Review – A Train in Winter: A Story of Resistance, Friendship and Survival by Caroline Moorehead

Published September 7, 2011 |

When Hitler invaded Paris in June 1940, scuffles left a couple of German soldiers wounded outside the Gare du Nord; otherwise the French acquiesced in bewildered silence. The city’s new masters meant business. Any citizen found in possession of firearms or Free French propaganda would be jailed or executed.

The decision to enter the Resistance was not difficult for a handful of French women. Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, niece of the creator of the Barbar children’s stories, felt a moral revulsion for the Jew-hatred of Vichy France. While she did not blow up any bridges, derail locomotives or eliminate members of the SS, she ran heroic risks in smuggling anti-Nazi propaganda past German blockades in Paris and establishing a network of underground contacts. Marie-Claude’s was among the first Resistance cells in occupied France and, miraculously, it never lost sight of a future beyond Hitler’s defeat.

Find A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France by Caroline Moorehead on Amazon

Review by Ian Thomson

Chris Rivait

Chris loves history and hopes that Yesteeyear becomes a place where everyone can share their history knowledge. Chris owns an Internet Marketing company, Arrivait Marketing. He has a wonderful wife and four great children.