The House of Izieu

by Jan Rehner

  “No. I’m sure of it.”

  “Then this denunciation is just vile speculation. There’s no proof. But, Sabine, some of the older boys can easily draw attention because of their height. The Milice, and even the gendarmes, are ever mindful of the push to send workers to Germany. We need to think about smuggling them out of the area. I’m thinking of Paul Niedermann and Henri Alexander. Will OSE help? I think Léon should also think about leaving.”

  Sabine nodded her agreement, but she felt numb and not even the return of Marie-Antoinette, with a sealed box that was to be delivered directly into the hands of Marcelle, could lift her mood.

  All the way back to the House of Izieu, she kept hearing Pierre-Marcel’s warning until the world outside thinned to nothing and all she could see were ugly words scrawled on a sheet of paper.

  When Sabine delivered the parcel from Marie-Antoinette, Marcelle’s wink finally made her smile, and soon she settled down by the window with a bowl of soup. She watched as a group of children returned from their hike. It had started to rain while they were out, a sudden downburst while the sun went on shining, and Paul was holding his sweater over the little ones’ heads like a tent. They laughed and walked without the least bit of hurry and it came to her that they were at home and unafraid.

  Somewhere, maybe on the forest paths, or on the terrace, or in the barn with the animals, or under their pillows at night, they had set aside the ache of not belonging, the quiet hungering for home. It was beautiful, this place, this peace.

  Sabine wished that the moment would go on forever. The rain would keep falling, the sun shining. The dog would keep wagging his tail, and the circle of boys laughing. How was she ever going to tell Paul he must leave?

  MINA FRIEDLER, MOTHER

  I REMEMBER THE ROAD to the House of Izieu was hard earth. It twisted ahead of me and out of sight. The leaves of the bordering trees made an arch above, and even the still air was tinted green.

  I smiled down at Luci, my Lucienne, and squeezed her small, sparrow-boned hand. Hair the colour of wheat. Eyes like a deer’s. The sunlight poured like water through her pale hair. The delicate spray of freckles across her cheeks and nose looked like a tan. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed.

  Finally we came to a curve in the road where we could look down and see the house in the distance. For a moment, the hot sun blazing on the white walls and the windows made the whole house shimmer and blur slightly as if it were a mirage, an illusion, or perhaps a block of shining ice just beginning to melt.

  I slowed my steps. I needed more time to arrive here fully. I knew how quickly one world could disappear and be exchanged for another. The memory of my husband was a dark flame coursing through my blood. His loss was an empty hole, as raw as the socket of a tooth.

  As one world unravelled, another rose. As one door closed, another opened. But, oh, to see behind the closed door just once more.

  I knew that when I stepped through this new door, everything I had imagined about the House of Izieu would vanish and what was real would rush in to fill that space.

  “What is it, Maman?”

  “Nothing, my pet. Don’t you think the house looks grand?”

  Luci nodded silently, but then she suddenly pointed. “Look. I see children. And I see a cow.”

  A brown cow. Nothing could be more solidly real than a cow.

  “Come, Luci. Let’s meet the children. This is our home now.”

  CHARLES WELTNER, NINE YEARS OLD

  I LOVE ALL THE ANIMALS BEST. I always wanted a pet when I was little, but my mother said that Budapest wasn’t a good place for dogs, because they love to run through fields and chase rabbits more than anything in the world. When I asked for a cat instead, she swore they’re nasty things. They’d scratch your arms and legs if they were cornered.

  There are lots of animals at the House of Izieu. White birds swing through the sky over the river, and ducks with bright green feathers nest in the river grass. The sparrows settle in the trees at night and chatter, like the girls here do when they tell stories to each other.

  If the night is very still, I can hear the jingle of goats’ bells in the hills. And sometimes the hoot of an owl.

  Most of the animals belong to Farmer Perticoz. On market days, he lends us his big, broad horse with powerful legs to pull the cart. He’s the colour of the caramel apple that my father once bought me at a fair, and though I can’t reach his nose, I can pat his sides.

  At Farmer Perticoz’s barn, there was a litter of kittens once, balls of black and orange fluff that weighed nothing in your hands. I held one to my cheek and its fur was like silk. They licked milk from my fingers with their rough little tongues, and they didn’t scratch, not once.

  Our own dog at Izieu will roll about on the ground with you. Tomi, that’s his name. He leaps into the air to catch a stick, and whenever he gets wet, he shakes his whole body from head to tail and a spray of water spins off his fur. When he’s tired, he finds a lap to lay his head on.

  But my favourite is our milk cow, a plain brown cow with deep, dark eyes and long lashes. She has a soft mouth that I pet when I feed her handfuls of grass. She loves being scratched and talked to. I put my arms around her neck and tell her stories of my mother. And sometimes, when I’m lonely, I just lean against her flank with my arms stretched across her back, and rest there for a long time. She doesn’t seem to mind. That cow knows all my secrets, and all my dreams, and when I look into her tender eyes, I swear she understands them all.

  I trust animals more than people. Animals don’t care where you come from, or whether you’re Jewish or Christian. They only want people to be kind to them.

  JOSEPH GOLDBERG, TWELVE YEARS OLD

  I REMEMBER THAT the House of Izieu allowed me to raise my head and see again.

  Before, I kept my head down. The world only existed from the waist down, an endless procession of cracked pavement and litter in the sewage drains, anonymous shoes and stockings, trouser and skirt hems, and later, shiny jackboots. Who would want to look up and risk seeing something terrible in the world? Don’t look, and what you don’t want to see is invisible. I was always moving, trying to find solid ground amidst the constant shifting around me.

  At Izieu, I look up and the grey world is suddenly flooded with colour. I had never imagined how many shades of green there are and I try to paint them all: the thick evergreen of the pine forest, the silvery green of the moss, the coppery green depths under the trees, the glossy, luminous green of the river in a rainstorm.

  Madame Sabine guessed my dream, as if I had spoken it aloud. It happened that she was in the classroom that first day of school. We sat in neat rows and we were given new pens to write with and fresh paper.

  I remember staring at the blank page, so clean, so pure, so full of promise. I didn’t want to make a mistake and have to scratch something out. I was afraid the ink would leave a blotch on the perfect page. So I didn’t risk any words.

  Instead, I took from my pocket the last of my pastel crayons and drew a long-beaked bird with translucent green feathers.

  “You have a gift, Joseph,” Madame Sabine said. “Follow me.”

  She led me out to the barn and asked me to wait while she disappeared into her bedroom. She came out with a large artist’s box and placed it in my hands. The lid was carved with the letters Y and Z. “My initials,” she said. “My father called me Yanka. I, too, wanted to be an artist. This is yours now. Use it well.”

  The box was filled with paints. My mind was flooded with all the images I could colour into life. My heart was bursting. I wanted to shout my thanks from the rooftops, but my throat was too dry. I felt Madame Sabine’s hand on my arm. “No need for words,” she smiled. “You and I have discovered a common language.”

  I paint almost every day now, every brush stroke filled with the kindness of a woman whose father called her Yanka.


  JULY 1943

  THAT NIGHT THE RHÔNE HAD a silvery shine, as if the moon had fallen right down to its depths like a cold white stone.

  A small sound on the periphery of her dreams woke Sabine.

  “Miron? Why are you dressed?” she murmured.

  “Sorry. I didn’t want to wake you. I won’t be gone long.”

  Fully awake now, Sabine sat up in bed. “Where are…?” Her voice trailed off as she saw the grave look on his face.

  “I know some people who might be able to help with Paul and Henri. Pierre-Marcel is right. We need to help them get away.”

  People? What people, Sabine wanted to ask. The villagers, Farmer Perticoz, the invisible Resistance?

  “So,” she said instead, “you’ve made this decision without me.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “I’m not surprised,” Sabine sighed. “If I can help, you only need to ask.”

  “I won’t ask. It’s my duty to protect you.”

  “That’s what I knew you’d say. But if the day comes when it all goes wrong, I’ll stand by you, and that’s not my duty. That’s my choice.”

  Neither of the Zlatins knew that Léon, waiting for Miron in the doorway of the barn, heard every word. For a moment, he was afraid for them, afraid for himself. He had tried to forget that the world was still treacherous. But the Zlatins’ strength astounded and inspired him. He squared his shoulders and followed Miron into the blackness of the forest.

  Sabine could not fall back to sleep. She lost herself in a memory of Miron playing with some children in the late afternoon sun. Tall and narrow, he was running with a group of boys, then turning and crouching down to encourage Coco who charged toward him with all the determined clumsiness of a four-year-old. As Coco ran into his arms, Miron had straightened up, hoisting him above his head. She could still hear Coco’s shrieks of laughter, and see Miron’s flushed cheeks, his skin smoothed brown from the summer sun.

  Where had her love led him? To happiness, she was sure, but also to uncertainty, to risk, to danger. She had cluttered the simple life he’d always craved. Would he be asleep right now in his own bed, if not for the problems she always brought to him with the expectation that he would find a way? Maybe he would be dreaming of leaving this place and planting a garden on his own land someday, or maybe that was her dream for him.

  At first, she thought the faint sound of crying she could hear was her own. But it was not.

  Sabine wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and left the barn. For a moment she heard only the throaty chorus of frogs. Then the crying came again, softened to a kind of whimpering. She followed it to the side of the barn and saw little Max Leiner curled into a ball, knees tight against his chest, arms tight against his knees.

  “What’s this?” Sabine whispered, crouching down. “What’s wrong?”

  The story leaked out slowly, in ragged sentences. Some of the other children had received letters that day from mothers or fathers or aunts or cousins, but there was no letter for Max.

  “Something bad has happened to Mama,” he sobbed, the words coming out in wet bursts. “And then that new girl came. Luci. And she was holding her mother’s hand, and it’s not fair.”

  No, it wasn’t fair. She couldn’t lie to him. She couldn’t take away his loneliness. She was overcome with the desire to protect him from what he already knew. “My parents are lost to me, too,” she said, and the moment the words were spoken she knew they were true. “But I keep them here in my heart and so I know they are always with me.” She tapped Max’s heart. “What do you keep here?”

  He lifted his tear-stained face and stared at her with his dark eyes.

  She nodded encouragingly, swept a curl from his forehead. “Tell me about your Mama.”

  For a long while, Max said nothing at all. The two of them sat side by side on the ground, leaning against the side of the barn and listening to the murmurs of the night. Frogs again. A splash in the river, maybe from a fish. The secret movements of rabbits in the long grass. Sabine’s thoughts drifted up into the sky, and she wondered about all the parents longing for their children, and all the children longing for their parents and all of them staring at the same moon and yet as scattered as the stars.

  When Max finally spoke, his voice was thin and reedy. “She has soft hair. I used to curl it around my fingers. She has a favourite blue dress. She used to take my hands and dance with me in a circle. She loves cats and we had a big tabby with a long, feathery tail.”

  “Max, would you like to have a cat?”

  “Could I?”

  “Tomorrow, we’ll visit Farmer Perticoz’s barn. You can pick out your very own kitten. Come now, try to sleep.”

  “I want to sleep with you.”

  Sabine tucked him into bed, pulling the blanket up to his chin and then lay down beside him. Max put his head on her shoulder. His hair smelled like apples and fresh hay.

  “Max,” she whispered. “Do you think you can forgive Luci for having her mother with her?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Good boy.”

  The day of the Summer Fête finally arrived at the House of Izieu, noisily, with children running up and down the stairs and into the dining room to gobble down breakfast and out to the terrace to begin the decorating, all of them lit up from the sparks of anticipation shooting through the air.

  “They’re going to wear themselves out before noon,” Sabine commented.

  “We can tell them all to take naps,” Léa suggested.

  “Good luck with that,” Léon laughed.

  “Don’t worry,” Marcelle smiled. “We have rehearsal in the classroom after lunch. That will settle them down.”

  Philippe and Marie looked at each other and shrugged. Something light for lunch then, they thought, to settle nervous stomachs.

  Piece by piece, the terrace was transformed. Several bed sheets slung over a line of rope became curtains, upon which Joseph had painted an enchanted woodland scene of forest animals. Homemade paper lanterns, coloured in shades of deep rose and pink so they would glow when met with just the right angle of the sun, were fastened all along the balustrade. Several boys tied torches into a nearby tree so their light would shine upon the performers when the time was right.

  Meanwhile, sixteen children, one by one, cheerfully reported to Marcelle that the clouds were breaking up and the sky was turning blue. Most of the others fretted that rain would spoil the festivities. The optimists won. The sun shone, and the day was glorious.

  While thumping, stomping, giggles, shushing, and other mysterious sounds emanated from behind the closed door of the classroom, the visitors began to arrive—Farmer and Madame Perticoz, Pierre-Marcel and his wife, Noelle, the prettiest girl in Belley, and not least, Marie-Antoinette with a huge picnic basket. Blankets were spread on the lawn for the audience, and as Sabine took her place, leaning against Miron, the low sun cast a golden net over the terrace.

  The curtains opened and Marcelle stood before them. She looked dramatic and amused in a long white dress and embroidered shawl. Her black hair was dressed with honeysuckle and roses, and pulled back in a simple knot that bared the curve of her neck. “Welcome,” she said, “to the Summer Fête . Tonight you will see a series of scenes and performances presented by the children of the House of Izieu. We begin with the Procession of Thanks to the Garden.”

  From the back of the terrace a group of children marched forward solemnly and formed a line across the would-be stage. One by one, they stepped forward.

  “I’m Tomato,” shouted Coco. He was covered head to foot in a billowing red cape, pillows obviously stuffed underneath to give him a round shape, and his cheeks were two circles of scarlet.

  Alice, tall and thin as a willow slip, in a long purple skirt and carrying a basket of berries, stepped forward more decorously than Coco had. “I am Plen
ty,” she smiled, her dimples flashing.

  There was Carrot and String Bean, both clothed in the appropriate colours, and then Sigmund Springer with a halo of gold foil spread his arms wide. “I am the Sun,” he pronounced proudly.

  “I’m Tomato,” interrupted Coco.

  “Shush. We already know that,” Sigmund whispered, though his words were lost in a burst of hilarity from the audience.

  Squash and Potato appeared, holding a jumping but silent Tomato between them, and then Senta turned a full circle in a billowy, shimmering shawl of blue. “I’m Rain,” she announced.

  Finally, little Élie in a black sweater and yellow skirt, with black wings attached to her back, passed up and down the line touching each vegetable with a golden wand. “I’m Population that makes the garden grow.” There was a murmur of incomprehension, followed by a quick whisper from Sigmund, and then Élie tried again. “I mean Pollination — that makes the garden grow.” After she spoke everyone bowed and the audience clapped enthusiastically, while two boys closed the curtains.

  There was banging and jingling from somewhere at the back of the terrace, and then Marcelle appeared again. “We now present two folk dances, a French bourrée and a Flemish mazurka.”

  The source of the banging quickly became clear: upturned pots from the kitchen and wooden or metallic spoons. The drummers managed a beat, followed by children clapping or jingling with tambourines, no doubt delivered by Sabine herself in a mysterious package sent by Marie-Antoinette. The dancers of the bourrée moved hand-in-hand in a circle that sometimes collapsed into its centre and then expanded again. The skirts of the girls twirled, and the boys wore sashes that were once ordinary towels. The pace gradually quickened, until the girls’ skirts were a swirl of colour and several dancers were so dizzy they began to stagger. The end of the dance was a triumphant shout.

  The older boys and girls took the stage in a more dignified mazurka that required partners, accompanied by Barouk’s flute playing. Léa counted the couples—Paula and Max-Marcel, Maurice with his sister Lillian, Nina with Majer, Arnold with Martha, and petite Renée with tall Paul—and, of course, Théo who had jumped at the opportunity to put his arms around Paulette. Soon she was laughing at Paul trying to crouch down to match Renée’s height. When he finally got tired of stooping, he simply picked her up and she finished the dance two feet off the ground.