apartment to try and encourage a breath of early evening air to cool the overheated attic rooms, and then she turned on the radio. As she poured herself a glass of water in the kitchen, the announcer’s words drew her back to listen more closely.
‘Let us put an end to these convoys,’ the voice urged. ‘Yesterday another thousand or more men and women were sent east. And today we say “Enough!” Enough of our countrymen have disappeared to the German work camps. It’s time for them to be allowed to come home now. Citizens of Paris, it’s time to put an end to this. The Métro workers, the gendarmes and the police have come out on strike. We call on all other citizens to join them in a wider act of resistance. Rise up now and let us take back our city!’
As if in response to the call to arms, she heard the sound of gunfire from the direction of the river, followed by the dull thud of an explosion somewhere further to the north. There were shouts on the street below, and the sound of running feet seemed to replicate the throbbing of her pounding heart.
She felt an overwhelming urge to be part of it, whatever it was that was happening out there . . . Without stopping to think, she ran down the metal stairs and out on to the Rue Cardinale. The tall buildings hemmed her in on the narrow street and so, instinctively, she turned and headed for the river’s more open vistas.
A group of young men marched briskly towards the Pont Neuf, carrying whatever arms they’d managed to procure from who-knew-where. More men emerged from the cellars and the attics of the buildings along the quayside, waiters and clerks and policemen: Resistance fighters all.
Mireille hesitated in the shade of a plane tree, unsure which way to go. At the end of the bridge, men and women were setting up barricades, dragging anything they could find to pile up across the road. Two men began cutting down one of the trees that flanked the entrance to the bridge, hacking desperately into it with axes.
Mireille ran to help a group that was levering up paving stones, adding them to the growing defences. Her hands bled as she clawed at the mortar holding a slab in place, prising a corner loose until the stone was freed and she could stagger to the barricade with it.
‘Look out!’ a man shouted, as the tree began to topple, and she leapt clear as it fell.
Just then, a German armoured car swept towards them across the bridge, spitting machine-gun fire. Bullets ricocheted off the stonework as the Résistants returned fire, and the man dragged Mireille down to crouch behind the fallen tree as a bullet embedded itself into the trunk beside her. The armoured car swerved and then careened off along the quai in the opposite direction. The man grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. ‘Go home, miss,’ he said. ‘It’s not safe out here on the streets. The city is a battleground now. Get yourself back inside.’ At the far end of the bridge, a German tank lumbered into view, its gun barrel swinging menacingly towards the barricades. ‘Hurry! Go now, while you can.’ He pushed her towards the Rue Dauphine and she ran, stumbling, towards the shelter of the narrow streets of the rive gauche. As she fled, she glanced back over her shoulder at the tank as it advanced on the barricades, where one of the fighters lay, at the end of the bridge, in a pool of bright blood.
Back in the apartment, the radio was still filling the empty rooms with its tirade, urging the citizens to retake the city. She flung herself down on to the chair, gasping for breath, and sat listening late into the night to the voices from afar and the closer patter of gunfire, as the battle for Paris raged on.
In the camp, they were used to ‘selections’ being made almost every day. Prisoners were marched away or herded into buses to be transported to and from the many other satellite camps that dotted the region. Some came back to report where they’d been, but others never returned.
At roll call one morning, when the other prisoners marched off to the factories for the day, Claire and Vivi were ordered to remain behind, along with a number of other women. Claire risked a glance at the others left standing on the