United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Charlotte Delbo was born on August 10, 1913 in Seine-et-Oise, near Paris, France. She joined the French Young Communist Women’s League in 1932. Two years later, in 1934, she married George Dudach. In the late 1930s, Charlotte moved to Buenos Aires as part of a theatre group, but chose to return to France in late 1940 after hearing of one of her friends had been executed for his involvement in the Communist underground. She joined George, who was already a member of the French Resistance, publishing underground newspapers and pamphlets, and worked with him until they were both arrested on March 2, 1942. Two months after their capture, Dudach was executed. Charlotte spent a total of ten months in French prisons before being deported to Auschwitz on January 24, 1943. A year later, she was transferred to Ravensbrück, where she was eventually liberated in April of 1945. After a brief period of recovery in Sweden, she returned to France after the war. Charlotte wrote essays and poetry about her experiences, including the trilogy"Auschwitz and After"
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The Charlotte Delbo collection is arranged in a single series.
Consists of one handwritten letter, 2 pages, written by Charlotte Delbo (who went by her married name of Charlotte Dudach at the time), to her sister Odette, on 21 March 1942 (though the letter is physically dated 1941, it was actually written in 1942). The letter, written while Charlotte was imprisoned in the Depot prison in Paris, gives Odette instructions regarding personal property and notes that Charlotte has been separated from her husband, George. Also includes four photographs of Charlotte Delbo taken between 1970-1985.
Charlotte Delbo collection