Josette Molland, who died at 100 in France on Feb. 17, was a younger member of the French Resistance throughout World Struggle II when she was captured by the Gestapo and imprisoned in Nazi forced-labor camps for ladies. She survived, after witnessing and enduring repeated episodes of brutality. Later, after her return to France, she spoke to college students about her experiences for years.

Within the Eighties, nonetheless, worrying that her story wasn’t getting via to them, she concluded that telling the younger of her camp life was not sufficient. She must present them. So she set about portray, from painful reminiscence, scenes of the tough incarceration that she and lots of different feminine inmates had suffered. She produced 15 work in all, in folk-art type. Listed below are 5 of them, with the textual content she wrote to accompany them.

‘The Washroom’

“Place where one washed. No soap, toothbrush, or towel. Cold water flowing into a sort of narrow, awkward trough.”

‘50 Blows of the “Gummi”’

“Nearly always fatal if the woman was thin. Here the blows are administered by our block captain, a German common-law prisoner (Green Triangle).”

‘Liberation of the Camp by Polish Partisans on Horseback’

“They had surprised the SS, ready to flee, and having mined the camp.”

‘On the Dentist’

“Naked, so nothing could be hidden in clothing. He’s looking for gold (used during that period). He pulls out the crowns, with the tooth. Here the bucket is full of gold.”

‘She Had Just Cut Down a Tree’

“She collapsed with fatigue. The “auseherin” (guard) completed her off with a bullet to the again of the pinnacle.”