The refugees were familiar with all this German-instigated propaganda from 1933 and recognised the dawning threat.
One day, having taken the bus from Place Wilson, I saw a young man step aboard to distribute pamphlets. Most passengers refused them. The man distributing them shouted:
‘But they’re free!’
‘We don’t want them, even if they are free!’ replied somebody.
Another added:
‘Get out of here, back to Germany with you!’
And everybody laughed.
A rush of French air had just blown through.
There were others agitating, handing out propaganda in public places: in cafés, restaurants, bistros, at the port, on benches.
And then there was another incident no less poignant. In a small restaurant in Rue de France, a blond man, very well dressed, about thirty years old, was carrying on at the top of his voice, addressing the whole room.
‘We’ve had it up to here with all these foreigners,’ he shouted, ‘all these foreigners and especially all these Jews!’
One worker, swarthy skinned, with laughing eyes and blue overalls, threw back the remark:
‘Eh! Check out our compatriot! You here from Germany? Why don’t you shout us a round? You must have earned a few cents to be selling us your sales pitch.’
Everybody guffawed.
The agitator hurried to settle his bill and wisely headed for the door.
‘Eh! Leave then, why don’t you, bastard!’ the worker continued, deadpan, ‘You’re nothing but a traitor!’
The tranquillity of the Mediterranean seemed immutable. Imagine, then, my astonishment when, towards the end of January, that azure blue sea was suddenly seized by veritable transports of fury.
The gale was unleashed during the night. Violent blows against the shutters woke up all the residents, who gathered out on the terrace. The crashes they heard had been caused by trees striking the windows as they were being blown about. The garden was covered with a layer of some whitish substance: it was foam tossed up by the sea, reaching all the way up the front steps. Waves as tall as houses unfurled onto the Promenade, crashing against the walls of the hotels and villas.
Pebbles from the beach were tossed in all directions; the flooding knocked down iron gates, destroying lawns and flowerbeds, as the storm tore down trees, overturning everything in its path.
The Promenade was utterly submerged for forty-eight hours; nobody risked venturing out for fear of being injured or carried off by the waves. The water reached into side-streets, flooding gardens, courtyards and cellars.
Only two days later did the sea retreat and the devastated Promenade reappear, strewn with trees and debris of every kind: branches and broken glass, benches and chairs in pieces, and everywhere piles of pebbles.
The sun came out once more, a billion glittering rays shining over land and sea.
The Mediterranean had reverted to its nonchalant tranquillity, its bluish finish of watered silk …
It seemed to be begging forgiveness for its mood of the previous days.
The Bay of Angels was indeed laughing at the angels. It was spring and all was peaceful.
But peace among men had not yet returned …
I had spent three months at Monsieur Thérive’s pension. The announcement of its imminent closure forced me to seek alternative lodging. This time, I rented a room in a hotel in the upper part of town.
The hotel garden, with its palm trees and beautiful garden beds, was a haven of scents and shade.
It was to be my home from the beginning of February 1941 to that fateful date, 27 August 1942.
In theory, the fifth floor was accessed by a lift. One inconvenience, however: it never worked. Management explained that a cog in the motor was missing. They had looked everywhere, but could not find one. In short, one had to struggle up the five flights on foot. By the time I reached the final stair, I would forget my tiredness, though, largely compensated for my efforts by the view that opened up before me.
Getting in supplies was already proving particularly difficult at that time. As I cooked for myself, I would take up position at the earliest possible hour in the queues outside the shops and, on market days, in front of the stalls in Place Sainte-Hélène.
The two slices of meat per week, the monthly egg, the fruit and vegetables, they all required queuing, in one line and then another. Armed with my ration card and wearing a straw hat to protect me from the sun, my two baskets on my arms, I took my position in line among the housewives, the children, the young people, the elderly, the elegant socialites, women who had been swimming and simply thrown a robe over their costume to do the shopping, the women with a child on each arm, not counting those tugging at their skirts, who were sometimes children ‘borrowed’ for the purposes of qualifying as a large family and going to the head of the queue. I remained in line, book in hand, from seven to eleven in the morning. These long periods of standing resulted in fatigue and disappointment.
With the rationed foodstuffs purchased, I still had to source fruit and vegetables, which were not subject to a quota. Shopkeepers generally posted at the front of their shops, by order of the police, the quantities of goods that had arrived in, in principle divvied up according to the approximate number of customers. This measure, which in itself made sense, was not monitored. In fact, there was no way of noting on the ration cards that a customer had been served. ‘It would be too complicated, you’d have to keep a whole system of accounts and set up an office,’ declared the shopkeepers, genuinely overburdened.
Opportunists took advantage of the system by making purchases with cards borrowed here and there from various families.
Customers who went away empty-handed would protest, threatening to ‘loot everything’. For the most part, however, they stayed put. The population was too exhausted from these daily efforts to turn its mind to revolt.
On more than one occasion, I returned empty-handed, like so many others.
After the defeat, the disruption to the railways, along with all other forms of transport, was at its worst. As a result, provisioning was in utter disarray.
When the armistice was announced, the authorities, statisticians and the press affirmed that as soon as road and rail networks had returned to normal, France would be able to feed its population with the support of its colonial empire.
Once the enemy’s hold had been methodically established, unforeseen difficulties emerged which impeded implementation of these plans.
The confiscation by the occupiers of rolling stock, the division of the country into several zones, each isolated from the other (one could not even access the ‘forbidden zones’), the difficulties of importing from overseas, the blockade, the absence of labour – whether deported or convict – served to nullify the promises made to the French population.
Another unforeseen consequence of the Occupation: German authorities would make trips into the countryside and, thanks to their very advantageous exchange rate, would pay producers at prices never before seen. These direct requisitions had very serious effects on the country’s economic status quo.
Goods would disappear as if by magic. I witnessed a very striking example of this phenomenon myself.
During my first stay in the Vaucluse region, good quality butter, the most enormous variety of cheeses, mounds of fruits and vehicles laden with vegetables were everywhere to be seen.
Upon my return from Vichy, the German Economic Commission was operating out of Avignon and exerting its influence throughout the countryside. People were queuing and prices continued their relentless rise. Farmers and shopkeepers were saying: ‘We’ve no choice but to sell them everything and at any price. What’s more, we’re being ordered by Vichy not to refuse them any goods, and to accept their paper money! And we’re being watched by their police!’
From that point on, price hikes already set off by the war started to manifest in dizzying fashion.
Hoteliers, restaurant owners, those runnin
g boarding houses and wealthy individuals were all contacting farmers and producers directly, offering them the German occupiers’ prices.
As for the general population, people continued to wait outside shops and market stalls, but they too were turning to producers with increasing frequency. Everybody was making trips out into the countryside.
As this practice was prohibited, people would return, their mission completed, hiding whatever fruit and vege tables they had been able to find in bags, baskets and suitcases.
In order to curb these price hikes, the authorities tried to implement clumsy measures. From time to time, they would tax the products, but it was pointless, for it did not attack the evil at its roots.
Thus, massive enemy requisitioning, the lack of a labour force, transport difficulties, the blockade, derisory official taxation and contempt for ‘legal’ restrictions, dictated by the occupiers, all led to price rises incompatible with a certain ‘standard’ of living. The combination and complexity of these issues resulted in the black market.
Ultimately, it had become a mechanism of ingenuity, quick-wittedness and extraordinary feats.
Manufacturers and artisans matched the price rises and for their part engaged in a system of exchange. They asked to be paid directly in foodstuffs and other products for their own manufactured goods.
And so, bartering made its appearance.
It was occurring on an ever vaster scale and in a sense amounted to a form of revenge on the black market.
The black market and bartering each had a firm hold.
In 1943, a clandestine flyer about the provision of supplies in France fell into my hands. It revealed that eighty per cent of the French population was resorting to prohibited methods and the remaining twenty per cent was languishing miserably under the official rationing system.
One anecdote was doing the rounds: ‘Jean just died!’ – ‘So, he’d been sick, had he?’ – ‘Not exactly, but you know, the poor man was only living off his coupons!’
German propaganda took advantage of the situation created by the defeat, the burden of the armistice and most of all, by the Occupation, which was literally draining the country of all its reserves, to lay the blame at the feet of the Jewish refugees.
Yet, towards the end of 1942, they had disappeared from economic life, deported to concentration camps. But the black market was flourishing throughout all of France.
In the Occupied Zone, from where Jews had been deported since the invasion, and particularly in Paris, it was systematically organised. A quasi-official institution. The government never took any steps to abolish it.
The hotel, La Roseraie, should have been called Noah’s Ark.
It was home to survivors from the most diverse group of nationalities and social classes. They were a disparate lot indeed, united by their shared waiting for peace.
My neighbour from the room on the right was a Spanish woman, a Republican, who for several years had found refuge in the south of France. She left early and returned late. I scarcely saw her. Her unusual pallor, striking from the first encounter, grew increasingly marked. She seemed to be suffering from homesickness. Only on the day of her death did we learn that she had slowly been starving herself. She had grown silently weaker, without complaint, never asking anything of her neighbours.
To the left lived a Jewish couple, well-known proprietors of a spinning mill in Mannheim. They were waiting for visas for Palestine, where their daughter was already living.
If they were absent, the postman would often hand me telegrams addressed to them, and that is how we grew to know each other. Their room was full of trunks and suitcases, all buckled up and labelled. They had been keeping their luggage ready like that for two years now, they confided in me. One day, they announced they had run out of patience waiting in Nice, and were leaving for Marseille in order, they hoped, to be able more swiftly to board a ship that would take them away. I received a further two cards from Marseille. After that, I don’t know what became of them.
Upon their departure, they had left me all their cooking utensils: three saucepans, five plates, several cups, cutlery. This gift allowed me to invite some fellow lodgers to dine with me.
Thus I established some relationships that eventually grew into firm friendships.
Also on my floor lived two students who had been uprooted and were in sore need of maternal attention.
One of them, Monsieur Charles Guyot, a small, sickly fellow from Lyon, was a devout young man, through and through. When Lyon was occupied, he had protested with a group of friends and had soon been forced to flee. He was living in Nice under a pseudonym. He entertained the whole hotel with his deadpan humour. The other, Daniel Léger, a Protestant, was from Paris, the son of a converted Romanian Jewish mother whose eyes he had inherited, and a French father, a doctor in Paris. Upon coming into contact with the German occupiers and their methods of persecution, Daniel Léger had suffered a nervous breakdown which Nice had not succeeded in healing. He existed in a state of anxiety, believing he was being pursued. The two students, friends, would eat together in the same little restaurants, which they varied constantly, hoping to find better. On returning to the hotel, they would politely beg the female neighbours on their floor for any little extras – ‘to nibble on’, as they would say – which were always very gladly offered. Grateful, they would then bring back whenever they could several kilos of onions perhaps, or several kilos of oranges, sometimes even their ration of wine. Their deliveries were greeted with cheers: onions and oranges were received with equal enthusiasm. They each made their own further contributions: one in the form of his witticisms, the other by his lively discussion of bigger problems, for we would all gather together to talk politics, to consider events, to plan for the future, but also to hold a sort of literary salon, where we would discuss a book, a poem, a concert. These hours livened up an atmosphere that was all too depressing.
I shared the ‘chairmanship’ of the floor with a Viennese woman, Madame Elsa von Radendorf, who occupied the most beautiful room on the fifth floor. A woman of letters, she had left Austria in protest at the Nazi movement. There was all the more merit in this as she was over sixty, an age where the conveniences of a comfortable ‘home’ generally take precedence over ideological considerations.
Still active, she divided her time between two diametrically opposed occupations: she was writing a history of the origin and development of the art of lacework and, in addition to her advice and support, she would also offer her services as housekeeper and nurse to the young people in the hotel. At any hour, one might be offered a glass of wine or liqueur in her room, an increasingly rare pleasure.
We formed a bond. At first, difficulties with sourcing provisions created among us a shared preoccupation: we would help one another out, sharing sources and methods for getting in supplies. Over time, it was friendship that united us.
The Viennese lady, who had been living in the hotel for a year, informed me that the fourth floor was occupied by Polish émigrés: an aristocratic couple, a famous actor, a man of letters who was no less well-known, an art critic and two politicians. They lived a separate life, were fond of discussions and of planning for the future; some elegant, quiet compatriots enjoyed access to this Slavic oasis, a floor of reveries, of courtesy, where the purring consonants of the Polish language were to be heard.
The third floor belonged to the emigrants. All cultured Jews – lawyers, doctors, teachers – they spent their time preparing for their forthcoming emigration. With every departure, those who remained would take heart and wait their turn with new reserves of patience.
A septuagenarian lived there who had succeeded in crossing the demarcation line in the most dramatic manner. He had left together with his son, but just as they had arrived in the Free Zone, the two men found themselves separated. When the older man learned that his son had been recaptured and sent to the Drancy concentration camp, he fell into a profound depression. His neighbours in the hotel arranged betwe
en them to take it in turns distracting him: some took him out on the Promenade, others would pay him a visit to cheer him up. But Monsieur Samuel Mendelsohn knew how to evade the well-meaning watchfulness of his circle of friends and, one night, he hanged himself from the window of his room. The door was sealed and from then on, one hurried past on that floor. Our neighbour’s tragic end resonated with us as too brutal an example of the possible fate lying in store for each of us.
The second floor, on the other hand, was enlivened by the presence of a Hindu prince. A great lover of music and dance, and a collector of records and books, he filled the floor with sonorous tones and a sense of mystery.
In contrast to the rest of us, the Hindu prince was not sustained by hope and thoughts of the future alone. His was a rich and full life, so he said, devoted to beauty, nature and harmony. Courteous and affable to boot, he offered his assistance to everybody in a disinterested, lordly manner.
The other residents on the floor were guests passing through, a particular cast of characters whom we used to ignore. Thus, the floor retained the imprimatur of the exotic prince.
The all-powerful management ruled over the first floor, exercising an absolute dictatorship over the residents. Right next door to the management, a single room, the most beautiful, was let to a mysterious character. Doubtless of Slavic origin, very blond with very blue eyes, and a sophisticated elegance, he not only had the looks of Narcissus, but the spirit, too. He appeared to hold court amid an entourage composed largely of White Russians, numbering more women than men. He conducted numerous businesses with the help of his subjects: he acted as a jewellery broker, and was no less expert in property, estates, vehicles and objets d’art than in bric-à-brac. From time to time, he organised boisterous parties that would end in violent scenes.
At the start of 1942, a rare clean-out of our ‘up-in-the-clouds’ floor heralded the arrival of a significant new resident. In fact, one fine morning, a chaplain moved in to a beautiful room looking out over the Alpilles hills.
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