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Based on interviews with survivors and their families, as well as numerous memoirs, letters, manuscripts, and archives, this book recreates the heroic and courageous resistance of those brave French women against the German occupation during World War II, as well as their epic efforts to survive the Auschwitz concentration camp. The book is divided into two parts, with a total of fifteen chapters. The first part narrates the experiences of French women who took active actions in the resistance movement, were unfortunately arrested, and were imprisoned in French prisons. The second part begins when the arrested women were escorted from French prisons to the Auschwitz concentration camp on the "31,000 train". It details their struggle to survive in the concentration camp, where they were always threatened by death, and how they returned home and worked hard to live after the war.

High in the mountains in the middle of France's southern massif stands a small group of remote villages united by a long and unique history. During the Nazi occupation, residents of the plateau rescued thousands of people from concentration camps. As victims of Nazi persecution (Resisters, Freemasons, Communists and Jews, many of them children) arrived in large numbers, the inhabitants of these villages rallied to keep them safe. Carolyn Moorhead sought out and interviewed many of the people involved in this extraordinary undertaking. This is a story of courage and determination, of a heroic few who risk their lives to save others, and of what can be done when people unite against tyranny.