The Last Train

A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead is the troubling story of 230 women of the French Resistance who were eventually sent to Auschwitz and of whom only 49 returing -barely alive and to live out their lives in ill health and severe depression. Beginning as a lusty tale of the French Resistance, mainly perpetuated by the Communists who were already well organized and who were used to operating clandestinely, the men were eventually imprisoned, tortured and shot while the women were imprisoned by the French who took to German brutality with a vengeance, then transported east into the camps set up for the Jews. Those who survived did so by sheer will and by taking care of each other, hiding those who were too sick to work and figuring out quickly such survival techniques such as waiting for the last ration of soup, upon which the vegetables and meat sank to the bottom. Their misery is hardly ameliorated by watching the Jewish and Polish women perish by the thousands as they were often caught up in the same round ups. These women emerged not as heroes as the French often failed to recognize the women who "did little more" than spread newsletters about in spite of the great impact these newsletters had on the Resistance. They came home to a country which did not want to talk about a war which had ended a year earlier for them and thus the camaraderie they had built up and which kept them alive died with them.

Still Fighting

"We were no match for the German artillery. Those Germans were technologically advanced for being a small country. They had the best fighters in the world, the Fallschirmajager, German paratroopers and and the SS-Nazis, even the Germans were scared of them. They were fearless, raised as boys to live and die for Hitler. Germany was prepared and America was sound asleep. We didn't make plans for it, kid. ... I never expected to survive a day, much less the whole war." Fortunately, Bill, of Easy Company's Band Of Brothers did come home and tells his tale in this bestseller. What are the lessons to be learned about being a nation unprepared? How long did the German build up to WW II last? Almost a decade, we watched and snoozed. Our Commander and Chief today plays golf on Memorial Day. That's reassuring.