A TRAIN IN WINTER – AN EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF WOMEN, FRIENDSHIP, AND RESISTANCE IN OCCUPIED FRANCE by Caroline Mooehead

Caroline Moorehead. A Train in Winter – An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France (New York: Harper Collins, 2011). 317 pages. Additional materials in an Appendix, Source Notes, and Bibliography.

(NON-FICTION: HISTORY)

Reviewed by Chuck Dayton

This work of non-fiction is written by Caroline Moorehead who lives in London and Italy. In this work, she interviews women who survived the “Paris Roundup” of French Resistance workers by the Nazis and collaborating French police. In January 1943, they were sent to their final destination, Auschwitz on the only train from Paris with all women (230). Only 49 would return to France.

This is a remarkable but emotionally difficult-to-read account from interviews, diaries, and collected papers of this phenomenal group of women. Those who survived the atrocities of imprisonment credited the closeness achieved by the women while imprisoned as a reason for survival. Some helped in the camps as quasi nurses, some helped the weaker of the women on work details, but all shared food, talked with each other every night, and kept each other warm. Death was all around them, including many of their group.

To me, an interesting aspect of the book is the experience of the women who came back to France after the liberation of the camps. Many were faced with children they left behind who no longer knew them, others with no spouses, parents or children surviving. Some started over. Some just gave up from the guilt of having survived when so many died. Interestingly, many of the women noted that they actually missed their shared time together with other women as it had been in the camps and reported they were lonely upon return to their homes. Some tried to talk to others about their experiences, only to become silent on the subject. One woman, speaking to a group, was told she could not be telling the truth because if she were, she would not have survived the experiences.

This is an important book, I think, to help us remember how cruel fellow human beings can be under the leadership of a deranged person. A poll in France as recently as the 1980’s showed that about 34% of French people aged between 18 and 44 did not think that the existence of gas chambers had been clearly proven. Let us strive to never forget.