Hello ,This week I've been immersed in getting registration online for the Inland Northwest children's/YA writer's conference I help organize each fall. I am so proud of the terrific program we have lined up this year! Check it out here, and please pass the word to anyone you know who might be interested.
For the first time, we are offering an intensive for illustrators and a Portfolio Showcase! I'm thrilled to host Illustrator Jennifer K. Mann who's new book I'LL NEVER GET A STAR ON MRS. BENSON'S BLACKBOARD is getting rave reviews.
Fresh Again, Horrors of the Nazi Death Camps |
Rosa Floch, 16, and Pauline Pomies, 62, are two of the French women I learned about in this book. They and 228 other women were arrested by French police and turned over to the Gestapo in 1942, who shipped them to
Auschwitz/Birkenau.
Neither Rosa nor Pauline survived. Of the 230 women deported east for resistance against the German Occupation and Vichy government--only 49 came home.
Rosa had been one of dozens of teenagers writing anti-German graffiti on their Paris school walls with crayon lipstick or paint. Police caught her writing Viva Les Anglais. She died, probably of typhoid, little more than a month after arriving
in Birkenau, where the French women were forced labor for the Nazi's.
Pauline was a laundress from Toulouse arrested for sheltering resisters. She died shortly after arrival in what they called
"the race" in Birkenau. The SS Guards roused the 15-thousand women prisoners at 3 A.M. for roll call, left them standing in the snow and bitter wind, with no food or water until nightfall.
Both men and women SS guards used dogs to keep prisoners in line. As shown in this photo, the guards ordered the dogs to attack prisoners who didn't follow orders fast
enough.
Throughout the day, here and there among the neat rows of standing women, some began to fall. They were picked up in trucks and hauled away to the gas chambers.
At dark, the women still standing were allowed to trudge back to camp, but as they reached the gate they saw two lines of SS guards, each armed with a club or whip of some kind. Many like Pauline, who had managed to survive the day, were beaten to death running the gauntlet. Most of the French women who survived Birkenau were eventually shipped to Ravensbrück,a Nazi work camp where it's estimated 92,000 women and children died by starvation,
execution, disease or weakness. (shown at right and below)
Reading A TRAIN IN WINTER I discovered that some of the same qualities that helped American nurses survive prison camp in the Philippines, helped the French women survive the Nazi camps. Friendship and mutual aid became primary. The French women shared their food, apportioning it according to need. If a woman was too sick to work, they hid her from the guards. The grew sly
and resourceful, so tightly knit that each one held the others' lives as important as their own.
Many of the women arrested and deported from France were Communists, active in printing and distributing anti-fascist literature. As with the nurses in PURE GRIT, having something larger than themselves they believed in, seems to have helped them
survive.
A TRAIN IN WINTER is not an easy read. There's the painful subject matter, and the detailed research about the Communist resistance and the detective work that lead to the women's arrests. I can't say that I "enjoyed" it. However, I am very glad that I did read it.
The book added new depth to my knowledge and understanding
of the French who collaborated with the German occupiers, the French Resistance ,and the Nazi concentration camps. It freshened my horror about Nazi atrocities, which went so far beyond cruel and depraved that it is difficult to comprehend actual human beings perpetuated them. I could not imagine the evil we are capable of, if not for stories like this one.
I'm asking a favor today. If you are a member of Goodreads, please look at this list and if you feel so inclined, vote for PURE GRIT as one of your favorite non-fiction books for young adults. Another list where you can vote for PURE GRIT on Goodreads is here. I would be ever-so-grateful for your support!
And if you're not a member
of Goodreads, why not? You could be friends with me and tell me about books you read. It's my not-so-secret guilty pleasure, plus it helps me remember the books I've read and what they were about, which seems to be getting more and more difficult as time goes by.
|
Thanks for your support! It means a lot to me. Have you read a great book? Tell me about it. Have a burning question? Let me know.
If you know someone who might enjoy this newsletter, please forward this e-mail. Currently, new subscribers will be entered in a drawing to win a $25 gift certificate to their favorite independent book store.
If you'd like to get your hands on a copy
of PURE GRIT, here's the place! If you'd like a signed copy and I'm not coming to your neighborhood soon, let me know. I can send you a personally autographed book or a signed bookplate.
I will never spam you or sell your email address, you can unsubscribe below anytime with a single mouse click.
To find out more about my books, how I help students, teachers and librarians, visit my website at www.MaryCronkFarrell.com. My best, Mary
Questions? Comments? Contact me at MaryCronkFarrell@gmail.com. Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. |
|
