Forty-nine of them survived, and, given the unspeakable conditions into which they were thrust, it is a miracle that this many made it to freedom. “Had they heard the words Auschwitz or Birkenau, they would have meant nothing to them.” They stayed there for two years, until the end of the war. When the train finally stopped, after a cold and singularly unpleasant journey, the women found themselves in “a vast white snowy landscape, deserted, flat and frozen.” They were marched across this landscape, under a sign that read “ Arbeit Macht Frei” and into an immense camp. They had sheltered resisters, written and copied out anti-German pamphlets, hidden weapons in shopping bags, helped carry out acts of sabotage.” Among them were a doctor, a dentist, four chemists, “farmers, shopkeepers, women who had worked in factories and in the post office, teachers, and secretaries,” as well as dressmakers, students and housewives. “The majority,” Caroline Moorehead writes, “came from every part and region of France, from Paris, Bordeaux, Brittany, Normandy, Aquitaine and along the banks of the Loire. About half of them were communists who in one way or another had aided - or been charged with aiding - the French Resistance. 24, 1943, German soldiers and French policemen herded 230 women aboard a train bound for a destination about which these passengers knew nothing.
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