The Young Survivors

by Debra Barnes

‘Shouldn’t we wait to see if the others come back?’ said one of us.

  ‘There are people nearby to help should they return,’ the leader said.

  We all had more questions but we didn’t ask them; we packed up in silence and left without our three companions.

  ****

  We reached Ville-la-Grand the next day and went straight to the Catholic school, a large two-storey building practically on the Swiss border. Two priests hurried us into a classroom on the ground floor and invited us to sit and rest while our Scout leader went off down the corridor. We took our boots off for the first time that day.

  ‘Look at that blister!’ said Rudy.

  ‘That’s nothing. Look at mine!’ said his brother.

  We all had blisters and sores on our feet. Our socks were threadbare, and our boots didn’t fit properly. Someone came to bring us water and told us we would be given dinner soon. We had walked all day in a grey mood but now we started to feel a bit brighter and it wasn’t long before we were slinging our smelly socks at each other.

  ‘Ahem!’ The Scout leader came back with a man in a black robe and tried to get us to quiet down. ‘Boys, girls, please. This is Father Boccard.’

  ‘Hello, children,’ said the priest. ‘Please gather around. Welcome to The Fathers of St Francis. If anyone asks, you are students here. We are next to the Swiss border, in fact our garden wall is practically on the border and that is why, with God’s will, we hope to help you cross into Switzerland. I know you may be nervous. I have been told how three of your friends were captured yesterday so we are going to make sure it is safe before we try anything.’

  Father Boccard told us to follow him up to the attic. At the top of the stairs was a door. He said, ‘When I open this door I want you to go through in silence, two or three at a time, and walk over to the window. From there you will see Switzerland on the other side of the garden wall, a barbed-wire fence and, most probably, German and maybe Swiss border guard patrols. Observe what you see carefully – for two reasons. Firstly, so you will be confident in us telling you when it is safe to go over the wall and, secondly, so you know what you will find on the other side. There is a place directly in front where you can get through the barbed-wire fence. Make sure you see it.’ He opened the bedroom door and we entered in small groups.

  Sure enough, it was exactly as he said it would be. We saw the wall, the barbed wire with the gap, and the border guard patrols. When we were all back downstairs, Father Boccard continued to explain the plan. ‘There appear to be extra guards on patrol, perhaps because your friends were caught yesterday. We will need to wait until the guards go back to their usual routine which leaves a gap of just over two minutes between patrols for you to climb over the wall and run to safety. Many have already done this and there should be ample time for young people like you to manage it.’

  ‘Father, how do you know when it is safe?’ one of us asked.

  ‘That is a good question. Our friends from the village wait with you by the wall. I watch from the upstairs window. When it is safe I take off my beret as a signal. A ladder is quickly put up and over you go, running to the gap in the barbed-wire fence and over to safety in Switzerland.’

  ‘What if we get caught?’

  ‘Nobody has been caught yet by the German patrols, although some have been caught by the Swiss guards. Once through the fence, they’ve only ever been brought back to our village. No one has been arrested for trying, but that’s because the Germans aren’t aware of what we are doing. It will be fine if you follow our instructions: stay silent, only go over the wall when you’re told it is safe, and move quickly.’

  ‘We have people on the other side who will show you where to go,’ said the Scout leader.

  ‘And we have some incredible neighbours who help. Ah, here is Marcel!’ he said as the classroom door opened and in walked a young man.

  ‘Bonjour, Father Boccard. Who have we here?’

  ‘Some new Jewish children needing our help. We’ve been through the procedure, but perhaps you can show them the signs?’

  ‘No problem. Listen, kids, when we are waiting by the wall we need to be completely silent so we communicate with our hands and faces instead of our voices. Has anyone seen a Charlie Chaplin movie?’

  We all put our hands up and agreed Charlie Chaplin was the best.

  ‘Me too. He’s the one I got this idea from,’ said Marcel. ‘After the war I want to be an actor like him, but for now I use my silent acting to help you. So, this is the sign for stop,’ and he held his hand out abruptly. ‘This is the sign for go,’ and he waved his hand in one direction. ‘This is the sign for get ready, and this one means we have to wait a while…’ And so he went on, amazing us with his easy to understand signals and testing us on what they meant.

  ‘I have a signal too,’ said Rudy. ‘This means I need to pee!’ And he locked his knees together and doubled over with a pained look on his face. The whole room fell about laughing.

  ‘And this one means I need to take a dump,’ said Marcus, who wasn’t going to be overshadowed by his brother. He screwed up his face into one of horror and put both hands on his backside while running around the room.

  ‘Shh, boys and girls. Quiet now, please.’ Even the Scout leader had been laughing, but he soon brought order back to the room.

  ‘Indeed. Thank you everyone and thank you, Marcel,’ said Father Boccard as the young man waved us an animated goodbye.

  ****

  We stayed at The Fathers of St. Francis for a couple of days until it was obvious the extra patrols showed no sign of being lifted. We would need to abandon our plan of crossing into Switzerland.

  I wasn’t sorry. I didn’t want to leave France while my brothers and sisters were still here or for when my parents came home. I think most of us felt the same.

  ‘No one will be returning to Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne,’ explained the Scout leader. ‘It’s not safe anymore. We’ve been told to close the home and move you all to safer areas. As Switzerland is now not an option you will instead be given new identities as Catholic children.’

  This news came as a surprise and we all had many questions. How would we know how to act? Would people know we were really Jewish?

  ‘We’ll give you as much information as possible. Let me look at the list… Samuel Laskowski, Marcus Kohn and Rudy Kohn, you are going to a trade school in Tonneins. There are other Jewish boys there already, but trust no one, boys or teachers. Samuel, your name is now Samuel Chastain and you are from Orléans.’

  ‘Why Orléans?’

  ‘Because its city hall has been bombed and all the registrations lost. There is no way of checking if your papers are false. Rudy and Marcus, you are now Rudy and Marcus Gauthier. You were born in Alsace, hence your German accents. Samuel, you must help your friends improve their French as much as possible.’

  We were taken to a small room where our ration books were ‘sanitised’. Potatoes cut in half were used to absorb the ink from the issuing city stamp, the page was then cleaned with bleach to erase our names and our new name handwritten on.

  ‘Samuel Chastain?’ said the Scout leader. No one replied.

  ‘Samuel Chastain!’ he said again, looking directly at me.

  ‘Oh yes, sir! I am Samuel Chastain,’ I said.

  ‘Here are your papers. Mazel tov, you are now Catholic!’

  ‘My name is Samuel Chastain and, God help me, I am Catholic,’ I repeated to myself.

  Pierre

  Bazaiges

  September 1943

  After I put Samuel on the bus to Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, I returned to the farm and to Aimee. The last thing I had said to her was that I was returning to Sarry to get the money for the fine and coming straight back, but that was before I read the letter from Samuel. I was afraid she’d be angry, but when I explained I had to go to Paris to make sure my siblings were safe, she understood and we carried on as if I had never left. Being with Aimee brought a welcome distraction from worrying about my br
others and sisters. She had lots of questions about them and I said she could meet them after the war was over and we all lived together again.

  There were still crops to harvest and then plenty of work preparing the farm for the winter months. I was so grateful to the farmer and his wife for allowing me to return. There was no contact from Resistance members in the area, so I kept my nose down and stayed where I was; at least I was able to receive letters from Samuel while I stayed put.

  Samuel wrote to me of the adventures he was having; he seemed well and was learning life and survival skills. Jacqueline Goldstein wrote to me from Louveciennes with updates about Claude, Henriette and Georgette; they were well and happy too. Jacqueline even sent me a photograph of them with some other children in the garden of the orphanage. Henriette’s hair had grown longer but Georgette looked like she had been visited again by head lice as her head was freshly shaved. Claude had more hair than both of his sisters! Most importantly, they were all smiling.

  Georgette

  Louveciennes

  September 1943

  While Jacqueline studied in the morning we stayed in the big walled garden, free to play hide and seek (there were some really big trees to hide behind) or throw a ball around. If the weather was bad we would stay inside, where there were plenty of rooms to play in. We could do what we wanted, as long as we kept out of the way of Monsieur Denis. His daughter Michèle would sit alone with a beautiful doll, watching us out of the corner of her eye. She looked like she wanted to join us, but her strict parents would not allow it so instead she played alone in her pretty dress with her expensive toys. The few times she asked her maman if she could play with us she was given a handful of candy to convince her she was better off playing by herself.

  Whether Michèle played with us or not didn’t matter; we had plenty of friends here and lots of space to run around in. In the afternoon we often walked the short distance with Jacqueline into Marly Park. Jacqueline told us it had been the gardens of the Royal Palace, destroyed during the French Revolution. Henriette and I pretended to be princesses from the royal palace as we ran past the broken statues left lying around. Or we went to Marly woods or to the Louveciennes forest, which were both a short walk away from Place Roux. We played happily in the shade, exploring down little pathways and climbing on the fallen tree trunks. In the evenings we put on shows, singing, dancing and acting out made-up stories.

  This was our life during that summer. We knew there was a world outside of Louveciennes as we all had family elsewhere, but we had no idea what was happening in the rest of the world. For us the only terrible things were the food, or rather the lack of it, and the fear in the orphanage when a German soldier or the French police visited.

  ****

  We were talking to our brother about Jewish holidays. Henriette and I had no memory of ever celebrating any Jewish festivals.

  ‘I remember Pesach – that’s the best Jewish holiday,’ said Claude.

  ‘Why is it the best?’ Henriette asked.

  ‘Because that’s when you two were born!’

  But even for Claude they were a distant memory. Without our parents to explain it to us, we had no idea what it was to be Jewish except it meant the Germans and many of the French hated us. So instead of celebrating the Jewish New Year we celebrated autumn, enjoying the beautiful red, yellow and orange colours of the trees all around us and playing with the piles of fallen leaves, acorns and conkers in the park and forest. One autumn afternoon we were waiting for Jacqueline to take us to the park when one of the other monitors came to find us.

  ‘Children, Jacqueline is not feeling well today and can’t take you out. You can join the older children in the garden.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘She has a tummy ache, nothing to worry about. I’m sure she will feel better tomorrow.’

  But Jacqueline only felt worse the next day and the day after and, eventually, the doctor was called. He was one of few Jewish doctors who had not been arrested and was still allowed to look after the children. He usually visited each home once a month but came especially to see Jacqueline. She had appendicitis and was sent off to the hospital in nearby Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Jacqueline’s best friend at Place Roux was Suzanne Furst, the general supervisor. Mademoiselle Furst walked the six kilometres to and from the hospital to visit Jacqueline every day during the week she was there. She took messages back and forth and gave us daily updates on Jacqueline’s progress, promising us that she was doing well and would be back soon.

  The only other visitor Jacqueline had at the hospital was her grandmother, who was given special permission to travel from her area of Paris to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, something Jews were not usually allowed to do. Jacqueline told us of her grandmother’s visit when she returned to Place Roux and I thought how lucky she was to go to hospital as it meant her family were able to visit her.

  ‘Did your maman and papa come to visit you too?’

  ‘No, Georgette,’ Jacqueline said. I felt terrible because now she looked sad and it was my fault; I shouldn’t have asked her that. I got together all the children from our group and we decided to put on a show to cheer Jacqueline up and help her feel better. We loved putting on shows. The monitors arranged a stage at one end of the dining room that we used for our performances. We spent the whole afternoon rehearsing. Cook was a bit annoyed because we were making a racket next to her kitchen. When we were ready for an audience, we called Jacqueline to watch.

  ‘Ladies and… ladies,’ announced little Tommy, standing in the middle of the stage. ‘Welcome to our show!’

  Jacqueline clapped enthusiastically. Rosette joined Tommy on stage. ‘We would like to sing a song for Jacqueline to make her feel better,’ she announced.

  Then the rest of us came onto the stage. Mademoiselle Furst had the honour of counting us in ‘un, deux, trois’ and we all started singing together ‘Une souris verte’, one of our favourite nursery rhymes about a little green mouse:

  A green mouse

  That ran in the grass

  I caught it by its tail

  I showed it to some men

  The men said

  Dip it in oil

  Dip it in water

  It will become a snail

  Nice and warm.

  I put it in a drawer

  It said, ‘It is too dark.’

  I put it in my hat

  It said, ‘It is too warm.’

  As we sang we acted out the story, pretending to catch an imaginary mouse and do all sorts of terrible things to it. It made Jacqueline laugh and clap. When we finished, Henriette and I came to the front of the stage. Holding hands, we announced together, ‘Thank you for watching our show,’ and took a bow.

  ‘Bravo!’ said Jacqueline. ‘That was fantastic. Thank you, all.’ And we rushed over to give her a hug.

  ****

  When Jacqueline felt better after her operation she took us to the nearby parks and woods again, although it was now early winter and we couldn’t go out when the weather was really bad; for one thing we had no way to dry our clothes if they got wet as there was no coal left for the fires. There were still trees in the woods but they were far too big for us to cut down so we had to make do with the twigs which we picked up from the ground and sometimes someone from the village shared their wood with us.

  One afternoon, while we were getting ready to go to the park, Mademoiselle Furst came and whispered something in Jacqueline’s ear. She looked shocked and hurried out of the room.

  ‘Is Jacqueline alright?’ I asked.

  ‘She has a visitor, so I’ll take you to the park this afternoon. Is everyone ready?’

  ‘Yes!’ we all shouted happily. Mademoiselle Furst was very kind. We liked her as much as we liked Jacqueline. We trundled off to the park for what seemed longer than usual. It was the end of November, and almost dark by the time we returned home. After we took off our coats some of us went to find Jacqueline to tell her about our afternoon, but she
was nowhere to be seen. Eventually she came to find us. We could tell she had been crying.

  ‘Jacqueline, why are you sad? Who was your visitor?’

  ‘It was my grandmother who came to see me.’

  ‘Is she here now? Can we meet her?’ we asked.

  ‘Did she bring any food?’ asked Rosette.

  ‘No, she isn’t here anymore. She had to go back to Paris before dark,’ said Jacqueline. ‘And yes, Rosie,’ she added with a small smile, ‘she did bring some food.’

  ‘Is this the first time your grandmother has come to visit you here?’ asked Henriette. Jacqueline nodded.

  ‘Why doesn’t she come more often?’

  ‘It is quite dangerous for her to travel, but she hid her yellow star under her coat and came anyway,’ said Jacqueline.

  ‘Why did she come if it is dangerous?’

  ‘Because she had some news for me. News that couldn’t wait,’ replied Jacqueline and she burst into tears.

  Samuel

  Toulouse

  November 1943

  Under our new identities Marcus, Rudy and I took the train to Tonneins with Andre, an older boy assigned to accompany us and make sure we arrived safely. We travelled by train then walked to our new school. Andre left after we signed the register and were told to join the queue to collect our bedding and wash kit.

  ‘Next!’ called the man behind the counter.

  Marcus walked up.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Marcus… errr… errr…’

  ‘Don’t you know your name?’

  ‘I…’ Marcus looked at his brother desperately for help but Rudy looked just as flustered. I realised neither remembered their new surname.

  ‘Hey! Gauthier,’ I shouted to Marcus. ‘Hurry up!’

  ‘Gauthier! That’s my name!’ declared Marcus to the man behind the counter.

  ****

  We were enrolled in tool and die-making classes. The blacksmith in Châteauroux had taught us some basic skills and we wanted to learn more.

  A few days after we arrived, Rudy and I were in the yard when Andre suddenly reappeared. He was at the gate.