Gwen Strauss was enjoying a leisurely lunch with her 83-year-old great-aunt, Hélène Podliasky.
Hélène was French and Gwen, an American author, lives in France.
It was 2002 and the conversation turned to Hélène’s past. Gwen knew her great-aunt had worked in the Resistance in France during World War Two, but didn’t know anything about that time in her life.
Hélène told the story of how she was captured by the Gestapo, tortured and deported to Germany to a concentration camp. As the allies drew near, the camp was evacuated and she was forced to walk for miles on a Nazi death march.
“Then I escaped with a group of women,” she said briefly.
