Perfectly Ordinary People(18)

I’d like that, if you can find it.

Oh, I can definitely find it. I know exactly where it is. Anyway, what would you like to know next?

OK . . . Why don’t you tell me about the day the Germans invaded? That must have been terrifying.

The day they invaded France, or—

No, sorry. I meant the day they invaded your town – Mulhouse. I’m more interested in your personal experiences. Did you know in advance that they were coming, or was it a surprise?

We knew. I couldn’t name a specific date when we knew because it wasn’t something that happened suddenly. It was more like a slow build-up, like breathlessly watching a car crash in slow motion, you know? The French had been fighting alongside the Allies, and losing, since May, first along the Belgian border, then in the Ardennes mountains, then Arras . . . There were so many battles fought and lost I can’t remember them all. But in June – it was the tenth, I think – the French government declared Paris an ‘open city’ which meant that basically they weren’t going to fight back anymore, though there were battles all the same. But in a couple of days Paris had fallen and from that point we knew we were done for. On the seventeenth we heard that the Germans had arrived in Colmar, which was less than an hour away. And the next morning they reached us in Mulhouse.

Can you explain to me why you didn’t leave, even then? I can’t quite get my head around the fact that you knew you were about to be invaded, but you stayed put.

I know. It does seem strange with hindsight. I wanted to leave. When they said on the radio that the Germans were in Colmar I screamed and cried until my father slapped me to shut me up. But remember, the government was falling apart. They were declaring cities ‘open’ and then bits of the army were fighting all the same. They were telling us to stay put even while they were evacuating people on trains – it was utter chaos. Plus, my father was a military man. Following orders was how he functioned. So when the government said to stay put, stay put is what he did. Maybe he hoped they had a secret plan. Pétain had been a hero in the First World War, so people like my father tended to assume he had something up his sleeve, or at the very least that he knew best. And of course, there was nowhere left to run to anyway by then. Paris had fallen, remember. So it seemed obvious that the rest of the country would follow suit.

That must have been incredibly stressful. How did you cope?

I don’t know. I’m not sure we had the concept of stress back then, but we were certainly worried out of our minds. I hadn’t slept for days. But you had to cling to whatever you could. There were rumours, for example, coming from the towns the Germans had already occupied – rumours saying that they were polite and pleasant to everyone. So if you wanted to cling to something in the midst of all that mayhem, you could try to convince yourself that they were just young men, just people, like us, after all.

I’m trying to imagine the arrival of German soldiers in your town. Can you describe it for me? Were they in tanks or on trucks or on foot? Was there fighting in the streets? How many people died?

<Laughs> They freewheeled into town on pushbikes.

I’m sorry?

The scouts came first – about thirty young soldiers on pushbikes.

And no one challenged them?

No one at all. Mulhouse, like lots of cities, had followed Paris and declared itself an open city. We were under strict orders not to resist. So we stood at the side of the road and watched them cycle past. Some of us cried. I saw a few people wave, which made me cry even more.

People waved?

Yes. As I said, there were people in Alsace who considered themselves more German than French. There were people who were scared, I suppose, and who hoped that trying to look welcoming might make them safer. So yes, some people waved, and the soldiers waved back. They were young and good-looking and smiling. They were happy to have arrived without a fight, I suspect. They rode to the town hall, where the mayor greeted them solemnly. They took down the French flag and put up a swastika. That was the very first thing they did.

And what did you do?

I went back to work. They ordered us to return to our homes and our jobs and we did what we were told. It was mid-morning by then, so I went straight back to the bakery. The Rosenbergs were waiting in the doorway. Mrs Rosenberg asked me over and over again to tell her what had happened. She was trembling, I remember, and Mr Rosenberg eventually sent her upstairs to lie down. That’s when the soldiers started coming in.

German soldiers in the Jewish bakery?

Yes. And just as we’d been told, they were polite and friendly – flirty, even. They had French francs and they were hungry. They insisted on paying for their bagels and bread, even when Mr Rosenberg told them it wasn’t necessary. And in spite of myself, even I started to think things might be all right. I think we were so scared, deep down, that we were desperate to believe. They were even polite to Mr Rosenberg, so that had to be a good sign, didn’t it? Of course it was all part of a plan to avoid any resistance.

More and more troops arrived as the day went by, on trucks and in cars and on foot. They were all starving hungry and by mid-afternoon we’d completely sold out and the till was stuffed full of money. Mr Rosenberg even made a joke about who ever knew a Nazi invasion would be so good for business.

At the end of that first day, Pierre dropped in to buy bread and I gave him a baguette I’d put aside for him. It should give you an idea of just how hard the Germans were trying in those early days if I tell you that there was a soldier outside the shop at the exact moment Pierre came in. I’d just told that soldier we had no bread left, but then served Pierre while he was still watching through the window. I felt bold, as if in my own tiny way, I was resisting, so I was scared. He had a gun slung over his shoulder, after all. He stepped back into the shop, but do you know what he did? He just laughed. He laughed and said, ‘Brot gibt es also nur für Liebhaber! Aber vielleicht wirst Du morgen ja mich lieben.’ I think that was it – my German’s pretty rusty, as you can imagine. But what it meant was, ‘So, there is only bread for lovers! Maybe tomorrow you will love me.’