They Crossed Battlefields and Bombed Cities Believing the Enemy Wanted Their Bodies, Then in a Barbed-Wire Camp American Guards Wouldn’t Even Take a Hand to Help Them Up—and the Furious Argument Over Dignity, Desire, and What “Being a Woman” Meant Nearly Tore the Prisoners Apart

The first time the American soldier refused to touch her, Lotte almost fell.

Her heel slipped on the muddy step outside the camp kitchen, sending her tray tilting, plates clattering, stew sloshing toward the ground. For a heartbeat she was weightless, the world narrowing to the edge of the wooden stair and the barbed wire glinting beyond.

She felt rather than saw the soldier’s hand start forward, fingers twitching in reflex.

Then he snatched it back like he’d almost put it on a hot stove.

Lotte recovered her balance with an awkward hop, boots squelching, tray wobbling but miraculously staying upright.

“I’m fine,” she blurted—in German, then in halting English. “I am… okay.”

The soldier’s jaw tightened. He shifted his rifle to his other shoulder.

“You’re good,” he muttered in English, looking past her. “Watch your step next time.”

He didn’t meet her eyes.

Behind her, Klara, who had nearly run into her from behind, let out a sharp little laugh that was half relief, half something else.

“If you wanted to make an impression,” Klara murmured in German as they shuffled back toward the barracks, “you could have just said hello.”

Lotte’s face burned.

“I slipped,” she said. “He… reacted.”

“He reacted like you were contagious,” Klara said. “Did you see him pull his hand back?”

“Yes,” Lotte said tightly. “I was there.”

They joined the line of German women POWs moving across the yard, steam rising from their bowls into the cool late-summer air. Camp Hayes—somewhere in France, they’d been told, though exactly where was as vague as the future—buzzed with the usual sounds: trucks rumbling past the outer fence, American voices shouting in that strange, lazy cadence, the squeak and clank of the gate when work details went out and came back.

The women moved in their own little river within that landscape, gray-blue coats and patched dresses, hair pinned up under scarves or left loose in tired waves.

“He could have caught you,” Klara said. “You were about to kiss the mud.”

Lotte stared straight ahead.

“Maybe he didn’t want to spill the soup,” she said.

Klara snorted.

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe the instructions from their superiors are very clear: ‘Do not touch the German women. Even if they fall on their faces.’”

“Better than what we were told,” muttered Greta, who had been behind them in the lunch line and now fell into step at Lotte’s other side. “We heard they would grab us at every opportunity. That we’d be lucky to make it through the first night without—”

She cut herself off, eyes flicking toward an American guard standing near the barrack door. He stared past them, scanning the yard, jaw set.

Klara smirked.

“Perhaps no one informed them how irresistible we are,” she said.

Greta’s mouth twisted. “Or perhaps,” she said, “we were lied to. Again.”

The words sank into Lotte’s stomach like a stone.

She had been told many things before her capture.

That the enemy would do anything to their women.

That men in foreign uniforms had no honor, no self-control.

That being taken alive was worse than dying.

That last one had been shouted at them the day their unit was overrun. Yet here they were—fed, housed in barracks with real roofs, given work, shouted at but not struck. And not touched. Not even when she nearly broke her neck on a slippery step.

She shifted the tray in her hands, suddenly acutely aware of the distance between her and every American soldier, like an invisible wall.

They reached the barrack.

The guard pulled the door open with gloved hands, stepping back to let them pass. He didn’t hold it for them, exactly—more like he made space and then retreated, as if proximity itself were to be avoided.

“Thank you,” Lotte said quietly in English as she passed, surprising herself.

The guard blinked, then gave a stiff nod without looking directly at her.

Inside, the air was warmer, dense with the smells of bread, damp wool, and the faint acidity of soap that was never quite enough. Long wooden tables ran down the center of the room. Bunks lined the walls in double stacks.

The women filtered to their usual spots, tray edges clacking against the table.

“Careful,” Klara said as Lotte set the tray down. “At this rate you’ll start thanking them for not knocking you over.”

“I was raised to say thank you when someone keeps a door from hitting me in the face,” Lotte said dryly. “Even if they do it with… distance.”

Greta huffed as she sat, her knees cracking audibly.

“Distance is not the problem,” she said. “Indifference is.”

Klara’s eyes sparkled with curiosity.

“What did you expect?” she asked. “That they’d fight each other to help Lotte up the stairs?”

Greta’s spoon clinked angrily against her bowl.

“I expected them to be men,” she said. “Not statues with rifles.”

A small silence fell around their little group.

Lotte looked at Greta, seeing again the woman who had arrived six weeks earlier with the remnants of a secretary’s authority still clinging to her like perfume—once a Party organizer, used to giving orders, calling men by their first names while they stammered “Gnädige Frau” and tried not to stare too openly.

Here, she was just “Prisoner 317,” like everyone else. Her hair was grayer at the temples than her age warranted. Her lips were almost always pressed together in a displeased line.

“What do you mean, ‘men’?” Anna asked, sliding onto the bench across from them. She was younger, barely twenty, with a face that still had traces of softness under the camp’s hard angles.

Greta stirred her soup with unnecessary vigor.

“We gave up everything for them,” she said. “The men of our country. We waited, we scraped by, we volunteered. We worked in factories, in offices, in hospitals. Some of us followed them to the front as nurses, auxiliaries, communications staff.”

She glanced around, making sure no one else was too close.

“We were told that if the enemy came,” she said, voice dropping, “it would be to take what our own men had been fighting to ‘protect.’ That our worth was in our bodies and our loyalty. That we were treasures and targets.”

“And here?” Klara asked.

Greta gave a tight, bitter smile.

“Here, they won’t even take my elbow when I trip,” she said. “Here, we are not treasures. We are… ghosts they have to count and feed and keep from getting sick. We are not women. We are… risk.”

The word hung there.

Lotte’s spoon cooled in her hand.

“We are prisoners,” she said. “That is all. They treat us the same as their own rules say.”

“Do they?” Greta challenged. “Have you seen how they laugh with their nurses? How they slap each other on the back? How they linger when a French girl passes the fence?”

“They are warned about fraternizing with us,” Lotte said. “We heard the sergeant telling them: ‘No touching, no gifts, no conversations unless necessary.’”

Anna frowned.

“They are afraid of us?” she asked.

“They are afraid of what their officers will say if they’re seen being… human with us,” Klara said. “Or of what we might say. Or of what we might ask for. Or of what we might… accuse.”

“Or they simply don’t want us,” Greta snapped. “That’s the worst part. We were locked up for them. For men. For this war. And the enemy looks at us and sees only trouble on legs.”

Anna’s cheeks flushed.

“Maybe that’s good,” she said stubbornly. “Maybe that means they won’t… do things.”

Greta gave her a long look.

“You are too young to understand,” she said.

Lotte’s spoon scraped the bottom of her bowl.

“Perhaps,” she said quietly, “she is old enough to want to be seen as more than a… body.”

Greta turned on her.

“And what are we then?” she demanded. “Here? What else is left? We have no work that matters. No families to care for. No homes to tend. No place to belong. We line up, we scrub floors, we peel potatoes, we sleep. Sometimes I think if one of them did reach out—just to take my hand, to help me up—I would remember that I am still… I don’t know. Visible.”

The word “visible” came out like a cough.

Lotte stared at her.

“You would rather they risk their careers, their rules, to give you the illusion that you still… what? Have a choice?” she asked.

“And you would rather be invisible,” Greta shot back. “Content to be orderly and clean and ignored.”

Klara shifted, suddenly uncomfortable.

“Greta,” she said. “This isn’t about choosing between… that… and nothing. It’s about—”

“It’s about the Americans treating us like we’re made of something toxic,” Greta said. “As if one touch will contaminate them. As if we are only danger.”

Her hands shook as she set the spoon down.

“They were not afraid to break our cities,” she said. “To burn our children. But here, they are afraid to steady my arm.”

Anna swallowed.

“We cried for that?” she asked slowly. “For men who bombed us refusing to… make us feel pretty?”

Several heads turned.

“That’s not what she said,” Klara interjected quickly.

“No?” Anna said, voice rising. “It sounded like it. ‘We were locked up for them.’ Who is ‘them,’ Greta? Our men? The enemy men? All of them? Did anyone lock you up for yourself?”

A murmur rippled down the table.

“Careful,” someone whispered. “The guards.”

One of the Americans glanced over briefly, then looked away. Their German meant nothing to him. Their tone meant everything.

Greta’s eyes flashed.

“Do not speak to me of being locked up for myself,” she snapped. “I lived for twenty years under the eyes of men who talked about protection while looking at me like property. Then the enemy came and locked me up for being part of that world. At least our men wanted us.”

She laughed, a small, harsh sound.

“The Americans have so much they can afford to treat us like we don’t exist,” she said. “That is its own kind of cruelty.”

Lotte set her spoon down carefully.

“Greta,” she said. “We are alive. We are fed. We are not… used. Is that cruelty?”

Greta met her gaze.

“We are not alive,” she said. “We are… paused.”

---

The argument might have faded into the usual murmur of camp life if not for the inspection the next day.

“Work details at eight,” the interpreter announced at morning roll call, his voice echoing off the barracks. “Kitchen, laundry, sewing. And all prisoners will report at fourteen hundred for camp rules reminder. Captain Hayes will speak. Bring your brains.”

Klara nudged Lotte.

“Maybe he will explain the theology of not catching falling women,” she whispered.

“Be quiet,” Lotte muttered, but couldn’t suppress a small smile.

At two o’clock, the women assembled in the central yard.

The sun was high, the air heavy with the smell of dust and distant manure from a nearby farm. The American guards stood along the perimeter, rifles resting, faces impassive.

Captain Hayes climbed onto a small wooden platform near the flagpole, papers in hand. Beside him stood the interpreter, already frowning.

Hayes cleared his throat.

“Guten Tag,” he began in stiff German. “Good day. I will talk. Then questions. Maybe.”

A few women exchanged skeptical looks.

“I know,” Hayes went on, “you don’t like rules. No one does. But this is a camp. Rules keep… order.”

He hesitated, searching for the word, then gave up and switched to English. The interpreter picked up, translating.

“Headquarters has reminded us,” he said, “about regulations for contact between guards and prisoners. There will be no… how do I say… hugging, touching—unless for medical emergency. No gifts. No personal letters. No… fraternization.”

A low murmur ran through the ranks.

Greta’s lips thinned.

“You see,” she hissed softly. “We are officially untouchable.”

“In the wrong way,” Klara said under her breath.

Hayes gestured impatiently, waiting for quiet.

“This is to protect you,” he said. “And my men. If a guard gives you something, and another prisoner does not get it, there is anger. If a guard spends time with one woman, not others, there is jealousy. If someone says ‘He did this’ and he says ‘No,’ nobody knows truth. So we make a wall of rules. Safer for all.”

The interpreter relayed his words, smoothing over the rough edges.

“But you will be treated with respect,” Hayes added. “If you are sick, you go to doctor. If you fall, someone will call for help. But my men are not to touch you unless it is… necessary or in emergency. Understand?”

He looked over the rows of faces.

Anna’s hand shot up before she could think better of it.

Lotte’s gut clenched.

Hayes blinked.

“Yes?” he said.

Anna’s voice shook, but she held it steady.

“You say ‘respect,’” she said in German. “But you do not treat us like you treat your own women. Or even your French girls outside. They get smiles. We get… walls.”

A few women murmured agreement.

The interpreter hesitated, then translated.

Hayes frowned.

“They are not prisoners,” he said. “You are.”

“Not all girls outside have more choices than we do,” someone muttered.

Klara rolled her eyes.

“We are not asking for dances,” she called. “But if someone falls, you could at least take a hand.”

A couple of American guards glanced at each other.

Hayes’s mouth tightened.

“My men are soldiers,” he said. “They are tired. They miss home. They might be tempted. So we keep lines clear. It is not personal.”

“Everything is personal when it involves my body,” Greta said, loud enough this time that even Hayes couldn’t miss the tone.

The interpreter paused, then half-translated, half-sanitized: “She says, ‘We are… also people, not just rules.’”

Hayes let out a breath.

“You have seen what happens in war when there are no rules,” he said. “I saw it in Italy. In villages, in fields. Men who think uniforms give them a right to anything. I will not have that here. Not from my side.”

The interpreter’s voice softened as he relayed this.

“So you lock us up behind rules to protect us,” Lotte said quietly. “But also to protect yourselves.”

Hayes met her gaze across the yard.

“Yes,” he said simply.

A strange silence fell.

Some of the women looked away, ashamed. Others looked down, angry. A few stared at him as if seeing him for the first time as something more than an anonymous shape with a rifle.

Anna’s eyes glistened.

“We were locked up for them,” she whispered to Lotte, the pronoun blurring. “For our men. For the Fatherland. Now we are locked up… for their men.”

Lotte’s throat tightened.

“For all men,” Klara said. “It seems.”

The interpreter opened his mouth to move the meeting along—but the argument had already leapt from the front of the yard to the back, passing from mouth to mouth.

“We were told they would tear our clothes,” someone said. “Instead they look away if our scarf slips.”

“We were told they would use us,” another said. “Instead they treat us like… dangerous machines.”

“We were told we were worth all this,” Greta said, sweeping a hand to indicate the fences, the camp, the war. “Worth dying for. Worth killing for. And now the enemy will not even brush against us by accident.”

“You want them to?” Anna asked, voice trembling. “After everything?”

“I want,” Greta said, “to not feel like I have been hung on a hook and forgotten.”

Hayes tapped his papers against his thigh.

“This is not what this talk is for,” he muttered in English.

The sergeant beside him gave a half-smile.

“Sir,” he said quietly, “you started it.”

Hayes shot him a look.

Then he surprised everyone, including the interpreter, by stepping down from the platform and walking toward the first row.

The guards stiffened. The women shrank back instinctively.

Hayes stopped a few paces away from Lotte and Anna, the interpreter hovering like a nervous shadow.

“I will say one more thing,” Hayes said in German, halting but clear. “My men have… bad dreams already. About what they saw. What they did. If one of them…” he searched, found the word “touches” and grimaced, “if one of them crosses this line, he will not sleep again. Because I will end his career. And because he will know he broke something he cannot fix.”

He shrugged, a weary movement.

“Maybe you think this is… too strict,” he said. “Maybe you feel ignored. I understand. But sometimes the best a man can do is keep his hands to himself.”

He looked around at them, eyes tired.

“You have a right to be angry,” he said slowly. “About many things. About bombs. About this camp. About rules. But if you must hate me, hate me because I shouted at you for potatoes. Not because I told my men not to…”

He trailed off, struggling for a word that wasn’t crude.

“…not to add more pain,” he finished.

He turned, walked back to the platform, and climbed up, his shoulders a little more hunched.

“This meeting is over,” he said. “Dismissed.”

The interpreter translated, relief obvious in his voice.

The women broke ranks, moving back toward their barracks in clumps, voices buzzing.

“Well,” Klara said to Lotte as they walked. “That was… something.”

“What exactly?” Lotte asked. “I’m not sure.”

“A man trying to explain that not touching us is a form of respect,” Anna said, brow furrowed. “While we feel it as rejection.”

“Both can be true,” Klara replied.

Greta walked a little apart, arms crossed.

Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

“They talk about their nightmares,” she said. “What about ours?”

“We don’t have a platform,” Lotte said softly. “Only benches.”

Greta’s voice broke.

“We were locked up for them,” she said again. “For men. For their war. For their ideas of honor. And now… nothing. No one wants us. Not our own. Not the enemy. We are… leftovers.”

Lotte felt something crack inside her.

She stepped closer.

“Greta,” she said. “Our worth cannot depend only on whether men want us. Or on whether they touch us. That way lies… nothing good. Have we not seen enough of that?”

Greta turned on her fiercely.

“And what else is there?” she demanded. “We cannot vote. We cannot make policy. We cannot sign treaties. We can only… be.”

She laughed bitterly.

“All my life,” she said, “I believed the story: that being a good German woman meant being wanted by good German men. That our sacrifice was for them. That being desired was a duty and a prize. Now the Americans tell us we are too dangerous to even brush against, and you want me to find… feminism in it?”

The foreign word sounded strange in her mouth.

Lotte blinked.

“I want you to find yourself in it,” she said. “Whatever that means. Without them.”

“Without them,” Greta repeated. “Is there such a thing?”

Anna spoke up, voice soft but steady.

“There has to be,” she said. “Or we will always be lining up outside for someone else’s orders.”

They reached the barrack door.

The guard stepped aside, eyes fixed on a point above their heads.

Klara paused in the doorway, looked at him, and said in English, with exaggerated politeness, “Thank you for not touching us, Private.”

The guard startled, then flushed.

“Yes, ma’am,” he blurted.

Inside, the women dispersed to bunks and stools, some still arguing, some quiet.

Lotte sat on her mattress, fingers worrying the hem of her skirt.

“Do you believe him?” Anna asked, climbing up to the top bunk, peering down.

“Hayes?” Lotte said. “About wanting to prevent… more harm?”

“Yes.”

Lotte thought of Emily’s hands, Hayes’s tight jaw, the way the guard had jerked his hand back on the steps.

“Yes,” she said. “Mostly. I think he is afraid of us, and for us, and of his own men. And of himself. That is a lot of fear to hold in two hands.”

Anna nodded slowly.

“Fear that makes rules instead of… breaking us,” she said.

“Yes,” Lotte said. “It is… new to me.”

She leaned back against the wall.

In her mind, she saw the posters from home, all neat uniforms and strong jaws and soft smiles aimed at the viewer. She heard the slogans about “protecting our women.”

She thought of nights in the cellar during air raids, of men who had “protected” her in a way that left bruises when they’d had too much schnapps on leave.

She thought of the American guard’s hand pulling back from her elbow as if she were made of glass.

She realized, slowly and with a kind of grim amusement, that in this strange, ugly camp, for the first time in years, her body was not a battlefield.

Her pride, perhaps. Her identity. Her anger.

But not her skin.

The tears came unexpectedly.

She pressed her knuckles to her eyes, embarrassed.

“Lotte?” Klara said. “What is it?”

Lotte laughed wetly.

“We were locked up for them,” she whispered. “And now it seems… maybe, just maybe… we can start unlocking ourselves. At least a little.”

Klara frowned, then smiled.

“That,” she said, “is the most hopeful thing I’ve heard in months.”

Greta snorted softly from across the aisle.

“You two and your hope,” she said. “We are still behind wire.”

“Yes,” Lotte replied. “But perhaps, one day, when the wire is gone, we won’t walk straight from one line to another.”

Greta didn’t answer.

But later, when Lotte woke in the dim half-light before dawn, she heard a small sound from the other bunk—a muffled sob quickly stifled.

She didn’t say anything.

She just lay there, feeling the rough wool of the blanket against her palms, the narrowness of the bed, the weight of the camp pressing in—and the tiny, stubborn space clearing in her mind where a different story might fit.

A story where “we were locked up for them” became “we walked out for ourselves.”

Outside, a guard’s boots passed on the gravel.

He did not open the door.

He did not shout.

He did not touch.

For the moment, that was enough.

THE END