There was no possibility of protest or legal proceedings. We were completely at the mercy of his regime.
Separations and losses.
Séverine was the first to give birth in April 1943. She gave birth to a girl. The staff snatched the baby from his arms before they could cut off the umbilical cord properly. Séverine wept and screamed endlessly for three days, until she lost her voice completely. Afterwards, he fell into a state of absolute catatonia: he refused to eat, stopped talking and did not respond to any external stimulus. He died six weeks later. The official field report indicated typhus as a cause of death, but in the barracks we understood that it had simply succumbed to despair.
Aurore gave birth to a son the following month in May. With admirable perseverance, he managed to hold the baby against his breast for a few short hours before the administrative staff came to pick him up. I was right next to his crib when the separation occurred and I witnessed his emotional crisis: a break in his personality so deep that it could never be completely repaired. My own birth took place in June and resulted in the birth of a dark-haired little boy and little hands that instinctively grabbed my finger with surprising strength. I experienced a contradictory wave of deep maternal affection and deep resentment: love for innocent life, but at the same time an inescapable reminder of the origin of our suffering. The staff took him the next morning.
The occupying forces began to retreat in the spring of 1945, while Allied units advanced through the region. Von Steiner completely disappeared from the base before the arrival of the liberation forces. Some regional rumors suggested that he had used clandestine networks to flee to South America, while others claimed that he had been executed by his own staff during the chaotic last days of the collapse. We have never received a definitive answer.
Finally, I returned to Saint-Rémy-sur-Loire with Aurore. Our mother had passed away during our absence because of her delicate health and pain, and our father’s mental health had deteriorated so much that she no longer recognized me when she knocked on the door. I stood on the threshold and saw how the old watchmaker stared at me, as if it were an appearance. In a way, maybe it was.
After the end of the war, I lived another sixty-five years. I led a very lonely life and earned my living modestly as an independent seamstress. I never married or tried to have more children. For decades, I kept absolute silence about the events of that field, not only because I wanted to forget, but because post-war society was not willing to face such uncomfortable truths. Only in my advanced age did I finally agree to participate in a large-scale oral history project whose goal was to document the experiences of women marginalized during World War II.
That interview was the first and only time I completely revealed my experiences. The revelations I shared went far beyond the immediate events of the war, because the consequences of what happened in those facilities did not simply end with the armistice of 1945. In fact, the long-term consequences were just beginning to manifest.
