The Paris Children : A Novel (2020)

by Goldreich, Gloria

  She turned to their mother.

  “Frau Hofberg. It is not charity we offer but assistance. The Jewish community is one family, and families always help each other. And so the French Jewish kehillah wishes to help you as you would surely help us if our situations were reversed,” she said, impulsively drawing Anna close and patting her head.

  The gesture was not lost on Anna’s mother. Her expression softened. She sat on the sofa and motioned Madeleine to a seat beside her.

  “Of course. In Germany, before the bad times came, our family always did what we could for those in the community who needed help,” she said.

  “I am certain of that,” Madeleine assured her. “Then you surely understand why I am here. May I ask you how and why you came to Paris?”

  She knew the answer, but the details would have to be included in her report. She took no notes but listened as the weary woman sighed and spoke very softly, her every word awash in sadness. “The Hofberg name is not unknown in Berlin. My husband’s family lived there for generations. We owned a prosperous upholstery business with many employees, both Jewish and non-Jewish. My husband is a veteran of the German army and was awarded the Iron Cross for his valor in the Great War. Our life was pleasant until Hitler came into power.

  “Everything changed in that time of darkness. All pleasure and ease vanished from our lives. Gentile friends and neighbors shunned us. Samuel and David, like all Jewish children, were expelled from school and were terrorized by gangs of Hitlerjugend. Swastikas were painted on the windows of our emporium. We washed them away. We were determined to be patient and wait for the season of hatred to pass. We were sure that we were safe, that things would soon get better. We placed my husband’s Iron Cross in the front window of our home on Goethestrasse. Could cruelty and danger come to a street named for Goethe?”

  She laughed bitterly and continued.

  “Then came ‘the night of breaking glass,’ Kristallnacht. The plate-glass windows of our store were shattered, the merchandise looted. We hid in the basement of our home and saw the shards of glass from the front window fall in a gleaming shower onto the pavement of Goethestrasse. The Iron Cross was plucked from its red velvet casing, the case itself tossed onto the street. My son David rushed out and picked it up, muddied as it was, and a man with a swastika armband chased him, shouting, ‘Tomorrow will be worse. Tomorrow every Jew will be dead and our Germany will be judenrein, free of Jews.’ We did not wait for that tomorrow. We left for Paris that very night.

  “We dared not go to the bank to withdraw our money. We took only what we could fit into our rucksacks and valises. I sewed my jewelry into the hems of our coats. What money we had in the house, we used for train tickets, and here in Paris, we sold the jewelry to pay the rent, to buy food. But I did snatch up a small crystal vase that had belonged to my mother and thrust it into my bag. I buy a flower every morning and place it in the vase. A foolish luxury, I suppose, but a rose costs only a centime and it reminds me of the life that was lost to us. It reminds me that there is beauty in the world. We have only a few pieces of jewelry left so I buy very little food. You are right. Our children are hungry. And too soon, yes, they will be ill. I am a mother who must watch her children go to bed hungry. I am a mother who fears for their lives.”

  “Your children will no longer be hungry, Frau Hofberg. And they will not fall ill,” Madeleine responded. “I do not think you are foolish. I think you and your husband were very brave to save your children’s lives.”

  She opened her briefcase and withdrew a wad of vouchers from the Federation of Jewish Societies.

  “You can buy food with these in the large market on the rue des Rosiers. The kosher butcher and the greengrocer on the corner will also accept them, and I will give you others when you need them. My grandmother and my mother will visit you and bring you whatever clothing you may need for the children. The Jewish Federation will help find employment for your husband. This is what we Jews do for our families, for those in need. You would do as much for us, would you not?”

  Tears of gratitude silvered Frau Hofberg’s cheeks.

  “This is the first kindness we have known since Kristallnacht,” she murmured.

  Madeleine nodded.

  She knew about the night of breaking glass.

  She had attended a rally at which her uncle Pierre had delivered a speech condemning the Nazi regime for its destruction of Jewish property, its assault on Jewish life. His passionate denunciation had been interrupted by outbursts of anti-Semitic rhetoric from a band of hoodlums, but Pierre had persisted. His reward had been a brave editorial in the widely read newspaper Ordre with the headline that read: “The Son of Captain Alfred Dreyfus Strongly Condemns Nazi Persecution.”

  Who in France would speak out against German cruelty when her uncle left for America? Madeleine wondered.

  Heavyhearted, she glanced at her watch. She did not want to be late for that evening’s meeting of the Jewish Scouts.

  “May I offer you a glass of water, mademoiselle?” asked David, the elder of the two Hofberg brothers.

  Even as Madeleine nodded her assent, an idea came to her.

  “Frau Hofberg, perhaps your sons may accompany me when I leave here. I am going to a meeting of Les Éclaireurs Israélites, the Jewish Scouts. Perhaps you have heard of them.”

  It was David who replied.

  “Of course we know about them. Samuel and I were members of the Blau-Weiss, the Jewish Scouts of Germany,” he said proudly.

  Frau Hofberg hesitated.

  “I do not know if it will be safe for them to go. My sons have no documents. I do not want them to get into trouble if they are stopped by gendarmes. In Berlin the Jewish Scouts met in secret, but even so, many of them were arrested and sent to concentration camps.”

  “There are no concentration camps in France,” Madeleine assured her. “There will be no difficulty. Gendarmes in Paris do not challenge young boys. I myself am a Jewish Scout and so are my younger brothers. Here in Paris, we have no need to meet in secret. We are simply young people who want to learn more about our Jewish heritage and the wonderful world of nature. We go on hikes and outings. We sing, we dance. There are groups of Jewish scouts throughout France—in Lyon, in Marseille, in Toulouse. There were even troops of scouts in Alsace. But, of course, that was before.”

  Before. She uttered the word in a regretful whisper. It did not have to be explained. Frau Hofberg understood that their world was divided into before and after. Before the rise of Hitler. After his reign of terror began.

  Madeleine herself would always remember the happy days of before when she and Claude had visited Mulhouse on a trip with a group of scout leaders. It had been exciting to be in the village that had once been home to both their families. They had stolen away from their group and climbed the pear tree that had so often sheltered each of them in their separate childhoods. Seated on the thick-leafed branches, looking down on the sylvan scene so distant from a Paris newly haunted by the fear of war, she had turned to Claude. Hesitantly, she asked a question so simple that it caused her to blush at her own ignorance.

  “Is this happiness, Claude? You and I sitting in a tree with sunlight on our faces?”

  How tremulous her voice, how gentle his response.

  “Yes. I think it must be,” he had replied and twirled a tendril of her dark hair about his finger.

  Neither of them had spoken of the dark foreboding, their unacknowledged fear that these few hours might be all the happiness they would ever know.

  Madeleine sighed and turned her attention back to the young Hofbergs.

  “Please, Mama. We should like to go.”

  They spoke in unison, and Anna flung herself onto her mother’s lap.

  “Me too. I want to be a scout. I want to sing and dance,” she pleaded.

  They all smiled, a sunburst of pleasure.

  �
�Anna, tonight’s meeting is for older scouts, but I will take you to a meeting of children your own age next week if your mother allows it,” Madeleine assured her.

  Frau Hofberg nodded, patting Anna’s head.

  “This meeting—where will it take place?” she asked.

  “At the small synagogue on the corner of rue des Rosiers. We will be giving out apples and cheese. Your boys will be able to bring some home. And tonight we have a speaker from Germany, Leon Cohn.”

  “But Leon Cohn was our Blau-Weiss leader. Remember the tricks with knots he taught us, Samuel?” David asked excitedly, and his brother nodded. A small piece of their abandoned boyhood had been restored to them.

  “Do not come home too late. Your father will be concerned,” Frau Hofberg said. She hugged her daughter.

  “Do not worry, Anna. Mademoiselle Levy will not forget you,” she whispered.

  “Of course I will remember you. I promised, didn’t I?”

  Madeleine smiled and watched as Anna removed her unlaced boots and passed them to Samuel. She noticed, for the first time, that he was barefoot. She studied his feet, estimated his shoe size. She would have to tell her mother to scavenge a pair of boots in his size.

  She stood and knotted her new crimson scarf about her neck, her grandmother’s lovingly crafted gift reminding her that it was, after all, her birthday. She smiled to think of all that had transpired on this first day of her twentieth year—her certification, her intervention in the lives of the Hofberg family, and small Anna’s trusting smile gifting her with the assurance that the profession she had chosen was important and meaningful, that she, Madeleine Levy, had the power to lighten the lives of others. And the day had not yet ended. She wondered if Claude had thought to buy her a gift and chastised herself for the selfishness of the thought.

  “We must hurry,” she told the boys.

  She did not want to be late. She did not want Claude to worry about her. She thrilled at the idea that, of course, he would worry. She smiled and checked her briefcase to make sure that the embossed document of her certification as an assistante sociale was safe within its folder.

  Three

  The basement meeting room of the small synagogue was crowded, but Claude stood in the doorway and led Madeleine and the Hofberg brothers to the seats in the front row that he had saved. He knew that she preferred to sit close to the speakers so that she could be assured of hearing every word.

  Madeleine introduced the boys and directed them to the long trestle table spread with platters of apples and cheese. She proudly whispered her news to Claude.

  “I was awarded my certification document today.”

  He grinned.

  “Wonderful. You earned it in record time.”

  “Only because I took courses and did fieldwork during the summers. Just as you have done. It is as though we are racing against history.”

  “Let us hope that it is a race we will win,” Claude replied.

  She nodded and reflected that it would be wonderful if they could simply allow their lives to proceed at an easy pace. What would it be like to have the luxury of leisure and the carefree pleasures of sunlit days and star-spangled nights? She sighed. Perhaps they would know such luxury, such pleasure, when Hitler was vanquished and the fear they lived in was gone from their lives. Perhaps next month, perhaps next year. Perhaps never. The unbidden thought thudded against Madeleine’s heart.

  As though aware of the darkness of her imagining, Claude took her hand in his. He understood her all too well. He knew that if war engulfed Paris, now more a probability than a possibility, the Sorbonne would close and the university degree that he had struggled toward for so long would be forfeit. He shuddered as the daily news bulletins grew increasingly ominous. Hitler had appointed himself war minister, bellowing new threats even as Germany occupied the Sudetenland. Of course France was in his sights. That certainty invigorated Claude and intensified his determination. There was so much to do, so much that needed his energy, his commitment.

  He smiled at Madeleine.

  “I have not forgotten that it is your birthday. Let us celebrate in our own small way after this meeting.”

  “Celebrate?” she asked, startled.

  The very word, uttered in this room, at this time, had an alien ring. Celebrations belonged to a world at peace.

  “Yes. Celebrate,” Claude repeated. “Carpe diem. Seize the day.”

  She smiled. It was an expression Simone and Anatol had used when they had insisted on marrying despite their youth and the uncertainty of a future that portended more threat than promise.

  “Now is the time when we must have the courage to seize the day,” Simone had declared, and she and Anatol had indeed seized the day. They had been breathless with joy at their wedding, exuberant at the birth of their daughter. But Anatol’s devastating illness now punctured that defiant optimism. Poor Simone. Poor Anatol. It was with a heavy heart that Madeleine motioned the Hofberg brothers to the seat beside her and noticed that they shared only one apple and one slice of cheese. She understood that they were saving the other one for their sister. That small act of kindness caused her eyes to burn with unshed tears.

  Her brothers, Jean Louis and Etienne, joined her, and she introduced them to Samuel and David.

  “Jean Louis is studying medicine,” she told them. “He will be a doctor like our father.”

  “I was preparing for the medical school examination in Berlin,” David said. “Until the Nazis expelled all Jewish students from the Gymnasia.”

  “Then you might think of studying here,” Jean Louis suggested. “I will help you.”

  “Perhaps.”

  David’s reply was hesitant, and Madeleine understood that he would not allow himself the luxury of hope. Jean Louis had persisted in his studies despite the fact that as the threat from Germany mobilization grew stronger, the French government was calling up its own reservists. Her brother might soon have to exchange the white coat of healing for the gray army uniform of death. Her heart sank and she drew closer to Claude. Would he too be called up, Claude, her friend, her heart’s companion?

  New arrivals continued to pour into the room.

  “I’ve never seen a meeting so crowded,” she whispered.

  “That is because Robert Gamzon, the founder of the Éclaireurs Israélites, as well as Leo Cohn, the leader of our German comrades, will be speaking. Tonight may well decide the future of the Jewish Scout program throughout Europe. Our movement will have to prepare for new challenges,” Claude said, all lightness gone from his voice.

  He stared straight ahead. Madeleine shivered, frightened by the unusual somber mood that had so suddenly fallen upon him. What knowledge did he have that she was denied? she wondered. Why this new pessimism in his tone? He had often told her that their generation would confront extraordinary challenges, but they would meet them with courage because they had youth and idealism on their side.

  She had been less sanguine, more fearful. Did Claude now share her own premonitions of a hovering disaster? She thought not. She was conditioning herself to show courage but he had been born to bravery. Still, she noted the sadness that shadowed his angular face as the conversation subsided into silence.

  A tall, thin man strode up to the podium, Robert Gamzon, the founder of the French Jewish Scout movement, les éclaireurs. History had already claimed him. He was a communications officer in the French army, and while he wore that uniform, his neckerchief was the blue-and-white bandanna of the Jewish Scouts. He greeted his young audience with a casual wave of his hand and an engaging smile.

  “Shalom,” he said. “Shalom, chaverim, amis. Welcome friends. Welcome comrades.”

  They responded with enthusiastic applause and vigorous cheering.

  “Shalom, Robert Gamzon,” they shouted. “Shalom, chaver. Shalom, ami! Vive la France. Vive les Éclaireurs Israélites!”<
br />
  Madeleine, who had never before seen the legendary leader, studied his handsome, smiling face. She was suffused with admiration at the patience and control he emanated. He waved his hand rhythmically until silence was restored, and when he spoke, his voice resonated with conviction. She listened carefully, each word saturated with vitality and commitment. He was, she realized as he spoke, the ideological architect of her own future, a future dedicated to the saving of lives, the saving of children.

  “Dear friends,” he said. “We meet at a perilous time. The storm troopers of Nazi Germany are massed at our borders. We pray that they will not invade our beloved France, but we recognize that we, the Jewish youth of our brave République, must be prepared should the worst happen. We must have a plan to protect our children. We must fight for our country and for our people, especially for our little ones, too young, too weak to fight for themselves. We must demonstrate our solidarity with the brave pioneers who dream of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine, a refuge for all Jews everywhere but especially for our children who are our future. We have already established a transit camp in Algeria for endangered youngsters, but our work has just begun. Éclaireurs Israélites—Jewish Scouts of France—enfants de la patrie—are you ready to join us?”

  A thunderous chorus of affirmation answered his question.

  “Oui! Yes! We are ready. We stand with you,” they shouted.

  Robert Gamzon smiled yet again, his face aglow with pride. He waved them into silence and continued, his voice calmer now.

  “We will now hear the words of a brave leader of the Blau-Weiss, our brother Jewish scouts in Germany. He will share with you the sad happenings in his community. Let us welcome our courageous comrade Leo Cohn!”

  A man as tall as Robert Gamzon, his gaunt face wreathed in sadness, strode to the podium and again the room reverberated with applause. The scouts sprang to their feet and sang their welcome. They linked arms and swayed back and forth. Claude gripped Madeleine’s hand, and her heart beat wildly. Transfixed, Samuel and David Hofberg moved closer to the podium, the better to hear the man who had led their troop in Berlin. His magical appearance in Paris impressed upon them the intrinsic unity of all Jews.