by Paige Bowers
The judges and attorneys were surprised by some of the criticism they got in the French press. Tillion said France had proven faithful to its wartime alliances throughout the process, but the cost was its ability to say all that it thought about the trial. There weren’t enough people to testify for all the people who had been accused. Some of the accused had no one to testify against them at all. On the other hand some of the accused were condemned to death based on their own testimony. The outcome wasn’t due to bad intentions, Tillion concluded. There was just not enough testimony there. For the survivors, she wrote, there was “realization that we are alone in the world to do anything. That’s the price we pay. We are living, too bad for us.”
Shortly after the first trial’s verdict, ADIR called on its membership to send in their written testimonies for the following trials. The goal was to make sure that the best evidence was brought against the next group of perpetrators so that they could be brought to the appropriate level of justice. Voix et Visages published a list of the accused, along with their trial numbers, so that the members could make their testimonies as specific as possible. ADIR encouraged its members to act quickly and to encourage their friends to do the same. Despite ADIR’s best efforts some of the camp workers were acquitted due to lack of evidence, and others received reduced sentences. Some were condemned to death. In April 1949 camp commandant Fritz Suhren and his second-in-command, Hans Pflaum, were found, rearrested, and forced to stand trial. Once again ADIR urged its members to submit their testimonies, and both men were condemned to death.
“At least French justice has accomplished its task with care and impartiality,” Geneviève wrote in Voix et Visages. “In the name of all our French and foreign comrades, we thank the magistrates.”
For ADIR the treatment of Dr. Herta Oberheuser was a little more troublesome. Oberheuser, who had prepared the Rabbits for surgery and killed ill prisoners with injections, was sentenced to twenty years in prison in 1947. Her sentence was reduced to ten years in 1951, and then in 1952 she was freed for good conduct. After her release she resumed work in a hospital before opening a medical practice of her own. Eight years later her medical license was revoked.
Anise couldn’t understand why it hadn’t happened sooner.
* * *
On April 8, 1947, Geneviève gave birth to her first child, a boy, Michel. Another son, François-Marie, followed on May 7, 1949. Her first and only daughter, Isabelle, arrived on September 19, 1950. Finally Philippe joined them on December 7, 1953.
“I was amazed to have children,” she recalled. “I wanted them to be happy, as happy as possible.” By all accounts they were, because their mother was determined to give them a joyful life. Geneviève’s friends from deportation became part of that existence. Germaine was Philippe’s godmother. Geneviève was godmother to Jacqueline’s first child, Violaine.
Although they weren’t aware of what had happened to their mother during the war, Geneviève’s children perceived early on that there was an uncommon warmth and tenderness that linked their mother to Germaine Tillion, Anise Postel-Vinay, and so many others who visited them at their home. The children reveled in the women’s humor and their stories, laughed at their banter, listened as they corrected and cajoled each other just as true sisters might.
Geneviève’s daughter, Isabelle, said that while her mother was not exactly a housewife, she wasn’t an absentee mother either. She was an active woman who worked with ADIR and raised her children without giving much thought as to how she’d juggle it all. For Geneviève this was less about feminism than it was about living a life that was true to her values and beliefs. She was devoted to her ADIR peers but devoted and very close to her children too, taking the time to talk to them, look over all their lessons, cook their favorite meals, and help them navigate their problems with good humor. Michel recalled a time when he was having trouble in school but brought home an excellent grade from catechism class one day. His mother looked at his work and laughed, “You see, you’re not bad at everything.” Her optimism was infectious. Anise used to go to her for help with her own children, and Geneviève would listen and console her.
She could make the most of anything. She and Bernard moved from a studio that Germaine Tillion had loaned them into an apartment on the Avenue Rapp. It was a prominent address, but at two hundred square feet, the apartment was too small for a family their size. Bernard’s mother slept on a sofa in the salon while the children shared a bedroom. There was no washing machine or refrigerator, and Geneviève cooked their family meals on a small gas stove that required her to move the gas pipe to the burner she intended to use.
“We had what we needed to live,” Geneviève recalled.
They went on occasional vacations, often staying in the Anthonioz home in southeastern France. On one vacation the family visited Venice, where they camped, ate frugal meals, and then took the long way home through Austria and Germany. Although finances could be tight, Geneviève didn’t want to deprive her children of experiences like these and didn’t let that keep her from entertaining prominent guests at her home. The writers André Malraux and Georges Bernanos and the artist Marc Chagall were often treated to the Anthoniozes’ hospitality. Geneviève would set an elegant table, arrange freshly cut flowers in a vase, and cook a refined dinner. No one thought twice about the large blocks of ice that sat melting in the bathtub in order to keep guests’ drinks cold.
Much of the talk around the dinner table centered on Charles de Gaulle’s push for a new French republic with a strong leader who could guarantee the nation’s independence. On April 14, 1947, he created the Rassemblement du peuple français (RPF) to prove that his political ideas had merit and were attractive to people from across the political spectrum.
After the RPF was officially founded, André Malraux penned a piece for General de Gaulle that ran in local papers. It read:
In the present situation, the future of the country and the destiny of each one of us is at stake. The nation must be guided by a coherent, orderly, concentrated state, capable of choosing and applying the measures required by public safety. The present system, in which rigid, opposed parties divide up power among themselves, must therefore be replaced by another, in which the executive power proceeds from the country and not from the parties, and in which each insoluble conflict is solved by the people itself.
Just as he had done on June 18, 1940, General de Gaulle beckoned to the French, asking them to join his cause for the good of the country, which was struggling under the weight of economic difficulty, housing shortages, and internal dissent. After his call to arms, the RPF gained one million adherents from across the political spectrum, among them Bernard and Geneviève Anthonioz, who believed that the movement was a continuation of the work they had begun in the resistance.
They were so committed to the movement that Bernard quit his job as an art editor to serve alongside André Malraux, who had become responsible for RPF propaganda. Geneviève began speaking at RPF rallies, spelling out why France should continue to fight for the resistance even in the postwar period. The membership called on her to run for office, but she refused each time. She didn’t want to do that type of work. It would keep her away from her children.
The work with ADIR was demanding enough. The group was providing so many services and so much aid to female deportees that it struggled to cover its costs. By late 1946 it had begun to raise its membership fees, yet its officers said that women who couldn’t afford the increase could still take part in activities. Disillusionment swept over the women as it seemed that the country did not appreciate their sacrifices and was eager to forget the women who had died in the camps.
“That is why ADIR was born,” an article in Voix et Visages reminded them. “It’s a reminder that fighting and suffering for France comes with a certain duty. It’s the duty to be more conscientious and useful to the national community than anyone else, and to forget our differences of opinion when it comes to serving the country or the caus
e of liberty and human dignity. It’s the duty to fight against lies and injustice and to fight so mankind could be happier. It’s also the duty to not allow the suffering and death of our friends to be forgotten.”
Ravensbrück survivor Michèle Moët-Agniel married a childhood sweetheart and moved away from Paris to Poitiers. After she gave birth to a son and returned to work as a teacher, Michèle’s husband died at the age of thirty-six, so she returned to Paris to be closer to her family. Her mother had also died by the time she returned to the city, so she began to network with other deportees. She met Anise Postel-Vinay through an elderly résistante (“and, bien sûr, when one is among deportees, one speaks of deportation despite ourselves . . . it is a virus”). Anise asked Michèle to work with her on researching female deportees. It was a massive project, sorting through the records to find out where women were sent, whether they survived, what they endured, and how they rebuilt their lives, but Michèle was up for the task.
Geneviève, Anise, and Michèle were among the core group of women who did what needed to be done in order to keep ADIR afloat. Finances continued to dwindle, and ADIR had to cut administrative costs by the beginning of 1948. The landlord of the large building near the Jardin du Luxembourg that had been their headquarters decided that he wanted them to move out so he could rent the apartments inside for more money. ADIR fought the move in court for a few years, but ultimately it was forced to give up floor after floor until it moved into another space. The battle forced it to cut back on the lodging it offered to some of its members.
With only two administrative workers on staff, things had become disorganized. There was a lag in addressing some of the various case files, and because of that Anise Postel-Vinay set up a service that tackled cases that couldn’t be ignored. The rest were referred to other agencies that could help them faster. Geneviève, as editor of Voix et Visages, was tasked with making the group’s bulletin a more accurate reflection of its postwar interests. One of the main concerns was money. The group was forced to close the canteen in their headquarters and raise membership fees once more because expenses were so great. ADIR held annual sales and raffles and started a Society for the Friends of ADIR, which would provide it with a permanent source of money. An outside accountant was brought in for budget oversight.
By 1951 the health and wellness of ADIR’s members had largely returned to normal and the group’s finances had improved, so the question was, what to do next? Geneviève suggested in an editorial that the membership should think about how much ADIR had given them and then contemplate what they could do for the group in return.
Anise, who was president, decided to take things in a different direction: she wanted to see ADIR take a stand on moral issues—namely, the Polish women who had been subjected to cruel, disfiguring experiments at Ravensbrück. Anise thought back to the camp and remembered how one prisoner, Nina, had given her medicine that was meant for infections in her legs. Anise had abscesses on her own legs at the time and was grateful for the young woman’s help, so she vowed to let the world know what those women had been through. After the war none of the so-called Rabbits had been able to return to work because of their injuries and illnesses, and they could hardly make ends meet. The women were also spread throughout the world with no access to disability benefits that other veterans might receive. Anise didn’t want to see these women struggle and led a fight to get them regular compensation from the German government.
As she appealed for help, Anise wrote the ADIR leadership to tell them about her efforts. She wrote the Red Cross and International Red Cross and was told they could do nothing for her. The Vatican, she said, was not much help either. The judicial counselor of the International Organization of Refugees also didn’t offer assistance. She added that she approached the War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, but they told her that while it was very sad, there was barely any means of reparation for women who had suffered as the Rabbits had. The German government in Bonn said that nothing could be done. But the Finance Ministry said it had never received such a request, so perhaps it could consider it in a future budget.
The door seemed to open.
“Ten years have passed since the first experiments on these women,” she wrote. “They’ve gone ten years without any resources at their disposal. It’s high time that after condemning these criminals, you indemnify these victims.”
After tirelessly working to gather as much information as they could on the surviving Rabbits, Anise, Geneviève, and American socialite Caroline Woolsey Ferriday set out to bring justice to these women. They battled the German government, waged an international press campaign, and brought the women to America so they could receive medical treatment. For years they fought with the German government over the matter only to hear that the cases they presented were fraudulent. The women kept up the pressure, and by 1961 the German government had agreed to pay the victims.
“[Caroline] was a sister to everyone,” Geneviève wrote. “She helped us to gain recognition first, and then to compensate the victims of pseudo-medical experiments. She brought about this action with all her intelligence, all her generosity.”
The ladies of ADIR considered her one of them, an honorary member.
* * *
As Charles de Gaulle fought to prove that his political ideas had relevance from the late 1940s to mid-1950s, he felt as if he was struggling on a long, hard journey through the desert. In early 1948 his twenty-year-old daughter, Anne, a cherished member of the family who was born with Down syndrome, grew ill with a persistent upper respiratory infection. General de Gaulle and his wife called a doctor to Colombey to examine Anne, who struggled to breathe and could no longer rest on her back. The doctor diagnosed her with double pneumonia, a verdict that was made more serious by the young woman’s fragile heart. Penicillin and oxygen did not improve her condition, and Anne died in her father’s arms on February 6, 1948. The family came together at Colombey for Anne’s funeral, at which her father looked exhausted and grief stricken by the loss of his child, whose casket he could not bear to leave. The general and his daughter were closely linked, and he had done what he could to keep her close to him, even when he had left France for England during the war. Now she was gone, and he and Yvonne were devastated.
After Anne’s death Charles sat helpless as he watched his beloved country flounder and support for RPF dwindle. He reverted to giving his younger brother Pierre orders, just as he had in his youth. In September 1948 Pierre became president of the Paris municipal council, and his first official visit was to New York City, where he would be feted and treated to an evening at the opera. His wife, Madeleine, was never one for the decorum that political visits required, so she bowed out of the trip. Her eighteen-year-old daughter, Chantal, attended in her place. Although Pierre was worldly, charming, and perfectly capable of handling the visit on his own, Charles handed him a four-page letter full of advice before his departure. Among other things, Charles admonished his younger brother to prepare for his press conferences, do them in good humor, and keep them to an hour and a half at most. With or without his older brother’s dictates, Pierre thrived in public office, and he and Madeleine had begun to live a fairly worry-free life.
As his brother flourished Charles visited his niece at her apartment on Avenue Rapp and told her and Bernard that they could not remain in that tiny space. It was just too crowded. Bernard had a small salary at the time, and it did not even guarantee him social security. It was difficult to take care of the children when they got sick, and there were times when Geneviève resorted to prayers when things were dire. Charles de Gaulle encouraged Bernard to enter public service. On June 1, 1953, Bernard was named to the commission of tourism. He was put in charge of redoing the country’s tourism brochures to attract tourists back to the country. It was a way for him to rediscover his calling as an editor, and he asked many of the artists he knew to help him with his work.
The family moved into a larger home in the Gobelins tapestry complex. G
eneviève enjoyed the new residence, but she would fret about all the automobile accidents that happened near it.
“She would say, ‘One minute the ambulances come and everything is a mess and then an hour later everything is clean, as if nothing ever happened,’” Anise recalled. “She was like that, very sensitive. Her home was always full of people in need. I knew I could always go to her with my concerns, because we lived so close to each other for a long time. It was just five minutes away.”
Geneviève’s uncle Charles would come to visit them in their new abode, always bearing books for the children. He was finishing up his war memoirs, which he would dedicate to Geneviève, and he would be at his niece’s side on February 9, 1955, when her father, Xavier, died of an aneurysm. No matter how much she had loved Xavier, Geneviève never talked about how his death impacted her. Perhaps it was because she had become so accustomed to soldiering on in the face of loss. Or it could have been that she wanted to shield her children from her grief.
As it stood, Geneviève and other former deportees had children who were old enough to hear about the war and its hardships and start asking their parents hard questions about what it was like back then. What could you tell your child about the camps? How could you ever explain it? Should you even try? One woman wrote Voix et Visages to say that she had told her eight-year-old daughter about her deportation. Another woman said she took her twelve- and thirteen-year-old children to see the Holocaust film Night and Fog and both of them wanted to forget what they saw. Anise wrote that she would not talk about it with her young children but would begin to do it “little by little because they are citizens of tomorrow.” In the meantime she wanted to protect their imaginations from awful thoughts.