by Paige Bowers
“Hello,” the woman on the bed said to her. “What is your name?”
Thérèse introduced herself, and then the woman on the bed did too.
“I’m Geneviève de Gaulle,” she said.
Thérèse could not believe that she was sharing a cell with General de Gaulle’s niece. After initially feeling intimidated by her, Thérèse was put at ease by Geneviève’s reassuring smile and compassion. Both women had been involved in the Défense de la France network, and it created an instant bond between them. On her first night in the cell, Geneviève insisted that Thérèse sleep on the lone bed to feel more at home. As Thérèse tucked herself in, Geneviève and the other two cellmates curled up on the benches and drifted off to sleep.
“Geneviève’s warmth and smile, the friendship she gave to everyone was everything,” Thérèse later said. “For me, she helped me overcome my apprehension about communal living.”
Three more prisoners would join them after that. The quarters became so cramped that the guards opened their cell door from time to time to give them some fresh air. Although the days could be monotonous, the women passed time by playing games with makeshift decks of cards that were crudely cut out of whatever materials they had on hand. In the evenings Thérèse and Geneviève sang popular songs for everyone in their block, even though they would be punished for it. The following evening they would always sing again.
Sometimes new prisoners arrived and no one would understand why they were there. Others had more obvious offenses, such as thieving. One of the more colorful characters was a Cambodian woman named Pierrette, who had been hauled in for running a prostitution ring. Pierrette believed she was a Buddhist priestess, seer, and healer and claimed she could cure one of Geneviève’s friends from a long illness by sending a current of heat and electricity into her body. Pierrette’s purported magic wasn’t as restorative as she had declared, so Geneviève and Thérèse nursed their friend back to health by serving her bowls of warm soup. Awestruck, Pierrette told the duo they had a medium’s gifts. Later the women sat down on the floor of their cell and chanted “Om.” When nothing was revealed to them, they collapsed in wild laughter.
Many of the women got the strength to persevere from their Catholic faith, and a priest named Abbé Steiner offered them confession and communion. On All Saints’ Day, the annual Catholic celebration of a martyr’s death in the name of Christ, Geneviève listened as one of her comrades read the Eight Beatitudes of Jesus:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
“Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.”
“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”
“Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”
“Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
As the last words were uttered, Geneviève felt awash in peace and joy. More than a month later, the prisoners celebrated Christmas together, adorning their makeshift chapel with pine branches to make things more festive. At three o’clock that afternoon, a knock on the wall signaled a collective rosary for anyone who wanted to take part.
As the women of Fresnes proclaimed their faith, the people of France contemplated a holiday message from the Americans that was delivered to them the night before. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt spoke directly to Frenchwomen, imploring them not to lose hope after “many sad years.” She added: “I hope that the women of France will find this Christmas less sad because the hour of their deliverance is drawing nearer day by day. . . . We are sending our wishes for a happier year, and at this season we say to you: Courage for the future, the New Year will bring you luck.”
That evening the prison fell silent as one of their comrades sang “O Holy Night” in their cell. Angry guards stormed through the facility, punishing the women by confiscating packages, scooping up books, and taking any remaining personal items they could find. After they finished their raids and disappeared for the night, more Christmas carols echoed through the corridor. “Merry Christmas,” the women shouted to each other. Another woman yelled, “Courage! We’ll get them!” to great laughter. Many of the women had never laid eyes on each other, but they had developed a collective soul and camaraderie that gave them the courage to persevere.
While Geneviève and her fellow detainees were drawing strength from each other at Fresnes Prison, Hitler told Germans that 1944 would pose heavy demands on the country, but he was confident that they could all survive it.
“Our one prayer to our Maker will not be that he gives us victory, but that He weighs us justly in accordance with our courage, our bravery, our industry and our sacrifices,” he said. “He knows the aim of our fight. It is none other than to safeguard the existence of our nation, which He himself created. . . . We are ready to give and do anything to achieve our aim.”
He maintained that the country had not lost one bit of territory but claimed that his enemies had. Across Europe Allied troops conducted large raids on German positions and rained bombs into strategic targets. As the attacks continued, Major General Barney M. Giles, assistant air force chief of staff, told the French in a broadcast: “Stand by. Freedom will soon be yours.”
The Third Reich would soon be driven from France, he said.
“Already the Nazis have felt the attack of our bombers,” Giles added. “Their cities, their industries, their Luftwaffe know the damage we are inflicting on them. They also know the attacks will be intensified. When our planes come over your skies, they fly only on missions of liberation. We come again and again to fulfill the pledge that once more ‘liberté, egalité and fraternité’ will be yours. . . . May the next New Year’s find the proud Tricolor of France once more triumphant over your soil.”
Not to be deterred, the Germans announced that Marshal Pétain had assured Hitler of his loyalty, even though the coming year might test France too. The Nazis pledged crackdowns in the southern zone and a “more Germanophile” Vichy government. National liberation officials pushed forward with their invasion plans anyway, negotiating with the Allies about their role in the country’s eventual liberation. They wanted to be there with their foreign friends when they first landed on French soil, believing that foreign troops could benefit from their knowledge of the territories where battles would be fought. But there was a political element to these discussions: some believed that the vision of General de Gaulle in the capital after the Nazi defeat would hold remarkable sway with the French.
In Fresnes the internees tried to stay on top of these events as much as possible. They learned that General de Gaulle tried to reach out to the Soviets diplomatically through an intermediary of Vyacheslav Molotov, Russia’s minister of foreign affairs, but some resisters in his entourage did not approve of the overture.
One day a prisoner approached Geneviève in the showers to talk to her about her uncle’s opponents.
“They are calling him ‘Gaulotov,’” Geneviève replied. “But me, I’m completely in agreement with what he has done.” And then she added, “So, I will no longer be called de Gaulle either. Call me Gaulotov too! Geneviève Gaulotov!”
Rumors flew from cell to cell. On January 19 Geneviève’s aunt Marie-Agnès heard that either General de Gaulle’s brother or brother-in-law had departed that morning on a train full of prisoners for Germany. She knew that her brother Pierre had been taken away fairly recently, so she assumed that it had to be her husband, Alfred, who had been shipped away. She was devastated and began preparing herself mentally for her turn, whenever it might come.
In the meantime prison officials began talking about another group of prisoners there at Fresnes who were about to be sent east at
the end of the month. Geneviève de Gaulle was to be among the soon-to-be deportees. The guards rounded them up at the end of January 1944, moving them into ground-floor cells the night before their departure. They left early in the morning, after Abbé Steiner gave them a benediction and absolution. Before their departure prison officials returned some of the possessions they had confiscated from them upon their arrival. They handed Geneviève her red-and-black purse, which held her glasses, pipe, a small bit of tobacco, and photographs that did not belong to her. She rummaged through her handbag, only to discover that her captors had not given back the gold watch from her grandmother, the topaz and pearl ring that Aunt Madeleine had given her on her twenty-first birthday, or the cash she was carrying on the day of her arrest. There was nothing she could do about it. The women left the jail, singing a rollicking “La Marseillaise.” Many of the prisoners were delighted to meet fellow detainees, who up until then had been nothing more than voices that echoed and whispered into the night.
They were sent one hour north of Paris to the Royallieu Camp in Compiègne, where they were placed in a large group of women from all the prisons in France. There they waited for the next stop on their journey. After months of being restricted to a cell, Geneviève was able to move around freely and talk to whomever she wanted. The diversity of the women she met fascinated her—their various ages, backgrounds, and hometowns. Like Geneviève they had all been arrested for their involvement with the resistance, which they had joined because they refused to accept France’s defeat. They fought back against the enemy by working for intelligence units, housing and hiding Allied aviators who were shot down over France, and providing refuge to those sent on spy missions by the Free French Forces in London. They were women like Pauline, a worker and Communist who had participated in sabotages and assassinations. Or Bella, a diplomat’s daughter, who stood among the deportees reciting poetry that she had written in solitary confinement. There was also Claire, a professor and Socialist who had worked with Jean Moulin. Odette told the crowds about how her sixteen-year-old son begged her not to break down as he was being tortured in front of her. There were doctors, a permanent secretary of the French Institute, and Mme Wagner, who owned the bookstore where Geneviève was arrested the previous July. Face upon face pressed in on her during the ten days they waited in hastily constructed barracks. Their latrines were nothing more than a ditch dug next to the metal fence that separated the women’s section of the camp from the men’s. Each day they were given a half liter of water to drink and wash with.
They knew they would likely be taken to Germany, but none of them had any idea where or what the conditions would be like when they arrived. On the day they were gathered in the plaza at the camp, they were subjected to a lengthy roll call of one thousand women. It was a cold day, but many were bundled in heavy wool coats and, in some cases, furs. When the Wehrmacht officer called the name “de Gaulle,” it provoked cheers and applause among the other women standing there. Playing to the crowd, Geneviève stuck her pipe in her mouth, lit it, and proudly marched toward the train. The Germans were infuriated by the show, and they unleashed their dogs in an effort to enforce order. Geneviève knew the Germans were trying to scare them all to death, and as she was pushed into the crowded cattle cars, she felt fragile but at the same time very strong.
“I had my little triumph,” she recalled. “Like my comrades, I was not about to submit to their humiliations.”
The car grew more and more crowded. There were not enough places to sit or sleep and nothing to eat except for a small piece of bread and foul-smelling sausage. There was no water, and they were closed in with a tin bucket that was supposed to serve as a toilet for the entire voyage, however long it was to be. As elderly and pregnant women squeezed in alongside the other prisoners, it became clear to Geneviève that the ride would be long and uncomfortable for them.
In some wagons detainees attempted to escape. A prisoner of war who drove Geneviève to the train station gave her a metal lever so she could attempt a getaway, but Geneviève thought it would be difficult for them to pry open the windows or roof of the car without German guards catching them. That left the floorboards; if Geneviève could pry up those slats, she, and perhaps a few others, could slide through the opening at the next stop and flee.
Geneviève tried to force up the planks, but one woman stopped her in the act. “If one female deportee escapes, they will kill five men from the neighboring wagon,” the woman explained. “Ladies, you girls, you have no husband, no son, perhaps no brother. . . . Please, give up escape because your freedom is the death of us.”
After listening to her pleas, Geneviève hid the lever and opted to stay. She knew they were all in this together. The tension in the wagon was palpable as the train began pulling away from the station, so Geneviève put on a brave face for her peers. She began singing “Auld Lang Syne.” Others joined in, and then everyone sang “La Marseillaise.” They threw flurries of farewell notes through the cracks in the car, all of them with their names and home address in the hope that someone would let their loved ones know that they had been sent away. At the German border they stopped so the guards could empty the buckets of urine and feces. Farther inside Germany they stopped again so that the women could be fed soup. The cramped car smelled horrendous, and the prisoners were exhausted. One woman had given birth, but her baby didn’t survive. Geneviève felt like she had lost the strength to think, and she could not bend her body or lie down or kneel.
After three days of travel, they arrived at their destination in the middle of the night. Geneviève would later stitch the path of her journey onto a linen bread-ration bag with black and red thread. So far she knew she had gone from Fresnes to Compiègne and then to two train stations on the other side of the Rhine. This last stop was a mystery. Geneviève sat in the darkness, waiting for the cattle car’s doors to open and for their whereabouts to be revealed.
Part II
RAVENSBRÜCK
6
The Project on the Other Side of the Lake
When Adolf Hitler became chancellor in 1933, he sought to direct women toward what he believed to be their most natural roles: wives, mothers, homemakers. He believed women were inferior, blamed them for taking jobs away from men, and cursed them for corrupting the country’s morals. By 1936 many women were excluded from professions such as law and civil service and steered toward jobs as housecleaners, cooks, and other seemingly feminine forms of work.
The führer’s beliefs about women did not prevent him from throwing them in jail. During his rule more women were being arrested and incarcerated in Germany for anything from criminal activity to political beliefs. As Hitler began strengthening his hold on dissent, wives could be jailed if their husbands were Reich opponents who had fled or gone into hiding. Although women knew they could be tortured for opposing the führer, they were inspired by the bravery of Spanish counterparts trying to prevent General Francisco Franco from coming to power, so they distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, helped Jewish children escape, and protested the national army draft. When five hundred female Jehovah’s Witnesses publicly objected to their husbands being called up to fight in the German army, the SS rounded up the new draftees and took them to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where each of them was thrashed twenty-five times with a leather whip.
Heinrich Himmler, the SS chief charged with running the camps, originally said it would be unseemly to punish women in the same way as men. But he didn’t propose a gender-specific camp until 1938, when the women’s prisons were full. Aside from political prisoners and Jews, jails teemed with gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, prostitutes, lesbians, and petty thieves. They were undesirables as far as Hitler was concerned, so he wanted to sweep them away in order to strengthen and purify the country. A new facility could aid in that cause and provide the Third Reich with a ready supply of labor for the impending war effort.
The question was where to build it. Himmler met with his advisors to discuss feasible
locations, and the one that seemed most appealing was near a tiny village named Ravensbrück. Situated about fifty miles north of Berlin in a district lush with forests and shimmering lakes, the site was presumably isolated enough so that no one would know about it. It was also easily accessible by the direct rail line that ran between Berlin and the nearby town of Fürstenberg, whose elegant church spire and ginger-hued rooftops could be seen from the proposed spot on the opposite side of Lake Schwedt. From the Fürstenberg train station, guards could quietly steer columns of new arrivals through the woods to the six-acre complex at night.
If you could see Fürstenberg from Ravensbrück, the reverse was also true, despite Himmler’s desire to shroud his new compound in secrecy. No one could ignore the large boats that began ferrying building materials to the sandy parcel of land where local children liked to play. One day youngsters arrived at the spot only to be told that it was now off-limits. In the distance hundreds of men in striped uniforms chopped down trees. Upset by this turn of events, the youths ran home to tell their parents, who implored them to keep quiet. A real wall had gone up at Ravensbrück that day, but a figurative one was erected in the hearts and minds of area residents. No one wanted to talk about the building project on the other side of the lake.
Prominent SS officers bought country homes in the vicinity, which many cherished for its peace, beauty, and superb water sports, but life was not so idyllic for everyone who called the place home. The hamlet had been hit hard by the Great Depression, and bankruptcies soared. Whatever was going on across the lake meant work, especially for women, who were needed as guards. Although there was never any formal announcement or printed notice about a concentration camp being built, there were local help-wanted ads offering good-paying, easy employment. Single mother of three Margarete Mewes applied for a position after reading about the salary, job security, and well-appointed waterfront apartments that were among its perks. When she was hired at Ravensbrück in 1939, Mewes considered her new employment a stroke of good fortune and wore her new SS uniform with pride. So too did a young, blonde kitchen maid named Dorothea Binz, who took the job to escape an unhappy home life. Binz was a head-turner whose tall and slender physique had already caught the eye of several SS officers who frequented the village bar. She had a presence, and soon she would be trained to use it to her best and most intimidating advantage.