I didn’t have children. For decades. I never spoke about what happened in that camp. Not because I wanted to forget, but because no one wanted to hear it. Until 2010, at the age of 86, when I agreed to be interviewed for a project commemorating the forgotten women of World War II.
It was the first and only time I ever told my full story. What I revealed in this interview goes far beyond anything I’ve shared before. Because what happened to my sisters and our children didn’t end in 1945. On the contrary, it was only the beginning. In subsequent episodes of this documentary series, I will reveal secrets that have remained buried for almost 70 years.
Secrets about the true fate of the children born in that camp, about the secret network coordinated by von Steiner, about the day I found something I thought was lost forever. But before we go any further: if my story moves you, if you think stories like mine deserve to be told, please support me by liking this video and leaving a comment below. Because together we create memories, and every voice counts.
I spent the two years after the war ended in a kind of trance. I barely slept. I didn’t really live. I existed like an old, yellowed photograph, tucked away in a drawer, never looked at. Aurore returned to Saint-Rémy with me, but she was no longer the same. She spoke very little.
She sat for hours by the window, her hands on her knees, staring at a point only I could see. Sometimes she whispered a name, always the same, the one she gave her son in the few hours she could hold him in her arms. She died in 1947. The doctor diagnosed tuberculosis.
CONTINUED NEXT PAGEI knew it was pain. I was alone. The villagers looked at me differently, not with pity but with concern, as if I were a living reminder of a past they wanted to forget. France yearned for a new beginning, for reconstruction, for a future. Women like me, who bore the scars of war on their bodies and souls, didn’t fit this new image.
So I did what was expected of me. I remained silent. I found work as a seamstress in a workshop in Orléans. I rented a small room above a bakery. I made wedding dresses for women who still believed in fairy tales. At night, I returned home. I ate alone. I fell asleep thinking about my son.
What did he look like now? Was he five? Six? Could he read? Was he afraid of the dark, like I was at his age? Had they told him he was an orphan? Had they lied to him about my identity? These questions tormented me, but I didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t even know his name. I didn’t know which city, which country he had been sent to. But in 1953, everything changed. I received a letter, a simple, unaddressed envelope, from Munich. Inside was a single handwritten sentence in German: “If you wish to know what happened to your son, please come to this address on March 12th at 2:00 p.m..”
I was breathless. My hands were shaking so much that I had to put the letter down on the table to read it again. Who had sent it to me? How had this person known who I was? Was it a trap? But I knew I would go. Despite the danger, despite the shock. On March 12th, 1953, I boarded a train to Munich. For the first time since my return, I left France.
