Hidden Child

by Isaac Millman

  “I don’t know,” she said quietly.

  “Why am I going to a hospital? I’m not sick!”

  “You’ll have to pretend you are,” she answered. “You don’t want to be deported!”

  The prison in 2003

  THE HOSPITAL

  On our arrival at the hospital, the two girls and I were put in wheelchairs and taken to the children’s ward, where we were each assigned a bed and given a hospital gown to wear. My bundle and street clothes were taken away.

  I soon learned that none of the children were sick. We were all Jews who had been rescued from imminent deportation. The doctors and nurses who ran the hospital were kind to us as they kept up the pretense that we were sick. I remained there a month. Except for trips to the bathroom by wheelchair—for Germans checked the ward frequently—we were ordered to stay in bed. Mealtimes and visits by doctors and nurses broke up the daily monotony of hospital life. Sisters from a nearby convent brought us books and drawing materials.

  Several times a week, a child would leave the hospital, accompanied by an adult, and another child would take his place. I didn’t know where these children went, but I was happy when my turn came because I thought I would be reunited with Mama. Instead, I was handed over to a man who took me back to Paris, to a good friend of Mama’s who lived in a building near ours. She half opened her front door on hearing my voice.

  “Madame Ullman,” said my guardian, “the boy’s mother has instructed us to leave her son in your care.”

  “I can’t take him,” whispered Mama’s friend. She was visibly frightened. “My husband’s been arrested. It’s not safe here. I’m alone with my baby. I’m sorry,” and she shut her door.

  My guardian didn’t know what to do with me and asked me to show him where I lived. I took him to 60, rue de la Fontaine au Roi. There he left me with the concierge, who waited until he was out of sight and then chased me into the street screaming, “I won’t have a Jew in my house!”

  The hospital in 2003

  HÉNA

  I sat on the sidewalk in front of 60, rue de la Fontaine au Roi crying, wondering where I could go. Who would help me? It was dusk when a woman stopped and questioned me. In thickly accented French, similar to Mama’s, she asked where I lived. I pointed to our windows. She asked where my mama and papa were. “I don’t know!” I answered. She asked my name and understood that I was a Jew. “I’m a Jew, too,” she whispered. “My name is Héna.” I stopped crying. She wiped my tears with a handkerchief and took me home with her.

  Héna lived in a small three-room apartment. She sat me down in the kitchen and heated some soup. After dinner, I helped her open the living-room couch to make a bed. She gave me a pair of pajamas that were much too large. I put them on. “They belonged to my son,” she said, laughing. I was tired and fell asleep quickly.

  When I woke up in the morning, she wasn’t there. I found a note on the kitchen table that said she had gone to work. She left me a hard-boiled egg and a glass of milk for breakfast. There was smoked ham, an apple, and some bread for my lunch. The note warned me not to go out. “Stay in the apartment, and don’t answer or open the door for anyone. Héna.”

  I had never been left alone before and at first didn’t know what to do with myself. Then I found a pencil and paper in the living room. I sat by the window and drew while waiting for Héna’s return. I drew the buildings across the way. I drew pictures of Mama and Papa and all my friends. I drew everything I saw in the room.

  At dinner Héna told me that she, like Mama and Papa, had emigrated from Poland. She had a grandson my age and a granddaughter a year younger. They were hidden with their parents somewhere in France. She also had a sister who lived in a village outside Paris.

  Héna and her grandchildren, 1934

  Héna’s hidden grandchildren, 1942

  PONTAULT-COMBAULT

  I left with Héna in the morning. She was taking me to her sister. The French underground had blown up the railroad bridge at Nogent, and our train had to take a roundabout route to reach Pontault-Combault. Héna’s sister, Madame Laks, and her husband were outside their house tending their garden when we arrived. Food was scarce during the war, so people in the countryside grew their own fruits and vegetables.

  Madame Laks wiped her hands and embraced Héna. The sisters spoke Yiddish together. “Who’s the boychick?” she asked. Héna leaned close to her sister and whispered, “His name is Isaac. I found him on the street. His parents have been arrested and deported. I’d like to hide him with good people till his parents return.”

  Héna placed me with the Merciers, an older couple who had made it known that they wanted to take in a child to add to their income. On the way to the Merciers’, Héna changed my name from Isaac to Jean—“a good French name,” she said. I was to call her “Mémé,” for Grandma, and never, never tell anyone that we were Jews.

  MADAME MERCIER

  Madame Mercier frightened me the first time I saw her. She was dressed in somber clothes, and a green ointment covered her face—evidently a cure for some skin ailment. Her husband sat like a stone at the kitchen table, eating; a black hound lay on the tiled floor by his feet. The animal growled as we entered. Monsieur Mercier kicked it and the growling stopped.

  “Jean, say goodbye to your grandmother,” said Madame Mercier brusquely. She and Héna had just agreed on the amount of money Madame Mercier would receive for keeping me. I cried myself to sleep that night, praying for Mama and Papa to come quickly and take me away. I wished I had never been born a Jew.

  I stayed with the Merciers for two months. Every night I went to bed hungry. To make certain I didn’t steal any food, Madame Mercier locked me in my room whenever she and her husband went out. One Sunday morning, I woke up with sharp hunger pangs. I knew I would find something to eat in the kitchen, but the Merciers had gone to church and my door was locked. I decided to take a chance. The top half of the door had four panes of glass, and the pane nearest the doorknob was missing. By climbing onto a chair, I could reach through the hole to the key, which had been left in the keyhole on the other side. Turning it slowly and carefully, I opened the door. Cautiously, with the dog watching every move I made, I tiptoed into the kitchen. I was about to grab some bread when Madame Mercier returned. “I know how to deal with a thief!” she screamed, and locked me in my room again. This time she put the key in her pocket.

  In the coming days, my misery deepened when my scalp began to itch. I scratched and scratched, but the itching only got worse. Soon ugly sores appeared. I kept on scratching; then pus oozed out. When Héna came to see me, she was horrified by my condition. “I should have come sooner!” she lamented, and took me from the Merciers. As we walked away, she explained that Madame Laks and her husband had been afraid to leave their house, for fear of being arrested, and that it was only recently that her sister learned from a neighbor what had happened to me.

  Héna holding one of her great-grandsons, 1961

  Héna with another great-grandson and her sister, Madame Laks, 1962

  MADAME DEVOLDER

  “A good clean bath and a hard scrubbing with warm water and soap,” said Madame Devolder, “and in a few weeks you will see, the sores on Jean’s scalp will be gone!” Madame Devolder had just told Héna she would look after me.

  A widow, Madame Devolder lived in a small house surrounded by woods in the village of Pontault, a twenty-minute walk from Héna’s sister. She came from the northern part of Belgium and spoke with a light Flemish accent. She was tall and strong, with a deep voice, a hearty laugh, and a kind face. I liked her right away. Madame Devolder disinfected my clothes, shaved my head, and scrubbed it hard with soap and water. And, as she had predicted, in a few weeks the sores on my scalp had healed. She hid me through the final war years, treating me like a son. I became Jean Devolder.

  Life with Madame Devolder soon settled into a daily work routine. Though calm and peaceful, it was still difficult. We lived on a shoestring and often went hungry. But no m
atter how little food there was, she shared it equally with me. We worked hard, and there was plenty to do—cleaning the outhouse, washing laundry by hand (there was no washing machine), toiling in our small vegetable garden, and many other chores.

  In May, clusters of tiny wild strawberries sprouted in the countryside. Blood red and easily spotted under green patches of foliage, they satisfied my hunger for something sweet. In the summer months after the harvest, we gleaned wheat remaining in Farmer Grégoire’s field. In the fall, we dug for potatoes he had left in the ground. He also let us take apples that had fallen from the trees in his orchard. This helped us during lean times.

  One day, Farmer Grégoire gave me a baby rabbit. Madame Devolder said I could keep it, but she reminded me that when the rabbit grew up, we would have to eat it. I didn’t want to think about that. For the time being I was happy; I had something that was mine to love and care for. I named my rabbit Rose.

  Early the next morning, Madame Devolder sent me to Farmer Grégoire to fill our milk jug. The road to the farm led past an ancient stone wall that enclosed the town cemetery. A narrow strip of grass dotted with daisies and bright red poppies ran the length of the wall. I heard an animal’s shrieks and then saw Farmer Grégoire in his courtyard arguing with a German officer. Two soldiers had cornered a pig and were struggling to get it into the back of their truck. They were attached to the occupation troops who had made the Château of Combault their headquarters. As I watched in silence, the officer’s greenish gray military uniform and black boots brought back terrifying memories of the prison courtyard where I was separated from Mama. With the pig finally captured, the officer gave the order to leave. “Sales voleurs! Dirty thieves!” Farmer Grégoire shouted as the truck roared away.

  MY FRIENDS

  Madame Devolder enrolled me in the village school. To get there, I cut through the woods to Farmer Grégoire’s field. There I would meet André Grégoire and walk the rest of the way with him. He was the farmer’s son and, though he was two years older, sat next to me in class. He was chubby and a little slow-witted, but gentle and generous. Once, when I’d pulled up some carrots from his father’s field, he offered to trade the piece of lard he was eating. “Jean, my lard for your carrot!” Because he often said silly things, the other children made fun of him.

  Victor Feldman sat several desks behind me in class. He had curly blond hair and was a year younger. I found out that he lived with his father on avenue des Marguerites. I didn’t learn more, for Victor didn’t talk much. After several weeks, I noticed that he’d stopped coming to class. When I mentioned it to Madame Devolder, she said, “Jean, the police found out that Victor and his father are Jews. They arrested them and both were deported!”

  Another classmate, Pierre Allazetta, was a dwarf. He lived with his mother and two sisters in the village. His father was a prisoner of war in a camp in Germany. Pierre always made me laugh, especially when he imitated Fernandel, a movie actor and comic. Pierre hoped to become one himself when he grew up. André, Pierre, and I became best friends.

  Since we had no real toys, we played with things we found. A broken-down cardboard box or an old discarded can were fun to kick around. I taught my friends to play marbles. And Pierre taught us the game of knucklebone. The butcher had given him the five bones for free. The idea is to throw all five bones on the ground. Then throw one into the air, grab a bone from the ground, and catch the airborne bone on the way down with the same hand, without touching any of the others. I never could beat Pierre.

  Once, on a day off from school, my friends and I decided to go to the open-air market. A shortcut ran through a wooded property. It was Pierre who first suggested we use it. None of us had ever taken it before.

  “The path?” André and I said, hesitating.

  “Scared?” said Pierre.

  “Of course not!” we replied bravely. I took a deep breath, and pushed warily forward onto the narrow dirt path. It was dark and spooky. We were jumpy and spoke in whispers. Every little noise startled us. When a rabbit leaped out of the underbrush, my friends and I darted to the other side in a hurry. “I wasn’t scared,” Pierre said in a plucky voice. André and I didn’t believe him. We never took the shortcut again. There was no telling where the enemy might be hiding.

  LIFE WAS HARSH

  One afternoon, I came home from school and found Madame Devolder holding my rabbit, now full-grown. Madame Devolder had a determined expression on her face. I broke into tears. “No, Madame Devolder! Please don’t hurt Rose! I love her!” I pleaded in vain. It was wartime. There wasn’t enough food, and we had to eat.

  Life was harsh, for everything was scarce. In winter, Madame Devolder and I made trips to the sawmill and filled our wheelbarrow with wood shavings we collected from the floor. Firewood was expensive and the wood shavings were free. They kept us from freezing.

  I came home from school one day feeling sick and soon developed a bad chest cold and heavy cough. To treat the cold, Madame Devolder applied hot mustard plasters on my chest. The mustard had a sharp, powerful odor and Madame Devolder was careful not to burn me. When the cough persisted, she pressed six cupping glasses to my bare back. The glasses made a popping sound when removed and left reddish purple circles on my skin. The mustard plaster and cupping glass were common remedies for chest colds at the time. When Madame Devolder fell ill, it was my turn to treat her, for we didn’t have the money to spend on doctors.

  The kitchen was the warmest room in the house during the cold winter months. We sat around the table, where I did my homework under the watchful eye of Madame Devolder while she mended clothes. I didn’t have many, so when my pants or shirts wore thin, she patched them. When the heels and soles of my shoes needed repair, she took them to Monsieur Lazucatto, the shoemaker, who replaced them with wood because he couldn’t get leather. Walking on these stiff soles took some getting used to.

  After dinner, Madame Devolder and I played cards till the fire in the kitchen stove died out. And then it was bedtime. Darkness fell quickly in winter. There were often power failures, and we used candles sparingly by going to bed early. Shivering, I’d slide under the blankets in Madame Devolder’s bed to get warm.

  In late 1943, we began noticing airplanes flying high over Pontault. My friends and I counted them, “One, two, three…” They flew in groups. “… twelve, thirteen, fourteen…” They kept on coming. “… eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one…” I asked Madame Devolder about them. “Americans!” she answered. “On their way to bomb Germany!”

  On important religious holidays I went to church with Madame Devolder. The Grégoire and Allazetta families went, too. There were two Catholic churches in Pontault-Combault, but only one priest. Father Paul Botz conducted services at both. As soon as he’d finished one, he’d jump on his old motor bicycle and ride very fast to get to the other church.

  There wasn’t much to celebrate for the winter holidays. Still, we went into the woods and cut down a small evergreen. We dragged it home and placed it in the kitchen. Madame Devolder brought out her precious Christmas ornaments, kept with great care in two beautiful old metal cookie boxes. One of the boxes held fragile glass balls with Christmas scenes embedded in them. In the other I found garlands and a shiny star made of bits of aluminum foil saved from wrappers.

  “Christmas is a very special holiday for me, Jean. It brings back so many fond memories of my family when I was a little girl growing up in Belgium.” I had never heard Madame Devolder speak so freely, and it surprised me. “Don’t forget to shine your shoes before you put them under the tree!” she said. It was Christmas Eve of 1943. I put my shined shoes under the tree before going to bed. I was too old to believe in Santa, but I couldn’t wait until morning to see what Madame Devolder had left in my shoe. It was a woolen scarf she’d knitted. And in the other, an added surprise: a beautiful orange. I had not eaten one since early in the war.

  Sometimes, days went by when I didn’t think about the war or Mama and Papa. On the first of
April, André, Pierre, and I pinned small cutout paper fish on our classmates’ backs without their knowing it. We laughed and shouted “April Fool’s Day!” till we discovered that paper fish had also been pinned on us.

  On the first of May, which was a holiday, Madame Devolder and I picked lilies of the valley in the woods behind the house. Madame Devolder looked pretty in her spring dress as we stood across from the graveyard selling bouquets of flowers to passersby to make a little extra money.

  Héna had stopped coming to see me. We didn’t know why. I learned later that she had been summoned to the police station and was on the verge of being deported when a policeman singled her out and told her to leave the station. After that, Héna, too, went into hiding.

  Me as Jean Devolder (front row, second from left), standing between my friends Pierre and André at the village school, 1944

  THE LIBERATION

  News was censored. What little we heard came from neighbors who had radios. I was helping Madame Devolder in the garden when Pierre’s mother came running. “Les Américains ont débarqué sur les plages de Normandie! The Americans have landed on the beaches of Normandy!” She was crying, but her tears were tears of joy. Madame Devolder turned to me, smiling. “Jean,” she said, “you’ll be seeing your parents soon!”

  Greeted by the sound of church bells, bouquets of flowers, and the singing of the French national anthem, the Americans liberated Pontault-Combault in August 1944. It seemed that the whole village had turned out to welcome our liberators. We waved French and American flags as the column of tanks rumbled into the village square. When the tanks stopped in front of the town hall for a short while, André, Pierre, and I got to climb up on one. The column moved on, and my friends and I ran alongside.