From a World Apart: A Little Girl in the Concentration Camps - Softcover

Christophe, Francine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080326402X ISBN 13: 9780803264021

Publisher: Bison Books, 2000

Synopsis

“I’m frightened, Mother. Last year, I was seven years old. This year, I’m eight and so many years separate these two ages. I have learned that I am Jewish, that I am a monster, and that I must hide myself. I’m frightened all the time.”—Francine Christophe.

Francine Christophe’s account begins in 1939, when her father was called up to fight with the French army. A year later he was taken prisoner by the Germans. Hearing of the Jewish arrests in France from his prison camp, he begged his wife and daughter to flee Paris for the unoccupied southern zone. They were arrested during the attempted escape and subsequently interned in the French camps of Poitiers, Drancy, and Beaune-la-Rolande. In 1944 they were deported to Bergen-Belsen in Germany.

In short, seemingly neutral paragraphs, Christophe relates the trials that she and her mother underwent. Writing in the present tense, she tells her story without passion, without judgment, without complaint. Yet from these unpretentious, staccato sentences surges a well of tenderness and human warmth. We live through the child’s experiences, as if we had gone hand-in-hand with her through the death camps.

About this title

About the Author

Francine Christophe lives in Rocquencourt, France. Christine Burls is a professional translator. Nathan Bracher is an associate professor of French at Texas A & M University and the translator of Vichy: An Everpresent Past by Éric Conan and Henry Rousso.

From Booklist

In 1939, at the start of World War II, Christophe was six years old, too young to understand the increasing legislation against the Jews of France. Christophe and her mother lived in Paris with the author's grandmother; her father, a soldier, was taken prisoner by the German invaders. In 1942 Christophe and her mother were arrested as they attempted to flee Paris for the unoccupied zone in southern France. They were subsequently interned in French camps. In May 1944 they were deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany; in April 1945 the author and her mother were among hundreds of prisoners taken by train from the camp. After the SS abandoned the train, they were freed, and in June they were reunited with Christophe's father. Christophe's memoir can best be described as a series of snapshots--brief paragraphs, some no longer than a sentence, and written in the present tense. These simple "snapshots" relate cruelty in vivid detail. George Cohen

Edition details

• Publisher: Bison Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 080326402X
• ISBN 13: 9780803264021
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 179