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“I can be patient. Well, for a little while.” She pulls Tina close again. “Oh, Grand-Mère, to think they might be able to tell us where she is. It’s the best Christmas present ever. Thank you for writing to them. Thank you for telling me.”

“I wasn’t sure whether I should. I don’t want to get your hopes up. But you have a right to know everything I do.”

They eat their meal at midday. Tina gives Josie a new handkerchief, embroidered with her real initials, as promised. She need no longer fear being a Jewish girl living in Paris.

“Now you can be yourself again,” Tina tells her.

Josie gives Tina a drawing she made at school. It depicts the apartment on rue Blomet. The piano. The three of them—Louis, Tina, Andrée—standing together. And Josie at the piano, playing.

“This is how I remember it,” Josie says. “Before everything changed. This is what I want Tata Andrée to come back to.”

Tina’s eyes fill with tears. There will be no coming back for her beloved Louis.

That afternoon they sit by the window and watch Paris. The city is still scarred from occupation. It still has more healing to do, but now at last it’s free.

“Merry Christmas, Grand-Père,” Josie whispers to the sky. “I miss you.”

Tina wraps an arm around her. “He misses you too. And he’s so proud of you. We both are.”

There is no Christmas in Ravensbrück. The guards don’t acknowledge it. The prisoners don’t celebrate it. It’s just another day of cold and hunger and survival.

But the women in Andrée’s block whisper “Joyeux Noël’ to each other. A small resistance.

She thinks of Josie and her parents. Are they together? Are they warm? Are they eating something better than the watery soup she’s been given today?

That evening, as they huddle on their bunks trying to conserve warmth, Marceline asks, “Andrée, will you hum for us? Something for Christmas.”

So Andrée hums “Il est né le divin enfant.” The melody her mother sang to her as a child. The song she’s sung every Christmas of her life.

Around her, women begin to cry for the Christmases they’ve lost, the families they may never see again and the lives they lived before this hell.

But they’re still here. Still human enough to cry over a Christmas carol hummed in the darkness.

And that, Andrée thinks, is its own kind of victory.

The day after Christmas, the guards walk through the blocks, pointing at various women. “You. You. You. Out.”

Andrée is chosen, along with forty other women from her block. They’re herded into the courtyard, made to stand in the freezing wind while the guards confer.

“What’s going on? Where are they taking us?” she whispers.

“Work camp,” a woman says. “Maybe.”

She doesn’t say any more. They all know what the alternative is.

Finally an officer speaks. “You are being transferred to Rechlin subcamp, where you will work in the forests. You will follow orders. If you work hard, you will be fed. If you do not, you will be punished. Do you understand?”

No one answers because it’s not really a question.

“You leave in one hour. Bring nothing. You own nothing. Move.”

As they go back into the barracks, Andrée catches Marceline’s eye. Marceline is not among those selected. She’s staying at Ravensbrück.

“Survive,” Marceline mouths. “Just survive.”

Andrée nods and tries to force a smile to her lips but fails.

An hour later, they’re loaded onto trucks open to the freezing air. There are no seats, they are just bodies packed together.