Only forty-nine would return to France.Ī Train in Winter draws on interviews with these women and their families German, French, and Polish archives and World War II resistance organization documents to uncover a dark chapter of history that offers an inspiring portrait of ordinary people, of bravery and survival, and of the remarkable, enduring power of female friendship.
In January 1943, they were sent to their final destination: Auschwitz. Separated from home and loved ones, these disparate individuals turned to one another, their common experience conquering divisions of age, education, profession, and class as they found solace and strength in their deep affection and camaraderie. Strangers to each other, hailing from villages and cities from across France, these brave women were united in hatred and defiance of their Nazi occupiers.Įventually the Gestapo hunted down 230 of these women and imprisoned them in a fort outside Paris. The youngest was a schoolgirl of fifteen who scrawled "V" for victory on the walls of her lycée the eldest, a farmer's wife in her sixties who harbored escaped Allied airmen. They distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, printed subversive newspapers, hid resisters, spirited Jews to safety, transported weapons, and conveyed clandestine messages. Caroline Moorehead is the New York Times bestselling author of Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France and Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. They were teachers, students, chemists, writers, and housewives-a singer at the Paris Opera, a midwife, a dental surgeon.
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