A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship and Resistance in Occupied France

"How can you do this work if you have a child?" asked her mother."It is because I have a child that I do it," replied Cecile. "This is not a world I wish her to grow up in."On January 24, 1943, 230 women were placed in four cattle trucks on a train in Compiegne, in northeastern France, and the doors bolted shut for the journey to Auschwitz. They were members of the French Resistance, ranging in age from teenagers to the elderly, women who before the war had been doctors, farmers' wives, secretaries, biochemists, schoolgirls. With immense courage they had taken up arms against a brutal occupying force; now their friendship would give them strength as they experienced unimaginable horrors. Only forty-nine of the Convoi des 31000 would return from the camps in the east; within ten years, a third of these survivors would be dead too, broken by what they had lived through. In this vitally important book, Caroline Moorehead tells the whole story of the 230 women on the train, for the first time. Based on interviews with the few remaining survivors, together with extensive research in French and Polish archives, A Train in Winteris an essential historical document told with the clarity and impact of a great novel. They were teachers, students, chemists, writers, and housewives; a singer at the Paris Opera, a midwife, a dental surgeon. They distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, printed subversive newspapers, hid resisters, secreted Jews to safety, transported weapons, and conveyed clandestine messages. 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. 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. Eventually, the Gestapo hunted down 230 of these women and imprisoned them in a fort outside Paris. 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. In January... On An Icy Dawn Morning In Paris In January 1943, 230 French Women Resisters Were Rounded Up From The Gestapo Detention Camps And Sent On A Train To Auschwitz U The Only Train, In The Four Years Of German Occupation, To Take Women Of The Resistance To A Death Camp. Part One (1. An Enormous Toy Full Of Subtleties ; 2. The Flame Of French Resistance ; 3. Daughters Of The Enlightenment ; 4. The Hunt For Resisters ; 5. Waiting For The Wolf ; 6. Indulgent Towards Women ; 7. Recognising The Unthinkable ; 8. 'we Have Other Plans For Them' ; 9. Frontstalag 122) -- Part Two (10. Le Convoi Des 31000 ; 11. The Meaning Of Friendship ; 12. Keeping Alive, Remaining Me ; 13. The Disposables ; 14. Pausing Before The Battle ; 15. Slipping Into The Shadows) -- Appendix: The Women. Caroline Moorehead. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. On an icy dawn morning in Paris in January 1943, a group of 230 French women resisters were rounded up from the Gestapo detention camps and sent on a train to Auschwitz - the only train, in the four years of German occupation, to take women of the resistance to a death camp.The youngest was a schoolgirl of 15, the eldest a farmer's wife of 68;