Having just put down this book it's difficult for me to marshal my thoughts for a considered review simply because of the impact this harrowing account has had on me emotionally and psychologically. It has left me weeping for the unimaginable cruelty humans are capable of wreaking on their fellows, and my heart full for the extraordinary sacrifices and selfless kind acts that others have been prepared to make in the face of such barbarity even while victims themselves, imprisoned in a man-made hell.
My World War II reading has been patchy, and I'd read nothing in any detail about the occupation of France or the Resistance before opening Caroline Moorhead's book. I was astonished, in the first section, to learn of the degree of collaboration the Germans had from the French, especially the police and the petty authorities, not only in Vichy but across the country. Was it fear, or is evil so easily transferable, people so culpable and corruptible? Surely not just fear judging by the relish for violence and denunciation that comes through these early chapters.
And yet what risks the resisters were prepared to take in their struggle against the Nazis. Moorhead acknowledges that most of the women who became involved - whether as disseminators of resistance literature, 'passeurs' for the escapees, hiders of weapons or even directly as sabouteurs and guerrillas - were terrified; but they carried on through all their fears without reward. The majority were part of a family of resisters and many saw husbands, fathers, brothers deported or shot for their own acts of defiance, but they carried on regardless, even redoubling their own efforts as if to make up the loss. Inevitably they were caught themselves, or denounced by neighbours, and bundled onto the transports heading east to the concentration camps along with Jews, homosexuals, criminals, and some who had nothing to do with the Resistance at all, but who may have made the mistake of passing an opinion unfavourable to their occupiers, or been maliciously denounced by a jealous neighbour or business competitor.
If conditions in occupied France were dreadful, nothing could have prepared them (or us) for what they encountered in the camp at Auschwitz. Moorhead spares no detail in her descriptions of the filth, the crowding, the denial of life's basics, the unrelieved and pointless labour in the bedraggled cold, and above all the unending cruelty, inhuman violence and savage murder that led to a litter of disregarded corpses, the miasma of death and a growing swamp of mass graves. What makes the account heartbreakingly poignant as well as horrifying is that we follow named women among the 200-odd French contingent of 'Le Convoi des 31000' and watch many of them sink and die, others mutilated or brutally murdered, and steadily the band decreases.
What saves us from utter despair is exactly what saved some of the women - the individual selfless acts and the support network they provided for each other. Early on the indomitable members of the French group persuaded the others that 'everyone for themselves' could end only in the elimination of all. Instead they looked out for each other, often taking the same risks as they did in France, protecting and hiding the weaker members from the guards and saving them from execution or the gas chamber, sharing food, nursing them through the worst of their illnesses. With this combination of friendship, comfort and help, rather than through luck or miracle, some of the women survived - 42 of the original group.
The book has no fairytale ending. Most of the survivors came back to find that husbands and other family members had been shot or perished in their own camp travails. Many of the women had illnesses that dogged them for the rest of their lives, and several died early. Only seven were still alive when work started on the book in 2008, and only four on its completion. Some were given credit and honours by the post-war French government, but there was surprising indifference to their stories for the most part, and a general unwillingness to dwell on this dark chapter of human history. The majority of the women, who had lived only for the dream of returning home, reported a flatness and a continuing unhappiness after they did.
An appendix summarises not only what happened to the survivors after the war, but also records as far as possible how each of the women who did not make it met her end. It's a sad, sad catalogue, but a valuable record. Equally important, some of the women have written their own accounts and memoirs of their time in the camps and after. Caroline Moorhead has drawn on these extensively and acknowledges the fact along with a long list of helpers throughout her painstaking research.
I have not read the first-hand accounts of the survivors, but I'm sure that this powerful account is faithful to their memories, and stands as a hugely important testament in its own right. The final message I will take from this fine book is an optimistic one - that even in the midst of hideous cruelty there is to be found compassion, kindness and courage.
****
Reviewer David Williams writes a regular blog as Writer in the North.
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