by Valpy, Fiona
‘Hush,’ whispered Vivi, as one of the guards craned his neck to try to pinpoint the source of the sound. ‘We must try not to draw attention to ourselves. Remember, I’m here. We’re together. We will be alright.’
The snaking line was sorted by the guards, who sent the men in one direction and the women in another. There was no sign of the children now, but Claire hadn’t seen where they’d been taken. The women were ushered into a long, low building which appeared to be staffed by female guards.
‘Line up here,’ one said, and gesticulated. ‘Single file. Remove your clothes.’
The women looked at one another in astonishment.
‘Hurry up! Clothes off.’ This time the command was a shout.
Slowly, in numb disbelief, the women began to undress until, at last, they stood shivering, clutching the clothing they’d removed. Then a door opened and, one by one, they were led into the next room.
‘Leave your clothes here, on the floor.’ The guard’s tone was as harsh as her words.
Ashamed, humiliated, exposed, Claire was made to stand before one of several desks that were arranged along the walls of the inner room. She felt like a heifer being assessed at a cattle market as rough hands examined her, taking measurements, listening to her chest, checking her teeth and eyes. She glanced across to where Vivi was enduring similar treatment, trying not to cough as the stethoscope chilled the skin on her back.
‘What was your job?’ asked the woman seated behind the desk.
‘I am a seamstress,’ Claire replied and she heard Vivi give the same information at the next desk along. Notes were made on a form which was then put on to one of several piles of papers. The woman behind the desk nodded to a guard and Claire and Vivi were led out into the next room. As they went, Claire noticed that some of the women were being ushered in a different direction, for no apparent reason. Some sort of arbitrary sorting process seemed to be being carried out by the guards.
It became apparent where those women had been taken when they appeared a few minutes later, their heads newly shaved, looking even more shockingly naked as they rejoined the other women in the next room along. Claire and Vivi exchanged glances, unsure whether it might be a blessing or a curse to have been allowed to keep their hair.
They were each handed a pile of folded clothing. The underwear was stretched and worn so thin the fabric was translucent in places. And when they shook out the other coarse cotton garments, woven in blue and white stripes, they found they’d been given a loose-fitting over-shirt and a pair of trousers.
‘Don’t put them on yet,’ ordered the guard as one of the bare-headed women began to pull on the shirt she’d been given to cover herself up. ‘Here, take these.’ The guard then handed them strips of white fabric, two for each prisoner, upon which an identification number had been stamped in indelible ink. Consulting a list that had been handed to her by one of the women who’d been sitting behind a desk in the previous room, she also gave each of them a triangle of coloured fabric. Claire noticed that hers and Vivi’s were red, but some of the other women were given triangles of yellow or black or blue material. And several were handed two triangles, usually a yellow one along with one of the other colours.
‘Next door.’ The guard pointed. The line of women shuffled forwards. And there, Claire and Vivi found themselves in more familiar territory. Women, dressed in the same blue and white striped clothing and wearing white headscarves, sat behind sewing machines, which whirred busily as they stitched the identity numbers and triangles on to the shirts and trousers of the newest arrivals at the camp. The sewing was rough and ready, stitched with coarsely spun thread and executed as quickly as possible, and then the uniforms were handed back.
In the room next door was a heap of shoes. The guard pointed at them. ‘Find a pair that fits.’
The women picked through the shoes, looking for their own, but most had to give up and make do with what they could find. Claire managed to grab a pair of boots, slightly larger than her usual size. They went on more easily than her old shoes, which she couldn’t see on the pile. But when she put her weight on them, she discovered that the ends immediately began to chafe against the raw ends of her toes, still vulnerable where the newly emerging nails had not yet covered the tender skin.
Carrying their piles of clothing, the women were finally led into a long, tiled shower room. Even though the water was barely lukewarm, Claire felt a little better once she’d scrubbed herself with a bar of hard soap. There were no towels, but the women were finally allowed to put on their newly issued uniforms.
‘What do you think?’ Claire tried to muster a little defiant courage, as she gave a twirl mimicking the models in the salon at Delavigne Couture. ‘This season’s style.’
Vivi smiled back at her. ‘You know what I think?’ she replied. ‘I think you and I need to get jobs in that sewing room.’
Harriet
I’ve been avoiding Thierry’s phone calls and messages, sending brief replies only when I have to, saying that I’m too busy to meet up or go out. The truth is, that day when we went to the Avenue Foch and I had a full-on panic attack has left me shaken. Just when I’d started to feel I had some sort of roots, some sense of connection to my family, I’ve discovered that it comes at a price. The price of knowing how Claire suffered and seeing how that trauma was, inevitably, passed on to my mother. It seems inescapable. A life sentence. And if it’s true, if it’s built into my DNA, then how could I ever contemplate inflicting it on the people I love, passing it on to children of my own, perpetuating the pain and the loneliness in another generation?
If I thought that knowing my family history would empower me then I was sorely mistaken. What I’ve learned of Claire’s story so far has left me feeling trapped. That was the risk I took, coming to Paris, searching for the girls in the photo. I thought I had the courage to find out who I really am. But now I am afraid that it’s done more harm than good.
At the same time, there’s a sense that I’ve come too far to stop. I need to follow Claire’s story to the end. I can only hope that there’ll be some shreds of redemption in it, for me as well as for her.
Simone has continued to tell me our grandmothers’ stories, but each new instalment comes very sporadically. There are parts of the story that she herself hasn’t known until now. She says she has asked Mireille to fill in the gaps, but it takes time for her letters to arrive. I wonder whether remembering these things and writing them down is painful for her.
Simone and I are both so busy at work that it’s hard to find the time to talk at all really. That suits me just fine: I’m not ready to tell her about ending my relationship with Thierry. Would she be sorry or pleased? I’m not sure whether she’s heard anything, from him or from other mutual friends, but in any case she doesn’t bring it up. Disappointingly, we’ve been told that neither of us will be included on the trip to Nice for the eco-cosmetic launch, but Florence and two of the account managers are going and there’s still lots to do to help them prepare.
On top of everything else, the Haute Couture Autumn/Winter Shows are running this week, too. It’s the first week of July and the city seems far too hot and muggy to enjoy looking at heavy woollens and stiff tailoring so I can’t seem to summon up much enthusiasm, even when Simone and I are given tickets to the Chanel event on the Tuesday evening. We take our seats in the Grand Palais, several rows back from the celebrities and fashion editors, and watch the models stride down the catwalk in Karl Lagerfeld’s embellished tweed creations. The collection is exquisite: each item has been carefully structured to flatter the female form and the designs are both clever and quirky. But I am distracted by the floor show around us. As a backdrop to the show, the designer has brought the dressmakers from the ateliers along, to illustrate the fact that it has taken a small army of workers to make each of the finished garments that we are applauding. I watch, fascinated, as they ignore the action on the catwalk and continue to work on half-finished versions of the same garment
s that the models are wearing. To me, these modern-day seamstresses provide a direct connection to Claire, Mireille and Vivi and many of the traditional techniques that my grandmother would have used are still employed today.
Instead of the show being a welcome distraction, though, it only serves to remind me of the terrible ordeal that Claire and Vivi went through, sent from the city where they were tortured and imprisoned to the Nazi work camps in Germany. I feel the panic rising in my chest, squeezing the breath from my lungs. Suddenly the heat and the opulence of the Grand Palais become too much to bear and I pick up my bag, making my excuses as I slip away from the show early, hurrying back to the seclusion of my attic room across the river.
That night, I lie in my bed and wonder if I’m having some sort of a breakdown. I gaze at the photograph on the chest of drawers beside me. ‘Help me,’ I whisper.
Claire, Mireille and Vivienne smile back at me, reaching out across the years to comfort me. Three such different characters. And I remind myself that if Mireille and Vivi hadn’t helped Claire to keep going then I wouldn’t be here today.
‘You need to keep going too!’ I imagine I hear Mireille saying decisively, her dark curls bouncing.
‘It’s only when you know the whole truth that you will understand,’ Vivi’s calm eyes seem to be telling me.
And beside them Claire smiles her gentle smile, telling me that, even though she never knew me, she loves me. She is here with me. She will never leave.
1943
Paris was descending into chaos. As the war ground on and the Germans suffered more and more losses, the round-ups and deportations became more frequent, more random and more brutal. Most of the time, Mireille only left the atelier to go and get food, eking out the rations she was able to find for her ‘guests’ with the extra bits and pieces she was able to obtain on the black market which were paid for with money given to her by Monsieur Leroux. The two separate strands of her work, during the days and the nights as well, kept her busy. But whenever she could find the time, she would walk to the willow tree on the end of the island in the Seine and take refuge beneath its graceful arms.
One July day, as she sat watching the river flowing by and wondering what the ones she loved were doing at that moment, a smell of burning hung in the air. A plume of smoke smudged the sky over the Tuileries gardens and, loath to go back to the empty apartment just yet, she went to see what was happening.
A crowd had gathered in the park where she had taken Claire to meet Monsieur Leroux almost eighteen months ago. It felt like a lifetime had passed since that day. It had been winter then, but now it was high summer and the close, muggy air pressed in on Mireille, making little rivers of sweat trickle down the back of her neck.
As she drew closer to the Musée de l’Orangerie, she realised that soldiers were carrying framed pictures out of the gallery. She slipped into the crowd so that she wouldn’t be spotted. Appalled, she watched as one of the framed canvases was lifted high into the air and then thrown on to the bonfire which raged on one of the grass parterres. ‘What are they doing?’ she asked a man standing next to her, who was watching the scene in grim silence.
‘They have deemed these works of art to be “degenerate”.’ The man spoke with a quiet scorn. ‘Art threatens the Nazi regime by depicting the truth of subjects they find abhorrent, apparently. And so they are burning them. I have seen, with my own eyes, a Picasso thrown on to that fire. Anything they don’t like, anything that doesn’t fit with their picture of the ideal world, they destroy.’ He shook his head and his eyes burned with a passion born of fury. She noticed that his unkempt beard contained tiny droplets of paint and realised that he must be an artist. ‘First they burnt books, now they are burning paintings, and they burn people, too, in those prison camps of theirs, I’ve heard tell. Remember this day, young lady; you are witnessing a holocaust of humanity. Remember it, and tell your children and your grandchildren so that they never let it happen again.’
As another painting was hurled on to the pyre, she turned away and hurried home. But when she got back to the apartment, she couldn’t rid herself of the smell of the smoke that clung to her clothes and hair. And in spite of the heat of the July evening, she shivered as she remembered the man’s words: ‘They burn people, too, in those prison camps of theirs.’ For the millionth time, she prayed to any god who was left to listen that Claire and Vivi might still be alive and that they might be kept safe. Please. Let them come home one day soon.
As Claire began to get her bearings, she discovered that the camp at Flossenbürg was just one of many in the area, built to provide slave labour for the German war effort. The rough barracks, in which the prisoners were housed, occupied one sector of the central site. Factories had been established in the vicinity, manufacturing textiles, munitions and even Messerschmitt aircraft, making the most of the steady stream of prisoners for their workforce, who arrived on trains like the one that had brought them there. She picked up these snippets of information from one of the girls in the bunk above the one that Claire and Vivi shared, who had spent a few months in the much larger camp at Dachau. There, she told them, she had worked in the brothel supplied for SS personnel. ‘They would talk among themselves while they waited outside the cubicle, as if we weren’t capable of understanding what they said while we were lying on our backs,’ she said, scornfully.
‘It must have been horrendous for you, being subjected to that,’ Claire had said.
‘Oh, it’s not so bad once you get used to it. You get better food over there. Until you get ill and your hair and teeth fall out, that is.’ She opened her mouth to display her gaping, bloodless gums. ‘That’s when they send you back here and you have to go and work in the factories again.’ She’d looked at Claire appraisingly. ‘They’d like you over there. A true Aryan, with your colouring, would be very popular. And you were one of the ones who didn’t have your head shaved when they processed you. That means you could be on the list.’
Claire had shivered and pulled her headscarf down a little lower over her forehead to cover her hairline. The girl’s eyes had a deadened, soulless look to them, a look which was shared by many of the inmates who’d been in the camps for a while.
Each day, after the morning roll call when they were forced to stand for an hour or more in the central square outside the barracks, Claire and Vivi would follow the guard who was in charge of the workers in the textile factory. They would file silently past the end of the alley on one side of the camp which led to the squat brick building whose tall chimney belched thick grey smoke into the sky day and night. Everyone knew what it was for. Sometimes they would hear stories of bodies piled up outside, a tangled heap of naked limbs and faded blue and white striped clothing, a scene from the inner circles of hell.
Some of the men who worked in the aircraft factory wore the blue triangles of voluntary labourers. Although, as Vivi remarked, ‘voluntary’ wasn’t a very accurate word to describe people who’d been ordered to leave their homes and come and work like slaves, under the command of an enemy power. Claire often thought of her brothers, Jean-Paul and Théo. Had they worked somewhere like this? Were they here, perhaps, somewhere amongst the sea of sunken-faced inmates in one of the satellite camps? If so, Jean-Paul would wear a blue triangle on his clothing and Théo the red triangle, like hers and Vivi’s, worn by political prisoners and prisoners of war.
It was Vivi who’d worked out the code that the triangles represented, through talking to the other women in the barracks. Yellow ones were worn by Jews, and sometimes a red inverted triangle was overlain by a yellow one the opposite way up, indicating a dual categorisation. Green triangles were worn by convicted criminals, who were often put in charge of work parties as they were prison-toughened which made them ruthless overseers, or kapos as they were known in the camp, prepared to mete out punishments to their fellow inmates. Black was for those classed as mentally ill, or as gypsies, vagrants and addicts.
Claire had been deeply shocked at se
eing her camp-mates labelled in this crude and shameful manner, just as she, herself, was labelled. But as the months went by, she’d almost grown accustomed to it and scarcely registered the triangles of coloured material any more.
Vivi had managed to get them work in the textile factory by talking to the senior, the woman who oversaw their particular hut. Claire had heard her asking how they could get jobs in the sewing room at the reception centre that they’d passed through when they’d entered the camp.
‘Those are jobs for privileged workers,’ the woman had replied. ‘You can’t just walk into them. Everyone wants to work in such easy conditions sitting at a sewing machine in the warmth.’
‘But we are experienced seamstresses,’ Vivi had protested. ‘We can work fast and accurately, and we know how to fix those sewing machines when the bobbins get tangled or the needles jam.’
The woman looked her up and down. ‘That’s as may be, but you still can’t walk into one of those jobs so easily. Since you and your friend claim to have such talents, though, I’ll speak to the kapo who’s in charge of allocating workers to the textile factory. Perhaps they can put your special experience to good use there.’ Her tone was cutting, but she kept her word and two days later Claire and Vivi were ordered to join the line of textile workers.
The factory floor had been a shock to Claire at first, but slowly she’d grown used to the noise and the unremitting workload. Vivi had seemed more at home from the start, and Claire remembered what she’d said about working in the spinning mills in Lille before the war.
The factory made the shirts and trousers for camp inmates as well as manufacturing clothing for the German military. Claire was set to work stitching grey army trousers. Vivi made socks for the soldiers, setting up the machinery and keeping it running at its maximum capacity all day long. Glancing up from her work, every now and then, Claire would notice how Vivi would talk to the other workers, and especially to the factory foreman who allocated the jobs, and how everyone warmed to her friendly manner and easy competence.