An account of the brave women who hid Jewish children in wartime Paris is thought-provoking and disturbing, writes Jeanette Trotman.
LES PARISIENNES: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s
Anne Sebba
Weidenfield & Nicolson/Hachette
By JEANETTE TROTMAN
Jewish people over the age of 6, living in occupied countries, were expected to wear the infamous yellow star. Many were rounded up and sent to concentration camps.
This book contains true stories of brave women such as Helene Berr, living in Paris during the years 1939 until 1946, who hid Jewish children. Unfortunately, Helene and her family were taken to Auschwitz in 1944, and then to Bergen-Belsen where she contracted typhus and died just a few days before the British liberated the camp.
Women who supported the resistance did so in their own specialised ways. One such person was Rose Valland, who risked her life every day by spying and recording Nazi thefts at the Jeu de Paume museum. She surreptitiously catalogued looted art and whatever she could observe.
When Paris was liberated she managed to rescue five wagonloads of paintings containing work by Modigliani, Renoir and other great masters. She informed her boss, Jacques Jaujard, the director of the Musees Nationaux, of the last-minute plans for their transportation to Germany. He in turn informed the resistance who were able to prevent the wagons from leaving Aubervilliers.
Some of the stories are of French women who colluded with the German invaders in order to survive the deprivations of war. An estimated 200,000 children were born to French mothers, fathered by German soldiers during World War 2. This became known as "collaboration horizontale''. A typical account is of Lisette and Johann, not their real names at the request of their families even today, who became lovers. At the end of the war, they went to Germany and eventually married.
"Coco'' Chanel, the French fashion designer, closed her shop at the beginning of the war and lived in relative luxury at the Paris Ritz with a German lover. It was 1954 before she re-entered the couture world, meeting with much criticism in France because of her wartime conduct.
Fashion was anything but trivial to the French. To remain stylish provided a beacon of hope for the future. Women tried to be as fashion conscious as possible in order to retain their pride and to boost morale. This was a way to express their identity. Some even coloured their legs and drew a line up the back to represent the seam when stockings became unobtainable.
The stories begin in 1939 and end in 1949. This timeframe is divided into 11 sections. There are a number of photographs, mostly black-and-white but a few are in colour. The index is excellent, as are the notes, bibliography and a list naming many of the key characters.
With so many interesting stories and information, this is the sort of book that can be picked up and dipped into in short visits. It is full of thought-provoking, sometimes disturbing, accounts.
In Paris, it is impossible to miss the numerous plaques commemorating the killing of resistance fighters during the occupation. Anne Sebba manages to name many more women not recorded in this way. These stories were often given to her by proud grandchildren, telling of women who followed their consciences.
Jeanette Trotman is a Dunedin fabric artist.
