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Forgotten Life
Monday 2nd May
I don’t know if I’ve got the courage but I’ve got to do it now or I never will. Can’t write more. Have to pack.
Tuesday 3rd May
Well I did it. Josie didn’t notice. She never would anyway, not interested in the residents. Just pretends she is. Whatever happens now it’ll be better than living in that
bloody boring place, with those bloody boring people just sitting around waiting to die.
When the taxi arrived this morning I thought I saw her hanging around in the hall. Just my luck, she’s usually out all morning. Luckily it wasn’t her. Silly cow with her posh hairdos and jewellery. I’ve got a good mind to phone up the office and tell them about her fancy man in number 24. I don’t think he’s old enough to be here. Perhaps he bribed his way in, although why anyone would want to do that I don’t know. Bloody Colditz
Never been in a Travel Lodge before but it’s OK. Good packets of biscuits and little things of milk.
Charlie wouldn’t have like it. ‘Only the best for us’ he used to say. Oh well, good job he’s not here to see this. I can’t see what’s wrong with it though. Just for the night. Ellie used to say he was a snob. Perhaps he was, but only in a good way, I’d say to her. She’d just snort in that way of hers. Silly cow.
He would have been right about moving in to the home though. It's not good enough for anyone.
Must get to sleep. Train leaves at 9.00 tomorrow.
Wednesday 4th May
Well, here I am in Paris at last. It’s very different to when I was here last. Coffee’s better.
The taxi driver, probably Albanian or some other Eastern European, tried to talk to me in French but I couldn’t keep up so I pretended I was English.
The hotel that I found on TripAdviser is not bad. I thought I’d recognise things but apart from the obvious like the Eifel Tower I don’t really.
Why didn’t I come back before? I should have done. Charlie did on business but I made excuses not to join him. I know he was puzzled about it but I just used to say that it was bad memories. Anyway, there was no-one left after the war that I wanted to see.
He accepted that after a while. It wasn’t wholly true though. There might be someone left. Could be embarrassing if they remembered what I’ve spent all these years trying to forget.
I don’t understand why I think I can face it now but I suppose he’s gone and there’s no-one left who’d be hurt by it. Anyway, I can just sightsee if that’s what I want. Don’t have to go near the memories.
Sleep now. No need to decide yet.
Thursday 5th May
It’s only five but I can’t sleep. Wondering whether I’ve got the courage to go back to the Rue des Hospitaliers. It was silly to think I could just sightsee. I suppose I have to face up to it all. What’s the point of being here and being 82 without trying to find out what happened?
10 pm. Can’t write much. Too tired. It’s been a terrible day. Too many memories. Don’t know if I want to do this. Perhaps I’ll just go back.
Friday 6th May
It’s been better today. I pulled myself together and got out at 9.00 and went back to the old places. It’s funny how after more than sixty years I still remember where everything was. The Café Bertrand has gone but I found the house with the cellar where we used to hide during the bombing. It’s all apartments now. I keep wondering if my school’s still there although I didn’t go after I was fourteen. Too busy staying alive by entertaining the Germans. Not much option though. We were all so hungry. At least that’s what I told Charlie.
I don’t know if I have the right to go there but I can’t hide any longer. Perhaps I need to make my peace with myself as well as them. Would they want me too? What right have I to expect anything of them?
Sunday 9th May
Home again. I suppose it is home now. Going away has made me appreciate it more.
Mrs. Snooty Bollocks is still the same but she was actually very nice when I arrived in the taxi. I really do think she was worried. Said they’d had the police out but hadn’t thought that I’d have got the Eurostar and gone to France. Typical really. They think we’re all incapable of any independence, forget that before we came in here we had a life.
That last day I finally got up the courage to visit the school. It’s still called the Ecole des Hospitalieres-Saint-Gervais. It was lunchtime and I heard the bell. It took me right back as the children came out. There are Jewish children there again although goodness knows how the families survived. The boys were wearing the long ringlets and wide brimmed hats or the kippah and the girls were in sober dresses. Seeing them reminded me of my grandfather telling us that when he was growing up people said that we Jews wore those hats to hide our horns and the long black coat to hide our tails.
I’d forgotten so much, purposely I suppose. My Jewishness and my Frenchness.
I don’t feel I have the right to claim any of it.
My only excuse is the fear that took hold of all of us and my mother saying that I had to save myself.
I was blond. My dad used to joke that he didn’t know where that came from. Everyone else in the family was dark.
They got me some papers on the black market and said I had to go and find a job where I could live in. They didn’t want to know where I was so they couldn’t give me away.
I’m still ashamed about the job. Singing and dancing for the Germans. My employers were collaborators, protected until nearly the end of the war when everything was chaotic. I managed to hide but some of the people I knew from the house had their hair shorn and other horrible things done to them. I still can’t bring myself to think about any of it let alone write it here.
I found the plaque I’d read about a year ago in the paper. It has been on my mind and conscience ever since.
"165 Jewish children from this school, deported to Germany during the second world war, were exterminated in the Nazi camps. Do not forget."
My sisters and cousins names were there among the 165.
My secret worry, or was it hope, about someone being left is impossible.
I didn’t think about them much once I was away and, shamefully, enjoying myself in a big house with lots of food, fun and music. And, trying to be totally truthful to myself and this diary, it was only later that I started to feel ashamed about my ‘other duties’ and by then all I could do was turn my mind away and try to forget.
It’s very late now. They think they put me to bed but I got up again and having written this I’ll destroy it all in the morning (if I can find a way to do it without the staff finding it). I can’t have people knowing about my shame.
Tired now, very tired.
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