World War Two and "J"

I have a friend who I'll call "J". She is a quintessential Grand Dame, but she is also one of the most engaging and kind people that I have met in a very long time. She is French, but she has been married to a Swiss man and has been in CH for many, many years. When I found out that she grew up in Paris during WW II, I asked if I might sit down and interview her about her life there when the Germans were in control of the city. J was born in 1924, so you can see that she is in her ninth decade. Despite that, she looks my age, and has a wonderful mind. There must be a batch of good genes in her makeup.

Our interview took place in her living room in a village near where I live. I might add it looks like a museum. She divides WW II into the "funny war" and the "real war". The funny war was that prior to Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939. It wasn't looked on as a world war with Europe being a prize, but when Poland was invaded, it became a prelude to WW II. When Japan and the USA entered, it was a true world war. She was sixteen years old and a student when Poland was invaded. She spent some time in England about the same time, as her father felt she should learn English. She made it back to France before the Germans invaded, much to the relief of her family.

First, a bit about J. Her family lived in a well to do Paris suburb, Neuilly. Her father was the owner of an engineering and manufacturing concern that did business all over Europe. He had been in World War I and had been seriously wounded. He did recover but was always a fan of the USA because of their help in WW I. The family had a home in the south of France and a country house about forty miles out of Paris where they had sharecroppers to help. They welcomed a Swiss girl into their house who wanted to earn some money and learn French. This continues today to be a way that young Europeans learn a foreign language. It so happened that this young girl was from the village of Engelberg here in central CH. Through this contact, the two families became friends, and it was not long until ski holidays, as well as summer vacations were often spent in Engleberg. The significance of this will become evident later.

As the war progressed, it was certain that France, including Paris, was going to be occupied by the German advance. This, of course, took place with a puppet government, Vichey, being installed. J says that General Petan, the titular head of state was mentally incompetent and a true puppet. I was curious about how this young girl fared in the occupation. J had originally wanted to study medicine, but the war prevented that pursuit. She did however, at her father's suggestion,begin a course in Red Cross training to become a nurse. She lived on the eastern side of Paris, and all the hospitals were on the western side. Her means of transport was her bicycle. Bicycles were the universal means of travel then because there was no fuel for cars. It seems that as long as she minded the curfew, life could go on in the city for her and her education.

Rationing was in full swing. The goods available with coupons were shoddy, and things such as shoes were made out of cardboard. J had a pair of pre-war shoes that were leather with rubber soles. These were her treasure and lasted the war. Food was scarce, coffee was non-existent, and things such as fruit not to be found. She told me of how her father had their pre-war Mercury sedan cut and modified so that it would run on charcoal. Evidently, this was done with steam. They could make trips to their farm where peasants would get them some vegetables and a bit of milk now and then. The country house had been requisitioned by the Germans, but the peasants had emptied it of some furnishings that the family could retrieve after the war was over. There was a thriving black market in Paris, but the punishment for using it was extreme ( a trip to a concentration camp).

J remembers that several Jewish families just disappeared from her neighborhood. No trace left. It soon became common knowledge of what Hitler was doing to the Jews. J is a catholic, but had Jewish school friends just not show up for school and never be heard from again. She did know of one family that was sent to Ravensbruck. The NAZI propaganda was everywhere. Most of the movies were just that, although occasionally, there would be a French movie worth seeing. During the whole occupation J never was spoken to, or spoke to, a German soldier. She remembers always having a feeling of fear. Some of her friends were disappearing, the family house in southern France was bombed and destroyed, the country house was occupied and looted, she saw one dogfight while in the country around that house where two planes were shot down in the adjacent woods. They found one plane without a pilot, and another where two men had died. She remembers the fear that her father would be caught listening to the BBC from London. A trip to a camp would have been his punishment, but they could learn the true progress of the war and that the allies were on their way. The Germans used triangulation trucks to try and find these radios. These would roam their neighborhood at night.

J remembers the day that the Germans packed up and left their country home where earlier a German soldier had brought her mother a pheasant that he had shot on their own land. Her mother coolly told the soldier that they wanted nothing that the Germans had to offer. A few days later, the Germans left Paris, supposedly because they were needed on the Eastern Front. They had agreed not to destroy the city although the entire place was rigged with explosives. Of course, we all have seen pictures of the allied soldiers welcomed in Paris.

In a few months, the war in Europe was over. J had been engaged to a French soldier who was not a favorite of her father because he had no job. Her father had been the one to get this man into the French army, and he told J later that he suspected the father was hopeful of a battlefield exit for him. When this didn't happen, her father made arrangements for her to go with a Godmother to the Godmother's property in Argentina. The two women spent a month or so traveling on a ship and seeing about the Godmother's holdings there. By this time the engagement had dissolved.

J returned to France and began to work as a nurse with the allied medical services in the Office of Strategic Services. The OSI was the precursor of today's CIA. Soon afterwards, she and a group of other personnel were on their way into Germany when the jeep she was riding in had a wreck. She was ejected and suffered a compression fracture of her spine. This required a hospital stay of several weeks, and she still has the discharge summary from the US Medical Unit near Hamburg. The accident ended her military career and her OSS position as a Lieutenant in the US forces.

Shortly after the end of the war, she found herself once again in CH and in Engelberg of all places. She met a nice young Swiss man who had grown up in Engelberg where his parents owned a hotel. Soon, it became apparent that they would get married, they did, and to this day have a place in Engelberg. What a circle this has been for a girl of six or seven to a woman returning to Engelberg to find her mate, have three children, and remain with him to this day.

J showed me a grand collection of postcards and old photos which I am sure her children and grandchildren will find a valuable source of this lady's life story. My afternoon with her was full of surprises. Her story would make a grand novel, and it serves to remind me that here in Europe, every older person must have a story to tell. I am grateful that we had this time together. She knows of my intention to blog this part of her life history, and I am very happy to do this.