He didn’t need to touch us to destroy us. A pointing finger was enough. I saw this gesture for the first time in August 1943 at the entrance to a camp prisoner in the north of France. There was no screaming, no violence immediate, only one German soldier in impeccable uniform raising his arm straight and pointing the index finger straight on me in the middle of a line of women French woman trembling in the light rain in the morning.
This finger decided everything. He separated me of others. He tore me from the group like tearing a leaf from a notebook. And at this precise moment, I understood a truth that I will never forget never. In war there are forms of violence that makes no noise, that do not leave any visible blood, but who tear pieces of you the soul which never grows back.
My name is Aurélie Vos. I’m years old today. I have been silent for 59 years. Neither my husband did not know, nor my children heard a single word, nor the doctors who took care of my body and did not understand the scars that I carried inside. And now, sitting here in this living room silent, I decided to tell because what happened after that gesture, after a German soldier pointed at a prisoner French has never been recorded in history books.
It remained hidden in the cracks, in the silences, in the memories that many preferred to take in the falls. I almost did the same thing. But something inside me, something which has resisted for decades, has decided that this truth must be said. Not to shock, not to accuse, but because some stories, so painful be they, cannot be erased.
So, I will tell exactly what I saw, what I got felt, what they did to me. to me and to others. And you will understand why still today, when I see someone pointing the finger at another no one, even if it’s a gesture innocent, banal, my whole body freezes. I grew up in Rouan, a city with streets narrow and to the ancient churches where my family had lived for generations.
My father was a blacksmith, my mother seamstress. We had little, but we were happy with this simple happiness which only existed before the war. When the Germans invaded France in 1940, I was 18 years old. I remember the noise tanks entering the city. I remember the silence that settled in the streets afterwards.
A heavy silence, stifling, as if the city itself had stopped breathing. At first we thought it was temporary, that everything would return to soon to be normal, but the months have passed and with them came the rules, the bans, curfews, knocking on doors in the middle of the night. I worked in a textile factory with other young women.
We made uniforms for the German soldiers. It was a job humiliating but necessary. Those who do not not working were stopped. Or worse. It’s there at the factory that I met Margaot. [music] She was years old, with catty hair. short cuts and a look that conveyed courage, even when everything all around cried despair.
Margaot was part of a small group resistance. Nothing grandiose, nothing heroic like in the movies. Just a few people who transmitted information, hid documents, would help families Jews to flee. She invited me to help. I hesitated. I was scared, very scared. But Margaot said something that I never forgot.
Aurélie, if we do not let’s do nothing, we will hate for always. And she was right. Aurélie pause. His eyes stare at a distant point, as if it were still in this factory, in this moment decision. She breathes deeply before continuing. If you feel that this story deserves to be heard, leave a comment saying where from you look.
Every voice counts that testimonies like this not disappear. For 6 months, I helped Margaot and the others. I carried hidden messages in uniform seams. I diverted small amounts of fabrics to falsify documents. I transmit information about the movements of German soldiers. It was dangerous. But I felt useful, alive until in August 1943 we were betrayed.
I don’t know who delivered it to us, I don’t never knew. Maybe someone who was afraid, maybe someone who had to save his own skin. Or maybe just someone who believed he was doing what was right collaborating with the occupants. One rainy morning, the guestapo made burst into the factory. I remember the sound of boots hitting the ground concrete.
I remember the screams German. I remember the others women pushed against the wall, hands on head, face white with terror. They took twelve of us. Margaot was among her. We were thrown into military trucks covered with dark tarpaulins. We didn’t know where we were going. We had no way to know it. We only felt the sway of the vehicle.
The smell gasoline mixed with sweat and fear. We drove for hours. When the truck finally stopped and that the tarpaulins were torn off, I saw for the first time the place which would change my life forever. It was a prison camp on the outskirts of Compiègne, barbed wire fences, guai towers, gray barracks under an equally gray sky.
And it is there, at the entrance to this place that the soldier German raised his arm and pointed finger. on me. I still don’t know why he chosen. Maybe because I was young, maybe because I was shaking less than the others or perhaps just because I was there wrong place, wrong time and that my face matched what he was looking for that day.
The soldier did not not looked in the eye. He pointed his finger, nods towards a another soldier and it was over. Two men grabbed me by the arms and dragged me out of line. Margaot has tried to shout my name, but suddenly cross in the stomach la faciere immediately. I saw him bend in two, their faces twisted in pain and in his eyes, I saw something that made me frozen. She knew what awaited me.
She knew and she could do nothing do. I was taken to a building separated away from the barracks main. a small construction in red brick with narrow windows and a metal door. From the outside, it looked like a simple warehouse. But it wasn’t a warehouse, it was an antechamber of hell. What is did he pass after this gesture? Why were some women separated others? And what did Aurélie see in the following days which pushed him to keep silence for almost six decades ? The answer lies in the next chapters and she is more
disturbing than any document official never admitted it. I don’t know not why he chose me. Maybe because I was young, maybe because that I was shaking less than the others or maybe just because I was there in the wrong place, at the wrong time and that my face matched this what he was looking for that day.
The soldier does not didn’t look me in the eye. He has pointed his finger, made a sign head towards another soldier. And it was finished. Two men grabbed me arms and dragged me out of the file. Margaot tried to shout my name but a shot in the stomach immediately. I was taken to a separate building away from main barracks.
A small red brick construction with narrow windows and a metal door. From the outside it looked like a simple warehouse. But inside, inside there were rows of metal bed, stained white sheets, a smell of disinfectant mixed with something darker, more organic that I couldn’t identify. And there were others women, some sitting on beds, staring blankly, others standing near the walls, like frozen shadows.
None spoke, none really moved. They all seemed to be waiting for something something but without knowing what. A woman older, maybe 40 years old, approached me. She had dark circles black under the eyes and marks red on the wrists. “What’s your name ?” she asked in a voice bass. Aurélie, “I’m Hélène.” Listen to me carefully, Aurélie.
Here you don’t don’t ask any questions. You obey. You do exactly what they tell you. If you resist, they break you. If you cry too hard, he hits you. What if are you trying to escape? She doesn’t have finished his sentence. She didn’t have any need. I sat on a misdemeanor. My hands were shaking. My heart was beating so strong that I had the impression that he was going to explode.
And then the door open. A German officer entered accompanied by a doctor in a coat white. They walked around the room gaze inspecting each woman as one inspects livestock. The doctor stopped in front of me. He has lifted my chin with his fingers gloved, examined my teeth, my eyes, my hands. He noted something about a notebook.
Then he said something in German to the officer. They laughed. I didn’t understand the words, but I understood the tone and that was enough for my blood runs cold. That evening I learned what it truly meant to be selected. We were taken into another truck. This time we were seven all young, all French, all silent.
The journey lasted less than an hour. When we are arrived, I saw a larger building, better maintained than the barracks of camp. There were lights on the interior. Music was playing, a soft music, almost elegant like in a fancy restaurant. But it was not not a restaurant, it was a brothel military, a soldier in a mess like he called him.
a place where soldiers Germans came to relax after their mission and we were there for them serve. I remember the feeling of my legs that refused to move forward, hand of Hélène who gently pushed me in the back. Advance ! murmur. “If you stop, he drags you. We were brought into a large room with sofas red, thick curtains and lamps sifted.
There were soldiers everywhere. Some were drinking, [music] others smoked, still others we watched with cold eyes, calculators. A German woman, tall and lean, dressed in a strict uniform, we lined up against the wall. [music] She examined us one by one, adjusting our hair, checking our clothes. Then she started assigning us numbers. I was number 7.
I’m not going not describe in detail what happened that night. Some things are too heavy for be put into words. Some images remain engraved in the flesh, not in language. But I will say this: this was not raw violence. This was not costs, screams, chaos. It was worse. It was methodical, organized, almost bureaucratic.
Each soldier had his turn, each woman had its role. Everything was settled as a well-oiled machine, like a factory production where we were the raw materials. And the worst is that we were forced to smile, to pretend everything was okay, play a role, to pretend to be consenting, even when our bodies exclaimed in disgust, even when our spirits screamed silently.
Because if we don’t play the game, if we showed our true fear, our real pain, it became violent. I learned this very quickly. A girls, a 19 year old girl named Simone, cried while a soldier touched her. He slapped him so hard that she fell out of bed. Then he got it dragged out of the room by his hair. We never saw him again.
The days following have merged into a sort of fog. Time no longer existed really. There were only cycles. To be taken away, to be used, to be brought back, sleep a few hours, start again. Hélène taught me how to survive. Do not never look in the eyes, she said. Never show anger, never show fear. Be neutral, empty like a doll.
It was horrible, but it was effective. I learned to to turn off my mind, to detach myself from my own body, to imagine that this wasn’t really me who was experiencing this, but someone else, another Aurélie in another world. Some women couldn’t do it. She collapsed, she cried constantly, she refused to eat [music] and she disappeared because in this system we were not useful only as long as we function.
As soon as we become defective, we replaced us. One evening, about weeks after my arrived, something strange happened product. A German officer entered in the room. Not a simple soldier. an older man with gray hair and round glasses. He wore a impeccable uniform and a bag leather under the arm.
He looked at me then he gestured to the German woman who was aimed at us. She, he said, showing me some finger. My heart stopped. They got me taken to a small room in the back of the building. Not a room, an office with a wooden table, two chairs and a unique lamp that illuminated weakly. The officer sat down. He gestured for me to sit down too.
Then he opened his bag and took out. A notebook and pen. “What’s your name?” he asked in French with a thick accent but understandable. “Aurélie!” Did I whispered. Aurélie, how? Your sister ? He noted. Then he asked me some more questions. Where did I come from? What was my family? Why had I been stopped? I didn’t understand.
Why these questions? Why now? And then he said something something that froze me even to them. We let’s do a study, miss Voselle, a scientific study on the psychological resistance of prisoners. You will participate. I understood at that moment that the horror I was experiencing was not only violence, it was also of experimentation.
They weren’t destroying us by chance. They were studying how to break us. They took notes. They measured our reactions like insects in a jar. And what I would discover in the following weeks would exceed everything I had imagined. The officer with round glasses was called learned Werner Steiner.
I never forgot his name. Even today, sixty years later i can still see her face with frightening clarity, its blue eyes, cold and curious, his hands clean, manicured, who held the pen with surgical precision, his perfectly trimmed nails, his gestures slow, methodical, calculated. He came back to see me twice a week, always in this same small room, always with his leather bound notebook brown, always with these questions that seemed innocent, but who rummaged in the most hidden corners dark in my mind.
At the beginning, I thought he was going to ask me about the resistance, on Margaot, on the others, on our contacts, our actions, our plans. But no, he wanted to know what that I felt. When a soldier touch, what exactly do you think?” he asked, his pen raised above the blank page, ready to note each word, every hesitation, every silence.
“Do you have nightmares? What type precisely? Can you describe them? Have you lost your appetite? In which measure? How many meals do you have skipped this week? Do you have any suicidal thoughts? How often ? Have you tried them yet? I don’t I almost never answered. I sat there with my hands clenched on my knees, eyes fixed on a point of the wall behind him, but my silence didn’t bother him.
At On the contrary, he still noted. He observed my hands trembling slightly, my gaze which was fleeing, my breathing which accelerated when some questions became too precise, too intimate, too unbearable. As if I were an animal in a laboratory, as if my pain was a given scientific to record, analyze, classify in a methodical system of understanding of human suffering.
One day he asked me a question different. Miss Voselle, do you believe that psychological pain can be measured in the same way as the physical pain? I looked up at him. For the first time I really looked at it. Why are you asking me that? Did I whispered. He smiled. A light smile, almost benevolent, like a teacher who encourages a student to think.
Because we are in the process of develop a scale. A scale that would allow us to quantify the resistance psychological of individuals facing extreme situations. You, miss Yours, you are a subject particularly interesting. Interesting. This word resonated in my head for days. I was interesting, not human, not a victim, not an interesting person.
But Steiner wasn’t the only one. He was part of a program large, more organized, more sinister than I never would have imagined it. A program that used women like us, prisoners, resistant, undesirables to carry out psychological, medical, behavioral. Some of us were submissive in pain resistance tests. They were inflicted with burns, cuts, electric shocks during that we measured their reactions, their tolerance threshold, their mechanisms of psychological defense.
Others received injections of substances unknown. Some fell stroll immediately. Others developed strange symptoms: fever prolonged, hallucination, paralysis partial. Still others were exposed to extreme situations for observe their reaction. They were deprived of sleep for days. We locked in confined spaces. We forced them to make decisions impossible, to choose between their own survival and that of another prisoner.
And all this was documented, classified, archived with precision terrifying bureaucratic because in the twisted minds of these men, we We were not human beings. We were data, variables in an equation, specimens in a scientific collection intended for understand the limits of the psyche human under extreme duress.
A afternoon, Steiner arrived with a another younger man, maybe 30 years. He wore a different uniform, more elegant, with badges that I didn’t recognize. Miss Yours, I present to you the Storm fury Klaus Berger Steiner. He oversees our research program. He wants to ask you a few questions.
Shepherd sat down opposite me. He watched me silently for a long time. Then he spoke in a impeccable French, without accent. Do you know how many women are passed through this program since its launched in 1942? I shook my head. More than 350, he said calmly, of all ages, of all origins, French, Polish, Russian, Jewish, resistant, political prisoner, we have accumulated a considerable amount of data.
Data that will provide a better understanding of how the human mind reacts under pressure. How can you break a person? How can we control it? He has paused then added: “You you are one of the most resilient, miss your remarkable. I didn’t know if it was a compliment or threat. One evening, after a session particularly trying at the brothel soldier, I was taken back to the barracks earlier than usual.
A women, a young girl that I don’t didn’t know well, her name was Céline, she was 19 years old, with blonde hair, almost white, green eyes magnificent who always seemed on the verge of tears. She approached me and whispered to me. Aurélie, I need to tell you something something, something you need to know. I turned to her.
What? Some girls. They are not only used for soldiers. They disappear. We take them to another building and when they come back, if they come back, they are no longer the same. What do you mean? I mean they’re broken completely as if something the inside of her had been turned off. A girls told me that we had him injected something.
She doesn’t remember nothing. She doesn’t even know plus what her name is. My meaning froze. Why are you telling me this? Because yesterday I heard Steiner speak with another doctor. They have mentioned your name. They said you was ready for the next phase. The following days, I lived in a constant terror. Every time a soldier entered the barracks, I thought it was for me.
Each time we called a number, I held my breath. And then a morning it happened. Steiner came to me search, but this time it was not alone. There were two soldiers with him, armed, silent. Come, miss your sister, we have something new to you. My heart stopped. I was taken towards the building that Céline had mentioned.
An isolated building, surrounded by additional barbelet with opaque windows which did not let him pass no light. Inside he there was a medical examination room cold, sterile, with a table metal in the center, straps in leather attached to the sides. Steiner motioned for me to lie down. Don’t worry, he said abruptly. soft voice, almost reassuring.
We let’s just do some tests. Nothing painful, just some measurements. But I knew he lied. I saw the syringes prepared on a tray. I saw the instruments medical devices aligned with precision military. I saw the notebook open, ready to receive news observations and I understood that if I I lay down on this table, I may never come back.
It is to this precise moment that another soldier is entered the room. He said something something in German to Steiner, something urgent thing. Steiner frowned eyebrows, he replied dryly. Then he turned to me. We must postpone. Return to the barracks. I didn’t ask any questions. I am exit as quickly as possible before that he doesn’t change his mind.
That evening, a older woman, a polish girl named Zopia, took me aside. Aurélie, listen to me carefully, she said in a loud voice bass. Some girls talk about an escape. My heart abounds in my chest. An escape? But how? There is a soldier, a young man, he doesn’t come often here, but when he comes, he doesn’t never touches us.
He remains seated in a corner and he cries. I looked at him confused. Is he crying? Yes, apparently he hates what is happening here. He told one of the girls he could help us, but it’s risky, extremely risky. If we got caught, she didn’t need to finish. We knew everything that was happening to the girls who tried to escape, but to stay was to die slowly, little fire, day after day, until that there is nothing left of us.
[music] So, I accepted. The plan was simple, almost naive in his design. The young soldier, he was called Klaus, ironically the same first name as the fury Hsturm, but he was a completely different man, was going leave a door unlocked in the night. Three of us had to match discreetly, walk along the northern fence avoiding the spotlight and joining a forest road about 2 km.
From there, a contact from the resistance should have recover with a vehicle. It was risky, terribly risky. The chances successes were slim, but it was our only chance. The chosen night has arrived. One night cold September without moon, perfect to blend into the darkness. Helene, another girl named Pauline and me, we stood up in silence, our hearts beating wildly.
My heart was beating so hard that I was afraid that someone hear it through the walls. My hands were trembling, my mouth was dry. We we walked quietly through the dark hallway, avoiding every board creaking, holding our breath every noise. The door was actually unlocked like Klaus had promised. We went out into the freezing night.
The cold September air hit my face. I felt a surge of hope rise inside me. A fragile hope, shaky but real. But it didn’t last only a few seconds because at the moment where we reach the fence, a blinding light came on. Of spotlights everywhere, illuminating the night like in broad daylight. And voices in German shouted.
orders, threats, we had been betrayed or maybe Klaus had been discovered or maybe all this had been that a trap from the start, a additional experience for identify the one that still had hope, the one who was still capable to resist. I never knew it. Pauline tried to run. She sprinted towards the forest, her slender legs beating the air desperately.
A bullet stopped him in his tracks. She is fell face down on the ground without a cry, her body sagging like a doll of rag. Hélène and I raised our hands. We couldn’t do anything else. To resist meant to die immediately. [music] The soldiers took us back to inside, not in the barracks, in another room.
A cold room, damp, with stone walls and chains hanging on the wall. An officer entered. Not Steiner. Another. more younger, more violent. His eyes were harsh, merciless. He looked at Helene for a long time. You wanted leave, he said in French with a cruel smile. Very good, we will help you. He took out his gun and shot her a bullet in the head.
Just like that, without hesitation, without emotion, as one crushes an insect. Hélène’s body collapsed to my feet, his eyes still open, staring emptiness, an expression of surprise frozen on his face. And I have yelled. I screamed until my voice breaks, until my strings vocals no longer produce any sound, until they hit me in the face to ground me.
I don’t know how long did I stay in this room. Hours, maybe days. Time no longer existed. There is no only had the cold, the humidity, the blood dried heine on the ground next to me. When they finally brought me back in the barracks, I was empty. He doesn’t Nothing remained in me, neither anger, nor fear, nor hope, nor even sadness.
Just an immense, cold void, silent, as if my soul had been sucked out of my body. Steiner came back to see me a few days later. He sat opposite of me, opened his notebook and asked as if nothing had happened. How do you feel after this event, miss your ? I looked up towards him and for the first time since a long time, I answered him.
My voice was rque, broken, but the words are out. I feel dead. He smiled. A light, almost satisfied smile like a scientist who comes from confirm a hypothesis. Then he noted something in his notebook. His fingers moved fluidly, filling the page with his writing neat. And I wondered how many more women had said these same words before me. But I wasn’t dead.
Not yet. Something in me refused to go out completely. A small flame almost invisible but stubborn. And that something was going to me save. It’s strange the way the body human adapts to horror. After a while, even the unbearable becomes routine, even the pain becomes familiar. You stop struggling, you stop think.
You become a functioning machine by reflex. This is what happened to me after death of Helene. I got up, I did this what people told me. I returned to myself go to bed and the next day I would start again. The days faded into weeks, weeks to months. And then one morning from November 1943, something has changed.
A convoy of prisoners arrived at the camp. Of men, this time, resistance fighters captured in the south of France. Among They had a French doctor. He was called Doctor Lucien Morau. The Germans needed him. A Tyifus epidemic had broken out among the prisoners and he wanted prevent it from spreading to soldiers. Lucien was authorized to work in the camp infirmary and this is where our paths crossed.
I had been sent to the infirmary after passed out during a session with a soldier. I hadn’t eaten anything in days. My body had simply given up. Lucien examined me. He took my louse, checked my pupils, felt my abdomen. Then he said something that I hadn’t heard in months. You are very weak, miss. He you have to feed yourself.
I will ask for a additional ration. His voice was soft, human. I lifted looked at him and saw something something in his eyes. Something that I haven’t seen it for a long time. From compassion. Lucien became my ally discreetly, cautiously. He made me come to the infirmary under pretext of medical checks. There he gave me food hidden, bread, sometimes a piece of cheese, once an apple.
And he spoke. You must hold on, Aurélie, he said. The war will not last eternally. The allies are advancing. The Germans are starting to lose land. I wanted to believe it but it was difficult, so difficult. One day, Lucien said something to me who made me understand that he was preparing something. Aurélie, if I told you that there is a possibility of getting out of here, but that it is extremely dangerous, that would you do? My heart began to beat faster.
I’ll take the risk. He nodded head. GOOD. So listen to me carefully. Lucien’s plan was audacious. He had established contact with a group local resistance fighters. They had succeeded to infiltrate a man among the truck drivers who delivered supplies to the camp. This driver could hide someone in his truck. Just one person.
Only one times. Lucien had chosen me. Why I asked incredulously? Because you are young, because you are strong, even if you don’t see it. And because if you survive you will be able to testify. Testify. This word resonated in me like a bell. The planned day has arrived. A frosty December morning. Lucien told me taken out of the infirmary pretending I needed one special treatment.
He led me to the delivery area. where the trucks unloaded the goods. The driver was there, a man of fifty years old with a weathered face. He opened the back of the truck. There had crates of food stacked and, between two rows, a space narrow, just big enough for one person. “Get in!” he whispered. “I slipped into space.
My heart was beating so hard I was scared let us hear it. Lucien looked at me last time.” “Good luck! Then he closed the doors. The darkness was total. The air was stifling. I felt the weight of crates around me, the vibration of engine under my body. The truck has started. I closed my eyes and prayed. Not to God.
I no longer believed in God for a long time. I prayed for so that it is real, so that it is not not a trap, so that this time hope does not destroy me. The journey took forever. At one point, the truck stopped. I heard voices in German, soldiers who controlled the goods. My whole body frozen. I heard crate noises moved closer and closer.
And then suddenly a voice shouted something. The soldiers laughed. The truck has restarted. He hadn’t found me. When the doors finally closed open, I saw the sky. A gray sky, covered in clouds but free. The driver helped me go down. We were in a forest far from the camp. Run, he said, follow this path. You will find a farm.
They will help you. I thanked him. But words were not enough. [music] So, I ran. I ran like I had never run in my life. But escaping the camp did not mean escape the war, nor the memory, nor to the guilt of the one I had left behind. Freedom does not have the taste that we imagine. When I reached Shut up, I was at the end of my strength.
A elderly woman opened the door for me. She told me looked, my clothes torn, my body, my eyes empty and she understood. Without asking questions, she made me enter. I was given food, water, a bed. But I couldn’t sleep. Each every time I closed my eyes, I saw Hélène, Pauline, Simone, all others.
And I wondered why me ? Why did I survive when they are dead? I remained hidden in this farm for 3 months. The family who hosted me was part of the resistance network. They provided me false papers, a new identity. My name was now Marie du Bois. I was supposed to be a cousin from Paris. Little by little, my body recovered.
I gained weight again, my wounds have healed, but my spirit he was broken. In June 1944, the Allies landed in Normandy. I heard the news at radio and for the first time since I cried for a long time. No joy, no of relief, but because I knew that it was too late for those who had remained there. When the war ended in May, I returned to Rouan.
My city had changed or maybe it was me who had changed. I found my family. My father had aged 10 years. My mother cried every time she looked. He didn’t know what had happened to me. I never told them said. I tried to get my life back normal. I found a job. I am married, I had two children but I was absent.
Even when I was there, physically, my mind was elsewhere. My husband didn’t understand why I couldn’t stand being touched, why did I wake up screaming some nights, why couldn’t I not enter a closed room without panic. I told him it was cause of the war, which was true, but I never told him all truth. For decades I have kept silent because I had ashamed, because I was afraid that someone would judge, because in the years post-war, we did not talk about these things there.
Women like me were invisible. Our stories were annoying. They do not fit with the heroic story of resistance. So, we were silent. In 2004, a historian contacted me. She was conducting research on the brothel soldiers and the medical experiments carried out on prisoners during the war. She had found my name in archives German, archives which had no been opened only recently.
In these documents, there were notes, reports, clinical observations signed by doctor Werner Steiner. When I saw his name, written there, black on white, something broke in me. All these years I had tried to forget, to repress, to do as if none of this had existed, but it was there, documented, archived, real. And I understood that if I didn’t speak now this story would die with me.
[music] So, I agreed to testify. Not in court. Steiner was dead for a long time, probably without never having been judged, but before a camera so people know, so let history know. Today, in 2024, I am a old woman. I am 80 years old. My hair are white, my body is tired, but my memory is intact. I remember everything, faces, voices, gestures and I remember what this must point to mean.
People often ask me if I have forgiven. I don’t know how to answer this question. Do we forgive men who treated us like cattle? Who made objects of our bodies? Who studied our suffering as a scientific experiment? I don’t believe not, but I no longer grant them the power to destroy me. What I want what people understand is that War doesn’t stop when the guns are silent.
It continues in the bodies, in minds, in families. It continues in the nightmares, in the silences, in the secrets that we carry with us until the grave. Margaot was never found. I don’t know what’s wrong with him arrived. Maybe she was executed. Maybe she died of illness. Maybe she just disappeared like so many others.
Helene is died before my eyes. Pauline too. Simone, I never saw him again after that night she was dragged out of the room. And I am here. I don’t know not why I survived. I don’t believe not that it was because I was older strong or braver or more deserving. I just think I had some luck. Terrible, absurd luck, unfair.
[music] So, I tell. I tell for those who can no longer do it. I tell so that their name is not erased. I tell so that maybe someone somewhere understands what really means surviving hell. And I tell you to ask you a question. A question I’ve been asking myself since 60 years old and to which I still have not answer if you had been in my place.
What would you have done? Would you have kept silence like me for decades or would you have found the strength to speak sooner? And above all, how do we live after having survived something that should have kill us? I don’t know, but what I know that as long as I breathe, as long as my voice works, I will continue to testify because oblivion is a second death and I refuses to let them die twice.
Aurélie stops, her hands tremble slightly. She looks at the camera with eyes that have carried this weight for almost six decades. It’s not about the anger in his eyes. It’s not of hatred. It’s something more deep, heavier. It’s memory who refuses to die, even when everyone rest tried to bury it. What you just heard is not a fiction.
These are not written words to shock or move artificially. This is the testimony raw of a woman who survived what history preferred to forget. Of thousands of women like Aurélie have been erased from the books. their name lost in the sealed archives, their voice stifled by the complicit silence of decades. But today, thanks to stories like this, we have the duty not to look away.
If This testimony touched you, if you feel that this memory must be preserved, we ask you one thing simple but essential. Subscribe to this channel. Activate the bell notification because each subscriber is one more voice that says “I remember.” Every like is an act of resistance against forgetting. Each sharing allows this story to reach someone who may have it need to understand what it means really survive.
But more importantly Again, leave a comment. Tell us where you’re looking from. Tell us what this story awakened in you. Ask yourself this question that Elijah leaves us. If you had been to her instead, what would you have done? Would you have found the strength to speak or would you have like she carries this silence for decades? There is no good answer but the question must be posed.
These stories should not die with those who lived them. They must pass through generations. Not to maintain the pain, but to remind us that humanity is fragile, that barbarism does not carry always a monstrous face, that she can be methodical, bureaucratic, almost banal and that it is precisely why it is so dangerous. Aurélie chose to speak at 80 years old because she knew that time was counted.
She was gone for 10 years after this recording by carrying with she details that no one will never know. But his testimony remains and as long as people like you will continue to listen, to reflect, to transmit, it will not be never really died. So stay, comment, share, subscribe because that every gesture counts and because memory, unlike silence, does not should never be a burden lonely.
It must be collective, she must be alive, she must be ours. Yeah.