The Germans came into Paris
and uh...
and then there was a quick succession of things that
started to happen, we were asked to register
and then we had to turn in our radios
Asked to
register? Register as Jews. Where?
At the police station
and that was really the
first inkling that I had
that there was something special or difficult or bad about being a
Jew
And I remember
in the metro, you couldn't go in some cars
on some, what you all it, wagons
and you had to go home by 8 O'clock
and I also remember, one day, a Sunday afternoon, my mother had dressed
us three little girls
beautifully
and we each of us had the star but my mother forgot to put a star on her costume
so she really panicked and she said, "I have to leave you, you walk on that side
and Mummy's going to walk on the other side of the street, and we'll go home,
watch me from the other side of the street to go home."
and we walk without my mother for the first time but we watched
on the other side of the street and we went home, because if she would have been caught
without the star
she would have been put in
camps straight away.
The commanding officer of the Germans came and asked the
principal of the Lycee to give him the names of all
the Jewish students at the Lycee Pasteur
all the names
the names sounding Jewish
he wanted to have all the names and addresses
of the
Jewish students at the Lycee Pasteur
so the professeur
the principal of the Lycee
was really a wonderful person
and for the first thing they did
was that
they made copies
they worked all night
of the names
and put all the original addresses and put all the original
documents
in a safe
way outside of Paris
then, and again they told
the people they take some time to do all this work
and give them a few days
and then what they did is
they took all the Jewish sounding names
completely changed them
and changed the addresses
To fictitious addresses? To fictitious addresses
and then gave that list
it was all finished
to the German authorities
Later on when the new law come over
I got to give away my business
and I've got no right to go to work
but I work anyway
How did you work anyway?
The people would
even they was not Jewish, I was a good trader see
so
I entered the books and I went to work for him
So they didn't stop you.. No, no, I worked all the time
But they took your business away? Yes
We had never had very much but
around that
just before the the invasion
things were getting a little better for us financially
and my mother had gone out
and bought a radio
or maybe my father was the one who bought it, I don't know, but there was a radio in the house
and I can
tell you that radio was really important to me
it had a green eye
and it was a very modern kind of
long cabinet
with brown cloth over the speaker
and uh...
and I was fascinated by that thing
I used to imagine that there was a miniature orchestra inside that box that made
all that music
Now I was pretty naive but
that was you know, a big thing and then my mother my father, had also gotten us
a wind-up record player
and a couple of records
and I remember uh...
there was a Viennese Waltz
and a "Wedding of the Painted Dolls" which was my favorite
I could play that thing all day long
now we had to turn in that radio and that
really got me upset, I was crying over it.
From day one
June fourteen 1940
when the Germans came
to Paris
until
May 1945
when I become again a free man
I was
all the time in hiding
under a false name
persecuted
as a Jew
and uh...
feeeling mostly
at uh...
the French
people
who until then
I more or less
veneered, I like them very much
they become the number one enemy of the Jews
meaning there is very very very very strong
anti Jewish feeling
all over France