SURVIVOR'S STORIES
SIMCHA'S STORY

I was fourteen when, on our way home after a lovely afternoon in Pietermaritzburg, our car was hijacked. My older cousin and my older brother, who were sitting in the front of the car, were motioned by the hijackers to get out, while I was pushed back into the car as I wanted to join them. Two men got in the front and two in the back, all of them armed with guns that they were pointing at us. In the very moment that my brother and cousin realized that the hijackers were going to drive off with me still in the car, they jumped forward to open the door and to pull me out, but the man next to me quickly opened the door and hit my brother hard in the face with his gun, so that he fell backwards, and got back in. Hastily they drove off. At first they didn't speak to me, didn't seem to notice me. Maybe it was a mistake? Maybe they had pulled off so quickly because they had seen someone coming? Maybe they would throw me out of the car just now? I lived for the "maybe". But soon they turned their attention to me, talking to me, telling me with soft voices that they were going to f*ck me and then kill me. The overpowering threat of the men so close to me, armed with guns and knives and with excitement in their voices, made me plead with them to throw me out of the driving car. You don't have to stop, just drive and let me jump. I won't tell anyone. I will shut up forever. Just please let me go. Asseblief. They just laughed then pushed a gun to my throat, while fondling me and telling me repeatedly to shut up.
As I pleaded again, the man to my right hit me hard in the face, his voice now turning cold as he threatened to kill me and to throw my dead body out of the car for my family to find. We drove for quite a while, overtook a few cars and met a few on the way, their headlights shining onto our faces. With the gun pressed hard against my ribs, I remained motionless as they passed. Finally, the car stopped. The last stretch had been bumpy and we had not met any cars for a long time.
They got out, but told me to stay behind and not to move. Time passed until I suddenly heard another car. Should I get out now? They hadn't locked the doors. If I got out, would the driver of the other car stop? Would he realize that I had been abducted? As I was about to get out, the other car slowed down and stopped. Two more men joined the four that had hijacked our car, greeted them with big smiles and brotherly handshakes. I was pulled out of the car and with the six men standing around me I was told to take off my clothes. I refused - Ek kan dit nie doen nie, asseblief Meneer - but as one of them pulled a knife and with cold, piercing eyes threatened to cut my throat, I started taking off my clothes, slowly, trying to gain time - what for? - until I stood naked in front of these men, who were loudly discussing with each other what they were going do to me and who was going to do what. For the next few hours they raped me, taking turns, encouraging each other, cheering, using more and more violence.
Like a pack of wild dogs ripping apart a carcass. When they were physically incapable of raping, they raped me with sticks and other objects. They forced me to choose the spots where I "wanted" them to burn me with their cigarettes.
They told me calmly that they were going to shoot me in the head. No matter what had just happened to me, my body did not want to die. Without looking at them, I pleaded with them not to kill me. Silently I spoke the Shma Yisrael, the last prayer a Jew is supposed to say before his or her death. I repeated it over and over again, barely conscious, until he finally pulled the trigger. He missed. I repeated the prayer. Then another shot, which ricocheted from the rocks, and a sudden sharp pain in my right hand. Seconds later I realized that I still was not dead, that warm blood was trickling down my arm, but that I was alive to feel it. They came over to hit me hard on the head with the gun. Hours later, as dawn broke, they got up, pulled up their pants and walked to the cars. I was waiting for the shot or the final blow that would kill me, but this time I was too weak to say the Shma Yisrael. The sound of the engines somewhere in the distance told me that they were gone and that I, or whatever was left of me, was alive. I have no clear memories of how I got to the main road. I was unable to walk or to stay in balance and I could not find my clothes, but somehow I managed to get down to the road. A car stopped and two men rushed me to the hospital. The last thing I remember before passing out was the two men gently wrapping their checked shirts around me, their frightened voices assuring me that I was safe.

The rapists were never caught. In spite of all the evidence they left, they got away with it. My body recovered, slowly but surely, and was spared an HIV-infection. I remember lying in the hospital bed, turning away from the familiar faces of family members, looking out of the window, contemplating whether I was really alive or whether nobody wanted to tell me that in fact I was clinically dead already. I felt hollow. A few months after the rape, I found out that I was pregnant. Whatever it was I carried inside of me, must be a monster, I decided, and had the urge to rip it out of my body with my bare hands. A friend of the family adviced me to abort the baby and organized an abortion for me. A few days before the planned abortion, I had a miscarriage. I didn't really care.
At about the time when the baby would have been born, it started invading my thoughts and dreams as a tiny, little boy. The unexpected love I felt towards my unboAtn child was the first sentiment, apart from physical pain, that I could feel. After the rape, I had been unable to feel. The Torah says that rape is like murder and I understand that passage very well now. I had to teach myself to feel again, from scratch. I'd put my hand into the cool water of a stream and just think about how it feels. I like this, I told myself, this feels good. And I'd turn my face towards the warm sun or I'd let myself get soaked by rain and I'd smell every flower I'd come across, pat every dog, bury my fingers in warm soil and I'd tell myself that this feels good.
It took me years to learn how to feel again.
I have never felt grief or anger when thinking about the rape, though. I know that I'm supposed to be angry but I'm not. I believe that one day the anger, which I imagine to be both destructive and liberating, will come. I am often happy in a wonderfully simple way. And I can feel a certain strength too, a feeling that I can rely on myself, that I will be ok. However, I know that it's time for the next step now: breaking the silence which will eventually break the shame. And this, sharing my story with all of you, is the beginning.

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