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Chapters (117)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. The Cast of Characters
  6. CHAPTER ONE
  7. The Recruits
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. CHAPTER TWELVE
  19. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  23. The Missions
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  54. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  55. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  56. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  57. CHAPTER FIFTY
  58. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  59. CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
  60. CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
  61. CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
  62. CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
  63. CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
  64. CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
  65. CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
  66. The Game
  67. CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
  68. CHAPTER SIXTY
  69. CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
  70. CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
  71. CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
  72. CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
  73. CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
  74. CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
  75. CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
  76. CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
  77. CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
  78. CHAPTER SEVENTY
  79. CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
  80. CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
  81. CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
  82. CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
  83. CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
  84. CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
  85. CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
  86. CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
  87. CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
  88. CHAPTER EIGHTY
  89. CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
  90. CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
  91. CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
  92. CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
  93. HOME
  94. CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
  95. CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
  96. CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
  97. CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
  98. CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
  99. CHAPTER NINETY
  100. CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
  101. CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
  102. CHAPTER NINETY-THREE
  103. CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
  104. CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE
  105. CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
  106. CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN
  107. CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT
  108. CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
  109. CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
  110. CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ONE
  111. Acknowledgments
  112. Discover More
  113. About the Author
  114. Reading Group Guide
  115. Discussion Questions
  116. A Conversation with Leila Meacham
  117. ALSO BY LEILA MEACHAM

Soon the vehicle stopped. The prisoners’ pulse rates soared as the door to the van opened and fresh air flowed in. A man got on and handed them down to two other pairs of hands that helped to steady them on solid ground. “Quickly now,” one of them said, and still shackled and hooded, they were hurriedly steered up a flight of steps to a stoop. They heard the ring of a house bell and the sound of a door opening. “Step inside,” they were ordered, and behind their hoods, Brad and Chris sniffed a familiar smell. Heavy footsteps approached.

“Gentlemen,” Major General Konrad March said quietly. “You may remove their hoods and release their hands now.”

CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

Bridgette heard the bedlam coming from outside the window of her sewing room and thought she recognized its cause before getting up from the cutting table to peer through the small square of glass. The other internee, who’d brought in her supper last night, had warned her to expect it.

“Don’t look,” she’d advised. “The sight will just add to your nightmares.” But Bridgette was determined to record every incident of her captors’ brutality here in the SS-controlled internment camp, and someday, if she survived, bear witness of them to their judges and juries. Her diary would be a bolt of muslin on which she’d record dates, times, and names of those responsible for the monstrous offenses against human beings that went on behind the electric-wired fences where Jews were held until their transport to the extermination centers in France and Germany. Her roll of cloth might be the only surviving document of the kind of horror going on now.

The scene would be impossible to describe in depth on fabric. Under a rain of punches and kicks, truncheons, whips, and rifle butts, amid cries and wails of protest and pain from the recalcitrant and rebellious among the families wrenched apart, hundreds of Jewish men, women, and children of all ages were being packed into a string of city buses conscripted from the Paris public transit system. The buses were headed to the train stations, where the latest internees selected for disposal would be loaded into boxcars bound for the crematoria.

Bridgette drew away from the window, shaking, her stomach turning and ears ringing from the bawls of human suffering. Madame Richter had explained the deportation process to her the first hour of her arrival yesterday. Let me make one thing perfectly clear, Mademoiselle Dufor, she had said. There is no escaping Drancy, and if you do not do what you are told—when you are told—you will be on one of those French green-and-white transit buses that you will see pull out of here tomorrow, as soon as the gas chambers are ready to receive another load of Jews. As long as you are of use to me, you will live. Otherwise, you will not. Do you understand?