The House of Izieu

by Jan Rehner

  It’s not that the children aren’t happy. They are. They are giggly and spontaneous, full of curiosity and adventure, and sometimes saucy, like children everywhere. The atmosphere of the House is cheerful and relaxed.

  But there is an undercurrent. I call it a haunting. I think it is the presence of the ghosts that helps forge the close bonds among all the people who live here. Sabine and Miron are brother and sister to Léa, and they have adopted Mina who seems to be everywhere, willing to do everything, from helping me in the classroom, to mucking out the barn, to harvesting the garden. And the children adore gruff Philippe and his sweet old mother who always seems to have a white kerchief around her head and a child on her lap and a story on her lips about naughty Paris in the days before the war.

  But it is the children who surprise me most. There is something heart-stopping about them. I never see a fight. Oh, a childish spat maybe, or a flare of temper, but never a fight. And no bullying, either. They’ve had enough of that. Whether alone, or with brothers or sisters or cousins, they are attuned to each other’s moods and needs. If they go for a hike, Arnold is there to pick up any stragglers. If they choose teams for a game, they choose in groups of three or four so that no single child is ever picked last. If tears are shed, you soon hear Barouk singing some merry tune, or see Théo pulling funny faces or standing on his head, anything to turn the tears into laughter.

  When lessons are over, I stand in the doorway and watch them burst from the house, running down to the edge of the river across the sloping lawns, calling out to each other, laughing, sweaters flapping, without slowing down or perhaps even noticing their terrible vulnerability.

  SIGMUND SPRINGER, EIGHT YEARS OLD

  I REMEMBER WHEN the new teacher came, and we were cross because she wasn’t at all like Marcelle. On the very first day of lessons, she told Jacob Benassayag and me we couldn’t sit beside each other any longer because we talked too much. So I had to move and sit beside a girl. At recess I complained to Marie, who always made me feel better, but that day she told me that if I stuck out my bottom lip any further, a chicken would nest on it. “Stop pouting,” she said. “Give the new teacher a chance.”

  I guess we were kind of mean to Mademoiselle Perrier that first week. There was a lot of eye-rolling and heavy sighing when she asked us to do anything. Gilles took out his slingshot and pretended he was going to shoot at her when her back was turned, but we started to laugh and somehow she guessed what he was up to and took the slingshot away. Mina whispered to me that the teacher had eyes in the back of her head.

  At recess, she won’t play with us. She’ll just go for a little walk, or maybe stay inside and mark our compositions.

  But one day when I couldn’t solve my division problem, she knelt by my desk and showed me how to do long division and carry the numbers forward, and I feel pretty good that I can do it on my own now. When she hands me back my composition on my favourite animal, I see she’s drawn a little star on the top. We kind of warmed up to her, I guess. And I think she is relieved that we’ve stopped talking about Marcelle, all except for Max who has such a crush on her because she writes him letters.

  We’re all pretty involved with Philippe and Marie’s rush to harvest anything we can eat in the winter. Harvesting, they call it, even though I grew up in Vienna and the closest I ever got to harvesting was watching my mother make jam. Mademoiselle Perrier gives us whole afternoons off to help in the kitchen and we help make jars of applesauce, some of us peeling, some chopping, some stirring, and some scooping the sauce into jars. Claudine is only five and she can’t do much except steal slices of apple. We’ve nicknamed her Little Squirrel because her plump cheeks make it seem she’s hiding apples in her mouth. Pretty soon I notice Mademoiselle Perrier is up to her elbows in applesauce without a word of complaint, and when she sees me watching her, she smiles.

  After that, she was just part of the House, and I overheard Jacob tell her he was sorry for saying her face was like the Jura rock cliffs.

  HENRI GOLDBERG, THIRTEEN YEARS OLD

  HARVESTING TIME at the House of Izieu is the best time, because I love working on the farm and watching all of spring and summer’s labour finally bearing fruit. We rake the sweet-smelling hay into stacks and laugh when bits of it stick in our hair and all over our bare skin. We pick the fodder corn that will keep the horses and cows fed in the winter. Madame Perticoz brings baskets of food out to us as we work in the fields, meat pies and jugs of cold cider. I worked with Farmer Perticoz almost every day of that summer, but at harvesting we are joined by Monsieur Miron and most of the older boys. We stand shoulder to shoulder, and Farmer Perticoz makes a great ceremony of thumping us on the back for an honest day’s work.

  I love everything about the farm, even the things that drive my brother Joseph crazy—like the wisps of hay that get up his nose, or the thick, acrid smell of the barn, or the sweat that trickles down your back as you bend over a shovel digging potatoes. I love the smell of freshly turned earth, and the wide-openness of the fields, bright green and biscuit-coloured under the August sun, turning shades of russet and sepia as the air grows chillier. Joseph makes me notice the colours because he wants to paint them, but I just lap them up. I just want to be part of them, part of the landscape.

  When Joseph and I lived in Paris with our parents, I used to love the fall markets around Les Halles: a heaving, hollering place, busy with buyers, bargains, and rats. There was stall after stall heaped with thick ropes of garlic, pyramids of blushing pears and apples, mounds of potatoes and curly-leafed cabbages, and glossy aubergines. I always talked to the farmers. I wanted to know how long it took to grow an aubergine, how many pumpkins made up a patch, which apples were for eating and which for cider, and how many kinds of squash were there, anyway.

  When September arrives, I have to go to school in Belley. Marie-Antoinette has arranged everything and I can’t disappoint her, but my heart will always be on the farm. Well, les carottes sont cuites, as the saying goes, but I’ll sneak back here every chance I get. Farmer Perticoz is always happy to see me. He’ll wink when his wife scolds me and calls me a naughty truant. Then he’ll take me out to the barn and we’ll talk about the planting for the spring, or chop logs, or maybe polish the bridles for the horses, and he’ll give me a swig of his homemade wine. In a day or two, he’ll take me back to school, but I bet he’ll never say goodbye because he’ll know that in a few weeks, I’ll be back.

  SEPTEMBER 1943

  IT WAS A GORGEOUS MORNING. Behind the clouds, the sun had begun to rise, turning the clouds orange-grey, like fire behind smoke. The clouds gradually thinned, wafting away to expose deep blue patches of sky. In a castle far away where Benito Mussolini was being held captive, German soldiers mounted a daring rescue. The Italians rebelled and signed an armistice with the Allies. The Germans responded by swarming into the French Jura like highly trained Dobermans, pushing the traitorous, treacherous Italians out. The earth shook from German boots, dogs howled, and bells fell silent. The Occupation of every inch of France was now complete.

  For a few days, Sabine and Miron told themselves it didn’t matter. The House was so well hidden. The road from the village of Izieu to the house was overgrown and untended, deliberately so. The children all had new names on new sets of identity papers. The snows of winter would choke the mountain roads, turning them into icy slides. Surely the mountains and the twisting roads and the distance from Lyon would protect them.

  The war would not last forever. Another winter would seal the frozen fate of the Germans on the Russian Front. Allied planes were hammering German cities. Americans and Canadians had taken Sicily and were even now churning their way up Italy from the South. Everyone knew, even the children, that there was going to be an Allied landing in France, and the rumour went around that it would be a massive invasion of British, American, and Canadian soldiers fighting shoulder to shoulder. It was difficult to imagine such a majestic force
massing so far away, tensing its muscles to strike, and even more incredible to believe that it would actually arrive.

  But this was daylight courage. At night, a sob burned in Sabine’s throat and she swallowed it angrily. She would need to be stronger than this in the months ahead, she told herself, for there was much to be done. At night, she rehearsed her plans with Miron.

  “We have to do something. Maybe move the children somewhere safer.” Sabine looked across the bed at Miron sitting with his elbows on his knees.

  “No place is safe now. We can try to move some of the older children across the border, but the danger will be greater without the Italians to help us.”

  Sabine climbed over the bed to him and rubbed his back. Then she circled him with her arms and leaned her head against him. “We’ve got to think. There must be a way to protect them.”

  They were both prone to thinking their way out of predicaments as if the combined force of their intellects could control an unpredictable world.

  “We might have to split them up,” Sabine sighed.

  “That will break their hearts. Let’s not rush to any decision and in the meantime pray for snow to block the roads.”

  “Tomorrow I’ll go into Belley,” Sabine decided, for if reason failed her, she was sure her friends there would not.

  They were quiet for a while, lying now in each other’s arms, curled together.

  “Germans here,” Sabine suddenly gasped.

  “I know.”

  They took what comfort they could in each other. They were in this together, come what may. They both loved the children with a lion-like force. Whatever distance might appear between them evaporated when Barouk sang or Joseph painted or Coco learned a new word. The children delighted them in myriad ways every day. They had built the House of Izieu together and the only person in the world who felt as much worry as Sabine was right here by her side. She wanted to keep the children together, but knew that would be a dream too far.

  The next day, Sabine sat in Pierre-Marcel’s office looking braver than she felt. She’d seen no soldiers, but the swastika flying over the municipal offices had shaken her. Marie-Antoinette welcomed her warmly, but she was ill prepared for her friend’s news.

  “Léon Reifman is back in France.”

  “What? How? Why?”

  Pierre-Marcel shrugged. “There was chaos at the borders when the Italians retreated. Some wanted to cast their lot with the Germans, some wanted to get away from them. Anyway, Léon has new papers, Swiss ones, and he’s on his way now to Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.”

  “The Protestant mountain?”

  “Indeed. He thinks he might be able to map out an escape route and take some of the children from Izieu to Switzerland.”

  “Which ones? How will he choose? How can I choose?”

  “I’m guessing that would depend on the route, if he finds one. How rigorous it would be, how fit or agile the children would have to be and so on. You’re going to have to face it sometime, Sabine—splitting up the children.”

  “Yes. I know that, but so soon?”

  “Well, not today or tomorrow,” Marie-Antoinette assured her. “We’ll wait to hear back from Léon. In the meantime, he’s contacted his sister, Suzanne. As you know, she’s a doctor and she’s willing to move into the House of Izieu so long as she can bring her young son.”

  “I think it’s a good idea,” Pierre-Marcel interjected. “Should you need a doctor now, it would be dangerous to approach Dr. Bendrihem again.”

  “Yes. Of course. We’ll make room for them somehow. But what will the German occupation mean for you? And for this office?”

  “Vichy still exists in theory, though the strings of the puppets are now exposed for all to see. I’m guessing this office will lose some of its authority or at least be put under some form of scrutiny.”

  “You mean no more extra ration cards or sets of papers,” Sabine guessed.

  “I think that’s probably the case. But, Sabine, the people of the French Jura are no friends of the Germans. They will still turn to me and to Marie-Antoinette as their leaders, and that may be to our advantage. They know what we stand for, and more than ever, I think they’ll stand with us.”

  “Here’s something that will cheer you up.” Marie-Antoinette spread a map over the desk, ignoring Pierre-Marcel’s attempts to move his papers out of the way. “See if you can find Izieu.”

  It took Sabine several minutes to do so, even though she knew where to look. Very small towns appeared in very small print.

  “As you know, the Germans are headquartered in Lyon. That’s almost ninety kilometres away over mostly dirt roads, and you’d need to have a map. Sad to say that over the last few weeks there’s been a nip in the air, and people all over the French Jura have had to burn their maps just to keep warm.”

  She looked up, very pleased with herself, and deliberately knocked Pierre-Marcel’s arm just as he was taking a sip of water. The glass slipped from his hand and Marie watched as the liquid spread slowly over the map, soaking into the paper.

  “Oh dear. I’m so clumsy. Sorry, Pierre. Let me clean this mess up.”

  Marie scrunched up the map into a soggy ball and winked at Sabine. “I’ll just get a rag to mop up the desk. Excuse me a moment.”

  Pierre-Marcel stared after her retreating figure before turning to Sabine. “She’s incorrigible,” he said flatly, shaking his head.

  “Thank goodness,” Sabine replied, finally laughing. “Oh, I know they have maps in Lyon, but that performance certainly made me feel better. You will take care of her, won’t you? Make sure she doesn’t do anything rash in front of the Germans.”

  He bowed slightly. “I’ll do my best. She’s her own woman.”

  “That she is,” Sabine said, thinking to herself that Pierre-Marcel truly didn’t have any idea how complex Marie-Antoinette really was, her abiding love for him both unresolved and unacknowledged.

  Once a month there was a celebration with a single birthday cake, because with forty-four children now in the House of Izieu there wasn’t enough sugar in all of France to mark each child’s day individually. This month, Philippe had made an apple cake with honey from one of the neighbouring farmers, his last handful of brown sugar dusting the top.

  Suzanne Reifman and her son, Claude, arrived in time for the birthday celebration. Her hair was dark and thick, but as she turned away from Miron to greet the other adults, he saw that it shone with glints of red in the sun.

  “She’s very pretty,” Miron whispered to Sabine, as if he hadn’t been expecting that.

  “I’d say she’s confident, even brave. You must be, to be a woman and qualify as a doctor. Léon hasn’t told us much, but I know she lost her husband right at the beginning of the war and yet she’s kept that child safe.”

  Ten-year-old Claude had curly hair like his uncle Léon, and a big grin on his face as he spied the cake.

  The seven children born in October got the first slices, and afterwards opened handmade cards written by the other children. Marie peeked at the messages and saw they were all variations on a common theme.

  My dear Suzanne, I wish you a very happy birthday, and hope next year, you’ll be with your parents.

  Dear Georgy, I’m writing this little note to make you happy on your birthday. Hoping you rejoin your parents, and the war gets over.

  Dear Lilianne, HAPPY BIRTHDAY. I’m wishing that on your next birthday, you’ll have your parents back.

  Dear Théo, On your special day, I know you must miss your parents, and Paulette, too. I hope you see them soon.

  To my dear friend Esther, My warm wishes for your twelfth birthday. You are a good big sister to Élie and Jacob and your parents will be proud of you. May you be with them soon.

  Dear Paula, I wish you a happy day and know your parents do, too. May all your future birthdays be celebra
ted with them by your side.

  Dear Herman, Best wishes, little brother, on your tenth birthday. I made this special drawing of a tiger just for you. Keep it forever.

  When the last crumb of cake had been eaten, Phillipe and Marie pushed the long dining tables under the window to make a space for storytelling, for it was too cool now in the evenings to linger on the terrace.

  “Tell us about Paris,” Nina urged Marie.

  “Oh, Paris was wild in the twenties. We used to go to Montmartre to watch the ladies from the Moulin Rouge. They wore nothing but feathers with spangles on their—”

  “Marie!” Miron cautioned.

  “As I was saying, spangles on their dresses. We called them the Queens of the Night because some of them were—”

  “Oh, look,” interrupted Miron. “Here’s a book from Marie-Antoinette about the legends of Belley. Why don’t you read to the children from this, Marie.”

  Marie glared at Miron but took the book anyway. “Oh, this one sounds good,” she began. “The old folk of Belley tell tales of an enchanted lake. They say that at the bottom of this lake there was once an old convent and that on certain nights the lights of the convent still glimmer.”

  “Lights wouldn’t work under water,” Hans protested.

  “These are enchanted lights. And on certain windy days, the waves on the lake look like nuns’ wimples.”

  “What are wimples?” interrupted Senta.

  “You know, those things they wear on their heads. Now, do you want to hear this story, or not?”

  “Story, please,” several children said at once, nudging the interrupters.

  “All right, then. It says here that on very silent nights, if a person listens closely the sound of chapel bells ripple up from below the surface of the water.”

  Marie looked up sharply, but though several tongues were bitten the children remained silent.