Then miraculously on 27th May 1945 he receives a phone call Catherine is on a refugee train, arriving the following morning at the Gare de l’Est, Paris.Ĭatherine has spent many months working in atrocious conditions at the Ravensbruck camp, then the notorious explosives plant at Torgau, a potassium mine in Prussia and an aviation factory in Leipzig. The only respite Christian has from constant anxiety is from a clairvoyant who assures him Catherine will return.
On a baking August day Catherine is one of more than 2000 men and women from the prisons of La Santé, Fresnes and le Cherche-Midi who are taken to the Gare de Pantin and crammed into cattle wagons bound for Buckenwald and Ravensbruck. The journey is painfully slow as the train stops frequently to let German supply trains pass by on their way to the front, and allied aircraft threaten overhead.įor a year there is no news of Catherine. None of the well-connected visitors to the couture house of Lucien Lelong where he works are willing to help a young woman convicted of treason by the occupying forces. In June 1944 Catherine’s luck runs out, she is arrested by the Gestapo and tortured, but does not give away her secrets. All summer Christian makes frantic but tragically unsuccessful attempts to have his sister released. He and Catherine share an apartment on Rue Royal but while Christian dresses the rich and successful, Catherine is a committed member of the Resistance, gathering and transmitting intelligence on German troop movements. Christian is demobbed in 1942 and finds work in Paris. Paris 1944īy the time France is at war the villa and the scented gardens have been sold as the family fortune fades. In their memories the sun will always be shining at the villa. The heat of the sun has released the scent of a thousand flowers into the air, far below them an azure sea beckon. The clouds have lifted, pushed away by a warm sea breeze. Taking his precious sister’s hand he listens to her chatter and adds his own voice. Pleased to have an excuse to break off from his studies, Christian tidies away his papers, dries his fountain pen and quickly leaves the elegant room to join Catherine in the garden. He has watched her hurried journey, stocky legs almost tripping in a blur of Broderie anglaise lace as she rushed to find her favourite brother. When she nears the pink and grey house she stops to look up at an open window, smiling with the confidence of a child who knows she will always be cherished. “Tian, Tian,” whispers a serious little girl to herself as she runs across the soft lawns at Villa Les Rhumbs, her family’s summer home. “Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy” in Granville, a story inspired by Christian Dior and Miss Dior perfume from Philippa Grantham, a finalist in our 2014 Writing Competion Granville 1924
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