“One day if I return to my life, I will look back on this night and I'll see you, Nadine. In whose arms I rested.
“One day if I return to my life, I will look back on this night and I'll see you, Nadine. In whose arms I rested. The arms that I feel grow thinner daily under the striped uniforms. Nadine, will there ever be a life for us?"
Nelly Mousset-Vos wrote those words about Nadine Hwang.
The women met and fell in love in the most unlikely of places. They were imprisoned at Ravensbrück concentration camp, likely because they were deemed Nazi political opponents. Amidst their bleak surroundings— starvation, crowding, and illness—they found hope in each other. In stolen moments in the barracks, they painted a picture of an imagined life—glamorous nights out with champagne and caviar.
Though they were separated when Nelly was transferred to a different camp, the women found each other after the war. They lived together for two decades, sometimes claiming to be cousins. Watch this Pride Month program live on Facebook on June 1 at 9:30 a.m. ET to learn how, after Nelly’s death, her granddaughter learned the true nature of Nelly and Nadine’s relationship, forged in the face of Nazi terror.
Reply in the comments with your questions for our historians, and they'll answer during the program.
Photos: Courtesy of the Mousset-Vos Family Archive and the Nelly & Nadine documentary.
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