Tale recalls sacrifices of French Resistance members

This "Military Tales" tells the story of a train in the winter of 1942.

The train carried 230 French women from Paris to the Birkenau extermination camp at Auschwitz. The women were members of the French Resistance who had been caught and/or had been betrayed.

After only 2 1/2 months at the extermination camp, the number of women was down to 80 — 150 of them had died from typhus, pneumonia, dysentery, dog attacks, beatings and gangrenous frostbite, not from being gassed as they weren't Jews.

At the camp, trains were arriving daily from Holland, Germany, and France. About one in 10 were picked out to work, the rest were gassed. One train of 1,700, children from Poland, all under 10 were gassed. In the summer, tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews were gassed. In 1944, the remaining women were trained to Ravensbruck, a less severe camp.

In 1945, after the war was over, there were just 49 women left of the original group of 230 who had been aboard that train. The women made their ways back to Paris, but had a hard time adjusting. The new French government had records of 311,000 suspected collaborators — 60,000 cases disappeared. Of the remainder three-fourths were found guilty, 764 of them were executed, 46,144 sentenced to national degradation which meant they lost their voting rights, couldn't belong to clubs or organizations. Also forfeited medals, commendations and also any pension.

Ironically, not many of the police who cooperated with the Nazis and turned people in, were prosecuted, because France needed a police force.

Roger Gregory is a Vietnam veteran and business owner in Priest River.