[MANUSCRIT]. "Women behind the barbed wire". - Lot 52

[MANUSCRIT]. "Women behind the barbed wire". Chilling account of a German woman interned in 1940 at the Vél'd'Hiv, then at the Gurs camp in Béarn. S.l., [ca. 1945]. 1 vol. in-folio (314×213mm), later binding in half cloth; smooth spine decorated with title in black lettering, red speckled edges. 1 p.n.ch., 91 paginated pages. Typescript relating the internment of a German Catholic woman in 1940, first in Paris, at the Velodrome d'Hiver (the "Vél'd'Hiv'"), then at the Gurs camp in Béarn. Text never published. Proof with a few handwritten corrections. The author begins: "Camp de Gurs is behind me at last, and freedom stretches out its arms before me, pointing to vast horizons, solitude and calm! Oh, at last! I'm free! I fill my lungs with pure air and breathe a deep sigh of relief. Thank you, God! At last, I'm a woman again; I'm no longer the collective! ...". An exceptional testimony, this poignant anonymous account gives voice to the women interned at Gurs, between collective pain and an intimate quest for dignity, in one of the darkest and least-known pages of French history in 1940.