MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: Resistance. I belonged to a resistance movement.
DR. MARX: Another question: Which position did you occupy? I mean what kind of post did you ever hold? Have you ever held a post?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: Where?
DR. MARX: For example as a teacher?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: Before the war? I don’t quite see what this question has to do with the matter. I was a journalist.
DR. MARX: Yes. The fact of the matter is that you, in your statement, showed great skill in style and expression; and I should like to know whether you held any position such, for example, as teacher or lecturer.
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: No. I was a newspaper photographer.
DR. MARX: How do you explain that you yourself came through these experiences so well and are now in such a good state of health?
MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: First of all, I was liberated a year ago; and in a year one has time to recover. Secondly, I was 10 months in quarantine for typhus and I had the great luck not to die of exanthematic typhus, although I had it and was ill for 3½ months. Also, in the last months at Ravensbrück, as I knew German, I worked on the Revier roll call, which explains why I did not have to work quite so hard or to suffer from the inclemencies of the weather. On the other hand, out of 230 of us only 49 from my convoy returned alive; and we were only 52 at the end of 4 months. I had the great fortune to return.
DR. MARX: Yes. Does your statement contain what you yourself observed or is it concerned with information from other sources as well?