Unravelling Oliver(16)

It is impossible to believe that so many of my compatriots did nothing, but I think genocide happens every day in some part of the world and it is easier for us to pretend that it is not happening, easier to turn off the TV or skip that column in the newspaper.

My father was a hero, an intellectual and a noble man. My mother’s death occurred shortly after the occupation, and he was heartbroken, but she had foreseen some of the horror that was to follow and she extracted a promise from my father that he would do everything in his power to protect our friends, no matter what their faith. We lived in very comfortable circumstances in a chateau handed down through seven generations of my father’s family. We produced good wines that were sold all over Europe and gave employment throughout the region. My father was less business-orientated than my mother and struggled to keep a rein on things in her absence. He was too distracted and scandalized that the Vichy government could preside over such evil.

He invited several Jewish families to make their homes in the wine cellars underneath the terraced steps, particularly between 1942 and 1944, as the round-ups intensified with the full participation of our own French authorities. Papa refused to stay quiet and made several representations to the secretary general to the Préfecture to no avail. So he took the law into his own hands and, using local informants, was able to pre-empt the official round-ups with round-ups of his own. My Tante Cécile was active in the Resistance movement in the city and, through a network of friends, managed to coordinate the rescue of many families targeted by the Gestapo. The families had to be kept out of sight, and even though we probably had the space for them in the chateau, Papa felt it was too risky. Our chateau was in a valley overlooked on two sides, so it was not possible for any of them to be outside during the daytime. If there was to be a sudden inspection, there must be no trace of them. So Papa set about turning the cellars into a more comfortable home. He knew he risked the business by doing this as wine production would have to cease for the duration. He ordered oil lamps, blankets, books and clothing through some friends in Valence so as not to arouse suspicion in the local village of Clochamps. He took delivery at night and, with trusted friends, created a temporary sanctuary for these families who had nowhere else to run, until a contact could be made to get them north, out of the country and across the border to Switzerland where they were guaranteed to be free of persecution. As a child, it was tremendously exciting for me. A constant stream of new people coming and going. I was too young to notice their sorrow and desperation. Until then, I had been home-schooled, an only child, but Papa made sure that I knew the importance of keeping secrets when it was crucial to do so.

Despite all this activity, my father continued to make time for me, ensuring that I understood the world in a moral sense and that I knew that I would always come first in his life.

In May 1944, just a few months before the Liberation, a midnight raid by the Gestapo found fourteen Jewish families in our cellars, including my best friends Sara and Marianne. I never saw them again, but was later to discover that they and all their families were dead, some shot while trying to escape the camp at Drancy, others gassed in Auschwitz.

The Gestapo seized our home, had my father arrested by the local police, and I was sent to Tante Cécile in the city. I did not see my father again for six months, but prayed every night for his safe return. I do not remember most of these events and it shames me a little that I do not, but I can visualize the story as it was retold to me by those who were old enough to understand what was happening.

We were reunited for Christmas after the Liberation back at Chateau d’Aigse, but it was barely recognizable as the grand home it had once been. The house had been stripped to its bones; no rugs, paintings, furniture or bedding. Floorboards had been used as firewood. It was the first time I saw my father cry. Whatever they had done to him in prison had broken him. He was just forty-eight years old.

Many years later, I wanted him to get a typewriter and modernize our archaic filing system as it would be easier than filling out the old ledgers we used for the administration of the farm. Papa’s refusal was instant and ferocious, and it was only then he told me that while in prison he had been forced to type up deportation orders. He had told nobody and, despite his heroics, he felt nothing but shame. I think it an honourable thing not to visit your horror upon those that you love, but I suspect that the pain of keeping it inside must also cause a lesion to the soul. It was known that when the Gestapo realized they were on the verge of defeat, they became particularly vicious.

I recall the particular warmth of my father holding me tightly in the skeleton of our library, picking over the remnants of our raped bookshelves where he had kept many precious volumes. Papa was a book collector, and I remember that he swore to restore this room first.

Because our winery had ceased production when we were hiding the families (there was no way of operating without the use of the cellars), and my father’s nerves were too shattered to return to the business of wine, we had no income apart from what was left of his inheritance. We closed off one wing of the house and confined ourselves to just a few rooms. My privileged childhood was over, but I had no concept of it and so I did not miss it. I was too young to be aware of wealth or the lack of it. I was delighted to attend the local lycée as my father tried desperately to nurse his neglected vines back to life. My father begged Tante Cécile to move in with us. He was determined that I should have a mother figure. Tante Cécile was my mother’s older spinster sister. The few photographs that remain of my mother show some resemblance, though my mother was beautiful and Cécile was not. She did not know what to do with a child, and we had many battles of will over the most ridiculous things. My father grew weary of being the referee between us, and it took me some time to realize that if Papa trusted her, then I should also trust her. It occurs to me now that they may have been lovers. I have snapshots of catching them awkwardly together in my mind, but no matter. She was a good woman in a difficult situation, and I should have been more aware of the sacrifice she had made to become my guardian.