Weekly Reader: A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of
Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France By Caroline Moorehead; A
Brilliant Exciting True Story About The Women of the French Resistance
By Julie Sara Porter,
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: The French Resistance against the Nazi Occupation is filled
with tales of courage, love and sacrifice in times of standing against tyranny.
It was a time when anyone from the highest political leader to the smallest
schoolgirl took chances and saved countless lives by fighting against their
oppressors.
Caroline Moorehead’s book A Train in Winter, tells a brilliant and
exciting story of women who took part in the French Resistance, fought, and
some died for their beliefs.
When the Nazis took over Paris in 1940, at first they
received very little resistance. The Germans used fear and intimidation tactics
to obtain obedience from the French people and it worked mostly. A puppet
government called Vichy France was created. However, general Charles De Gaulle
started a series of broadcasts from the BBC that were a call to arms against
the German occupiers. Moorehead writes, “It was a crime, (De Gaulle) said, for
French men and women in Occupied France to submit to their occupiers; it was an
honor to defy them. One sentence struck a chord with his listeners.
‘Somewhere,’ said De Gaulle, ‘must shine and burn the flames of French
resistance.’ “
And resist they did. The women in this book ran the gamut
from mothers, daughters, teachers, chemists, singers, actresses, writers, and
homemakers. The De Gaulle broadcasts
with its opening of the first five notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (so
chosen because the Roman numeral V and V were one in the same and that the
letter “V” in Morse code taps are in the tune of the opening bars of the
symphony.) and his stirring words helped spread the idea of Resistance by word
of mouth.
The first few acts of Resistance were described by Moorehead
as “small, spontaneous, and ill-coordinated.” They began with people like Rosa
Floch, a schoolgirl who wrote “Viva L’Anglais,” on the walls of her school.
Others threw stones at the German soldier. One man cut a German telephone
cable. They also published newsletters, pamphlets, and other works encouraging
people to fight.
These spontaneous acts of rebellion became more organized as
various groups formed coordinated Resistance teams, many of them led by women
who were strong-willed, feisty, and ready to sacrifice anything so their
country could be free from German occupation. Readers won’t forget the stories
of these brave women, one of whom was Cecile Charua, a Communist party member
who wrote for the Parti Communist Francais (French Communist Party) newspaper,
L’Humanite. She also took part in various gun raids. When asked why Charua, a
single mother with a daughter, would leave her child with a foster family while
she took part in such dangerous activities, Charua responded, “It is because I
have a child that I do it. This is not a world that I wish her to grow up in.”
Another fascinating story is that of Helene Langevin, a
university student and Mai Politzer , a young married Polish immigrant and
midwife, who networked various friends from the various Parties to join the
Resistance, using a nearby café as a meeting place. These stories showed that
even in the early days of the Occupation, these women were ready to talk about
freedom and turn their words into actions.
When General Petain, France’s then-leader stated that he
believed women were inferior and created and endorsed several laws that rolled
back the independence that women had before the Occupation, many women such as
dentist, Danielle Casanova, challenged that ideal. Casanova and her friends
wrote messages on the walls extolling free speech and worker’s rights and later
proved to be effective couriers.
Casanova and the other couriers carried information and
papers from one branch of the Resistance to the other and they were seldom
stopped. “Neither the Gestapo, nor the French police quite believing that such
cheerful French girls could have anything to do with the Resistance,” Moorehead
wrote. “As (Casanova) said flirting a little with the Germans could yield excellent
results. She was exceptionally good at inspiring others, making people feel
that there was really no choice but to help.”
One of the ways that Casanova helped was by recruiting women
in lines outside food shops, angry about the forced rationing. She persuaded
the women to write and be interviewed for the Les Voix de Femmes, and other
magazines for French women. One of those woman that Casanova recruited was
Madeleine “Mado” Doiret, a teacher who typed texts on an electronic mimeograph
(which she built herself) and delivered the tracts to various distribution
sites to be picked up by other Resistors. She accepted Casanova’s offer to go
Underground and officially join.
As the “flames of French resistance” grew so did German
suspicion. Soldiers kept their eyes open for the various members. Many
Resistors used code names, secret messages, and followed certain patterns such
as meeting only at night or at certain places. The Resistance members decided
to become more active and take part in sabotage and gun fights. One of the
women who assisted the more violent factions was Marie-Elisa Nordman, a Jewish
chemist who stole mercury from her research institute to help create bombs and
grenades. Nordman and her mother also sheltered resistors who were in hiding because
their homes were being watched.
Other women created inventive ways to protect Resistors from
arrest by hiding them in homes and workplaces.
Raymonde Sergent, ran a café where she hid Resistors in the café cellar
or sent them to the stables of her sister’s farm. These stories showed these
women became inventive in their ability to help others.
Despite the secrecy eventually many members of the
Resistance were caught, mostly betrayed by non-members, and were sent to
concentration camps. The traitors such as Jeanne Herve, denounced Jews and
other Resistance members believing that they will be spared. However, they
ended up sent to the camps as well and were often ostracized by the other
women. As she died in the camps one of the traitors, Lucienne Ferre said, “I
guess I am getting what I deserve.”
The second half of
the book is filled with heartbreaking stories of women losing their lives in
the camps such as Leona Buillard, a 57-year old woman who was looked upon by
the other women of the Resistance as a grandmother-figure, died on her second day
in Birkenau before the roll call. Suzanne Costentin, a schoolteacher was
arrested for writing a tract died after her fingers and toes became frozen
with frostbite and gangrene.
Even though life was hard and torturous in the concentration
camps, the women grew closer in their adversity. They sang, acted out plays and
sketches, offered each other for jobs in the camps, and shared food in the
“communal pot.”
The difficult circumstances only strengthened their friendships,
Moorehead wrote. “(The women) took pride in their closeness and the fact that
unlike the Polish and German women who shared their barracks they were as kind,
polite, and helpful to each other as they would have been back home,” she
wrote.
After the war was over some of the women, like Casanova and
Politzer, died in the camps. Most settled into quiet lives, married, or
remarried, and had children. Some like Nordmann received the Legion D’Honneur,
one of the highest civilian honors in France (Casanova also received it
posthumously).
However all of the survivors were forever marked by their
time in the camps. The final pages state that many were troubled by physical
ailments that they received from the abuse and/or suffered from nightmares,
depression, and survivor’s guilt for the rest of their lives. The final pages
of A Train in Winter made these women more admirable as the Reader understands
the full scope of the sacrifices that they made and still make, and honor their
courage for being women who decided to fight their oppressors rather than
giving in.
