Then something changed. This man, Johannes-Paul, honoured to hold an Iron Cross, who celebrated Christmas, was told he was not German: he was a Jew. In 1933, after my 13-year-old grandmother started to be singled out by schoolteachers as a Jew, he emigrated to France.
My great-grandfather was naturalised French. The more I think about it, the more remarkable this is. This man, who had killed Frenchmen, who had killed either so many or killed them so well he was awarded the Iron Cross, suddenly becomes French, with the amazing magnanimity of the Republic, the creator of les Droits de l’Homme. Some time after arriving, he threw his Iron Cross into the Seine and decided his name was now Jean-Paul.
France’s greatness just as suddenly turns to France’s disgrace in my family history. Nine years later my great-grandmother was arrested by the French police and deported by the French railways. Her crime was being Jewish, the destination Auschwitz, where she died in the gas chambers. My grandmother and my great-aunt went into hiding. They both narrowly survived the France — travail, famille, patrie — of Marshal Pétain. Does that history make me French, to the Republic? I don’t know.
The noise of children — 150, laughing, shouting, shrieking, sulking, spinning children — somehow it always reaches a single pitch. This is the sound of the basement of a synagogue in suburban Charenton as they line up for lunch. Somebody misbehaves, big boys promise extra helpings to the ones who eat their greens, and Madame Martine Saada fills up their little plates with a ladle. She is the co-president of the community.
I have driven round Le Périphérique, the orbital motorway that divides Paris from the banlieues, to ask her a Jewish question. Can a Jew still live safely in a banlieue?
“A Jew can’t live where he wants anymore,” says Mme Saada. “Bit by bit, everyone is moving from the banlieues. As soon as there are ethnic populations, and as soon as it gets, shall we say, problematic, the Jews move. The visible ones — they get constantly attacked.”
My great-grandfather was naturalised French. The more I think about it, the more remarkable this is. This man, who had killed Frenchmen, who had killed either so many or killed them so well he was awarded the Iron Cross, suddenly becomes French, with the amazing magnanimity of the Republic, the creator of les Droits de l’Homme. Some time after arriving, he threw his Iron Cross into the Seine and decided his name was now Jean-Paul.
France’s greatness just as suddenly turns to France’s disgrace in my family history. Nine years later my great-grandmother was arrested by the French police and deported by the French railways. Her crime was being Jewish, the destination Auschwitz, where she died in the gas chambers. My grandmother and my great-aunt went into hiding. They both narrowly survived the France — travail, famille, patrie — of Marshal Pétain. Does that history make me French, to the Republic? I don’t know.
The noise of children — 150, laughing, shouting, shrieking, sulking, spinning children — somehow it always reaches a single pitch. This is the sound of the basement of a synagogue in suburban Charenton as they line up for lunch. Somebody misbehaves, big boys promise extra helpings to the ones who eat their greens, and Madame Martine Saada fills up their little plates with a ladle. She is the co-president of the community.
I have driven round Le Périphérique, the orbital motorway that divides Paris from the banlieues, to ask her a Jewish question. Can a Jew still live safely in a banlieue?
“A Jew can’t live where he wants anymore,” says Mme Saada. “Bit by bit, everyone is moving from the banlieues. As soon as there are ethnic populations, and as soon as it gets, shall we say, problematic, the Jews move. The visible ones — they get constantly attacked.”
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