The truck started moving. We climbed the mountain for hours, following narrow, treacherous dirt tracks, violently jolted around every bend. Some women were vomiting; others were crying softly. I just clutched my stomach and felt my son kick, as if he too sensed that something terrible was about to happen.
When we finally stopped, we found ourselves in front of a complex surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers. It wasn’t a concentration camp like Auschwitz or Dachau. It was smaller, more isolated, hidden between mist-shrouded mountains. I later learned that this place was called the Southern Vercors Camp, an experimental camp created specifically to study pregnant women captured in the region.
The existence of this place was erased from official records after the war. The Germans burned the documents; they destroyed the evidence. But I was there. I saw what they did, and I’ve never forgotten it.
If you are listening to this, wherever you are, pause for a moment. Breathe. Realize that the world around you was built on the bones of people who never had the chance to tell their stories. This is not just a narrative; it is a testimony. If you are moved, leave a trace so that these women are not forgotten.
We were dragged out of the truck amidst shouts. Soldiers shoved us, pulled us by the arms, and hurled insults at us in German. My right leg hit the metal wall of the truck and started bleeding, but no one paid any attention. They lined us up in front of a German officer who was holding a notepad.
He moved slowly along the line, stopping in front of each woman, observing our bellies with clinical attention. When he reached me, he stopped. He looked at my stomach, then at my face. With his fingertips, he lifted my head, forcing me to look him in the eyes.
His eyes were brown, cold, and impassive. He jotted something down on his notepad and continued. We were then led into a long, dark shack, divided by wooden planks. There were no beds, only damp, moldy straw on the bare floor. The cold was biting, the kind that seeps into your bones and never leaves you.
The smell was unbearable: a mixture of urine, sweat, and accumulated despair. Sitting in a corner, knees drawn up to my chest, I felt my son stir again. I whispered to him, almost as a prayer, “Hold on, please, hold on.”
The first night in that barracks was the longest of my life. None of us really slept. Lying on the damp straw, we listened to the sounds outside: the clatter of boots, orders barked in German, and sometimes muffled shouts coming from other buildings. Hélène was lying next to me. She was 26 years old and seven months pregnant.
Her face and hands were swollen with water retention, but here, no one cared. She whispered to me in the darkness, “Madeleine, do you think they’ll let us give birth?” I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know. But deep inside, an icy voice was already murmuring the truth: they hadn’t brought us here to let us live.
They had brought us here to observe, experiment, and test the limits of a pregnant woman’s body. The next morning, before dawn, the doors suddenly opened. Three soldiers entered and shouted numbers in German. I was number 83, Hélène 81, and Jeanne 79.
They called six numbers, including mine. We were led in an icy drizzle to a nearby gray concrete building. Inside, a narrow, windowless corridor was lit by a single flickering bulb. At the end of the corridor were three gray metal doors, numbered 1, 2, and 3.
A German officer stood in front of the doors. He looked at us and said slowly in French: “You will each choose a door, only one door. You cannot go back. You cannot change your mind. Choose now.”
My heart stopped. I looked at the doors. They all looked the same. But I knew with chilling certainty that something terrible lurked behind each one. Helen was called first. She stepped forward, trembling, her hands shielding her enormous belly. The officer repeated, “Choose!”
She stared at the doors for what seemed like an eternity, then whispered, “The first one.” The officer nodded. Two soldiers opened door number one and pushed Helen inside. The door slammed shut. I heard nothing more after that. Just a heavy silence.
Jeanne was called next. She chose door number 3. Same procedure, same silence. Then it was my turn. The officer looked at me: “Number 83, choose.” I stared at the doors. My son moved inside me as if he sensed my fear. I thought of Étienne and whispered, “The second one.”
Behind the door was a small room, about three meters by three. No windows, a cold concrete floor, a bucket in the corner, and a wooden chair. The door locked behind me. I stood motionless, trying to understand what they were going to do to me.
After a few minutes, I began to feel a slight warmth, which then intensified. The floor and walls started to heat up. The temperature gradually increased. It wasn’t a fire; the heat was under control. The room was being heated from the outside.
I understood immediately. They wanted to see how long a pregnant woman could withstand extreme heat before collapsing. My heart raced. I took off my coat, my jacket, my vest. But the heat continued to rise. My skin began to burn; my lips chapped.
Inside my womb, my son was thrashing about frantically, as if trying to escape. I screamed, I banged on the door, I begged to be let out, but no one came. I don’t know how long I was there—maybe an hour, maybe less. But every second felt like an eternity.
At one point, my legs buckled and I collapsed onto the burning floor. I felt my skin blister. I screamed in pain, but I had no strength left. I thought I was going to die in that white-hot metal box, with my son still alive inside me. Suddenly, the door opened.
The fresh air rushed in. Two soldiers dragged me outside. I was having trouble breathing. My skin was red and covered in blisters. They threw me into the corridor like a sack of potatoes. The officer stood over me, taking notes. He didn’t even look at me. To him, I was just a result to be recorded.
Later, I discovered what lay behind the other two doors. Behind door number 1, the one Helen had chosen, was a room where she was exposed to extreme cold. The temperature dropped below zero. Already weakened, Helen didn’t last long. She collapsed in less than 30 minutes.
When they brought her out, she was unconscious. Her baby was stillborn. She survived a few more days before succumbing to a systemic infection. Behind door number 3, Jeanne had been exposed to an odorless gas that had slowly permeated the room, affecting her respiratory system.
Jeanne started coughing, then choking, then coughing up blood. When they took her out of the hospital, she was still alive, but her baby was dead. She gave birth three days later to a stillborn child and died a week later, her lungs destroyed. I don’t know how I survived.
