A Train in Winter - Caroline Moorehead

A Train in Winter - Caroline Moorehead (2011)

Possibly not the best of books to read over the holidays, it was a truely compelling read that bought me to tears several times.  In January 1943, 230 French woman were sent on a train from Paris to Auschwitz.  All were arrested by the Germans for helping the resistance, from simply writing in support of France in a letter, to writing a slogan on a wall.  We get to hear their stories, the families that they leave behind.

It is hard to comprehend the brutality of living in the camps, and amazing that more than a handful survived to return to France.  Many died agonising and tragic deaths, of startvation, Typhus, thirst, being beaten or sent to the gas chambers.  It is almost too hard to read, to understand what was witnessed, to believe that it happened only seventy years ago.

Of the 230, 42 returned and by the time the author starts writing the book only nine still survive.  She follows their stories and it is moving stuff.  It is a 4/5 for this important story.