A mirrored existence

Mirrored_Existence-3

The following pages narrate the repercussions of what she experienced as a child in the Warsaw Ghetto and, after its liquidation, during the Second World War. In all probability such would be the conclusion reached by the psychiatrist she never consulted.

Between the Words, the autobiography she dedicated to the memory of her parents, was perhaps a bit too reserved.

Seventy-five years have just elapsed since they were liberated by the Russian Army on the 17th of January 1945. In the meantime, Warsaw was reduced to rubble and covered in thick snow. They emerged from what had been an elegant apartment building, now an icy ruin—the final episode in a diabolical odyssey in which she and her parents were the protagonists. Her father was seriously injured, her mother ill, and she, herself, ran the risk of getting tuberculosis.

Her parents in 1946

Herself in 1946

Only now has she come to understand the defining characteristics of the woman she has become whose childhood was truncated by the Shoah, and herself born into a state of rootlessness. She feels a stranger to herself and an outsider everywhere, though no one would suspect as much, behind the playful smile she wears in front of others. She remains detached, and rarely engages with anyone other than her close family. Unconvincing as the love between Candide and Cunégonde that lends unity to Voltaire’s story, there is only one thread weaving itself through her being: a language, French.

Is this why the stranger, recently appeared unannounced, has managed to carve out for himself a privileged place in her life, at a time that was likely to prove its closing phase? He lives thousands of miles away, but their exchanges through WhatsApp erase the difference in their ages.

She had learnt early enough how to paint over reality with her imagination. During the war, barely out of childhood, she lived (for there is no other word to describe the hellish period of trying to evade a sentence of certain death), hidden with her parents in a windowless room, their makeshift shelter, hardly daring to move or speak, prey to the permanent threat of being discovered and denounced. Her mother instilled in her a love of reading. Thanks to her books, she was able to escape into a world of her own making whenever she needed to, a kind of Eldorado surrounded by insurmountable mountains. That dreamlike universe allowed her to elude the present and helped her overcome, without evident consequences, other difficult moments in her life.

It had not always been so.

She had understood that life proceeded along a rough-hewn road, with cracks, uneven patches and bumps. The road rose and fell and then came to a sudden stop. She had encountered enough “bumps” in her life to recognize them.

She was born at a bad moment in time, just before World War II, in a country that Alfred Jarry had said did not exist. But he was mistaken: it certainly did exist — for those unfortunate three million Jews exterminated by Poland’s German invaders, without even batting an eyelid. The Germans disliked Jews, the Poles were none too fond of them either.

Nevertheless she came into the world, bringing joy to a couple who were very close and of a high social standing. Her parents were young and good-looking. The husband was tall with brown hair, while his wife, a wisp of a woman, had blond hair the colour of wheat. They were delivered of a little doll aided by a pair of forceps, and, to keep jealousy at bay, the child somehow managed to have dark hair and blue eyes. Her mother boasted that she was the spitting image of Shirley Temple, and took her to the cinema at the grand age of three to see the little film star. That made not the slightest difference to the girl who was fascinated instead by the images flickering on the screen.

Poland is a country richly populated by woods and forests. The family, who hailed from Warsaw and Lodz, owned a villa shaded by tall trees with thick branches, not far from Lodz. It was a paradise for that daredevil of a girl. She would swing rapturously on them and sledge at full speed in the snow with her father who held her to him with unfailing tenderness. For many years, she kept a photo of one of their escapades, which was lost together with everything else. Both her parents were just over the age of twenty, but they had no more children after their first. During wartime that turned out to be a stroke of luck.

On the 1st of September 1939, life took a sudden turn followed by five and a half years of hell in Warsaw. Only a few survived, chastened both morally and physically: among them her parents with their only daughter. She had time to mature all too quickly, to grow up but only just. They couldn’t possibly have remained in Poland, and so they left in haste.  Apart from an ever virulent antisemitism, especially among those Poles who had seized Jewish property and feared survivors would demand restitution, the Soviets, with the KGB at the head, quickly occupied Poland.

Her parents with her in 1947

After many vicissitudes during which their lives were still at risk, they arrived in Paris, the so-called City of Lights; though in February 1947, the sky was overcast and dark and its cobblestones wet. The city was cold and starving, with long queues of people beating their heels on the pavements. Ration coupons in hand, they waited outside bakeries that sold loaves of cornbread. The image struck her full-face as they exited the Gare de l’Est railway station. Her parents had read Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, The Arch of Triumph, about stateless refugees in Paris in 1939 just before the war. The hero, Dr. Ravic, who had fled Nazi Germany, was working clandestinely, and in order to blot out his precarious existence, would take swigs of Calvados. She remembered that, when her father got off the train, he bought a bottle of that same liqueur. And from that day on a bottle of Calvados was always kept in the fridge at home.

As time passed, her life began to flourish once again. She learnt French quickly and with relish. She never forgot Polish thanks to her mother’s endeavours, a language that had allowed her to evade the present during the years spent in numerous hiding places by reading its copious national literature. But French became her native language.

School at last, or more precisely the lycée. She was registered somewhat late and placed in 6th grade.  She projected an image of the typical foreigner. Her classmates, in their colourless and nondescript smocks, soon made her out without uttering a single word. The principal graciously introduced the little Polish refugee to her new classmates. There was a free place at the back of the class; next to the worst pupil, she soon realized. Pink-faced, with bulging cheeks, and with a blank expression: that’s who she was seated next to. Worse luck!

Eager to learn, she attempted to follow the lessons through a kind of fog. Her first Latin lessons she found hard, despite her efforts to make up for lost time. Her greatest desire was to be like the other girls, even though she had not yet managed to work out what they were like. She had arrived from some unknown planet, and theirs resembled the impossible dream she had conjured throughout her childhood.

At home, she committed whole pages to memory. At long last, the French teacher set them a poem to be learnt by heart, "The Reaper" by Victor Hugo. A godsend! She would have the chance, finally, to show off her talents. The next day in class, she was the first one to put up her hand: the other girls would soon see who they were dealing with! She began to recite the poem, but heard her voice mispronouncing and mumbling every word. All to no avail: a real disaster! She dared not look at her classmates or her teacher in the face. At home, she said nothing, fencing off her mother’s questions and saying that things had gone well. Her parents would have done everything to make her happy, and she didn’t want to cause them any pain.

Her first year at school was no great success. The girls were kind, but someone had whispered to her that one of them was a lesbian, a monarchist and in love with the girl who was top of the class. They burst into laughter when she asked what that was. The girl in question, from a self-righteous Catholic family and almost unspeakably ugly, was anti-Semitic to boot. In an attempt to make friends, our little Polish refugee offered sweets to the other girls during break, but the charitable Christian girl declared outright that she wouldn’t accept anything from Jews! The others ganged up on the girl and would have torn her to pieces, had the prefect not intervened. She has never forgotten the incident.

On the one hand, she was grateful to her classmates for having defended her, but on the other she discovered with precocious maturity that hatred of Jews, if it wasn’t eradicated now, was not about to disappear. She was overcome by fear once more. After some time she realized that there were a few Jewish girls at the school -- hardly surprising since it was located in the Jewish neighborhood of Le Marais. But they didn’t seem willing to admit to it. A matter of indifference or embarrassment? At most they were a year younger than her, though, young as they were, they must have lived through the Occupation and Vichy.

That first year at school proved a constant source of humiliation for a proud young girl who had always been praised for her intelligence. Despite her efforts, she was unable to catch up. At the end of the year the verdict came: she was to be kept down. A death sentence, nothing less! 

Her parents understood the situation fully. A religious Jewish school, liberal and co-educational, had just opened, with a number of recently-arrived refugees just like her. Her mother enrolled her in 5th grade. At first glance, the place looked like the Tower of Babel. The refugees were not necessarily divided according to age. Pupils born in France were eleven or twelve years old while some of the refugees were much older. There were Hungarians, Poles like herself, and North Africans, girls and boys from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, orthodox as well as secular. She regained her self-confidence; her teachers and classmates were fond of her, and she made them laugh. She organized playful demonstrations against injustice, -- and she read, or rather she immersed herself in reading.