A Train in Winter

Im about half way through this book. This morning I opened the book and tucked my bookmark into the backpages for safekeeping - the content at the back caught my eye. I ended up on the train, commuting to work, reading what happened to all of these women - where they came from, their, occupations, details of families, children, husbands, lovers. It took an effort not to start sobbing on the train. Caroline Moorehead has provided restitution of a kind....we know these incredible women now and their bravey and sacrifices will not be forgotten....

A Train in Winter is not just a book about survival at Auschwitz and the horrors that were endured. It is a book on humanity, on friendship and most of all on how society turned its back on those survivors that had a voice and should have been listened to... but weren't. No one wanted listen to the stories of the survivors. To hear about the children that were mauled to death by dogs as they still held onto the hands of other mums, trying to escape. The hours of standing in snow and ice without shoes. Their own country did not want to know about what had happened. They simply turned and walked away.

For me A Train in Winter's true unique storyline was in the power of the friendship, the women who survived forged. Friendship was how they overcame the worst of humanity and fort side-by-side each day and achieved little victories that helped them see each day. Whether it was helping a friend being beaten to death, finding an extra crumb of bread or hiding small children that were going to be gassed... the smallest of victories that were triumphant over the cruelty they endured every hour for months on end. Friendship prevailed above all.

A Train in Winter will inspire you. It will make you cry and make you hurt but it will make you love those closest to you even more. It will make you stop to smell a rose and it will make you look up every so often and float above the daily grind and worries you have. To stop and take a break and realize that freedom, hope and friendship are the greatest gifts that life can give and will help you through the worst that life can sometimes deliver.

Some books are simply impossible to describe in terms of liking it or not, A Train in Winter would definitely fall into this category. It is 67 years since the end of the World War II and one could ask why are we still talking about it, is it still relevant? Reading a book like A Train in Winter absolutely convinces me that not only we should continue talking about it but it is essential that we do so. We owe it to the people who survived some of the unimaginable horrors to tell us their stories and warn us of what should never happen again. Caroline Moorehead looked at some fascinating subjects before but this book is particularly interesting since it appears that this story is relatively unknown. A train in Winter follows a group of 230 French women who were in resistance during the World War II, all of them were betrayed, arrested, tortured and eventually handed over to the Germans by the French themselves. Only 49 on them survived and came back home to tell their stories which largely and for various reasons went unheard. I will not give away the sequence of events although anybody who has read about World War II and concentration and death camps will not be much surprised by most the content. What makes this book stand out is the fact that this group of women stayed together almost all the time. They have been transferred between prisons and camps some more horrific than than others and 49 of them survived mostly because they had each other. This story is deeply researched too and the minute details of their hair styles, clothing, likes and dislikes turns them into very three dimensional characters. They are not just amazing heroines they are also ordinary women. They represented almost all age groups with the youngest being 16 and the oldest being 68, all walks of professions: farmers, housewives, secretaries, doctors, academics etc., they were mothers, lovers, wives, daughters and sisters. It is really incredible to watch as all of these differences are put completely aside and although not all of these women liked each other to the same degree, all of them seemed to have been absolutely unified in their need to look after one another. I was deeply affected when reading this book, many times I simply had to put it aside unable to bear the cruelty and sadness but ultimately I know it will be a story that will stay with me for many, many years to come. It is truly a remarkable book to read.