climb up onto the train.
Paulette and Cécile are big girls, like me.
Suzanne is the smallest of our group, only two.
We wait and wait for the train to leave.
We watch other travelers say good-bye
to their loved ones.
No one says good-bye to us.
Suzanne, Cécile, Paulette, and I try not to cry.
But when at last the locomotive pulls out of the station
and the whistle wails mournfully,
little Suzanne does too.
The lady we are with puts an arm around her.
“Where are we going?” I ask the lady.
“To the Vendée,” she tells me.
I’ve never heard of this place.
“Is it far away?” I ask.
“How long will it take to get there?”
The lady glances around her.
Is anyone listening?
“No more questions,” she whispers.
“If the conductor comes, pretend you are asleep.”
I close my eyes.
The train rumbles along through endless suburbs.
We are leaving all we know behind.
How long will this go on?
Everything has changed since the war came.
A voice in my head repeats words I have heard,
“One thousand years of the Third Reich.”
Hitler and his mean soldiers are the Third Reich.
But what does “one thousand years” mean?
Someone once tried to explain it to me like this:
Imagine a person lives the longest possible life, a hundred years.
At the end of that time he has a grandchild,
and that grandchild lives a hundred years.
If that happens ten times over,
a thousand years will have gone by.
I’ll never see the end of the Third Reich.
My parents, Madame Marie and Monsieur Henri,
and my cousins won’t, either.
My friends and I will just ride and ride into a gray, dark tunnel.
We’ll never escape, not ever.
Soup, a Swing, and Another Secret
Our stomachs growl, louder and louder.
We’ve been on the train for hours,
with only a little bread and cheese to share.
But at last my friends and I arrive in Chavagnes-en-Paillers,
our new village in the Vendée.
Small houses encircle the church like a fallen halo.
The lady who came with us on the train
tells us we’re going to live in one of these houses,
with a blacksmith’s family.
We knock on a door.
A small woman lets us in.
She looks young, like a mother.
But she carries a cane like a grandmother.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
She takes us into her kitchen.
A pot of soup steams on the black iron stove.
I glance at it hopefully, but the woman says nothing.
A real grandmother knits nearby.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
The younger woman takes us into the garden,
to see pigeons in a dovecote.
A swing dangles beside it.
But then we march back across the kitchen,
past the steaming soup,
and up the stairs to a small bedroom.
The woman ushers us all inside and closes the door.
Even though it’s summer, I feel cold.
Is it because I’m so hungry?
I sit on my fingers to keep them warm.
At last the woman speaks.
“Listen carefully, children,” she says.
“I’m Madame Raffin.
I’m going to take care of you.
If you do everything I tell you to do,
you can eat the soup and play with the pigeons.
First of all, never, ever say that you are Jewish, no matter what!
I’m going to teach you to make the sign of the cross.
When you can do that and say two longer prayers by heart,
I will open the door.”
The sign of the cross?
What’s that?
Madame Raffin touches her forehead, her heart,
and each shoulder,
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,”
she says.
We copy her.
Is this praying?
I’ve never prayed before.
Madame shows us how to kneel and put our hands together
with our fingers pointing up.
“Our Father, who art in heaven,” we say after her,
the whole prayer, over and over.
Then, “Hail Mary, full of grace,” again and again.
I’m not sure what these words mean.
Madame Raffin says that’s not important, not right now.
We just need to remember these words.
That way people will think we’re Christians.
At last Madame Raffin is satisfied
that we know the prayers by heart,
that we won’t make a mistake.
She takes our hands and squeezes them for courage.
“Never forget that you are Christians,” she says.
“Your fathers are French soldiers taken prisoner.
Your mothers have jobs in Paris.
They sent you to live in my house
so that you’ll be well fed and safe.”
We promise.
I know it will be easy for me.
I am used to keeping secrets.
Madame Raffin opens the door.
Mmm … soup.
Odette and her foster family in Chavagnes-en-Paillers. Clockwise, from top left: Cécile Popowicz, Jacques Raffin, Paulette Klaper, Suzanne Klaper, Jean Raffin, and Odette, 1942
A New Life
For the rest of July and all of August,
we listen hard and speak little.
We watch everything.
We learn how to act
just like all the other village children.
Two brothers belong to our new family.
Jacques and Jean are the Raffins’ sons and our teachers.
At first, Cécile, Paulette, Suzanne, and I feel shy with them.
But the boys aren’t shy.
They show us how to hold the pigeons.
They tell us scary stories
about a ghost who lives at the bottom of the well.
We play hide-and-seek together in the garden.
They tease us and teach us riddles.
I’ve never had brothers and sisters before … it’s fun.
Madame Raffin asks us to pick green beans and tomatoes.
All summer long we twist vegetables from their stems.
She takes us mushroom picking in the forest too.
Sometimes Monsieur Raffin takes us fishing.
He teaches us the names of all the glittering fish
we scoop up in his net.
We have so many good things to eat,
I almost forget
what it felt like to be hungry in Paris,
to sleep with my fists screwed up tight under my stomach
to make it feel full.
We don’t have many toys,
but the grandfather of our house carves us whistles from reeds.
He shows us how to make toy pots and pans from acorns too.
Best of all,
we can go anywhere we like in our new village.
We can do anything anyone else can do.
No one knows that we’re Jews.
I climb trees
and walk along the tops of stone fences.
If I fall and tear my dress,
the grandmother in my new family mends it for me.
She would never think of sewing a yellow star on my dress.
I wonder if she’s ever even seen one.
Mon
sieur and Madame Raffin,
Jacques, Jean, and the grandparents,
Cécile, Paulette, and Suzanne …
these are the people in my new family.
When September comes,
Madame Raffin takes Cécile, Paulette, and me to school.
Suzanne wants to come too, but she is only two.
All the big girls in the village go to the convent school,
Madame Raffin explains.
“These children have been in a bombing,”
she tells the nun in charge.
“They may act strangely for a while.
Take no notice.”
But no one seems to think we act strangely.
By now, we behave just like all the other village children.
Someday I’ll tell Mama that she was right,
that I do feel safe here with my new family in the Vendée.
I wonder what she would say
if she knew that once in a while,
when I swing in the garden and look up at the sky,
I almost forget who I really am….
The photograph of Odette’s father that she kept throughout the war
Twilight
Children in the Vendée go to bed at twilight.
Twilight is not day or night.
It is the time between.
Cécile and I share one small room and a bed.
Every night Madame Raffin kisses us good night.
As soon as she closes the door,
Cécile and I go to the open window.
Cécile always sits on the left. I always sit on the right.
“Look,” Cécile says, gazing outside.
The sky is turning a deeper and deeper blue.
“Everything is so beautiful. And we’re alive.”
We thank God for our day.
“Tonight,” Cécile always says,
“a bomb could fall and we could die.
Let’s say good-bye to our parents.”
So far I have not heard of any bombs falling in the Vendée,
but Cécile cannot forget the ones in Paris.
To make her feel better,
I go along with what Cécile tells me to do.
I imagine my mother’s face.
It floats in the air just outside my window.
I tell her everything I have done that day, even the bad things.
I ask her to forgive me.
She does.
Then it’s my father’s turn.
My father’s face is always the one in the photograph
Madame Raffin put on our mantelpiece.
Papa never smiles.
I can’t feel his rough cheek or hear his voice.
I can’t see the brown or shine of his eyes.
He is barely real to me anymore.
Still, he is my father, so I talk to him.
When I am done, Cécile takes her turn.
While she talks to her parents,
I study the stone wall across from us.
In the fading light it looks safe and strong,
like the wall of a fort.
When Cécile’s parents have vanished
from outside our window,
Cécile closes the shutter.
Night enters our room.
We hug each other and say,
“If we die tonight, may we meet in heaven tomorrow.”
At last we climb into bed.
Cécile goes first, against the wall.
Then me, on the outside.
Time to sleep.
Sometimes when I open my eyes in the morning,
I’m not sure where I am.
In heaven already, maybe?
I make up a way to check.
If the chest of drawers is still across the room,
then I know I am in Chavagnes-en-Paillers, my new village.
No one knows what it’s like in heaven,
but I’m pretty sure there are no chests of drawers there.
Heaven
Every day in Chavagnes-en-Paillers brings new wonders.
I love to listen to Bible stories
and The Lives of the Saints at my school.
Our teachers tell us these stories are about real people,
good people who lived in other places and times,
not fairy-tale people.
Now all these real people are in heaven with God.
I hope I will meet them one day in heaven,
especially Saint Bernadette and Saint Terèse,
who are French like me.
But one day I learn that because I’m not baptized,
I can’t go to heaven.
How can that be?
I want to go to heaven too!
I run to the church to pray.
The quiet and peace there,
the smell of beeswax,
the flickering candles,
the light that shines through the colored windows …
all these things calm me.
Sometimes, alone with God in church,
I can talk to Him.
I tell God everything.
I thank Him for bringing me to the Vendée.
I tell Him I miss my mother, Madame Marie, and my cousins.
But I make sure He knows I don’t want to go back to Paris.
I’m just too afraid.
Then I ask God if I can go to heaven someday too.
One day when I’m at church an answer comes.
A peasant woman comes in.
She kneels in front of the altar of the Virgin Mary,
the mother of Jesus.
She talks to Mary out loud,
the way I talk to God in my heart.
She calls her “Madame Marie.”
Ah, so Mary has the same name as my godmother!
It’s my godmother’s job to protect me—she already has.
She knows so many things.
I’m sure she’ll know how to fix things with Mary,
and Mary will fix things with God.
That way I’ll be able to go to heaven too.
Far Away
Life seems so safe in the country.
But I know it isn’t, not really.
Many people in the Vendée are afraid of Jews.
They think Jews bring trouble.
If they knew who we really were,
they might tell the enemy soldiers about us.
That’s why we have to pretend to be Christians.
Mama, my half-remembered Papa,
Madame Marie, and Monsieur Henri, …
they are all so far away.
I try to remember our square.
I can barely see the face of The Thinker
or hear the splash of the fountain.
I know Sophie’s hiding in the country,
but I don’t know what happened to Sarah and Henriette,
to Charles, Serge, and Maurice.
Maybe they’ve gone away too.
Paris seems only a faraway word,
light as a goose feather.
Still, Madame Raffin makes us write letters there every week.
I always write the same thing to my mother:
I am in good health. I hope you are too.
Everyone here is nice. I do my homework.
If you come to visit, please bring Charlotte.
One day Madame Raffin tells me
my mother will come at Christmas …
I can’t wait to see her and my doll!
But what if she wants to take me back to Paris?
I don’t want to go!
The children here all play with me.
I have new brothers and sisters.
We always have as much good food to eat as we want,
and I can walk to school with my friends.
We can go anywhere we want.
We can explore the village
and the woods and streams
all by ourselves!
I know the reason I feel safe in the country.
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It’s because here,
I am not a Jew.
In Paris, I am a Jew.
I do want to see Mama,
but I don’t want to go back to Paris.
I don’t want to hide from bombs and scary soldiers.
I don’t want to wear a yellow star
and be attacked at school.
I don’t want to be afraid
all the time,
nearly every single minute.
I don’t want to live like that ever again!
Mama Comes
I count the days in December, and Mama comes at last.
Jews aren’t allowed to travel, so she took off her yellow star.
The train was crowded with Christmas travelers.
No one stopped her to find out if she was Jewish.
My mother’s coat,
the smell of her hair and her cologne,
her arms around me …
these things make everything else around me disappear.
I want to show Mama my new village.
“Not yet,” she says.
“First I must talk to the Raffin family.
Go outside and play for a while.”
“But Mama, did you bring Charlotte?” I ask.
She opens her small suitcase and out comes my doll.
She still wears the very dress knitted by Mama’s hands,
and the apron I made with my godmother.
I hug Charlotte.
How I have missed her!
I take her outside on the swing.
Together we fly high into the sky.
At last, Mama comes out of the house.
She’s looping her silk scarf around her neck,
her chin high, her face shining.
Now I remember, that’s how she looks when she is happy!
At last it’s time to take Mama to see what I love most …
the Christmas crèche in the church.
“Look, here’s the Baby Jesus and his mother and father
and the ox and donkey.
The animals breathe on the baby to keep him warm.”
The statues are almost as big as real people.
Mary gazes with loving eyes at her baby.
He holds out his arms and smiles at all the world.
I wish I could pick him up and hug him,
kiss his fat pink cheeks.
But Mama looks at it all, then looks away.
I’ve made a terrible mistake!
How could I forget she doesn’t like things like this?
Odette's Secrets Page 5