by Debra Barnes
‘I wasn’t able to save them.’ Tears came to Jacqueline’s eyes and I held her hand.
‘I know. It wasn’t your fault. But I need you to tell me. It’s time.’
Jacqueline
Juan les Pins
June 2006
‘It was 6 a.m. on 22 July 1944. The streets of Louveciennes were usually empty this early but I heard a noise and looked out of the bedroom window. I saw some men walking quickly towards the house. There was at least one German officer but I couldn’t tell if the others were German or French. I got dressed and ran to Monsieur Denis’s office, but the German officer was already there. It was Alois Brunner, the SS officer in charge of Drancy. He was barking orders: the building was surrounded and we were all to be arrested. I was told to quickly wake the children, and get them ready to leave. The Germans wanted to make sure we were gone before the villagers woke and witnessed them taking us.
‘Brunner called out our names from his list. You weren’t there and he demanded to know where you were. Monsieur Denis told him you were in the hospital at Saint-Germainen-Laye. It would have been easy for him to say you were somewhere else, but he was scared of reprisals and didn’t dare. I was so worried about you; I knew Brunner would send someone to the hospital but there was nothing I could do. I was the only monitor and the only one on their list, the others were free to leave in the evenings and were at their homes sleeping, as were the kitchen staff. I prayed that when they arrived for work and saw we were all gone, someone would get word to the hospital and ask them to hide you before the Germans arrived. I guess this is what happened, but I have no idea who it was who saved your life.
‘Within minutes, we were boarding a bus. The little ones didn’t understand what was happening and I told them that we were going for an outing to the countryside. We all sang songs. I knew we were being taken to Drancy but I didn’t despair: the Allies had landed in Normandy weeks earlier, the war was nearly over and soon we would be free. As we arrived at Drancy, I saw other buses filled with children, and I realised there had been a round-up from all ten UGIF centres in the Paris region.
‘Monsieur Denis, his wife and daughter, Michèle, were released as they were not Jewish. Five others were identified as children of prisoners of war and sent to Bergen-Belsen, from where they would all later return. The other thirty-four children, including Henriette and Claude, and I were given purple tickets to indicate we were Category B, “deportable”. The alternatives were a red ticket for Category A – spouses of Aryans, or a green ticket for Category C – assigned to work. But we didn’t see any of those, only purple. Our only hope was that the Allies would arrive soon.
‘On 31 July we were taken as part of a group of 1300 people to Bobigny, a small station near Drancy. I told the children they were going to join their parents. We were crammed into cattle wagons parked in the sidings and at midday the convoy rattled off on its journey. It was convoy no. 77, the last one to leave for Drancy. Three weeks later, Paris was liberated and the remaining prisoners at Drancy released. The conditions in the wagons were horrific. It was unbearably hot and there were only tiny openings to let in the smallest amount of fresh air. The stench of bodies and excrement soon became overpowering.
‘There were sixty of us in one wagon. Fifty of them were children. I was the only monitor. The others were adults who complained about the children crying, which they did because they were hot and thirsty and couldn’t breathe because of the stench, or when they were bumped into, which was unavoidable as there were so many of us in a small space. I wore an armband which allowed me to get off the train the few times it stopped at a station to fetch water, as much as I could carry in makeshift containers, and to empty the slop buckets which were always overflowing onto the floor of the wagon.
‘By the third day we were desperate. That night the train stopped with a jolt. The wagon doors were thrown open and the children were woken to shouts of: ‘RAUS! SCHNELL!’ ‘OUT! QUICK!’ Emaciated men with shaved heads and dressed in striped clothing pulled the terrorised children out of the wagon. They spoke in French but they didn’t even look human. They wouldn’t let the children take their belongings with them. One of the men looked at me with his big blue eyes, which made him look less sinister than the others. I asked him if he was French. He pulled me inside to the back of the wagon, out of sight, before he spoke.
‘“We are in Auschwitz. This place is Hell. There is nowhere to sleep and maybe just enough food to keep you alive. Whatever you do, don’t carry a kid in your arms,” he told me.
‘I said that I didn’t understand, and he said I would understand soon enough. He pointed to the children and said, “They will be made into soap.”
‘I thought he must be mad to say such things. I asked him if he knew any Goldsteins at the camp and he almost laughed.
‘“Do you know how many thousands of people are here? Listen to me. Don’t ask about your family. Forget about them.”
‘I climbed off the wagon and spotted a little girl all alone. She was crying. I took her hand and she looked up at me, tears pouring down her face. The same Frenchman came quickly over.
‘“Don’t you understand? Do not hold the child’s hand!’ he shouted at me angrily. I was so confused I didn’t know what to do. I dropped the child’s hand and walked along the railway platform as we were ordered. I left that little girl by herself in the middle of the throng of people and I didn’t even dare look back at her. It was night but the scene was illuminated by harsh floodlights. I think I saw Claude and Henriette ahead of me, walking together, holding hands and I was grateful that many of the children had siblings with them so they were not alone.
‘Up ahead were five or six Nazi officers. One of them had a riding crop and he was using it to direct people, pointing to the left or right without saying a word. The children and older people were sent to the right and the others to the left. Families were being brutally separated. Husband and wife, mother and child, brother and sister, clinging to each other until the Germans came along and beat anyone who wouldn’t comply. Those who still resisted were sent to the right. When it was my turn I was sent to the left. I turned to look to the right and saw Henriette with Claude and all my other little children from Louveciennes. I watched them walk away towards the gas chambers.’
Georgette
London
January 2010
‘Come on, Georgette. Come outside and play with me.’
‘Is that you, Henriette?’
‘Yes of course it is, silly. Are you coming to play now? I’ve been waiting for such a long time.’
****
‘Mrs Barnes?’
‘Yes?’
‘Mrs Barnes. Did you hear what I said? I’m sure it must have come as quite a shock.’
‘Yes. I heard you.’
‘The results show there are malignant cells. You can beat this. We can operate to remove the cancer and then start a course of treatment. Take these leaflets home and think of any questions you might have, then I will see you here again in a few days.’
Alan took me home. I cried. We cried together. I was seventy-one years old. I had enjoyed a happy marriage and a loving family. I had travelled and made lots of wonderful friends. I had lived. I had done everything my twin sister had never had the chance to do. And all along I had carried the guilt. I had lived through the nightmares. I had suffered because I was the one who survived. And now I was almost free. I could go outside and play with Henriette. I wouldn’t have to hear her calling me in vain anymore.
‘I’m coming, my darling sister. I’m coming to play very soon.’
Acknowledgements
The first person I want to thank for inspiring me to write The Young Survivors is my mother, Paulette. I’m heart-broken that she won’t get to read it, and yet it would never have occurred to me to write this book while she was alive. The Holocaust was not a subject we spoke about at home. I can’t be sure that she would have even wanted to read it.
I don’t remember when I first foun
d out my mother was a Holocaust survivor. Mum spoke English without a trace of a French accent, so it came as a shock to many to learn that she was born in France and had endured such a traumatic childhood. Who could imagine the pain of losing a twin sister at age six, as well as your mother, father and brother? Yet Mum seemed happy and carefree. She had a dry sense of humour, a loving marriage and a large circle of friends. She chose to not share her pain.
Thank you to my family both in London and in the States for their support while I was writing this book. To my darling husband Adam, who not only is my better half but is also the talented photographer who took my author portraits and designed my website. To my exceptional daughters Cloe and Aimee, two strong independent women of whom I am so proud. To my sister Caron, I wrote this book for both of us, and our dad Maurice for his encouragement. And to my miniature schnauzer Pepper for making me leave my computer and take her for a walk from time to time.
In 2014 I travelled to the south of France to meet Denise Holstein, who had looked after my mother in the orphanages during the war. I was relieved when she told me that the children had been happy, not knowing what was going on around them and not crying for their parents. Thank you, Denise, both for looking after Mum and for sharing your experiences with me.
When I started to blog about my research, I was contacted by people who identified with the subject. André Convers is a French Jewish historian from Louveciennes who kindly took me to visit the orphanages in 2015 and introduced me to members of the Jewish community there. Laurence Fitoussi-Brust and I made contact when I read a blog post by her mother, Marthe Szwarcbart, about how she was smuggled out of the orphanage in Louveciennes by her brother André (Schwart-Bart), who would become a world-renowned novelist. Fred Katz emailed to tell me that, like my mother, he was born in Metz in 1938 and his family had moved to the same village near Poitiers where his six-year-old brother was run over and killed by German officers. Thank you to André, Laurence and Fred for their help with my research.
My decision to write a novel about the Holocaust was largely influenced by reading The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman. It made me want to write a story which people would enjoy reading while telling them about the fate of the Jews in wartime France, something which is not often mentioned. The Young Survivors is a tribute to the 76,000 French Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust. Thank you, Alyson.
I want to thank Hazel Michaels, my mother-in-law and one of the most prolific readers I know, for her honest review of my first draft which spurred me on to a much-improved second draft. Thanks also to Tracy Fenton and the anonymous readers from THE Book Club on Facebook who kindly helped me decide whether to stick to writing in the first person or to change to the third person.
For the past ten years I have been a member of The Best Book Club Ever, a group of eight keen readers who have become so much more than just book buddies. We support each other through whatever life throws at us while reading the occasional book along the way. A huge thank-you to (in alphabetical order): Alisa, Corinne, Danielle, Jo, Karin, Marcia and Sharon. I hope you enjoy the little surprise I have left you in the book.
In early 2019, a chance meeting with a historical novelist in A&E led me to hire an editor to look through my manuscript before I self-published. This in turn led me to sign with Duckworth Books. So, thank you to Elizabeth Fremantle and Hugh Barker for helping me achieve my dream, and also to Louise Thornton and the Society of Authors for advising on contracts.
And finally, to the brilliant team at Duckworth Books. Matt Casbourne – going through his notes on my manuscript was akin to doing an ‘ology’ in creative writing. Matt has been an absolutely amazing publisher to work with and it’s been a blast. Thanks also to Pete Duncan, Fanny Lewis for her great marketing and PR skills, and Nicky Jeanes for copy-editing and Abbie Rutherford for proofreading. It’s my name on the front cover but having a book published is a team effort. Thank you to everyone.
Debra Barnes. London, March 2020
About the Author
Debra Barnes studied journalism and has been a regular contributor to the Jewish News. Since January 2017, she runs a project for The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) to produce individual life story books for Holocaust survivors and refugees. She has been interviewed by BBC Radio regarding her mother’s story and has had a short documentary made about her research. This is her first novel, inspired by the true story of her mother’s survival of the Holocaust.
This edition published in 2020 by Duckworth, an imprint of Duckworth Books Ltd
1 Golden Court, Richmond TW9 1EU, United Kingdom
www.duckworthbooks.com
Copyright © Debra Barnes 2020
The right of Debra Barnes to be identified as the author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
eBook ISBN: 9780715653562
Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd
