The Question of Community in Charlotte Delbo's Auschwitz and After

Abstract

terrorism, condemned to death by a special tribunal, and guillotined in Paris. Feeling compelled to join her comrades in the Resistance, Delbo returned to France, despite Jouvet's concerns. On March 2, 1942, she and her husband, Georges Dudach, both involved in the production of anti-Nazi literature, were arrested in their Paris apartment by French police and turned over to the Gestapo. Imprisoned at la Sante, they were allowed to see each other for the last time on the morning of May 23. Later that day, Dudach was executed by firing squad at le Mont-Valerien. Delbo herself was subsequently transferred to Romainville, and then, between January 24 and 27, 1943, was deported through Compiegne to Auschwitz in a convoy of 230 women, only 49 of whom returned. She spent the next twenty-seven months in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Raisko, and Ravensbrfick, and at the end of June, 1945, was repatriated by the Red Cross via Sweden.'