?" he inquired. I didn't tell the full truth when I said "yes." I would never be able to totally regain happiness.
My name was discovered in 2009 by Claire Dufren, a young historian. I didn't want to revisit the wound at the age of 84. However, she said to me, "Your story deserves to be known so that it never happens again." I understood that they had triumphed if I passed away in quiet. So, I spoke. I told her about the nine minutes, Simone, and Marguerite. 2011 saw the publication of the documentary 9 Minutes, Room 6. Thousands of letters were sent to me. "Now I know, and I will never forget," somebody said.
I passed away in a Compiègne hospital on March 18 [Note: Year not included in transcript, perhaps 2012 based on the 88-year-old remark]. To those of you who are listening, I have this message: Never allow a system to determine who is worthy of humanity. Speak up when you witness injustice. Break the silence when you see it. Everyone's dignity should be upheld as it is what defines humanity. I refused to let them take away my right to inform you, even if they were robbing me of nine minutes at a time. Give it to someone else. We are not really gone as long as someone pays attention.
Élise Martilleux.
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