“Many of my friends were Jewish. Nobody cared what religion someone was. Sometimes I went to synagogue with my friends. Sometimes they went to church with me. It was all fun. I knew all the Hebrew blessings for Shabbat and I remember I thought for years that the blessing for the bread ended with Minnie Horowitz.”
She looked at Nora, her voice tinged with amusement, as she explained the phonetic misunderstanding of a child. “One has to laugh.”
Nora listened with fascination as she made her notes, glad that she was also recording. There was much she would have missed as Marie-Louise’s voice filled with vivid emotion recalling her daily life. She shared rich descriptions of the shops, bakeries, traditions, and the general culture that had endured to various degrees in spite of the war.
“I and most of my friends went to the public school, Hospitaliers St. Gervais. Monsieur Joseph Migneret was the principal. I can still see him so clearly and sometimes I think I hear his voice. He was loved by everyone and all of us kids loved going to school.”
Her eyes darkened and her voice often broke as she described how life changed once France surrendered to Germany.
“The Nazis ordered Jewish students to be expelled from our school, but Monsieur Migneret refused to do it. We did not know this until after the liberation, but he hid some Jewish families and arranged for forged documents so others could escape. After the shocking roundup of most Jews, the Val d’Hiv in 1942, there were very few students left at our school. I was one.”
Nora asked if her principal had been arrested. “Non, amazingly enough he was allowed to keep the school operating even with a bare minimum of pupils. I don’t know to this day how he was not caught for his clandestine activities. He was incredibly brave, and he helped us to be brave. He is honored forever now as Righteous Among the Nations.”
Marie-Louise spoke much longer than Nora expected. Giselle had definitely been correct in her assumption about her aunt having an important story to share. Nora would text her an update.
Nora made a note to visit the Memorial de la Shoah in the Marais, the national museum honoring the memory of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust as well as those who risked their lives to save others.
Marie-Louise continued. “I did not understand why Jewish people were treated so inhumanely. We were all kids together, families, friends.My parents became involved with the Resistance and some of us kids did too. We had to keep secrets.”
She stopped and closed her eyes, as if allowing herself to be carried back to those terrible times.
“Some of us children became couriers, runners, agents de liaison. Delivering messages, forged papers, although we did not know what we were taking with us. We could sneak around, and we learned how not to get caught.
“The Germans tried to be friends with kids. But they took away my Jewish friends and their families. We didn’t know why or where they were going. We hated the Germans.”
Nora could see that Marie-Louise was becoming upset and emotional.
“Perhaps we should stop for today. You have shared so much information and feelings. Why don’t we continue another day?”
Marie-Louise took Nora’s hand. “Please, could we meet every day? You have opened something inside me, and I want to get it all out.”
“Whatever you wish. You have helped me realize I want to do this as much as you do, and I feel honored as I listen to you.”
* * *
After dinner, Nora went back into the studio going over her notes and transcribing recordings. The more she wrote, the more she was aware it was going to be a long process. To honor the story Marie-Louise was sharing with her meant additional hours doing research and looking at photos online and in museums.
The project was turning out to be much more detailed than either woman imagined. Both of them expressed satisfaction that the story was coming alive. Marie-Louise’s memory seemed to become clearer the more her story unfolded.
ChapterSixteen
Nora’s weektook on a daily routine of early morning sessions with Marie-Louise, followed by transcribing notes into a rough draft. Once Marie-Louise got on a roll with her reminiscences, she didn’t want to stop. Both women shed tears as they were immersed in the past horrors of the Occupation.
Nora felt compelled to put her thoughts into her rough draft after every conversation. She was caught up in the brutal emotions of the memories Marie-Louise shared. The words insisted on being seen, and Nora didn’t want to risk losing any of it by delaying her writing.
Some afternoons, Nora explored the parts of the Marais Marie-Louise spoke of. She wanted to absorb the atmosphere.
One afternoon, she left Atticus at home and approached the Pletzl neighborhood with trepidation. Vivid memories were stirred as her imagination took her back to the days of the war as Marie-Louise described them.
She read from her research that in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews had fled persecution and settled in the Pletzl part of Paris, where there had been a Jewish presence since the 1300s.
Nora wandered the narrow streets. She discovered a thriving community of synagogues, kosher shops, bakeries, and schools. Conversation and children’s laughter could be heard everywhere.
She tried to picture it without the modern shops that had slowly crept in among the others after the war. Still, the streets offered a rich tapestry of Jewish life. After stopping for a bagel and coffee, she wandered over to the nearby Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme.
There she found a solid source of information on how the Jewish quarter was a focal point of German persecution and, despite the dangers, clandestine resistance.
Groups of residents, including children, as Marie-Louise had told Nora, were involved in intelligence gathering, sabotage, and hiding individuals and families. They were known among themselves as “les poches de résistances”—pockets of resistance. Marie-Louise’s mother had been very involved, particularly in creating and distributing printed materials. Her father had joined the Maquis in the countryside and seemingly disappeared.
