HUM450 - Voices - Charlotte Delbo

In this accounting, Charlotte tells of her? account in Ausschwitz as a Jew.  She speaks of how terribly cold it was and how brutal life was in the concentration camp.  Of special note is how she detailed how incredibly cold it was and how they had to stand outside the barracks during roll call in the morning.  She recounts how one lady lost her galoshes and how all of the other women were helping her find it because without it, it meant certain death.  Also, she writes about a Gypsy woman who would show up for roll call with her dead baby.  The unnamed Gypsy woman was later killed when a policewoman tried to take the baby away.  The baby was thrown in the trash and the woman was put into a collection of bodies to be burned.

Another story Delbo tells is that of a Jewish boy (14?) who recounts how he and his father escaped being deported to Ausschwitz.  His mother was sent there.  The boy and his father joined a resistance group in France, fighting the Germans.  He was later captured and sent to Ausschwitz, where he spent his days there looking for his mother.  After the camp was liberated, he returned home to Paris where he met back up with his father.

They never found out what happened to his mother.