I recently finished the book A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead (and by recently I mean like in November, but I've been busy). The book is based on a true story of the women who were part of the French Resistance during World War II and their time in concentration camps. I really enjoy learning and reading books from World War II, not that I enjoyed that it happened, but there is something about the stories on that time period which really draw me to them. I have a fair amount of knowledge about what happened from school, books I've read and shows I've seen on T.V. But this was a completely new take on the war for me, which showed me that I did not know as much as I had thought. Before this book, I had no knowledge of the French Resistance and very little knowledge of those who had fought the Gestapo, my knowledge was more concentrated on the Jewish people and what the Gestapo did to them. This book opened my eyes to a whole new side of the war.
This book opens with some background history of what was going on pre-war France and leading up to the Germany take over and the formation and action of the Resistance. While I found the beginning of the book a tad bit boring and slow, I think this had more to do with my desire to the actions of the Resistance and what happened, than my desire to have the background information. That being said, the information was helpful in putting together pieces of what happened. My only complaint to this section of the book was that is was confusing to try and keep all the people straight and to understand some of the terminology, which I believe Moorehead thought was more common knowledge to people, but for someone as young as myself and living on this side of the world, I found myself constantly going to Wikipedia to understand what certain words meant.
As the book transitioned from the background history to the stories of the Resistance, I found that I really enjoyed it, albeit that it was confusing at times to remember whom was whom as she jumped around a lot with the timelines and people (something she did throughout the whole book). Through this section though, I got a clear view of what the Resistance stood for and how they tried to retaliate against the Gestapo. It saddened me each time a member was caught and thrown in to prison, a camp or killed.
The last portion, which was easily half of the book or more, was the experience of the women in prison and moved into concentration camps. While their treatment in the prisons were hard, it seems like a summer camp in comparison to their experience of the concentration camps, especially Auschwitz. Reading their experiences and the things they saw in the camps broke my heart. While I knew some of what the Nazi's had done in their camps, I had not fully understood or comprehended the severity nor intensity of the actions they took. I found this portion of the book brought me so much closer to God. I went through two main emotions, sadness over the fact that these things to could and anger towards God for letting these things happen. As I first began reading this section, I was brought to tears more than once and kept praying for the families effected by this and was sort of amazed that people could think that treating specific men, women and children was somehow justified in their mind. It saddened me to see how inhuman humans can be towards each other, when God is left out of the picture. More than once I had to put the book down and leave it before I could come back to it as the things described sickened me so much. Finally, as this section moved on, I began to move into anger towards God, for allowing such things to happen. I know that God is sovereign in all things, yet at times it is so hard to understand how He an allow it. I did not expect this book to move me towards God as much as it did.
The final part of the book spoke of the freedom brought to the fewer than 40 women who had survived their 2 years in the camps and their transition into the 'real' world. Every single one of them found it extremely difficult to go on with their lives, although they did, and found that they could not talk about their experience with anyone but each other. They had formed a solid friendship during their Resistance and concentration camps days, which could not be broken and was the only thing that really helped them make it through the ordeal.
All in all, I enjoyed this book. I gained new knowledge of what happened in Auschwitz and the French Resistance. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in World War II or wants to have their faith stretched and grow.
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