My name is Madeleine Fournier. I am now in my final years, and there is something I must say before it is too late, before my voice is silenced forever. I witnessed pregnant women being forced to choose between three doors. Three numbered doors lined the end of a frozen, damp corridor, lit only by a light bulb that flickered like a dying heart. There were no signs, no explanations—just three gray painted metal doors. Each hid a different destiny, all cruel, all calculated to destroy not only our bodies but our souls. The German soldiers gave us no time to think, no time to pray. They simply pointed at the doors and ordered with a blood-curdling coldness: “Choose now.”

We—young, terrified women with children moving inside us—were forced to decide what form of suffering would be ours. I chose door number 2. For years, I carried the weight of this choice like a stone in my chest, crushing every breath, every night of sleep, every moment of silence. Today, sitting in front of this camera with trembling hands and a broken voice, I will tell you what happened behind that door. Not because I want to relive the horror, but because the women who never returned are worth remembering. They deserve to be more than just forgotten numbers in dusty archives. The world must know that war does not only choose soldiers as victims; it chooses mothers, it chooses babies, and it mercilessly crushes life before it is even born.

It was October. I lived in Vieux-en-Vercors, a small village in the mountains of southeastern France, hidden between rocky cliffs and dense pine forests. It was an isolated place, forgotten by the world, where seasons passed slowly and people lived on little—potatoes, goat’s milk, and bread shared among neighbors. Before the war, this isolation was a blessing. After the Germans invaded France, it became a trap. My husband, Étienne Fournier, had been taken in April of that year for forced labor in a munitions factory in Germany. I remember the day they came for him. He was chopping wood in the yard, sweating, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. When he saw the soldiers coming up the hill, he dropped the axe and looked at me with a gaze that said everything without needing words: “Don’t struggle, don’t resist, survive.” They took him away at that very moment. They didn’t let him say a proper goodbye; they just pushed him into a truck with other men from the village. I stood there, the cold wind hitting my face, watching the dust rise from the road as the truck disappeared down the mountain.

That night, alone in the stone house that had belonged to my parents, I felt true fear for the first time. Not the fear of dying, but the fear of living without purpose, without hope, with nothing but emptiness. Two months later, I discovered I was pregnant. It was not planned; it was an accident, or perhaps a miracle, depending on how you see things. Étienne and I had spent our last night together huddled under heavy blankets, shivering with cold and despair, trying to remember each other’s warmth before the war separated us forever. When I realized my period hadn’t come, and I felt the morning sickness and the tenderness in my breasts, I knew immediately. I cried that morning. I cried because I was alone. I cried because I didn’t know if Étienne was alive. I cried because bringing a child into this war-torn world seemed like the cruelest and most selfish decision one could make. But I also cried with relief because, for the first time since he left, I had something to live for—something beyond myself, something that still pulsed with life in a world that smelled of death.

I protected this pregnancy with everything I had. I hid my belly under wide coats and thick shawls. I avoided leaving the house during the day. I ate little to save food, but I made sure my baby got what he needed. At night, alone in the dark, I placed my hands on my stomach and whispered promises to this invisible life: “I will protect you. No matter what happens, I will protect you.” One October morning, the sky was heavy and low, laden with gray clouds that seemed to press down on the earth. The wind blew cold and sharp, tearing the last leaves from the trees. I was in the kitchen, sifting flour into a cracked ceramic bowl, trying to make bread with the little I had left. My hands were shaking, not from the cold, but from hunger. But inside me, my son moved, kicking my ribs as if fighting for space, and that made me smile, even in the midst of fear.

That was when I heard the sound—a low, distant rumble coming from the dirt road leading up the mountain: military trucks. My heart raced. I dropped the bowl on the table, spilling flour onto the worn wooden floor, and ran to the window. Three green trucks were slowly making their way up the road, their wheels crushing the stones. German soldiers—many of them. I hid the bag of flour under the sink; food was contraband, and getting caught with it meant immediate arrest. I put on my widest coat, a brown wool one that had belonged to my father, and tried to hide my eight-month belly. But when I heard boots pounding on the front door, I knew it was useless. I opened the door so they wouldn’t smash it down. Three soldiers barged into my garden. One of them, a tall man with empty blue eyes and a thin scar cutting through his eyebrow, pointed directly at me and said in broken, heavily accented French: “You, pregnant, come.” I tried to ask why. I tried to say I hadn’t done anything. But before any words could leave my mouth, he grabbed my arm and dragged me forcefully. I screamed and tried to resist, but another soldier grabbed my other arm, and together they dragged me to the truck parked in the street.

Other women were already inside, sitting on the freezing metal floor, clinging to each other in wide-eyed terror. I immediately recognized a few: Hélène Rouselle, who worked at the bakery; Jeanne Baumont, the teacher; Claire Delonet, the nurse. All young, all pregnant. Some were further along than me, with huge bellies barely contained under torn dresses; others were in early pregnancy. But we were all there, all captured, all condemned to something we didn’t yet understand but could already smell in the air. Something terrible, something with no return. I sat next to Hélène. She was shaking violently, her teeth chattering, her hands clutching her belly as if sheer force of will could protect the baby. I whispered, “Everything will be fine,” but my voice was weak because I didn’t believe it myself. The truck moved for hours up the mountain, along narrow, dangerous dirt roads. When we finally stopped, it was in front of a compound surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers. It wasn’t a large concentration camp like Auschwitz; it was smaller, isolated, hidden among mist-covered mountains. I later learned this place was called Camp Vercors Sud, an experimental camp specifically created to study pregnant women. The existence of this place was erased from official records after the war. The Germans burned the documents, but I was there. I saw what they did.

We were dragged out of the truck amidst screams and insults. My leg hit the metal side of the truck and started bleeding, but no one cared. They lined us up in front of a German officer. He walked slowly down the line, observing our bellies with clinical attention and taking notes. Then we were taken to a long, dark barracks with a damp straw floor smelling of urine and despair. The cold was penetrating. Hélène whispered to me in the dark: “Madeleine, do you think they will let us give birth?” I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. But deep down, a cold voice whispered the truth: They didn’t bring us here to let us live. They brought us here to experiment, to test how far a pregnant woman’s body could be pushed before breaking.

The next morning, before dawn, the soldiers entered and shouted numbers. I was number 83. Hélène was 81. Jeanne was 79. They called six numbers, including mine, and marched us to a gray concrete building. Inside was a narrow, windowless corridor with three gray metal doors at the end, numbered 1, 2, and 3. An officer stood there and said calmly: “You will choose a door. Each of you. One door. You cannot go back. You cannot change your mind. Choose now.” Hélène was called first. She chose door number 1. Jeanne chose door number 3. When it was my turn, I looked at the identical cold metal doors, thought of Étienne, and whispered: “Number 2.”

I was pushed into room number 2. It was a small concrete room with no windows, just a bucket and a wooden chair. The door locked behind me. Slowly, I began to feel the heat. The floor and walls started to get hot. The temperature rose gradually, inexorably. It wasn’t a fire; it was controlled heat. They wanted to see how long a pregnant woman could withstand extreme heat. My skin began to burn, my lips cracked, and my son moved frantically in my belly, seeking escape. I screamed and banged on the door, but no one came. I collapsed on the burning floor, thinking I would die there, cooked in a metal box with my unborn son. Suddenly, the door opened. Fresh air rushed in. Two soldiers dragged me out and threw me into the hallway. The officer simply took notes. I was just data to him.

Later, I learned what lay behind the other doors. Behind door number 1, chosen by Hélène, was a room of extreme cold. She collapsed in less than 30 minutes; her baby died inside her, and she died days later from infection. Behind door number 3, chosen by Jeanne, was an odorless gas that slowly destroyed the respiratory system. She suffocated, spitting blood. Her baby was born dead, and she died a week later with destroyed lungs. I don’t know why I survived. Maybe because I was younger, or maybe just by luck. But I survived, and so did my son.

The days that followed were a fog of pain. My skin was covered in burns, but my son kept kicking—a promise to hold on. Other women were taken away daily and never returned, or returned broken. We were starved, fed only watery soup. One December morning, as snow began to fall, I went into labor. I was only eight months pregnant. There were no doctors, no medicine. Simone, a widow, and two other women helped me. My son was born at dusk, small and blue. For a terrible moment, I thought he was dead. But then Simone patted his back, and a weak cry escaped his lips. He was alive. I named him Lucien, which means “Light.”

Survival was a struggle. I had no milk. Lucien was fading. One night, an older woman I didn’t know handed me a piece of cloth containing dry bread and raw potato. “Chew this and give it to him,” she whispered. Thanks to her, Lucien survived. One day, an officer ordered me to take Lucien to the medical building. A German doctor examined him like an object, measuring his limbs and listening to his heart, then returned him to me. I took my son and ran.

Time passed. In June 1944, we heard explosions. The Germans panicked and fled. They chased us out of the camp, abandoning us. We walked for days until we found French soldiers. We were free. But freedom tasted bitter because so many women were not there to taste it. I returned to Vieux-en-Vercors and rebuilt my life. Lucien grew up strong and kind. I never told him what happened. Étienne never returned; he died in the factory in Germany. I kept silent for years because the world wanted to forget. But in 2004, I told my story to a historian. He told me Camp Vercors Sud had been erased from history and that I was likely one of the last survivors.

I died in 2010 in my sleep, with Lucien by my side. I kept my promise: I protected him. But I left this testimony so that the names of Hélène, Jeanne, Claire, and Marguerite are not forgotten.

So I ask you: If you had been there, standing before those three doors, which would you have chosen? Door number 1, where the cold freezes you? Door number 2, where the heat burns you alive? Or door number 3, where gas destroys your lungs? And how would you have lived with that choice? That is the true legacy of war—not just the ruins, but the survivors who carry the weight of impossible choices.

Do not let this story be forgotten. Remembering is a choice, and forgetting is sometimes the cruelest choice of all.