I’m old now. My hands tremble when I hold a cup of tea and sometimes I forget the names of streets where I have walked all my life. But some things never disappear. They remain clearer than the present. The war has never left my memory. It doesn’t fade with the years. On the contrary, it returns gently at night with the same smells, the same noises.
I was 17 years old in September 1939. I lived in a small town in eastern France, not far from the border. At that time, I thought life was simple and long. My father repaired shoes in his dark workshop that smelled of damp leather. My mother sewed coats for the neighbors and I helped at the market on Wednesday mornings.
My main dream was to learn how to become a teacher. I loved books, I loved the silence of the pages. The world for me consisted of the church square, the river, and the small station where two trains passed each day. Then one morning, the radio in the cafe changed the voice of the world. I remember the silence.
This silence was not empty, it was heavy. The men no longer spoke; they remained standing, motionless. Someone whispered, ” War!” I didn’t understand immediately. The war belonged to my grandfather’s stories, not to my future. However, the mobilization began almost immediately. The men received papers. My father too.
He tried to smile in front of me, but his eyes couldn’t lie. In the evening, he put away his tools with a strange slowness, as if he wanted to delay time. He told me, “I’ll be back soon, Lucy.” It was the first time he’d called me by my first name in such a gentle voice. The next day, we went with him to the train station.
It was still warm for September, and yet I was shivering. There were hugs, stifled tears, and promises spoken too hastily. The train left in a cloud of black smoke. I can still see his hand through the window, and then nothing. After that, the city changed silently. Curtains often remained closed. Conversations were hushed.
Letters from the front arrived irregularly. My mother reread them until they were worn out. Then, in May, rumors became shouts. The roads filled up. Entire families arrived from Belgium and the North with carts, exhausted children, suitcases tied with ropes. He spoke of airplanes, bombs, and burned cities.
I remember the first bombing. The siren wailed in the afternoon. It wasn’t a human sound; it was a metallic wail that entered my chest. We ran down to the cellar. The earth trembled above our heads, dust fell from the ceiling, and my mother prayed without stopping. I didn’t pray. I stood frozen, unable even to cry. When we came back upstairs, a house at the end of the street was gone.
It had vanished as if erased by an invisible hand. There were shoes in the street, pieces of wood, and a silence worse than the siren. A few days later, German soldiers entered the town. They didn’t shout, they didn’t fire, they simply advanced. Regular boots, immaculate uniforms, cold stares. Everyone peered from behind half- open shutters.
I understood that day that fear could be calm. A fear that doesn’t run, that sits with you at the table. My father’s workshop was requisitioned. An officer moved in to repair his Boots. My mother said nothing. She simply cleaned the house more often, as if to maintain a fragile order in the face of the world’s chaos.
The winter of 1940 was long and cold. Coal was scarce. We burned broken furniture to heat the kitchen. Food was also becoming scarce. The ration label was never enough. I spent hours in lines for a piece of gray bread. We learned not to be hungry all at once, but slowly, a little more each day. My father’s letters stopped at the beginning of 1941.
Pleasure, nothing, no explanation, no telegram, nothing. This emptiness was worse than bad news. My mother continued to prepare an extra plate on Sundays. She said it was so as not to lose the habit. I knew she was still waiting. Then one February evening, someone knocked on the door. Not loud, not brutal, three slow knocks. I remember my heart pounding so hard I thought that we could hear it from the street.
When I opened the door, a stranger stood there, covered in melting snow. He looked at me for a long time before speaking, and his first words changed my life. The man didn’t come in right away. He looked behind him at regular intervals as if afraid he was being followed by something invisible. I could barely make out his age beneath the several- day-old beard and the deep weariness etched into his cheeks.
His voice was low, almost muffled by the cold evening wind. He asked if I was indeed Étienne Morel’s daughter. I answered yes without thinking. At that moment, I thought he was finally bringing a letter from my father. Perhaps a message a friend had managed to get through. My mother approached from behind me. She didn’t ask any questions.
She already knew. I understood this when I heard her breath catch. The man took off his wet cap and clutched it in his hands. He spoke slowly, as if afraid the words themselves might physically hurt us. My father hadn’t died in combat. He’d been taken prisoner in June 1940, captured with hundreds of other soldiers during a disorganized retreat.
He was in a camp in Germany, somewhere far to the east. The man said he’d shared the same barracks for a few weeks before being sent elsewhere to work on a farm. He’d managed to escape during a transfer and was now trying to reach the Free Zone. Before leaving, my father had entrusted him with a small item for us.
He took a carefully wrapped piece of cloth from his pocket. Inside was my father’s watch. It had stopped. The hands were frozen at 4:10. My mother didn’t cry. She sat down very slowly in the nearest chair, as if her legs no longer belonged to her. I stared at that watch, unable to look away. It was the first proof.
tangible proof that he still existed somewhere, but also confirmation that he was now out of our world. The man stayed only a few minutes. He refused the hot soup for fear of attracting attention. Then he disappeared into the snowy night. After he left, the house changed. We finally had an answer, and yet the silence became even heavier.
In the following weeks, the occupation settled in like an endless season. Posters in German covered the walls, orders multiplied, and curfews moved a little earlier each month . We had to be home before nightfall. The streets became deserted at dusk. Soldiers patrolled slowly, their steady footsteps echoing on the cobblestones.
I had started working to help my mother. A grocery store in the center was looking for someone to work the till and count ration tickets. I stood all day in the smell of cabbage and substitute coffee. The customers hardly spoke anymore . They whispered, stared at the door. Every sound. We learned to recognize fear in others without a word being spoken.
That’s where I met Claire. She often came in to buy very little, sometimes just a carrot or a bar of soap. She was a few years older than me, with a direct gaze and a strange way of speaking softly, yet seeming self-assured . One evening, as I was closing the shop, she helped me bring in the empty cash registers.
She asked me if I was waiting for news from anyone at the front. I said yes. She nodded as if she already knew the story. Then she told me that some people in the town were trying to help families and prisoners discreetly, without drawing attention to themselves. I didn’t understand everything, but those words left a mark on my mind.
The months passed, and the food dwindled further. The winter of 1941 was worse than the previous one. I was getting so thin that my coats became too big. The fatigue was constant. Yet, I also remember an inner change. The fear didn’t disappear, but it ceased to be paralyzing. It became a familiar presence. One April evening, Claire asked me to meet her after work near the river.
I hesitated for a long time. Curfew was approaching, and there were many patrols. Yet, I went. She was waiting for me under an old, almost invisible tree in the dim light. She gave me a small envelope and asked me to give it to a man who worked at the train station. Simply to slip it into his bag without saying a word.
I felt my heart pound as it had during the first bombing raid. I asked what the letter contained. She replied, only hope. I agreed. That night, I hardly slept. The next day, my hands trembled as I approached the station. German soldiers were moving about on the platform. I felt as if every glance knew my secret.
I waited for the moment when the man He walked away to check a wagon. As I passed behind him, I dropped the envelope into his open satchel. The gesture lasted only a second. Yet, for me, time stood still. As I stepped outside, I heard a German soldier shout something behind me and I froze, convinced it was all over.
I stopped dead in my tracks . My breath caught so abruptly that my chest ached . Behind me, the German voice rang out again, louder this time, accompanied by the sharp thud of approaching boots. For a moment, I thought my legs would refuse to move. I turned around very slowly. The soldier wasn’t looking at me .
He was calling to another soldier near an open freight car. He was talking about a poorly sealed crate. My heart was still pounding so hard I could hear its rhythm in my ears. I left the station without running, but each step felt unreal, as if I were walking in a dream. Too bright. Once I reached the corner , I accelerated involuntarily.
I don’t remember breathing until I reached the house. My mother watched me for a long time that evening. She didn’t ask any questions, but she understood that something had changed. I knew it too. I was no longer just a girl waiting for the war to end. I had crossed an invisible line. In the following days, Claire didn’t come to the grocery store.
I waited, worried, fearing she had been arrested. Then, a week later, she returned as if nothing had happened. She simply said thank you. From then on , she asked me for other favors, always small things. Carrying a package, memorizing a name, telling me the time of a train. Never weapons, never violence. Yet, I understood better and better.
Prisoners sometimes tried to escape during transport. Messages circulated to the zone. Free. Families were receiving news that no official mail service would have allowed. Each mission terrified me. But after each one, I also felt a strange inner warmth. For the first time since 1940, I was no longer completely powerless.
Yet the occupation continued to tighten. In the summer of 1942, the posters changed. They no longer announced only prohibitions, but obligations. Some of the town’s inhabitants were summoned to go and work in Germany. Others disappeared without explanation. I especially remember one July morning. It was already hot.
Military trucks were stopped in front of the house of a family I had known since childhood. They were tailors, unassuming. Their son was my age. They were ushered out quickly, each with only one suitcase. No one dared approach. The shutters barely opened , just enough to peek inside. The mother squeezed her little girl’s hand so tightly that the child cried.
Silence. A soldier shouted to close the windows. The truck drove off in a cloud of dust. We never saw them again. That day, fear took on a different form. It was no longer just about bombs or soldiers. It became organized, methodical. It made choices. The following night, Claire came to my house for the first time.
She had never crossed the threshold before. She spoke quickly but softly. She explained that the checks were going to increase and that several members of their network had been arrested in a neighboring town. She asked me if I wanted to continue. She told me I could refuse, that she would understand. I thought of my father, a prisoner somewhere behind barbed wire, of the stopped watch in the kitchen drawer, of the people taken away that very morning.
I said yes. After that, everything became more dangerous. I sometimes carried false papers sewn into the lining of my coat. I had to memorize precise routes to avoid patrols. Every sound of an engine at night… It woke me up. I jumped at the slightest knock on the door. Yet, strangely, daily life continued .
I queued for bread. I swept the shop, I smiled at the elderly customers. We were learning to play the part of normality. In the autumn, a new German officer took up residence in the town. Younger, more attentive, it was said that he spoke excellent French and observed everything. Identity checks became frequent, even in broad daylight.
One evening, on my way home, I was stopped in the square by two soldiers. They asked for my papers. My hands trembled as I held them out. One of them looked at my face for a long time, then at my shoes, then back at my papers. I felt the sweat rising on my back despite the cold.
Finally, he handed them back to me without a word. I left, walking slowly, but I knew that one day luck wouldn’t be enough. A few weeks later, Claire entrusted me with a different task. Not a message, not a piece of paper, a no one. A wounded young man needed to be hidden for a night before heading south. He couldn’t stay at her house. She asked if he could sleep with us only until dawn.
I looked at the small kitchen, my mother’s narrow bedroom, and I understood the immense risk. If we were discovered, it wouldn’t be a simple arrest. Yet, without thinking long, I agreed. That night, while my mother slept, I heard a soft knock at the back door. Three very slow knocks. I waited a few seconds before opening it, but they seemed endless.
The house breathed slowly around me. Every creak of the wood seemed to herald danger. When I cracked the door open, Claire was standing in the shadows, and behind her, a young man leaned against the wall, almost unable to stand. His coat was too big for him, and a dark stain marked the fabric near his shoulder. He didn’t speak.
Only his eyes searched for a safe place, like a The hunted animal. I brought them in quickly. My mother was asleep in the next room, and I silently prayed the floorboards wouldn’t creak. We placed him near the unlit fireplace to avoid the smoke visible from the street. When I took off his coat, I saw the wound, not spectacular but deep and, above all, poorly treated.
A bullet had passed through the flesh without leaving a mark, leaving an open, infected wound. The smell hit me. Claire looked at me without saying a word. I understood that it was now my responsibility too. We had almost nothing, only boiled water, a little rubbing alcohol, and strips cut from an old sheet.
I was trembling so much I almost knocked over the bowl. Yet, when I began to clean the wound, my movements became strangely calm. The young man gritted his teeth without making a sound. Sweat trickled down his forehead despite the cold. His name was Julien. He was twenty years old. He spoke little, but in those few sentences, I understood He had escaped from a forced labor convoy after a train bombing.
Several men had fled in the confusion. Some had been recaptured immediately. He had walked for days, hiding in barns, avoiding roads. He no longer even knew exactly where he was . My mother woke up in the middle of the night. I heard him move and my blood ran cold. She came into the kitchen holding her candle. She stopped when she saw the stranger sitting at the table.
No one spoke for a few seconds. Then she simply put down the candle and began to heat water. She asked no questions. She brought out some clear soup, covered the windows more carefully, and helped me change the bandage. That night, I understood that her silence was also a form of courage. We took turns keeping watch .
Every outside noise made us jump. Trucks passed late into the night. German voices echoed in the street. Every moment, I thought that someone would knock at the door. Dawn finally brought a dim light to the kitchen. Julien had regained some of his strength. Before leaving, he wanted to thank my mother. She gave him a piece of bread she had been saving for two days.
She simply told him to walk toward the forest and wait for a man near an old bridge. Claire accompanied him to the end of the garden. I stayed behind the window. I watched his silhouette disappear among the bare trees. I thought it was over, that this night would remain a secret between us.
But two days later, the town awoke in unusual commotion. Soldiers were fleeing from several houses. There was talk of a recent escape and a wounded man being hidden by the residents. I could already feel the fear returning, even heavier than before. At the grocery store, the customers spoke in hushed tones.
No one really looked me in the eye. On my way home, I caught sight of the German officer everyone was talking about in the square. He was observing the passersby without an expression, as if he were memorizing every face. His gaze lingered on me for a second too long. I kept walking, but my back grew cold. That evening, someone knocked on the front door, this time loudly and without hesitation.
Not three discreet knocks, but official knocks. My mother gasped. I already knew who was standing on the other side. The knocks rang out even more firmly, making the wood of the door vibrate like an irrevocable warning. My mother placed her hand on the table to steady herself . I remember the nonexistent ticking of the watch stopped in the drawer, which I nevertheless heard clearly in my head. I moved forward.
Each step seemed too noisy. When I opened the door, two German soldiers stood before me, flanking the officer I had glimpsed in the square. He was young, very upright in his dark coat, and his eyes observed everything with an almost calm precision. He asked, in near-perfect French, if we could answer a few questions. questions.
His politeness was more frightening than shouts. They came in without waiting for my permission. The cold air from the street invaded the house, bringing with it the smell of winter and wet leather. The officer looked around slowly as if reading a story written on our walls. He noted the still-set table, the hair, the shoes by the door.
Then he turned to my mother. He explained that an escaped prisoner had been reported in the neighborhood. A wounded man. He asked if we had noticed anything unusual. My mother answered no with perfect simplicity. I remained motionless, afraid my silence would betray me. One of the soldiers began to search.
He opened the cupboards, lifted the blankets, inspected the cellar. Every second stretched my anguish. I saw Julien sitting at that same table two nights earlier. I was afraid I had missed some trace, a rag, a drop of blood. The soldier is He came up from the cellar and shook his head. Nothing. Yet the officer wasn’t leaving .
His gaze fell on the kitchen drawer. He opened it slowly. My father’s watch lay there. He picked it up, examined it for a moment. He asked me and to whom it belonged. My voice almost refused to come out, but I answered my father, a prisoner of war. He stared at me for a long time as if he were searching behind my words for something invisible.
Then, unexpectedly, he put the watch back exactly in its place. He thanked my mother for her cooperation. Before leaving, he looked at me once more and said softly that the city was no longer safe for young girls outside after nightfall. The door closed, my legs gave way and I sat down abruptly.
My mother didn’t cry. She only approached the window to make sure he was really leaving. We hardly spoke that evening, but deep down, a certainty was born within me. We had been suspected. The following weeks confirmed this fear. I often noticed the same soldier near the grocery store. Too often to be a coincidence.
I was subjected to more frequent checks. Once, the officer himself entered the shop. He bought some soap and asked me ordinary questions about the schedule, the market, the weather. Yet each of these sentences felt like an ordeal. He was observing my reactions more than my answers. Claire understood too. She came very late one evening.
She told me that several arrests had taken place in a neighboring town following a tip-off. She was afraid our network was being monitored. She suggested I stop for a while, but I couldn’t . Not just out of courage, but rather because after seeing the fear, the departures, the faces of the missing families, returning to a silent life seemed impossible.
The winter of 1943 was the hardest. The F was constant. My mother often coughed because of the cold and lack of food. Sometimes I thought more about surviving the next day than about the war itself. Then one morning in March, as I was opening the shop, a military truck suddenly stopped in front of the entrance. Three men got out quickly.
I didn’t need an explanation. One of them said my name. The customers moved aside without speaking. I looked for the baker’s gaze, and for the old lady who came every week. Nobody moved. “I was ordered to follow them for a few checks only,” he said. As I got into the truck, I saw my mother at the end of the street. She understood.
She wasn’t screaming. She remained motionless, her hands clasped against her apron. The engine started. The city was slowly receding into the distance. At that precise moment, I understood that I would not be going home that night . The truck had been running for a long time, but I couldn’t have said how many hours.
Time no longer truly existed. There were several of us sitting on the wooden benches, huddled together so as not to fall with every jolt. No one spoke; only the engine drowned out our thoughts. Yet I recognized some faces from the city. a poster, a young seamstress, a tribute who often ran the grocery store when his son was sick.
Their eyes avoided mine, not out of indifference, but because we shared the same unanswered question . Where was he taking us? At times, the tarpaulin opened slightly and the cold air entered, carrying the damp smell of the countryside. I thought about my mother staying on the road, so small in the distance, and I kept telling myself that it was just an interrogation. Nothing more.
We arrived in front of a building surrounded by barbed wire on the outskirts of a large city that I didn’t know. Not a camp yet, only a detention center. We were made to get off quickly. The orders were short and precise. Inside, the air smelled of cold stone and disinfection. They took my coat and papers from me, then I was led alone into a new room with a table and two chairs.
The officer was already there, with the same calm expression. He asked me to sit down. He wasn’t shouting. He spoke softly, almost patiently. He asked me simple questions at first. My job, my habits, the people I hung out with. I answered as simply as possible. Then the questions changed.
He knew Claire’s name , he knew the train station. He knew about the night when an injured man had disappeared. My heart was beating so hard that I felt like it could hear every beat. I continued to deny it, not out of heroism, but out of instinct, because once the words were spoken, nothing could be undone.
The interrogation lasted a long time, perhaps hours, perhaps all day. The light from the small window changed color and then disappeared. Finally, he stood up, tired but without anger. He said I had time to think, that cooperating would save me a lot of unnecessary suffering. I was taken to a cell. It was narrow, damp, with a thin straw mattress laid on the floor.
Two other women were already there. We hardly spoke to each other that night. Each woman kept her thoughts to herself in order to survive. The cold air was coming in through the walls. I didn’t sleep. I listened to the sounds in the corridor, footsteps, sometimes a muffled cry coming from another room. The next day, the interrogation started again and the following day again the same questions, always the same calm voice.
Sometimes he would leave me alone for hours so that the silence could do the work for them. Hunger, too, became a weapon. The soup was clear as water, the bread tiny. I found myself counting the crumbs. The days have lost their order. Then one morning, without explanation, we were taken out of the cell. Several inmates were gathered in the courtyard.
They gave us back our coats but not our papers. A train was waiting behind the gates. Not a passenger train, but freight cars. I understood immediately. A woman near me whispered that it was just a transfer to another center. She was trying to reassure herself as much as I was. We were ushered in quickly. Inside the wagon there was no bench or window, only a jump in a corner and rough planks.
The door closed with a heavy metallic sound. Darkness has invaded the space. Their breathing became faster. The train started with a sudden jolt. I leaned against the wall to avoid falling. Around me, some women were praying, others remained silent. I was thinking about my mother who didn’t know where I was. And for the first time, a clear idea crossed my mind.
I was leaving France. The hours passed in the heat and the lack of air. Day and night could no longer be distinguished. At one point, someone knocked on the door calling for water. No one responded. Then the train slowed down. German voices, dogs, shouted orders. The door slammed shut , letting in a white light and a violent cold, and I saw barbed wire stretching as far as the eye could see .
The light almost blinded me. After the darkness of the train car, the world seemed too vast, too bright, but the air cut the skin like a blade. The cold was harsher than anything I had ever experienced. Before us stretched an expanse of barbed wire, guard towers and wooden huts lined up in frozen mud, dogs barking incessantly, figures in uniform shouting rapid orders that we barely understood, but their gesture was enough.
We had to jump off the train car. Several women fell and no one was allowed to help them immediately. A strange smell hung in the air, a mixture of smoke, coal, and something indefinable that I only understood much later. We were made to run to a large square. We were lined up, counted, moved again without knowing why.
I held my too-thin coat tightly against me, but the wind still got through. An elderly woman next to me kept repeating that there must be a mistake, that we would be sent back soon. I no longer believed it. We were led into a low building. Everything there was quick and mechanical. We were ordered to leave our belongings.
I hesitated, holding my father’s watch in my hand. A guard shouted and I had to put it down with the rest. I didn’t know yet that I would never see her again . Next, we were taken into a room where our hair was cut. The locks of hair fell to the ground without anyone speaking. It wasn’t just for hygiene.
I understood it immediately; it was to take away a part of ourselves . Then civilian clothes disappeared too. We were given clothes that were too big, striped, rough, and wooden clogs. I no longer recognized the women around me. Some were crying, others remained motionless like statues. I felt empty, as if my past had just been separated from my body.
Outside, the snow was beginning to fall heavily. It didn’t cover the mud, it mixed with it. We were led to a barracks. Inside, wooden bunks on three levels occupied all the space. The air was heavy with humidity and human fatigue. An older inmate showed us where to stand. She spoke French in a low voice.
She explained the essential rules to us. Answer calls immediately. Never leave food visible. Don’t get sick. She didn’t add why, but her look was enough. I didn’t sleep the first night. The noises never stopped. Footsteps, orders, everything. Sometimes stifled sobs and always the cold. Morning arrived before I understood that the night had truly existed.
We were woken up before Loube for roll call. We had to stand motionless for an immeasurable amount of time. The wind passed under the thin clothes. My feet couldn’t feel anything anymore. A woman collapsed near me. Nobody moved. The guards shouted until other inmates lifted her up. After the call, we received a dark drink, probably coffee, and a piece of bread so small that I ate it too quickly, regretting it immediately.
The workday has begun. I was sent with a group to transport stones from one point to another in the camp. The goal seemed pointless, but the fatigue was very real. The hours passed slowly, punctuated only by orders and whistles. I was constantly thinking about my mother. I tried to imagine that she still believed I was alive.
Sometimes that thought gave me strength. Sometimes she almost broke me. As the days went by, I learned to conserve every movement, every bit of energy. We sometimes shared very simple words, just enough to remain human. A Polish woman taught me how to hide a piece of bread in the lining of my garment.
Another woman advised me never to look directly at certain guards. Survival became a series of small learning experiences. One evening, as we were coming home from work, I heard someone say my first name behind me. Not a cry, not an order, a weak but determined voice. I turned around slowly. Among the line of prisoners, a face stared at me in astonishment.
It took me a few seconds to recognize him. He was someone I never would have imagined finding here. I looked again, unable to breathe for a few seconds. His face was hollow, his cheeks almost transparent under the pale skin, his hair cut short like ours, and yet I recognized him as fair-skinned.
Her eyes, in particular, had not changed. He still carried that same calm intensity. But now, she mixed in a deep fatigue, a weariness that seemed to come from very far away. We couldn’t get close right away. The guards were watching us as we marched towards the barracks. She only whispered my name a second time, as if to check that I wasn’t an illusion.
That night, after the evening roll call, she managed to get closer to my bunk. We spoke very quietly, almost without moving our lips. She was arrested after me following a denunciation. She hadn’t given any names. She thought I had managed to leave before the reminders. I told him about the arrest, the truck, the cell, the train.
Our words were short, but they contained a whole vanished world. His presence gave me back something that the camp had taken away from me as soon as I arrived. A real past. Someone here knew my story from before, my mother’s kitchen, the grocery store, the river. This shared memory helped us to hold on. The days continued, however, identical and different at the same time.
The cold, the hunger, the endless phone calls, the absurd work. Some women disappeared after becoming ill. We learned not to ask questions anymore , but every absence weighed heavily. Claire would share some of her bread with me when I was too weak, and I would do the same when I could. We had developed a ritual. Each evening, we would recall a specific memory from before the war.
The smell of coffee, a Sunday market, the sound of rain on the windows. It was our way of staying alive inside. Winter seemed to last an eternity. Then one day, without me initially understanding why, the noises changed. The guards seemed nervous. The calls were faster. In the distance, sometimes we could hear a low rumble that didn’t sound like thunderstorms.
A prisoner who understood a little German whispered that the front was approaching. No one dared to truly believe it. Hope had become a dangerous thing. However, the following weeks brought other signs. Fewer convoys were arriving. Some nights, the lights stayed off longer . One morning, the call was abruptly interrupted by hasty orders.
The guards ran from one building to another. We were locked in the barracks all day without explanation. Claire was squeezing my hand so hard it hurt, but I didn’t want her to let go. Then, in the early morning the following day, an unusual silence descended upon the camp. No barking, no whistling, nothing. We waited motionless for an hour, maybe more.
Finally, the door of the barracks opened slowly. They weren’t the same uniforms. Soldiers entered, speaking a language I had never heard before, but their faces were not those of our pretty boys. Nobody moved right away . We dared not understand. Then a woman near the door started to cry.
Not fear, another type of deep, uncontrollable crying. The soldiers were repeating a word that I only understood later. Free. I went outside with the others. The sky was light grey, almost soft after months of harshness. The barbed wire was still there, but it no longer had the same strength. Claire was trembling next to me. We were alive.
The return was not immediate. We were too weak to travel. Weeks passed in a makeshift hospital. The food returned slowly, almost painfully. Many women were still not speaking , and neither was I at first. Words seemed useless in the face of what we were carrying. Finally, a train took us back to France.
When I stepped onto the dock in my town, the summer of 1945 was beginning. Everything seemed smaller than before. The houses, the square, even the church. I walked to our street. My mother was standing in front of the door. She was thinner, her hair almost white. For a second, she didn’t move, as if she feared an illusion.
Then she pronounced my first name exactly as she did when I was a child. We held each other close for a long time without speaking. I understood then that the war did not end with the fighting. It continued in our nights, in our silences, in our memories. Even today, when I close my eyes, I sometimes hear the siren from 1940, the wheels of the train where snow fell on the camp courtyard.
But I also remember a hand held tightly in mine in the middle of the night. and of a door that opens one spring morning. That is why I now say that the years have made me slow but still alive so that what happened to us will never disappear with us. Yeah.
