Some dedications conjured up a moment of camaraderie, others were a fleeting tribute … All these treasures had to be left behind. Whose hands would take care of them?
I was searching my books for solace and encouragement.
And suddenly I heard an infinitely delicate melody … It was coming from the shelves, the display cabinets, from wherever the books were playing out their mysterious life.
I stood there, I listened …
It was the voice of the poets, their fraternal consolation to my great distress. They had heard their friend’s appeal and were offering their farewells to the poor bookseller, stripped of her kingdom.
The first sounds of day brought me back to reality.
I took the train with the French expatriates, embassy and consulate staff, a few Poles and other foreigners who were returning to Paris.
Despite the optimistic assurances, most of us were thinking that conflict was inevitable. We were all overwhelmed, thinking about a future all the more easily envisaged with the events of 1914–1918 in the not-so-distant past.
I had my final run-in with the Nazis at the border. In Cologne, every passenger had to file past a Reichsbank official in order to exchange the maximum sum allowed of ten marks for French currency.
A Polish priest was ahead of me. After a glance at his passport, the German official announced: ‘Polish! … No currency … next!’
It was my turn: an equally swift glance at my papers: ‘Non-Aryan! … No currency … next!’
It was Nazi Germany’s parting word.
On arriving in Paris that evening, I had to call my family from the Gare du Nord station and wait for my relatives to come to collect me; I had no money to take a taxi.
Nazi policy had thus succeeded in reaching beyond the border to strike me …
A very pale prelude of what was to follow!
Fortunately, indeed, I was not to know that then!
Three days after my arrival, I went to enquire after the fate of my trunk. The station employee told me that luggage was not arriving from Germany ‘for the time being’. Nonetheless, he went off to check.
‘You’re in luck, it was the last one in.’
He stamped the docket and added, good-naturedly:
‘Keep that as a souvenir, it’s a real good-luck charm.’
Some Germans were abandoning their homeland, their fortunes and their businesses so as not to be complicit in the handiwork of the National Socialists; others hunkered down behind the walls of their houses to preserve their freedom of thought and action.
Some brave souls spoke out, among them Pastor Niemöller, Father Mayer, Monsignor von Galen, the Bishop of Münster, Cardinal Faulhaber, from Munich, and so many others. Almost all of them disappeared or, like the Jews, populated the concentration camps.
Their memory, certainly, must not be erased …
And my thoughts, too, turn to ‘the regulars’, faithful friends of the bookshop. What has become of them? Did the tidal wave drowning the momentum towards freedom and justice carry away these men and women of good will?
With profound sadness, I fear so …
When I think of the last tumultuous years of my time in Berlin, I see once again a series of stupefying events: the first silent parades of the future Brownshirts; the trial which followed the burning of the Reichstag, typical of National Socialist methods; the rapid transformation of German children into the restless larvae of the Hitler Youth; the masculine rhythm of the blonde, blue-eyed girls whose aggressive marching made windowpanes rattle, causing books in window displays to tremble in a sombre foreshadowing; the visit of that German mother who had wept for her child who had just been congratulated and held up as an example before his whole class because he had denounced her for her anti-Nazi opinions; that other mother, this one Jewish, her heart overflowing with sorrow, who told me her boy, son of a Christian father, had run into her in the street in the company of his Hitler-following friends, and had pretended not to recognise her; the mounting desolation of all mothers confronting the detachment of their children as they were wrenched from the family home; the influence of block wardens who intervened in the lives of tenants, denouncing them before the people’s courts, dislocating the bonds of marriage, friendship, affection and love; people stripped first of their professions and positions, then of their wealth, and finally of their civil and human rights; the flight of the persecuted to the borders; the burials of those desperate souls who had thrown themselves under trains or out of windows; the permanent disappearances in concentration camps; the return, after long absences, of customers – such elegant and enlightened minds – heads shorn like convicts, anxious, with faraway expressions and trembling hands – how they had aged in a matter of months!
Oh, the memory of the emergence of a leader with the face of an automaton, a face so deeply marked by hate and pride, dead to all feelings of love, friendship, goodness or pity …
And clustered around this leader with his hysterical voice, a captive crowd capable of any violence, any murderous act!
What an image, the birth of this monstrous and ever-growing human termite colony spreading swiftly through the country with a sinister grinding of metal, and with the incalculable potential of its collective strength.
II
Paris
In France, nobody believed war was approaching. I breathed in the air of the capital. Very swiftly, I allowed myself to be won over by the general feeling of confidence. I was anticipating an imminent departure so I could be reunited with my family.
Throughout these days of heightened crisis, Paris retained its usual outward appearance: movement, colours, vitality.
People were discussing the situation on the café terraces, on street corners. In the metro, they would read their neighbour’s newspaper over their shoulder; the need to communicate and, if possible, to discover any fresh details from somebody who was perhaps better informed, spurred people to speak to anybody they encountered, to stop in the street to listen, to look, to discuss matters endlessly.
The general public would wait outside the presses to buy the papers, ink still wet. The crowd would jostle to snatch up any issue; news vendors seemed to have wings. People queued up in front of the newsstands well before the arrival of the newspaper couriers on their bicycles. Some would take several news-sheets, of differing opinion, scour them feverishly on the spot, then pass them on to other readers.
At times the mainstream broadsheets would reassure the population; at other times they encouraged people to prepare for the inevitable.
Radios blared relentlessly in homes, courtyards, squares, offices, restaurants and cafés. It was impossible to escape their hold. Their rasping tones permeated everywhere, even into theatres, and into the intervals of classical music concerts.
People listened, chaotically, to bulletins in any language. A true tower of Babel! Some made certain to wake up in the middle of the night to listen to American broadcasts. It was an obsession! Nervous tension grew to indescribable levels in that period.
Utterly consumed by a fervent desire for peace, the French people were hoping. The notorious phrase: Last year, too, we expected the worst and yet everything worked out … circulated from mouth to mouth, like the chorus of a popular song.
Which is why, when hostilities opened, the whole of France was plunged into dark despair.
For me, it was heart-wrenchingly distressing.
Only then did I truly comprehend the distance separating me from my mother. I saw myself remaining far from her and all my loved ones for the duration of the war, that is, for an eternity of torment and worry about them.
The German army was advancing, trampling over Poland, taking over. I followed with anguish the lightning progress of the enemy on the map …
The wireless reported relentlessly the horrifying details of carnage, battles, bombardment, devastation and massacre of populations. Bulletins were broadcast at mealtimes and one had to get used to eating, drinking, chewing, swallowing,
all the while listening to the bloody and disastrous stories in the news. Horror made itself at home in everyday life.
From one day to the next, Paris had fallen strangely silent.
And so began for France that curious military lull, the ‘Phoney War’.
It was then the press initiated an extensive campaign against what was known as ‘the Fifth Column’, which had been everywhere evident for years. Keen for a diversion, the general public became obsessed with these sensational revelations.
The prefecture of police instituted ‘extraordinary measures’ of a broad-reaching nature, resolving to conduct a census of all foreigners and to review their status.
These measures, drawn up without any forethought, were implemented on the spot. Police stations, hotel management, landlords, concierges, all those who employed foreigners were asked to ensure compliance with the new regulations.
The whole population started to keep an eye out for ‘suspects’. Overnight, thousands of foreigners took up position in front of the prefecture of police, forming a line that stretched past the Quai aux Fleurs and reached all the way to Boulevard Saint-Michel.
They would start lining up from dawn; they brought a folding stool, a little food, a book, newspapers, and they would wait, first in the rains of September and October, then through the snow of November and December.
Separated from their countries of origin by the war, with no possibility of return, some without resources, these people waited, weary and numb. A terrible despondency reigned over this disparate crowd of uprooted souls.
With most able-bodied men having been called up under the general mobilisation, the prefecture of police was staffed almost entirely by young women. They were completely unprepared for this enormous task and were quickly overwhelmed.
Armed with my folding stool, I queued for hours on end in order to obtain my residence permit to allow me to remain in France.
It was physically and mentally exhausting. On the inside I was fretting and fuming, but I valiantly endured the official police requirements. These lengthy formalities, implemented haphazardly, were imposed on all foreigners, without discrimination as to nationality or race. They were not intended to be harassing. They could only be attributed to the general state of disarray.
Thus I waited patiently, coughing from time to time, and some days even suffering a fever.
No matter! It was Paris, Paris with its afternoons along the banks of the Seine, next to the bouquinistes’ stalls, which seemed to have filled with new treasures since my last visit.
The publishers were remarkably generous towards me. They congratulated me and pledged their support for a new bookshop.
The cultural attaché who had, in turn, arrived back in Paris, had these very encouraging words for me. ‘You should be credited for remaining at your post until the very last minute.’ And he added, smiling, ‘Just like a valiant soldier.’
He was trying hard to lessen the pain of separation from my beloved bookshop, just as before he had been so generous in helping me to defend it in the face of every adversity.
And so commenced for me, under a rainy sky, the infinitely dark days of the new war.
At last I obtained my residence permit. It stipulated that I could take advantage of France’s hospitality until the cessation of hostilities.
The rhythm of war accelerated at an ever-increasing rate. The Germans breached new borders. The enemy was approaching France. The ‘Phoney War’ was drawing to an end.
However, confident in the strength of the Maginot Line, everybody still considered a violation of the national border an impossibility.
At that moment, German reconnaissance raids commenced over Paris and its surrounds. Bombs fell on the factories of the suburbs.
There was widespread uncertainty. The press and radio lavished us with advice and instructions. The public remained hesitant. Was it better to die at home or be asphyxiated in a cellar?
When the sirens sounded, some remained in their beds, others went down to the cellar, then came back up or stationed themselves in the stairwell. Some ventured onto the front steps of the building ‘to see what was going on’ and to gossip with neighbours.
Air-raid wardens clamped down; then they relaxed. ‘At the end of the day, who knows what’s best?’ they admitted.
Parisian women took pride in not taking fright and would spend their mornings sharing their experiences on the telephone.
Only when confidence in the possibility of being able to defend the city fell abruptly, towards the end of May 1940, did people consider leaving Paris.
The government was advising people to leave; anybody whose presence in the capital was not absolutely necessary should go, and old people should be the first to leave.
Schools closed; holidays were thus effectively brought forward by two months. Everybody was preparing to leave, and calmly so, moreover.
My elderly former professor, who had remained a devoted friend, suggested I follow him to Avignon, where he was heading himself. I remember the two of us sitting there on the terrace of our regular café, La Boule d’Or, on Place Saint-Michel. He was describing to me the delights of the historic town. The Pont d’Avignon, which until then had featured only as the bridge in the song, from a distant past, was to become a reality …
The radio was recommending procuring a safe-conduct pass for the journey, so I took myself off to the police station in my neighbourhood very early one morning. I was not in the least astonished to find a line of suppliants. After the hours I had spent waiting outside the prefecture of police, I was not about to be put off by anything of that nature.
A group of us were led over to a table where some policemen were sitting. We discovered it would be necessary to get hold of either a medical certificate attesting to the need for a sojourn at the seaside or in the countryside, or a personal invitation from the place where one was planning to go, preferably from a close relative or, even better, from a patient requiring care.
Some went directly upon leaving the police station to besiege doctors’ consulting rooms, others discovered relatives of varying degrees of proximity; when all was said and done, everybody was trying to extricate themselves as best they could, and a fresh spirit of innovation became evident in their attempts to handle the changing circumstances.
My old friend urgently contacted his godson, who promptly sent me a formal invitation as required.
Appeals to the population were growing urgent, but, at the same time, safe-conduct passes were increasingly difficult to obtain. I received mine not a moment too soon.
On the eve of my departure from Paris, I received news of my bookshop from the Swedish Ambassador: the collections of books and records, packed in boxes, as well as the furniture and fittings had, thanks to the Swedish Embassy, been put into storage.
Three months later, I was informed by a contact in Switzerland that it had all just been confiscated by order of the German government on grounds of my race.
Having learned from experience, and in order to guard against all eventualities, I had the notion of asking publishers for a letter of recommendation before I headed off into the unknown. I was directed to the appropriate office of the President of the Council of Ministers where I obtained a document drafted in the following terms:
Madame F*** has for many years been the committed and intelligent manager of a bookshop devoted exclusively to French literature, a bookshop which she established in Berlin in 1921. She has rendered significant service to France through the distribution of French literature abroad. May she avail herself of every freedom and benefit our nation has to offer, the nation for which she has so tirelessly toiled.
The document was signed by a high-ranking official from the office of the President of the Council.
My luggage, two suitcases in total, was swiftly packed; my great trunk, salvaged from Berlin, was entrusted to a Parisian storage repository.
My old friend generously took up position at the Gare de Lyon and, after sever
al hours of waiting, obtained two tickets for Avignon.
Finding a car at that time was a challenge; I stationed myself on the side of the footpath in plenty of time, my two suitcases in front of me, in the hope of snaring a taxi. A good hour later, a driver stopped.
It was a glorious spring day.
I crossed the city from west to east; the whole Right Bank unfolded before me in a melancholy display, its magnificent perspectives seeming to disappear into infinity.
Paris appeared more beautiful than ever in her imposing grandeur, and it was a difficult farewell extracted from me by the city as I passed by.
What a fright I had when the driver slowed down a little at Place de la Bastille. An extremely elegant young woman leapt onto the running board of my vehicle and, clinging to the door, said with a charming smile, as if paying a social call, ‘You don’t mind, Madame? It’s just to reserve the car.’
It was so congested in front of the Gare de Lyon that the driver had to set me down at the end of the ramp. I was delighted when a drunkard offered me his services, improvising as a porter. Indeed, he acquitted himself of the task admirably.
Half an hour later, we were on our way.
The quiet fields, the peaceful environs, the cheerful countryside unfolding, it was still as magnificent as ever. We spoke little. We were thinking about those countries, invaded and ravaged, of the dark night ready to descend over France.
Three days later, Paris was bombed. There were a thousand victims.
War had been unleashed on France. The Germans were approaching the capital.
III
Avignon
My first impression of the capital of the Comtat region was of having been transported back a few centuries in time. I moved in to a very old little cottage in a lane that was older still. Despite successive renovations, everything about it harked back to the past: the staircase, the little courtyard, the windows, even the heavy key to my door. At times, I felt as if I were staying with ancestors.
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