The Young Survivors

by Debra Barnes

  She was also an excellent cook and made delicious Polish-style dishes like chicken noodle soup, gefilte fish, challah and crumb cakes. Maman never rested, never complained and always had a warm smile and hug for us and a cheerful song on her lips. She was wonderful. One day I will meet a girl as lovely as my mother.

  ****

  Occasionally, when Papa was home in the evening, Maman would put down the scrubbing brush and put on her best clothes. She would sit at her dressing table with the three-fold vanity mirror, brush her hair, put on some of her favourite lipstick and her pearl drop earrings, and they would go dancing. On those rare times when Papa took a day off, we went to the movies or out for a cake or ice cream. I particularly remember one of those days. I was six and Samuel just two. We went to a pâtisserie. Maman told us about her eldest sister Cloe, who had moved to England from Poland in 1905 as a young bride. Cloe wrote regularly and Maman would read the letters to Bubbe. Aunt Cloe must have spoken good English after twenty-six years in England, but she wrote to her family in Yiddish. My parents were both really smart; they knew French, Yiddish, Polish, German and Russian, but they didn’t speak any English.

  ‘Did you know that you have three cousins in England?’

  ‘No, Maman. Can I go and play with them?’

  ‘Well, it’s quite far away and actually your cousins are the same age as me.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Cloe is twenty-two years older than me, so she is like a mother to me and her children are like my cousins, but really they are my nieces and nephews!’ Maman and Papa laughed at how complicated her explanation sounded. Samuel had already given up trying to understand what was being said and was asking for another piece of cake, but I was fascinated.

  ‘So, can I play with the children of my cousins instead?’

  ‘Well no, because your cousins don’t have any children. That is what your Aunt Cloe wrote in her letter. Her children – your cousins…’

  ‘Oh, don’t start that again for goodness sake, or we’ll be here all day!’ said Papa with a smile.

  ‘Ha, yes you could be right! Cloe has written she would very much like to be a grandmother, but so far none of her children have had any babies of their own. She has one son and two daughters, all happily married for a few years now but still no grandchildren!’

  I lost interest in what Maman was saying by this point, but Papa was looking at her curiously.

  ‘All this talk of babies, are you trying to tell me something?’

  ‘What do you mean? Oh! No, no! Don’t worry, darling, nothing like that… yet!’ And they both laughed again. I had no idea what they were talking about, but I enjoyed seeing them so happy together.

  ‘I was thinking of Cloe because in another letter she wrote that in London they have afternoon tea at a place called the Lyons Corner House as a special treat, just like us coming to the pâtisserie. She said they have dainty sandwiches and slices of cake, served with a cup of tea by a waitress wearing a white apron and lace hat. It sounds so lovely that I remember every word. It would be wonderful if we could go to visit her one day in London and have afternoon tea with them.’

  ‘Well, maybe we will one day,’ said Papa. ‘It’s not that far away. We travelled further from Poland to here after all.’

  ‘That’s true. Even if we never get to London then our children will go one day, please God.’

  ‘Let’s not forget that would be more likely if we had more children.’

  ‘What is your hurry?’ asked Maman with a giggle.

  ‘Well, my love, you’re not getting any younger!’ He loved to tease her about the fact that she was a year older than him.

  ‘Hey! Show some respect for your elders please!’ she said, and they laughed.

  I couldn’t remember a happier time in my life as we sat in the pâtisserie laughing and joking around. My only regret was that Papa was home so little, and life couldn’t always be this way.

  ****

  As I grew up, I thought more about my uncles, aunts and cousins in England and America. My Aunt Alisa had moved to America a few years ago. She was a couple of years older than Maman and had married in Metz to a Polish man called Abraham. He had family who had gone to New York and wrote to him of their lives in the Bronx and the opportunities available for Jews there. They were living in a tiny apartment in a tenement building, but other Jews were putting on hit musical shows and building business empires. Alisa and Abraham didn’t take much convincing and left France as quickly as they could, in a hurry to start their new lives. Once they were settled, they wrote to my parents and told them to come to America too, but Papa was building up a good business and didn’t want to leave his hard work behind and have to start over.

  I wished we could go to America. I was the only member of the family to have French citizenship, which had been arranged by my school, but I would have happily given it up. I went to a Jewish school, where boys and girls were taught in separate classrooms, although this didn’t bother me as I had little interest in girls. Papa said that wouldn’t last long, but I didn’t understand what he meant. There were also classes of non-Jewish children. You might think these goyim, being the minority in a Jewish school, would try to get along with the other kids or at least just ignore us. But no, they were mostly bullies, Jew-haters who would call us names, throw stones at us in the playground and start fights. I wasn’t afraid of them, but I looked out for my brothers; I taught them not to get caught on their own and to hurry home from school if they wanted to avoid a beating.

  I had little interest in studying; my only passion was football. On Sunday mornings I played for a team in the Jewish league and the rest of the time in the street with the other Jewish kids. I taught my brothers too, although Samuel wasn’t allowed when he was wheezing. We always needed to keep an eye out for the anti-Semitic kids in the neighbourhood whose favourite sport was ruining our football games. Now I had two sisters to look out for too. I hoped that when they grew up they would be free to play in the streets without having to look out for the Jew-haters.

  Pierre

  Metz

  January 1939

  It was a Monday. My brothers had gone to school as usual, but I’d stayed home and Papa hadn’t gone to work. Neither of us wanted to miss the speech Hitler was due to make at the Reichstag. This was the first time I would be allowed to listen with my parents. Papa turned on the radio some time before the speech was due to start, to warm up the tubes.

  I thought about the day electricity was first connected to our apartment, which I could never forget because it made Maman smile so much she said her cheeks hurt. Sometimes Maman sewed in the evening after her busy day, but mostly she sat in her favourite armchair reading – she had a whole bookcase full of books about things I didn’t understand. We would sit on the rug by her feet and read comics bought with our allowance. Bibi Fricotin, Mickey Mouse and Superman were our favourites. The electric light made all this easier, especially in winter when the days were short. When Papa returned home late from work, he could just turn the light switch on rather than fumbling around to find a match for the gas lamps.

  Shortly after we got electricity, Papa struggled home with a large wooden box with ‘Deutsche Philips-Ges’ written on the side.

  ‘Quick, Rosa, get a mat for the sideboard so I can put this down. It’s heavy.’ He knew the polished wooden sideboard was one of Maman’s most treasured possessions. It had been a wedding present and housed the best china, glassware and silver candlesticks. Whatever was in that heavy box, it wasn’t worth scratching the furniture.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I have bought us a radio,’ he said proudly. ‘Now you boys can listen to the Olympic Games this summer!’

  ‘Really, Papa?’ Samuel squealed with delight.

  We stood around eagerly as Papa set up the radio. He plugged it in to the electricity supply and it crackled into life. As he started to move the dial, we heard a faint voice through the static.

  ‘What are
they saying?’

  Papa continued to turn the dial slowly. The voice from the radio was getting clearer.

  ‘…behind every murder…’

  Maman fidgeted nervously with her dust cloth. Papa moved the dial slightly to the right.

  ‘…incited to crime…’

  Then, suddenly, as clear as anything came a voice screaming into our home:

  ‘…the hate-filled power of our Jewish foe!’

  ‘That is enough, Albert!’ said Maman, pulling the cable from the electricity supply.

  ‘Who was that, Maman?’ asked Samuel.

  I had a good idea of who it was: Hitler. Our teacher had told us of his victory in the German elections. All the kids in school spoke about him; a madman who hated Jews. Sometimes I felt frightened that we lived so close to Germany, although I would never admit it to my brothers.

  ‘No one for you to concern yourselves with, my darlings,’ said Maman, pulling Samuel and Claude close.

  ‘Yes, yes. We don’t want to listen to that,’ said Papa. ‘I’ll get a list of radio stations and programmes tomorrow so we can choose what we want to listen to, and avoid the other dreck.’

  Papa did as he promised and that summer of 1936 we listened to Jesse Owens win four gold medals at the Berlin Olympic Games.

  ‘Hitler must be furious!’ said Papa with delight.

  ****

  The radio soon became worth its weight in gold. I enjoyed the music channel Maman liked to put on, singing along to the popular songs and sometimes dancing around the living room. She looked like a film star! Maman listened to the plays broadcast during the day and discussed them with other housewives when out shopping. Sometimes I went with her and overheard the gossip. It was as if they were talking about people from the neighbourhood and not characters from a radio soap opera.

  ‘Did you hear what happened to Marie?’ one would ask.

  ‘Her husband really is a terrible rat!’ another would hiss, and everyone would shake their heads in agreement. The housewives arranged their days around their favourite radio plays. The markets would be empty when the most popular programmes were broadcast, and suddenly fill up straight afterwards so the ladies could discuss that day’s episode.

  There were programmes for children at weekends and during the school holidays. Maman and Papa would listen to news broadcasts. ‘For goodness sake, what idiots we have running the country!’ Papa would shout furiously at the radio set. Half of Metz spoke German and I had a pretty good understanding of the language – it helped that it had similarities with Yiddish, which we sometimes spoke at home. We picked up German stations on our radio, and it was difficult to avoid tuning in to Hitler’s speeches.

  ****

  The speech that I stayed home from school to listen to in January 1939 will be etched in my memory for the rest of my life. I had celebrated my bar mitzvah the previous summer. Rabbi Epstein had tutored me to read from the Torah in synagogue. My parents had rented an empty apartment in our building, hired tables and chairs and a caterer, and organised a celebratory party. Our family and friends came, but best of all was the Kodak camera I was gifted, which made me the envy of my brothers.

  ‘You are now a man,’ said Papa. ‘Old enough to listen to the ranting of the Nazi mashugana.’

  I wasn’t sure if I trembled from excitement or fear. I agreed with my father that it was important to try to understand our enemy and I was reassured that we were in France and not Germany – although we were close enough! The radio had warmed up and Maman had put the twins down for a nap and joined Papa and I in the dining room. I was proud to be the only one of my brothers old enough to share this moment with our parents. Hitler was celebrating his sixth anniversary of coming to power by making a speech at the Nazi Reichstag and Papa knew it would be an important one.

  Europe will not have peace until the Jewish question has been disposed of. The world has sufficient capacity for settlement, but we must finally break away from the notion that a certain percentage of the Jewish people are intended, by our dear God, to be the parasitic beneficiary of the body, and of the productive work, of other peoples. Jewry must adapt itself to respectable constructive work, as other peoples do, or it will sooner or later succumb to a crisis of unimaginable proportions. If the international finance-Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations into a world war yet again, then the outcome will not be the victory of Jewry, but rather the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!

  Papa held Maman’s hand, as though it would protect her from the horror coming from the radio. I was confused. I could understand the words in German, but they made no sense to me at all. Was Hitler really saying the Jewish people were not productive? He clearly had no idea how hard my parents worked. That evil man with his stupid moustache, what reason could he have to hate the Jews so much? His speech went on and on, his voice sounding more terrifying as it progressed.

  ‘Shall we turn it off now?’ asked Papa, after we had endured an hour of listening to Hitler.

  ‘No, leave it on,’ said Maman. ‘It’s important.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. We need to know what is coming so we can be ready to defend ourselves.’

  ‘How will we do that, Papa?’ I asked.

  ‘I have no idea,’ he replied.

  ****

  It was clear that war was coming. The message from the French authorities in leaflets and on posters all over town left us in no doubt:

  Every means of defence will be put into action to stop enemy aircraft. However, some may get through. If nothing holds you back, as soon as the threat arrives, LEAVE! LEAVE with your family. DO NOT WAIT. LEAVE!

  The threat from aircrafts wasn’t the only thing to worry about; Metz was only fifty kilometres from the German border. War was inevitable, although most believed France would defeat Germany, just like they had in the Great War. I hoped they were right.

  Samuel

  Condé-Northern

  Summer 1939

  It was the last day of term before the summer holidays. I wasn’t feeling well. I started to walk home after class; my friends had gone to play football, but I just felt like going to sleep.

  ‘You! Jew-boy! Where you going? Home to Mummy?’

  A group of boys from my year came up behind me, looking for a way to celebrate the end of term. I ignored them and carried on walking.

  ‘We’re talking to you, Jew-boy. Are you deaf… or are your ears dirty? I heard Jews are dirty.’ One of them grabbed my ear and swung me round to face him.

  ‘Let me look in your filthy ears,’ he said, pulling hard.

  ‘Get off me!’ I tried to shout but I started wheezing and it came out as a strange noise.

  ‘Aww, listen to him. He can’t speak either. He’s deaf and dumb!’ someone said, and they all joined in, taunting me with cries of ‘Dummy’.

  When they hit me on my head, I put my arms up to protect myself. I didn’t have the strength to run home. How was I going to get out of this one?

  ‘Get off him!’ a familiar voice shouted.

  I looked up and saw Pierre and some of his classmates running towards us. The bullies were no match for my brother and his friends, and they ran off leaving me to recover my breath.

  I could see concern in Pierre’s eyes when he reached me. He put a protective arm around my shoulder and said, ‘Let’s go home.’

  ****

  It turned out I had a bad chest infection. The coal dust in Metz made breathing difficult so my parents sent me to stay on a farm which took in young convalescents, in Condé-Northern, midway between Metz and the border with Germany. As Maman packed my suitcase I saw she was crying.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m going to miss you very much,’ she said.

  ‘I can stay if you like?’

  ‘No, Son, you need to get better. It’s best for you to go but, please, just be careful.’

  ‘Careful of what? Of the farm animals?’ I joked.

  �
�Of everything. If you want to get me an urgent message you must telephone Monsieur Wolff. I’ve written his telephone number on a piece of paper and packed it with your things.’

  The only person with a telephone on our street was Monsieur Wolff, the kosher butcher who was happy to deliver messages to his frequent customers along with some chicken livers or a piece of brisket.

  The thought of leaving my family was upsetting. What would little Claude do without me to follow around? The word around town was that there was going to be war with Germany. Everyone seemed on edge, including Maman. When it came to saying our goodbyes, a lump formed in my throat. Maman held me tight and her voice trembled as she spoke, ‘I love you, Samuel. Get well and come home soon,’ she whispered in my ear before letting me go.

  I had my own bedroom in the farmhouse – it felt strange to not share, and to sleep in a proper bedroom rather than in the living room. Still it was all very basic; there were no paintings on the walls like we had at home, and no shelves crammed full of books and trinkets. Neither was there electricity or running water. The farmer and his wife were simple country folk.

  When I first arrived at the beginning of the summer, I was quite unwell. By mid-August I felt stronger and could help with light chores. The clean country air smelt good, although maybe not when mucking out the barns! The farmer and his wife had no children, so I went with the daughter from the next farm, Giselle, to take the sheep and goats to graze. There was a sign in one of the fields: ‘Joan of Arc used to tend the sheep and goats in this field as a child.’ Well, I thought, if it was good enough for Joan of Arc, then I really shouldn’t complain. I missed my family but I enjoyed those summer days, at least until I heard a rumbling like storm clouds in the distance.

  I asked the farmer about the noise. He said it was the German army training their soldiers behind the Maginot Line. As the days passed, the gunfire and shelling became more frequent and closer. I was frightened and wanted to go home. It was time to get a message to my parents. I went to the post office and made the call.