A Train in Winter (54 page)

Charlotte, Betty and Lulu (with the kind permission of the Archives Départementales du Val-de-Marne, Pierre Labate, Roger Hommet and L’Association Mémoire-Vive). Reserved rights.

Photographs taken in Romainville (with the kind permission of Thomas Fontaine, and the Ministère de la Défense at Caen)

A note from one of the women on the train

Annette and Claude Epaud (with the kind permission of Claude Epaud)

The barracks at Birkenau (with kind permission of the archival collection of the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in O
wi
cim)

Inside the barracks at Birkenau (with kind permission of the archival collection of the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in O
wi
cim)

Women in Birkenau (by the kind permission of the Archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum)

Simone, Charlotte, Betty and Emma in Birkenau (by the kind permission of the Archives du Val-de-Marne, Pierre Labate, Roger Hommet and L’Association Mémoire-Vive). Reserved rights.

Bodies in the snow at Birkenau (courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives)

Women working in Birkenau (by the kind permission of the Archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum)

Guards laughing in Auschwitz (courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives)

and 278 Drawings by Jeanette L’Herminier in Ravensbrück

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier giving evidence at Nüremberg (by the kind permission of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Déportation and FNDIRP)

A reunion in 1945 (by the kind permission of the Archives Départementales du Val-de-Marne, Pierre Labate, Roger Hommet and L’Association Mémoire-Vive). Reserved rights.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders, and the publishers will be pleased to correct any omissions brought to their notice at the earliest opportunity.

Bibliography

Primary sources

The most important material for this book came from interviews with survivors and their families, from the works by Charlotte Delbo, and from unpublished memoirs and letters.

Before her death in 2009, I visited Betty Langlois several times at her flat in Paris. I also spoke at some length to Cécile Charua, Madeleine Dissoubray and Poupette Alizon. The other four women, still alive when I began work, were not well enough to see me. However, the families of many of the women who formed part of the
Convoi des 31000
agreed to talk to me, to give me letters and papers and unpublished memoirs.

When Charlotte Delbo returned to France in 1945, she wrote the first of what would become three memoirs of her months in Birkenau and Ravensbrück, but then put it aside for twenty years. Published as a single volume,
Auschwitz et àpres
, in the 1970s, it has been in print ever since. From then until her death in 1985, Delbo continued to write about the camps—in verse, plays and essays. Most important for this book was
Le Convoi du 24 Janvier
, in which she drew together biographical notes on her companions. This book was crucial in my search for the women and their families.

The following women of the
Convoi
wrote memoirs:

Alizon, Simone,
L’Exercise de vivre
, Paris, 1996.

Borras, Christiane,
Cécile, une 31000, communiste, déportée à Auschwitz-Birkenau
, Domont, 2006.

Delbo, Charlotte,
Le Convoi du 24 janvier
, Paris, 1965.

Delbo, Charlotte,
Auschwitz et après
, 3 vols (Paris 1970–71).

Delbo, Charlotte,
Spèctres, mes compagnons
, Lausanne, 1977.

Delbo, Charlotte,
Une Scène jouée dans la mémoire
, and
Qui rapportera les paroles?
, Paris, 2001.

Hautval, Adelaïde,
Medizin gegen de Menschlichkeit
, Berlin, 2008.

Sampaix, Simone, Unpublished memoir 1941–1945.

Vaillant-Couturier, Marie-Claude,
Mes 27 Mois entre Auschwitz et Ravensbrück
, Paris, 1946.

Vaillant-Couturier, Marie-Claude, Unpublished diary.

Two other sources provided important material:

Lazaroo, Gilbert and Peyrotte, Claude-Alice, Interviews on tape with Hélène Bolleau, Lulu Thévenin and Germaine Pican.

Quény, Marion, ‘Un Cas d’exception: 230 femmes françaises déportées à Auschwitz-Birkenau en janvier 1943 par mesure de repression: le Convoi du 24 janvier,’ thesis for the Université Charles de Gaulle 3, June, 2004.

Manuscript sources

Invaluable documents on the Resistance, the resisters, the Brigades Spéciales, France under occupation, deportations, and the German occupiers are to be found in
CARAN
, the Archives Nationales in Paris (series 72
AJ
45; 72
AJ
69; 72
AJ
78), the Archives Départementales of the Gironde, the Archives Départementales de l’Allier, the Archives Départementales de Indre-et-Loire, the Archives Départementales du Val-de-Marne, the Archives de la Préfecture de Police, Paris: Cartons des Brigades Spéciales, Dossiers individuels des 31000 et de leurs maris ou compagnons constitués par les Renseignements Généraux; the Bureau des Anciens Combattants in Caen, Dossiers des Personnes rentrés de Déportation; the Memorial de la Shoah, Paris; Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation, Besançon, Fonds Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier; Sikorski archives, London.

I translated all the primary material quoted myself.

Secondary sources

The Second World War in German-occupied France, the deportations of Jews and resisters to the extermination and concentration camps in the east, and life inside Birkenau, Auschwitz and Ravensbrück have all been extensively written about in memoirs, histories and academic journals. The following is a brief selection of those most frequently consulted for this book.

Added, Serge,
Le Théâtre dans les années de Vichy
. Paris, 1992.

Alary, Eric,
La Ligne de démarcation
. Paris, 2003.

Alary, Eric,
Les Français au quotidien
. Paris, 2006.

Alary, Eric,
Un Procès sous l’Occupation au Palais Bourbon. Mars 1942
. Paris, n.d.

Alcan, Louise,
Le Temps ecartelé
. St-Jean-de-Maurienne, 1980.

Amicale de Ravensbrück et Association des Déportées et Internées de la Résistance, Les Françaises à Ravensbrück. Paris, 1965.

Amouroux, Henri,
La Vie des Français sous l’occupation
. Paris, 1990.

Avon, Robert,
Histoire de l’épuration
. Paris, 1967.

Aziz, Philippe,
Le Livre noir de la trahison. Histoire de la Gestapo en France
. Paris, 1984.

Bartosek, Karel, Gallissot, René and Peschanski, Denis,
De l’Exil à la résistance. Réfugiés et immigrés de l’Europe centrale en France 1933–1945. Paris, 1989
.

Beevor, Antony and Cooper, Artemis,
Paris after the Liberation, 1944–1949
. London, 1994.

Bellanger, Claude,
La Presse clandestine 1940–1944
. Paris, 1961.

Berlière, Jean-Marie and Laurent Chabrun,
Les Policiers français sous l’occupation
. Paris, 2001.

Berlière, Jean-Marie and Liaigre, Franck,
Le Sang des Communistes. Les Bataillons de la Jeunesse dans la lutte armée
. Paris, 2004.

Berlière, Jean-Marie and Liaigre, Franck,
Liquider les traîtres. La Face cachée du PCF. 1941–1943
. Paris, 2007.

Bernadotte, Comte,
La Fin
. Lausanne, 1945.

Besser, Jean-Pierre and Ponty, Thomas,
Les Fusillés. Répression et exécution pendant l’occupation. 1940–1944
. Paris, 2006.

Bettelheim, Bruno,
The Informed Heart
.

Bettelheim, Bruno,
Surviving the Holocaust
.

Betz, Albrecht and Martens, Stephan,
Les Intellectuels et l’occupation
. Paris, 2004.

Blumenson, Martin,
Le Réseau du Musée de l’Homme
. Paris, 1977.

Bourdel, Philippe,
La Grande Débâcle de la collaboration
. 1944– 1948. Paris, 2007.

Bourderon, Roger and Avakoumovitch, Ivan,
Détruire le PCF—Archives de l’Etat Français et l’Occupant Hitlérien 1940–1944
. Paris, 1988.

Bourget, Pierre,
Histoire secrète de l’occupation de Paris
. Paris, 1970.