Author Guide · Holocaust Testimony
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On 24 January 1943, 230 Frenchwomen of the Resistance were put on a train to Auschwitz; 49 of them came home. Charlotte Delbo, born in 1913 near Paris and until then the assistant of the theatre director Louis Jouvet, was one of the 49. Her husband, Georges Dudach, had already been shot by the Germans in May 1942. In 1946 she wrote an account of the camp in short prose pieces and poems, then held it back for almost twenty years. When None of Us Will Return appeared in 1965 it became the first part of a trilogy, Auschwitz and After, now one of the central works of Holocaust literature. This guide covers her eight key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 key books · 1961–1985 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Charlotte Delbo’s best-known work is the trilogy Auschwitz and After: None of Us Will Return (1965), Useless Knowledge (1970) and The Measure of Our Days (1971). She also wrote Convoy to Auschwitz (1965), a portrait of every woman on her transport, plays such as Who Will Carry the Word? (1974), and Days and Memory (1985). Start with None of Us Will Return; the guide below explains what each of the others adds.
Where to Start with Charlotte Delbo
If you want her defining book
→ None of Us Will Return (1965) — Auschwitz in short scenes and poems, the first volume of the trilogy.
If you want to know what came after the camp
→ The Measure of Our Days (1971) — the survivors back in France, in their own voices.
If you want the women of her convoy
→ Convoy to Auschwitz (1965) — a short life of each of the 230.
If you want her late reflection on memory
→ Days and Memory (1985).
8 Charlotte Delbo Books, in Order
Les Belles Lettres
Delbo’s first book is a collection of letters and petitions against French policy during the war in Algeria, which she gathered and presented. It shows the political commitment that runs through her later plays. It has not been translated into English.
None of Us Will Return
Written in 1946 and published in 1965, this is Delbo’s account of Auschwitz-Birkenau, told not as a continuous story but in short titled pieces of prose and verse: roll calls in the snow, the thirst, the women who die beside her. In 1970 it became the first volume of Auschwitz et après. John Githens translated it into English in 1968; Rosette C. Lamont’s translation is part of Auschwitz and After (Yale University Press, 1995).
Convoy to Auschwitz
A record of the 230 women deported with her on 24 January 1943, the only convoy of Frenchwomen held as political prisoners to be sent to Auschwitz. Each woman gets a short entry: where she came from, why she was arrested and whether she returned; 49 did. The English translation was published by Northeastern University Press in 1997.
Useless Knowledge
The second volume of Auschwitz et après, written in 1946–1947. It follows the surviving French women from Birkenau to Ravensbrück and to their release to the Red Cross in April 1945. It is the most chronological of the three volumes, with prose and poems side by side.
The Measure of Our Days
The third volume of the trilogy is about coming back. Many chapters are spoken by other survivors of the convoy, each trying to live an ordinary life in France with the camp still inside her: marriages, children, illness, silence. The three volumes appeared together in English as Auschwitz and After, translated by Rosette C. Lamont.
Who Will Carry the Word?
A play set in Birkenau among a group of women prisoners, built around the question in its title: which of them will survive to tell what happened. Cynthia Haft’s English translation was included in The Theatre of the Holocaust (University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), edited by Robert Skloot.
Spectres, mes compagnons
A long letter to Louis Jouvet, written in 1951 and published in 1977, presented as an imagined conversation with him about the characters of literature and theatre who stayed with her through the camps. It has not been published in English.
Days and Memory
Her last book, published in the year of her death. It opens with her distinction between “deep memory”, in which Auschwitz stays present, and the ordinary memory with which she lives her life and gathers short prose pieces and poems about fellow deportees. Rosette C. Lamont translated it into English in 1990.
In What Order to Read Charlotte Delbo
The three volumes of Auschwitz and After are meant to be read in order: the camp, the end of the camp, and the years after. In English they are usually sold as one book, so the order is settled for you.
Convoy to Auschwitz works as a companion: many of the women who speak in The Measure of Our Days have an entry there. Read the plays and Days and Memory afterwards, when you know the camp she keeps returning to.
A reading path
1. None of Us Will Return (1965)
2. Useless Knowledge (1970)
3. The Measure of Our Days (1971)
4. Convoy to Auschwitz (1965)
5. Days and Memory (1985)
Everything Else Charlotte Delbo Published
Beyond the 8 key books: 4 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Essay and political plays
4
4 books · 1969–1979
- 1969La Théorie et la pratiquean imagined dialogue between Herbert Marcuse and Henri Lefebvre
- 1972La Sentencea play against the Franco regime
- 1975Maria Lusitania; Le Coup d’Étatpolitical plays
- 1979Kalavrita des mille Antigonea play
The years · 1913–1985
Quick facts about Charlotte Delbo
- Known for
- Writing Auschwitz in fragments of prose and poetry, and for speaking for the 230 women of the convoy of 24 January 1943
- 1913
- Born in Vigneux-sur-Seine
- 1942
- Arrested in Paris with Georges Dudach
- 1943
- Deported to Auschwitz
- 1985
- Dies in Paris
- Born
- 10 August 1913, Vigneux-sur-Seine, France
- Died
- 1 March 1985, Paris
- Before the war
- Assistant to the theatre director Louis Jouvet from 1937
- Resistance
- Arrested on 2 March 1942; her husband Georges Dudach was shot on 23 May 1942
- Camps
- Auschwitz-Birkenau and Raisko from January 1943, Ravensbrück from January 1944; freed 23 April 1945
- After the war
- Worked for the United Nations, then from 1960 to 1978 as assistant to Henri Lefebvre at the CNRS
The red mark is 1965: None of Us Will Return, written in 1946 and held back for almost twenty years.
How Charlotte Delbo Writes: Try to Look
Delbo does not tell Auschwitz as a single story. None of Us Will Return is made of short titled pieces, some in prose and some set out as poems, that move between scenes without explaining how one led to the next. A recurring line, “Essayez de regarder” (“Try to look”), addresses the reader directly and asks for attention rather than understanding.
Her years with Louis Jouvet show in the writing: repetition, voices that answer each other, scenes built like stage pictures. In The Measure of Our Days she steps aside and lets other survivors of her convoy speak in the first person, so that the book becomes a chorus rather than a memoir.
She was not Jewish; she was deported as a political prisoner of the Resistance, and her books keep the collective in view, from Convoy to Auschwitz to her plays against the Franco regime and the Greek massacre at Kalavryta. In Days and Memory she named the split she lived with, between the self who came back and a “deep memory” in which the camp never ended.
Frequently asked questions about Charlotte Delbo’s books
How many books has Charlotte Delbo written?
Twelve, counting her plays. Eight are the key books on this page, from Les Belles Lettres (1961) to Days and Memory (1985); the other four are an essay and political plays published between 1969 and 1979.
What are Charlotte Delbo’s books in order?
Les Belles Lettres (1961), None of Us Will Return (1965), Convoy to Auschwitz (1965), Useless Knowledge (1970), The Measure of Our Days (1971), Who Will Carry the Word? (1974), Spectres, mes compagnons (1977) and Days and Memory (1985).
Where should I start with Charlotte Delbo?
With None of Us Will Return, the first volume of Auschwitz and After. In English it is usually read in the one-volume Yale edition of the trilogy, translated by Rosette C. Lamont.
What is Charlotte Delbo’s most famous book?
Auschwitz and After, the trilogy made up of None of Us Will Return (1965), Useless Knowledge (1970) and The Measure of Our Days (1971).
What is Auschwitz and After about?
The first volume describes life and death in Auschwitz-Birkenau, the second the move to Ravensbrück and the release of the surviving women in April 1945, and the third how those women tried to live afterwards in France.
Was Charlotte Delbo Jewish?
No. She was arrested in March 1942 for Resistance work with her husband, Georges Dudach, and deported to Auschwitz in January 1943 as a political prisoner, with 229 other non-Jewish Frenchwomen.
How many women survived Charlotte Delbo’s convoy?
Of the 230 women deported on 24 January 1943, 49 returned. Delbo describes each of them, and those who died, in Convoy to Auschwitz.
Why did Charlotte Delbo wait twenty years to publish None of Us Will Return?
She wrote it in 1946 and set it aside for almost twenty years before publishing it in 1965. The epigraph says that today she is not sure that what she wrote is true, but certain that it is truthful.
What does “useless knowledge” mean?
It is the title of the second volume: the knowledge the camps gave her, of hunger, thirst and death, which had no use in ordinary life afterwards.
When did Charlotte Delbo die?
On 1 March 1985 in Paris, the year Days and Memory was published in French. A public library in Paris, the Bibliothèque Charlotte Delbo, is named after her.
Footnotes
- Charlotte Delbo — Wikipedia
- Auschwitz and After — Wikipedia
- Chère Odette: the letter of Charlotte Delbo — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Charlotte Delbo — Encyclopaedia Universalis
- Charlotte Delbo — Larousse
- Delbo, Charlotte — Encyclopedia.com
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Today, I am not sure that what I wrote is true. I am certain it is truthful.”
— Charlotte Delbo, epigraph to None of Us Will Return (1965), translated by Rosette C. Lamont
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