A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead: book review

A Train in Winter (2011) is set from 1942 to 1945 in France at the time of the German occupation during World War II. It is about the role of women in the French Resistance.

Not all of France was under Occupation. The Occupation included 53 of France’s 87 departments, with 41 entirely under occupation. For the remaining 12 departments, the line of demarcation was not neat – it split some villages in two. “At Clemenceau, it cut straight through the middle of the chateau: one half was occupied by German soldiers, the other by French nuns.”

Resistance to the Occupation grew gradually, from a few to several networks, by communists and Jews to widespread citizenry, and from passive acts to active aggression. From February to March 1943 it was the task of Lucien Rottee, collaborator of the Gestapo, and his eleven inspectors, to round up people in the Front National de la Resistance, whom had been under surveillance. Rottee’s group detained and interrogated those who were suspected of anti-Occupation actions, and raided their homes and workplaces. This Paris raid was known as the Politzer-Pican-Dallidet affaires, after the names of the male ringleaders.

In Paris, the raid netted 113 resisters for detention, 30 of them were women aged between 16 years and 44 years. Moorehead focuses this book on these 30 women members of the Resistance from Paris. They were detained in La Sante Prison in the 14^th arrondisement. Some women were given the opportunity to farewell their husbands who were also detained in La Sante before their execution. From the Politzer-Pican-Dallidet raid 46 men were shot, most only for printing and distributing anti-Occupation material.

From August 1943 the 30 women were transferred to Romainville, an eastern suburb of Paris, and were joined by 200 other women resisters from around the country’s occupied zones, aged between 15 years and 68 years. In Romainville, where they stayed for nine months, they formed strong bonds. Different by age, schooling, class, profession, and marital status, when they were detained together they were drawn into “patterns of affection.”

Between 1942-1944 Occupation forces deported 75,721 French Jews and transported them to death camps in occupied Poland. After the war only 2,500 returned. On 24 January 1943, the 230 women from the French Resistance were taken to the railway station to board the only train during the four years of Occupation in France that took female resisters to Auschwitz, the death and labour camp. “Not one was on the train because she was a Jew.” It was called Le Convoi des 31000. Of the 230 women, 49 survived, and in 2008 when the author commenced her research, 7 were still living.

The story is told in two parts: (1) the history of the 30 women leading to their arrest and detainment in La Sante, and (2) Le Convoi des 31000 and the fate of the 230 women, especially the 30 women from Paris: their final outcome or their survival. For the survivors, they said chance was a factor in their destiny. “Not one of the women believed that she would survive alone.” What haunted them most was the possibility of being separated from one another.

This is the account of “friendship between women, and the importance that they attach to intimacy and to looking after each other, and about how under conditions of acute hardship and danger, such mutual dependency can make the difference between living and dying.” It is about courage, determination, maintaining a sense of self, and above all, dignity.

The book flows logically and sequentially, fully depicting the lives of the 30 women, before detainment, the 29 months in labour camps, and after their release. There are also many black and white photographs of the women, their husbands and lovers, and their children.

The writing is an elegant style, not complicated by superfluities, yet it is comprehensive and detailed (327 pages of fine print). The women’s histories are told compassionately and respectfully, filling the pages with harrowing events. But, in the end, it is the women’s resistance, defiance, resilience, patriotism, empathy, friendship, and especially solidarity that endure.