Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead

by Julia Navarro

  She told these men what Armando had told her to say, words that meant nothing to her but had all the meaning in the world for them.

  From that day on, Dalida worked with David Peretz’s group and also with Armando’s. She won the respect of the other men and women who, like her, were risking their lives in this occupied Paris that seemed on the surface to be such a happy place.

  Armando’s lieutenant, a tall bearish Alsatian whom everyone called Raymond, taught her two things: how to use the radio that connected them with London, and how to prepare explosives. She was a good student.

  It was not easy to transmit the Resistance’s messages. She kept the radio in her room, afraid that at any moment they could find it. Raymond had told her not to speak for too long, to make it difficult for the Gestapo to track the signal. She never forgot this advice, and sometimes even broke off a message so as not to put the group or herself in any danger.

  From time to time, Katia went to Madrid and from Madrid to Lisbon, where she would meet her brother and tell him detailed information about Nazi troop positions in Paris, and would also receive a sealed envelope containing instructions from the British Intelligence Service for its contacts with the Resistance in Paris. Also, Konstantin would ask her to come back to London. But she would refuse.

  “I am in love, Konstantin. Can’t you understand that? Do you think that I would abandon Samuel? I would go with him to hell itself.”

  “Katia, the war will finish one day and crazy old Samuel will come back to London to be with you. You must agree that neither he nor I are of an age where it makes sense to run around playing at being spies. I’m not running any risk at all in coming to see you in Lisbon every now and then and in bringing you certain information from London, but I can’t sleep when I think about the risks you’re taking.”

  “Konstantin, I’m in love with Samuel, and have been ever since I was a little girl. I rejected every suitor I ever had, you remember how cross grandfather got because I refused to marry anyone. When I thought that I was done for, I met him again, and you know the sacrifices he made to be with me. He gave up everything he’s ever had, his wife, his son, and you expect me to leave him in Paris risking his life while I wait for the war to be over from the safety of London . . . No, Konstantin, not even all the divisions of the Wehrmacht will be enough to keep us apart.”

  “At least send Dalida back, she’ll be safer in London.”

  “You wouldn’t recognize her. Dalida has become a woman now and is only responsible for herself. Samuel is worried because she is ever more involved with Armando’s group. She helped blow up some trains near Paris last week. She seems to have learned how to deal with explosives. The other day I asked her if she was scared, and you know what she said? ‘I am only afraid that we might lose the war and then the Nazis would take over Europe. That is what scares me.’”

  Gustav paused and Vera offered him a cup of tea. Then he carried on with the story.

  Ezekiel, have you ever heard of the “Rafle du Vel’ d’Hiv”? It was a roundup where they arrested hundreds of Jews, on July 16 and 17, 1942. They locked them in the Vélodrome d’Hiver, which is where the name comes from. The worst part is not what they suffered there, but what they were to suffer later. Lots of them were taken to Germany, to different extermination camps. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

  The French had received an order from their German masters—they had to carry out a massive roundup of Jews, and it was an order they executed without complaint. It was not difficult for them, all the Jews were registered, so the police knew where to find them. On the morning of July 16 thousands of policemen presented themselves at Jewish homes. They took twelve thousand people to the Vélodrome, including women and children.

  Some of them managed to escape; others, who were already with the Resistance, managed to avoid being arrested because they, like Samuel and Dalida, had left their families behind and gone undercover.

  Some of those arrested were taken to the Vélodrome, others to Drancy, a camp to the north of Paris, others to Pithiviers, to Beaune-la-Rolande . . .

  Some families were separated. The children were taken one way, the parents another. Lots of the children were sent directly to Auschwitz, where they were killed in the gas chambers on the day they arrived.

  Remember these names, Ezekiel, never forget them, they are the names of three officers of the SS, three murderers: Alois Brunner, Theodor Dannecker, and Heinz Röthke. Alois Brunner would later on become the camp commandant at Drancy.

  Your father and your sister survived the roundup and they, along with the rest of their group, suffered from not being able to do anything. It became an obsession for Samuel to try to get the Jewish children whom he found hidden in friends’ houses out of France. David Peretz and he found a group of ten of them. I have told you that my father never said how Samuel managed to get in touch with him, but I know that he received word that Samuel was going to try to take these children out of Paris. Samuel asked my father to do all that was necessary to pick them up in Gibraltar or Lisbon and take them to Palestine, or anywhere else they would be safe. Difficult as Samuel’s instructions were, my father always followed them. It was not easy to organize the necessary material and permissions to get these ten Jewish children to Palestine. You have fought alongside the British, and so have I, you know that on the battlefield their bravery is beyond question, but they defend their interests above everything else, and it had been their policy for years to stop more Jews from immigrating to Palestine. They didn’t want to open more fronts in the war, and not for anything would they annoy the Palestinian Arabs.

  Pedro and Vasily made false documents for these children. Katia had the idea of using nuns, the Sisters of Charity, to help. Katia had heard that these nuns took in orphans, and asked for their assistance. She went to the convent and asked to speak to the mother superior, but she wasn’t there, so she met with Sister Marie-Madeleine, who was no older than forty and whom acquaintances said made much of her bad temper.

  Katia didn’t beat around the bush. She explained the situation to Sister Marie-Madeleine directly.

  “Some friends have managed to save ten Jewish children. Their parents were taken to the Vélodrome d’Hiver . . . We want to save them and to do that we have to take them to Spain, and from Spain to Lisbon or Gibraltar. But we need them to be safe until we can set them on their journey. Can you give them shelter here?”

  Sister Marie-Madeleine huffed and puffed and said something that Katia didn’t catch, then she looked her straight in the face and said, without smiling:

  “I don’t know what to say to the mother superior. She has gone with another sister to look after some poor old people near Paris. She won’t be coming back until tomorrow. If you bring the children today, then she won’t be able to refuse them. When she gets back it will be a fait accompli.”

  “If she didn’t agree, would she throw the children out?”

  “I’ve said already that she wouldn’t. But you have to understand that we put the others we have here in danger if we take in these children. What would happen to these orphans without us? Tell me, how long will they stay here?”

  “I don’t know, Sister, a few days, but I can’t tell you how many, we’ll try to make their stay as short as possible.”

  “How old are they?”

  “The youngest is four and the oldest is twelve.”

  “May God aid us and protect us!”

  “Amen, Sister.”

  That afternoon the members of the network took the children to the convent. They had told the younger ones not to cry, and in spite of their sad faces and trembling lips they all behaved like what they were, survivors.

  Some of the sisters were scared and unwilling, they had enough to do with looking after their own orphans, but Sister Marie-Madeleine was inflexible:

  “Are we going to deny Christ by denying help to these po
or mites? Of course it’s dangerous, but are we going to be afraid for our own well-being, we, the brides of Christ who died on the cross?”

  The mother superior scolded Sister Marie-Madeleine for having exceeded her authority, but she was a good woman and, in spite of her fears, she welcomed the children.

  Sister Marie-Madeleine convinced the mother superior to allow her to go with the children to the border. They would go by train. Their excuse would be that they were children who were suffering from tuberculosis and that thanks to the generosity of Countess Katia Goldanski they were going on holiday in the south, by the sea. The presence of a nun would give credence to this improvised plan.

  Dalida convinced Armando that his network should pick up the children when they reached the border. Armando was unwilling at first, he didn’t want to put his men in any danger, but in the end he gave in and promised that some of his men would take the children across the border. Once there they would have to be passed into the hands of Samuel and David Peretz’s organization. It was decided that they would go to Perpignan and then to the border, and that once they had crossed the border they would go to Barcelona, where there was an organization that helped with refugee children. It wasn’t easy to cross the border, they would have to use smugglers’ paths.

  The day they started the journey the children were scared, but they hadn’t stopped being scared since the day they were taken away from their fathers and mothers and brought to different houses and then to that convent where strange women insisted that they learn the Our Father and the Ave Maria. The nuns did not want to convert them to Catholicism; Sister Marie-Madeleine wanted them to be able to pass as Christians in case they were stopped.

  They had decided that the presence of a man would arouse suspicion, and so, in spite of his doubts, Samuel accepted this and said goodbye to Dalida and Katia without knowing if this would be the last time he would ever see them.

  Sister Marie-Madeleine had a very commanding voice. She could make the children fall quiet simply by looking at them. She was a nun with a natural air of authority, which was more necessary than ever for them in those days.

  On the platform the police asked for their documentation. The nun explained to one of the policemen that the journey was possible thanks to the generosity of this charitable lady. Katia smiled indifferently, as if this were simply an innocent journey. Dalida pretended to be the countess’s servant.

  Just as the police seemed to be satisfied with the explanations that Sister Marie-Madeleine had given them, two Gestapo agents came up and asked for the documentation of the women and the children.

  “I suppose that the Third Reich has nothing to fear from a group of poor orphans,” the nun said to the two severe-looking men.

  “It is traitors who should fear the Third Reich. Are you a traitor, Sister?” The Gestapo agent looked haughtily at the nun.

  “I am a nun who is looking after these poor sick children. They have tuberculosis, here is the documentation that shows it. We are taking them to the south so they don’t infect any of the other children in the convent. The countess is very generous and has paid for everybody’s tickets. The Lord will reward her.”

  That day the Lord came down on the side of the poor orphans. Of course, thousands of others died in the gas chambers without him making his presence felt. The Gestapo agent allowed them to get on the train.

  Katia and Dalida gave the children sandwiches.

  “You have to eat and then you should try to get some sleep. It’s a long journey down to the border and I want you to be quiet,” Sister Marie-Madeleine warned the children. They listened to her in fright. In spite of their youth, they were aware that their lives were at stake.

  The train stopped at several stations and they had their documents checked at every one by the French police and the Gestapo. But it was in Perpignan, when they were just about to leave the station, that four Gestapo agents came and stood next to them and asked for their papers. One of the men went up to Dalida and said: “I can smell Jews.” Dalida shuddered and gave him her false documents.

  “So you are an expatriate Russian. Ivanova, that’s your name?”

  “Yes,” Dalida managed to reply.

  “She’s my companion . . . I am Countess Katia Goldanski,” Katia interrupted.

  “Ah, so the young lady is your companion! Can you assure me that she’s not Jewish?”

  “For God’s sake, it’s clear that she’s not! Also, do you think that I would be so stupid as to employ a Jew?” Katia behaved with all the old aristocratic haughtiness that she could muster.

  Sister Marie-Madeleine stood next to Katia.

  “Sir, the countess has taken pity on these poor orphans who are suffering from tuberculosis, and thanks to her kindness we are taking them to recover a long way from the city. I can swear to you that Madame Ivanova is not Jewish, do you think that we Christians want to have anything to do with the descendants of the killers of Christ? The Lord would not allow it! I ask you, sirs, please let us continue, the children are tired after so much traveling, they are little and need to eat and sleep.”

  The Gestapo agents looked at the faces of the children, who stared back without saying anything.

  They let them go. They walked slowly, as if they had nothing to hide and nothing to fear.

  “Sister, what you have just said to this Gestapo agent has been the perennial excuse for why the Jews have been persecuted—for having killed Christ. All those who ordered the massacres, the pogroms throughout Europe, their consciences were clear because they claimed that the Jews crucified Christ.” Dalida spoke in a low voice, but it was clear that the nun’s words had shaken her.

  “You think I don’t know that? That’s why I said it. What other explanation could convince those men that this was not a group of Jews? I’m sorry to have offended you,” Sister Marie-Madeleine apologized.

  “I’m not offended, it’s just that it’s a terrible thing to accuse the Jews of being the cause of Christ’s crucifixion,” Dalida replied.

  “I do not excuse in any way the persecutions or the murders that have taken place over the years with Jesus’s death as an excuse. Our Lord was a Jew and never pretended to be anything else, so how could I blame the Jews?”

  “The church will have to ask our pardon one day,” Dalida said bitterly. She, being Palestinian, had never experienced discrimination in all her life, but she was starting to realize that being a Jew in Europe meant sinking into some subhuman category of being.

  “If it’s of any use I will gladly ask for forgiveness, for all the sins we have committed against the Jews.”

  The three women said nothing more. The older children had not missed a word of the conversation, and their faces showed how it worried them.

  Armando had given them clear instructions; when they left the station they were to turn to the right and walk for half a mile, then someone would come up to them and use the phrase: “Some journeys are endless.”

  They had walked for longer than expected when a truck pulled up next to them and the driver stuck his head out and used the agreed-upon phrase. In less than a minute all the children were on board, and though they could barely move they felt that they were safe.

  They left the city without the driver saying anything about where they were going. In the end they arrived at a house hidden in the undergrowth around the border. A small, fat woman was waiting for them. She seemed worried.

  “The children should come straight into the house without anyone seeing. No one comes by here, but it’s better if they are not seen.”

  The house was modest, it had two floors and the lower one was occupied by an enormous kitchen, which also served as a salon and a dining room. The roaring fire warmed them, as did the mugs of milk and slices of bread the woman had prepared.

  “It’s not much, but at least they’ll have something in their stomachs.”

 
She was named Ivette and had been married to a Jew.

  “My husband died before the war broke out. I don’t want to think about what might have happened if he had lived . . . These people took all the Jews to Germany; they said to labor camps . . . But they also said that . . . Well, I won’t say anything, I don’t want the children to get scared.”

  Ivette had two daughters who were now both in Spain.

  “I had to convince them to cross the border. It’s not the case that Franco likes the Jews, but at least he doesn’t kill them or force them to have the Star of David sewn onto their lapels. Every now and then I go to Spain to see them, but I don’t let them come home.”

  Night had fallen by the time another truck came to pick them up. The man who drove it called himself Jean, and was with another, younger man, who said his name was François. They explained that they would drive to Les Angles, and that from there, via secret paths, they would get across to Puigcerdà. Ivette would go with them.

  The children were exhausted, but Sister Marie-Madeleine had such control over them that they didn’t dare cry. They got into the truck as best they could, with a blanket over them to keep them warm and also to protect them from prying eyes.

  Jean drove with his headlights off along little-used paths, far from the main road. They took longer than they had thought and it was nearly dawn by the time they reached Les Angles. The village was small and the inhabitants had not yet woken up.

  “From here we’ll walk across the border. It won’t be easy. The nearest village is Puigcerdà, but we cannot go directly, we have to try climbing the mountain. Do you think the children will manage?”