“I Still Can’t Sit Down” – Surviving the German Camp at 18

“I Still Can’t Sit Down” – Surviving the German Camp at 18

Childhood Before the WarMy name is Madeleine Charpettier. I was ten years old when I first realized that the human body can endure far more pain than we imagine. Not the fleeting, sharp pain that cuts and disappears—but the kind that lingers, becomes part of you, changing the way you breathe, move, and exist.I was born in 1926 in a small town near Lyon. Before the war, I was a normal, well-behaved girl. I helped my mother at the bakery every mor…