Chamberet : Recollections from an Ordinary Childhood

The "ordinary times" Claude Morhange-Begue refers to began when she was not quite eight years old; in April 1944, the SS paused in the French village of Chamberet for some routine business and left with Morhange-Begue's mother. For the rest of the war her mother was interned at Auschwitz. She returned at war's end, her health irreparably impaired but wanting to talk.
Years passed, and Morhange-Begue became a woman and a mother in her turn. Chamberet was written, says Morhange-Begue, in order that certain things not be forgotten. Although her mother felt compelled to speak when she came home, she had been unwilling to record her experiences. Morhange-Begue therefore assumed that task and bore witness on her mother's behalf. What she presents here is a stirring tale of personal emergence.