Recollection: My mother during WW2, part 1

My younger daughter asked me to return to writing blog posts about my early recollections of Paris and my family. My mother's birthday was in May, French Mother's Day is the last Sunday in May or May 30,2021, so I'll write a very old memory about my mother during the war years. In 2009 I wrote a post about my mother's childhood "Mother's Birthday" you can read it here. It was followed in 2010 with a post about her youth and work in Paris and on the French Riviera "Mother's Youth and the House of Worth" you can read it here. For many years I gave my mother a hydrangea plant for Mother's Day; this is why I show some here.

As time passes, our memories fade and the visual information on them becomes vague. But some memories seem etched in the mind for ever. There are different types of memory: short term memory, sensory memory, long term memory that includes explicit memory, semantic memory and episodic memory. Episodic memories are generally about specific moments in one's life, with sensations and emotions associated with the event. Subsets of these are autobiographical memories including "flashbulb" memories which are highy detailed vivid "snapshot" of an exceptional and often emotional circumstance. The story I'm going to relate belongs to this type of memory as I was just past 4 years old but I still remember it. I don't have many photos of that period, of course, but I have photos showing me at the time.

One thing I remember about that time is the sound of the sirens urging us to go down to underground shelters as bombers were in the area. Some afternoons we would also go to public garden squares where my mom would sew and I would play. Once in a great while we would take a bus around Paris - I liked to stand in the very back of the bus in the open air.

From the bus I could see the rare cars (as gasoline was unavailable to private people,) bicycles, bike-taxis or tandem taxis as well as horse carriages. (Click on collage to enlarge.)

Mother must have left me with a neighbor when she went food shopping as I don't remember going with her then. Queues were long.

The Germans occupied Paris from June 1940 through August 1944 and seized about 80 percent of the French food production. There were acute food shortage and malnutrition amongst children, the elderly and in large cities where people could not maintain a vegetable garden. (Only 3/4 pound of meat with bones a week per family, if you could find it.) French food rationing was more stringent than that of any other occupied country in Western Europe. Ration books were issued for everything: food, clothes, coal, etc. until 1949. I don't remember eating much as food access was not normalized until the early 1950s.

Farmers raised rabbits to sell to city folks as they reproduced quickly. Some city people even raised rabbits on their balconies or cellars. My mother had been a "première d’atelier" or head seamstress in high fashion houses in Paris. She presided over the "atelier" (workshop) overseeing up to 30 seamstress and apprentices. She was the right-hand of the designer and had to be able to translate the designs into the right fabric, cut, etc. She could work with furs as well. She had a friend, Sarah, who worked in a fur shop, not far from our apartment. We would stop there often and my mother would make rabbit vests or other small garments that she would barter with farmers for one egg a week for me. I remember the little shop well; it was about 1/2 mile down the street Rue de Rochechouard. Several years ago while in Paris I tried to find where the fur shop used to be, but it was no longer there. I think it was located in Rue Lamartine. Below are maps of Paris arrondissements or quarters. We lived at the top of the 9th, below the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, that is located at the top of Butte Montmartre, the highest point in Paris. Below, on the top right is shown in blue the 1/2 mile walking trip from our apartment to where my mother's friend worked, a 10 minute walk.

My mother's friend wore a yellow star on her coat. At the time, I did not know why. Later, of course, I read about it. In May 1942, on the advice of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler ordered all Jews in occupied Paris to wear this yellow ID badge on the left side of their coats. Two months later, on July 16-17 1942, the Nazis had the French Police make mass arrest of 13,000 foreign Jewish families in Paris and suburbs. This was called "La Rafle du Vel d'Hiv" an abbreviation of the Rafle du Vélodrome d'Hiver. The victims were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp. (In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron apologized and admitted the responsibility of the French State in this raid.) (Photos courtesy French Wikipedia.)

I don't have photos of the various capes, hats, jackets, vests and manchons (hand warmer) my mother made with the rabbit fur, but years later she made a white rabbit cape for my eldest daughter, shown below. I also found examples of rabbit vests as she used to sew (she made one for my late husband to wear outdoors.)

My memories of that time are rather vague, but I was 4 years old at the time. However, the following event I remember well. We had walked to Sarah's shop and my mother was upset. I remember she was arguing with Sarah - I don't remember the words, but Sarah kept saying no and my mother yes. Then Sarah took her coat (with the yellow star) and my mother threw it away. Then I remember trying to keep up with them as they walked up the street toward our apartment. My legs were not very long as seen in the photo below, in a dress my mother had made for me.

We proceeded to walk up to our apartment, which was on the 6th floor (without an elevator.) Then I played while Sarah and my mother went up the 7th floor where my father had his jewelry workshop (he was an artisan jeweler, diamond dealer.) I am not sure how long Sarah stayed there - days? weeks? Later I remember going up when Sarah had left. There was a small bed on the side and heavy navy blue blankets on the window to keep the lights out. In old Paris buildings the seventh floor used to have single rooms for the maids, with one or two toilets in the hall. Mother would be careful to make sure no one was around when she took food up to Sarah. In the collage below you see the entrance to the Cité on top left, next to our building, below on the left with window ajar is where my father's workshop was, then the main courtyard. We kept this apartment until the mid 1970s.

Several days later, or a couple of weeks, I am not sure, there was a loud knock on our front door. My mother opened the door and was pushed forcefully out of the way by two or three scary looking tall men. I remember they were loud with mean voices. Then my father arrived and they pushed him against the wall. They were looking for gold they said (I was told later) because my father was a jeweler. My father, an Armenian, had his business name changed at the time - he had the 3 last letters taken off, ian, that showed his Armenian name; he was stateless then. The Nazis sent many "stateless" people to concentration camps, too - they wore blue ID badges. Anyway, I remember that I wanted those men to stay away from my mum and dad and kept telling the men "I know something... Where someone is hiding..." Later my mother told me she had been petrified that they would listen to me and find Sarah upstairs. But I was annoying them and one of them walked on my feet with his heavy boots and I howled and kept howling. The men shouted at my mum to keep me quiet then they took my father away. It turns out that they were the Gestapo. My father returned a couple days later and went to bed for a while to recoup.

For those who may not know, the Gestapo, abbreviation for Geheime Staatspolizei (German: "Secret State Police",) in partnership with the Sicherheitsdienst(SD "Security Service") were responsible for rounding up the Jews throughout Europe for deportation to the extermination camps. I don't remember what they looked like but I do remember the boots that were so loud on our hardwood floor, and so painful on my feet. I think that for several days afterwards my mother had to carry me down the six flights of stairs and then down to the cellar during air raids. This is my "snapshot" memory - I'll never forget these loathsome men. Then I don't know what happened to Sarah. I think my mother's cousin worked with or had a friend in the French Resistance who had told him about the roundup of Jews in our Paris quarter. He also was able to get Sarah out of Paris and to a safe location or overseas. Both my parents never talked about it. But my father had our front door secured after that. The outside view looked the same but the inside was in metal. It was an armored door with a bar (in case the Gestapo would come back.) I found a couple of pictures that give example of the outside and inside door - our door was a double door.

All this happened a long time ago. The Nazis are gone (well, maybe not everywhere, as seen in the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, by supporters of Donald Trump.) Germany has given reparation to the Jews and the Jews have moved to Israel. Although, there again, the citizens of Israel of nowadays are not the old citizens of after the war. I have been reading articles by the late Maurice Rajsfus (1928-2020.) He was a writer, journalist and militant. He wrote numerous essays on the Jewish genocide in France, the police and politics. His parents were Jews from Poland who had moved to Paris in the 1920s. His parents were rounded up in the Vel d'Hiv rafle of 1942 and sent to Auschwitz. His elder sister and he survived as they were born in France. 75% of French Jews survived to the end of the war (many were hidden like Sarah) in contrast with countries like Poland and the Netherlands where a lot more perished. It is said that the French Police collaborated with the enemy and denounced foreign Jews to save French Jews, but I don't absolve the French Police anyway - they were not innocent. (Below, Paris under German occupation - 1939-1944.)

Maurice Rajsfus wrote several books and I'll look for them when I go to Paris, in particular the book he wrote when he returned from a trip to Israel. I'd like to read what his feelings, as a Holocaust survivor, are about current Israel. I did read a remark he made, in French, and I'll translate: "...Israel is not my problem. It was a country like any other, to visit perhaps, if the opportunity arose. Once there, I modified this assessment ... I have always distanced myself from this state - since 1948... The world looks at Israel, judges its actions, admires or condemns them. As far as I am concerned, I refuse to bear part of the burden of this Jewish country which subjects the Palestinians to conditions of oppression that some of its citizens experienced in the past, elsewhere. I don't want anyone to think I am an accomplice - to any degree - of those who consider it normal to make the Palestinians pay for the crimes commited by the Nazis."

After my mother died in 2002 I found out that she had saved more Jewish people, when I was a baby. This will be for the part 2 of this post... more to come...

"Peace has no borders." - Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel (1922-1995)

Spring 2020 ... simple pleasures

During this confinement, a "bol" of strong coffee, a croissant and a picture book of Paris is a comfort, and a pleasure.  Another pleasure is to search for photos, write a post, then read the comments that my blogging friends were kind enough to write.  For over a month now I have been alone in this house, with my cat.  Reading the comments makes me feel as if I am entering a circle of friends; they may be "e-friends" but I still feel the warmth as if they were close by.  I am grateful that you took the time to read my long posts and leave comments - it is a pleasure to read them, indeed.  As I wrote in my last post on spring, finding flowers near my house is another pleasure.  Some irises just bloomed in the back of the driveway - here they are.  (Please click on collage to see flowers closer.)

I ventured out to a couple of houses nearby.  One of them has a border of lavender irises and roses going to their front porch.

A couple of days ago I had to finally get out of the house.  I needed to collect my medicine at the drugstore.  I took mask and gloves and picked it up at the drugstore window.  It was a beautiful sunny and warm day, around 75 F (23.8C.) The drugstore is only 1 mile from my home so it's a quick ride in the car.  I did not want to go back home - it was so lovely outside.  There is a very large park close to the drugstore.  I decided to drive there.  It was still early and I thought if there were few people in the park I could venture out of the car.  This park is called Centennial Park.  In 1897 it was given this name in honor of the 100th anniversary of Tennessee's admittance into the Union of the United States.  The 132-acre (0.53 km2) park has a lake, paths, sunken gardens, recreation center and a replica of the Parthenon of Athens, Greece.  It is a full-scale replica of the ancient Greek temple and can be visited; although right now it is closed.  Years ago I did walk up the hill to the original Parthenon in Athens, Greece, when I stayed with my father's Armenian cousins there.  Here are several vintage postcards of the Nashville's Parthenon.

I visited this park once before but did not go inside the Parthenon.  I'll do that in the future and will write a post on it.  As I parked by the lake I just noticed a gaggle of geese.  They swam toward me.

It did not feel as though downtown Nashville was only 2 miles away or the large Vanderbilt University complex less than half a mile away, too.  In the drugstore parking lot was a policeman sitting in his patrol car.  I asked him if the park was open.  He told me the entrance to the park was closed.  He then gave me detailed instructions on how to enter it through the back.  I found the way.  It was so peaceful there with no one around.

Wearing my dust mask, I walked a bit around the lake to check for spring flowers and shrubs.  There were pink azaleas in full bloom.

Below are more azaleas in a darker shade of pink.  I just read that there are over 10,000 types of azaleas and approximately 800 species.

Azaleas can also be cut and replanted.  I had not thought of that, but now when I go back to my house in Georgia I'll take cuttings from my three azalea shrubs there and bring them back to Nashville.

Coming around the bend I saw a bench.  I sat to watch the geese.  A little duck came ashore toward me, as if he had been waiting for my visit.  I guess the birds have not been fed by visitors for a long time.

I walked toward the side of the Parthenon.  Then I walked back to my car.

It was strange in a way, walking in that large empty park.  It reminded me of the pictures I just saw of my old home-town Paris right now - totally empty of tourists.  Even the river Seine has no traffic.  (Photos courtesy La Parisien.)

It also reminded me of Paris during the war.  I was a wee child then but I remember walking with my mum in the streets - no tourists.  But the streets were not totally empty, there were some cars (mostly of Germans,) people walking, or on bicycles or motorbikes.  There even were funny motorcycles with seats attached to them, called "side-car" pronounced seed-carr.  Some bicycles with a cargo carriage were used as taxi-cabs, like the bicycles below, called "velo-taxi.".  Below are some old photographs from that era.  (Don't forget to click on collage to enlarge.)

Paris does look like a ghost town.  Policemen give tickets if people are out without a good reason that has to be stated on a signed document - they take confinement very seriously there.  But Centennial Park in Nashville, even without visitors, did not feel empty.  It was alive with birds, geese, ducks and squirrels.  It was radiant with colors of the flowers, shrubs and the varied greens of plants, grass and trees.  It was as if I had stepped through a magical place.  I was so glad I had come - a true pleasure.

My first time in town in over a month and it had been successful.  There is much fear, grief and sorrow right now, but still, simple pleasures do happen and should.  "Be happy for this moment.  This moment is your life."  - Omar Khayyam, 1048-1131, Persian philosopher.

Back in my kitchen I could still watch the sun from all the windows. We had a skylight installed in the kitchen of the Georgia house.  While sitting by the table I could look up and watch the sky.  I got used to that.  Luckily the Nashville bungalow has many windows.  There are 4 tall and large double windows in the kitchen plus a window over the sink and a glass door leading to the covered patio.  The covered patio has 8 windows and another glass door going to the back deck.  For a bungalow built in 1930 it is surprising how many windows are in each room.  While drinking my coffee of a morning I can follow the squirrels jumping on the back porch and watch all the birds flying tree to tree.  It is cheerful (and a pleasure.)

Working for decades in the aeronautical field, in a large office with numerous cubicles and no windows, as soon as I'd go out for lunch or home I would immediately look up at the sky.  Was it sunny or raining?  Was one of our cargo aircraft taking a flight test?  Which one was it?  Air Force, Coast Guard or maybe a foreign air force customer?  I could tell by its color.  I could also recognize if it was a C-130, a C-141 or a C-5 by their sound.  I always looked up, a habit I never lost.  Here is a quote I really like.  It is by one of our past chairmen:

"There is a certain feeling of courage and hope when you work in the field of the air.  You instinctively look up, not down.  You look ahead, not back.  You look ahead where the horizons are absolutely unlimited."  - Robert E. "Bob" Gross, Lockheed's Chairman/CEO 1932-1961.

Walking to the back porch from the covered patio I can look up and see the sky much better.

I like to sit on the front porch in a director chair with my back to the street because I can I get a better view of the sky that way, toward the back (and don't have to watch people walking by, close together without masks; my Nashville zip code has the highest number of cases of Covid-19.)  Looking up at the sky always fills me with joy.

Often I bring my iPad with my little speaker and listen to music.  Looking up at the sky and listening to music - is there anything better?  Such a peaceful pleasure!  Here is the last piece of music I listened to yesterday, played by a Greek musician.

"Keep your face to the sun

and you will not see the shadows"    

- Helen Keller, 1880-1968, American author

Gardez votre visage vers le soleil

et vous ne verrez pas les ombres.

2020 so far ...to 1920s and 30s

While I was still in Georgia before the Holidays I visited again the historic antebellum mansion Bulloch Hall as it was decorated for Christmas.  I took many pictures and was going to write a post in early January, but as you'll see below, something happened and I could not.  January started well, though.  On Thursday, January 2, 2020, my daughter, son-in-law and I went to a movie matinee to see the modern but faithful adaption of "Little Women" directed by Greta Gerwig.  I had read Louisa May Alcott's classic book, translated into French and titled "Petites Femmes" or "Les 4 Filles du Docteur Marsh" when I was eleven years old.  I did not remember it very much.  We all enjoyed this period drama, so beautifully acted.  (below photos from the film, courtesy Sony Pictures and LA Times.)

 Later I watched a PBS documentary on the 350 years old Orchard House (the home of the Alcott family in Concord, Massachusetts.)  It was full of interesting history and information.  Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) wrote her two-part novel in this house in 1868 and 1869.  Her book was successful from the start.  It was translated into 50 languages and has never been out of print.  The virtual tour of the well-maintained house, with its original furnishings, was quite moving.  I have gathered several postcards of the house and its interior.  (Please click on collage to enlarge.)

While looking at vintage postcards of Concord, Massachusetts, I came upon one featuring Ephraim Wales Bull - so had to find out who he was.  It turns out he was a farmer in Concord, also in the 1800s, and a neighbor of the Alcott family.  Around 1849 Ephraim planted seeds from the wild vine Vitiz labrusca.  After evaluating more than 22,000 seedlings he decided on the ideal one and called it "Concord Grape."  The Concord Grape won first place in 1853 in a Boston agricultural exhibition and was introduced commercially in 1854.  I had no idea.  In the fall if I can find fresh Concord grapes I always buy them as I like their sweet but slightly acid taste.  The Concord grape is popular for jellies, juice and more.  Poor Ephraim Wales Bull (1806-1895) never obtained any money for his grape discovery.  On his grave it reads "He sowed.  Others reaped."

On the following day, Friday 3, 2020, my daughter and I went to Nashville's first "Salute to Vienna" New Year Viennese style celebration.  Maestro Bernhard Schneider, from Vienna, conducted the Strauss Symphony of America as well as dancers from the National Ballet of Hungary, Ballroom Dancers, a soprano and a tenor.  The program included waltzes, polkas, with The Blue Danube towards the end.  The lyrics of the classic "Auld Land Syne" were printed in the back of the program so the audience could sing along.

This concert was performed at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in downtown Nashville.  I had never seen it before and thought it was an old building.  But no, construction had begun in 2003 and the building formally opened in 2006.  It is named in honor of Kenneth Schermerhorn, the late maestro of the Nashville Symphony.  It has a neo-classical style with modern acoustic features and has won several design awards.  Coming out of the dark parking area, the brightly lit symphony building looked imposing.  Once inside I was surprised to see spectators seated behing the orchestra, under the large custom-built organ.  It is a special choral loft that can be available during non-choral performances.

This Salute to Vienna concert had been touring the US close to New Year for many years.  There are performances in major cities, but in the South, only some cities in Florida and for the first time in Nashville.  The concert included mostly Johann Strauss, Jr. (Austrian, 1825-1899) waltzes but also a couple from Franz Lehar's.  I knew all of them and I'll tell you why below.  It certainly was a delightful evening with lovely music, songs and dances.  A great start to the New Year.  I just took a few photos with my iPhone.

My mother loved dancing when she was young, in the 1930s.  She had spent some time in Juan-les-Pins and told me that she used to go dancing almost every evening.  It was the "jazz age" period and people like author Scott F. Fitzgerald lived there as well and had made this French Riviera resort town quite fashionable and in vogue.  Mother particularly enjoyed dancing the tango and the waltz.  Unfortunately my father was badly injured and handicapped in WW2.  But if on the radio a Strauss waltz was played she would stop everything and have me dance with her - even if I was in the middle of playing or doing my homework.  By 6 years of age I could dance the waltz, the tango, fox-trot, polka, Charleston and more.  This is why I knew all the waltzes and polkas played during the concert.  Below is my mother (on the right) with my grandmother, mother (on the right) with a friend and in a small ID photo.  She had red hair and pale turquoise eyes.

After my father died in 1974 I went back to visit mother every year after Christmas to be with her about 10 days around New Year.  She always had bought some tickets to a musical, tango or Viennese waltzes spectacle, operetta or play in a theatre for the two of us to attend.  Then when she became stricken with Parkinson's disease and could not go out she would send for a ticket for me by checking her weekly magazine "Pariscope" that listed all the shows in the capital (and being in the center of Paris there were always a multitude of them.)  When I arrived in Paris she would tell me what kind of show I was going to attend.  She would wait for my return from the show to listen with excitement for my descriptions and impressions.  She did get a tremendous vicarious enjoyment from it.

As you can see I have started the new years with songs and dances for a very long time.  It was nice that my daughter invited me to watch the Salute to Vienna to continue the tradition.  As my readers know I have been traveling monthly to Georgia to clear out our house there.  Last August I became very tired and short of breath.  It got worse and worse.  I just thought I was aging and kept going on.  But by Sunday January 5, 2020, I could not walk across a room without catching my breath and had to sit down.  When I finally went to see my doctor he diagnosed Atrial Fibrillation (Afib) which is an iregular heart beat.  Because my heart had been running so high for so long I also developed acute heart failure.  Bother - now I can't go back to GA for a while.  I'm taking a bunch of pills daily and am scheduled for a battery of tests: breathing, stress, MRI, and more and will have to wear a heart monitor for a while until they understand where the heart failure comes from.  I can barely walk so have been spending time reading, and listening to music.  A friend sent me links to black and white old movies from the 1930s that I can watch on my iPad.  I'm trying to watch upbeat movies with dancing and songs.  I just watched a couple of old Bob Hope and Bing Crosby films and also "Dancing Feet."  It is a 1936 American comedy with a lot of dancing.  Here are a couple of pics from this film.

Then I found music from that era on my iPad as well; the type of music famous in the 1920s and 1930s, a time known as the Roaring Twenties and the Jazz Age.  I even found a second-hand CD on line featuring "The Great British Dance Bands" from those years.  Right now, I prefer to listen to the music from that period - a time of flappers, Art Deco and jazz, instead of turning on the TV and watching more shootings, the terrible epidemic from the Coronavirus or endless political talks.

One of the songs I like was played by Mrs. Jack Hylton and Her Band.  I found it also on youTube.  It is called "Got to dance my way to heaven."  You can listen to it below.

She had a very good and successful band in the UK in the 1930s and sold many records through the Woolworth's stores.  I remember when I was in London as a teenager - there was a Woolworth's close
to my host family house.  I had not seen those Woolworth's stores in Paris and I thought they were "smashing."  I also remember going to change my Francs into Pound Sterling at the Foreign Exchange booth in Victoria Station.  Then I'd go to Piccadilly Circus and have tea at Fortnum and Mason, or if money was tight, I'd have a cup of tea at Lyon's Corner House.

As I sat listening to that music it seemed kind of familiar to my ear.  It was before my time though as I started traveling to London in 1953 when I was 13 years old.  But still.  Then, in my mind's eye I could see myself in the late 1950s studying my English on the weekends for my Cambridge exam while staying at my pen friend's home.  Wasn't that the music playing in the background?  Did I imagine it?  So I telephoned my British pen-pal (I have known her since 1953) who is now retired in Florida and asked her.  No, she could not remember ...but then... she said "you are right! Mum had an old Gramophone radiogram and she used to play her old 78 records of big bands from the 30s while doing her house cleaning." Her mother, Gladys, just like my mother, had loved dancing in the 1930s.  My friend added "but you did not like that type of music then, you liked Dixieland jazz and Fats Domino!"  Tastes change, just like in fashion, and mine can change in ...what? over 65 years?  Well, here you are, I started 2020 with music and am still listening, even if the melodies are from the 1920s and 30s.  I explained my health issues to my friend.  She told me, and insisted "you are not sick - you just have a "condition."  She is British and speaks proper English, so she must be right - I just have a condition, a heart condition.  I feel better already!  Wish I could dance ...

Note to Naomi's readers - This post took several days to write.  Next post, I'll write about my latest conversation with Naomi.