The Young Survivors Read online

  Praise for The Young Survivors

  ‘The Young Survivors is a haunting account of the atomisation of a Jewish family during the Holocaust. Told from the perspective of the three children who survived, in a manner so intimate it gives the impression of reading their personal diaries, we witness the slow loss of innocence as they each come to an age when they are able to understand what has happened to their lost relatives. It is a devastating story of twins separated, of grandparents, parents and cousins, entire families, disappeared – a story that had to be told.’

  Elizabeth Fremantle

  ‘A story that will make you weep, wonder and remember.’

  Tatiana de Rosnay, author of Sarah’s Key

  ‘The Young Survivors is a poignant and gripping debut. Set against the darkest days of WWII, the novel reminds us that the bonds of family and the power of love can never be extinguished.’

  Alyson Richman, bestselling author of The Lost Wife

  ‘A heartbreaking yet uplifting story of loss and love told through the eyes of children... gripping and deeply moving.’

  James MacManus, author of Midnight in Berlin

  ‘I loved reading The Young Survivors. I was desperate to know what happened to all of the characters.’

  Nick Stafford, playwright and writer

  ‘Passionate, thoughtful and deeply important. The Young Survivors is essential reading.’

  Robert Rinder

  ‘A hugely impressive debut. A gripping and traumatic account of childhoods lost in war-time France amid the barbaric destruction of European Jewry.’

  Michael Newman,

  CEO of The Association of Jewish Refugees ‘Debra Barnes has written a novel that is arrestingly sincere, full of touching moments and informed by careful research. The beating heart of The Young Survivors is the author’s emotional connection to her characters, which is unmistakably based on longstanding and deep engagement with her own family’s past. Throughout the book, readers are offered rich and detailed insights into the grave peril and struggle for survival that Jews faced in Vichy and Nazi-occupied France, which is still not a widely-understood aspect of the Holocaust. We therefore have many reasons to be proud to add Debra’s skilful re-imagining of her family’s inspiring and moving story of survival to our Library’s collections.’

  Dr Toby Simpson,

  Director of The Wiener Holocaust Library

  For my mother – Paulette Barnes: 1938 – 2010

  ‘Come on, Georgette. Come outside and play with me.’

  ‘Is that you, Henriette?’

  ‘Yes, of course it is, silly. Are you coming to play now?’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for so long.’

  Juan-les-Pins

  June 2006

  I checked my watch for the umpteenth time. Jacqueline was due any minute. The ceiling fan had an irritating click which wasn’t helping to quell the churning fear in my stomach.

  The sound of children’s laughter came from outside. Through the window, I caught a brief glimpse of them playing in the garden, which made me flinch and look away. Instead I looked in the mirror – the woman I saw there was very different from the six-year-old girl with the shaved head who Jacqueline had last seen and assumed dead.

  I sat and thought about my life, and the lives that had been lost. I thought of the awful choices Jacqueline and my brother Pierre had been forced to make at such a young age. How can someone choose between saving his mother and his infant sisters, or between saving themselves and saving the children they are looking after?

  I jumped as the telephone on the bedside table sprang to life. Alan answered it, exhausting most of his French in one short conversation.

  ‘Oui? D’accord. Merci.’

  He put the phone down and, turning to me, said, ‘She’s downstairs, my love.’

  My heart was racing as we left the room. I took a sip of water on the way out; my mouth was completely dry. The journey down one flight of stairs to the hotel lobby seemed unbearably long, as though I was travelling back through the years, back towards the horrors of the past. I felt faint and clung to Alan for support.

  For so many years I had survived by blotting out the terrifying memories. My family had learnt not to talk of those years in front of me and were scared what it might do to me if I had to confront the nightmares. And how many times had I nearly cancelled this trip?

  In the end my desire to see my beloved Jacqueline had triumphed, but I had been in a state of constant anxiety since I made that decision. What would she look like? Would we even be able to talk? I had buried my knowledge of French along with the memories and Jacqueline’s English was, in her own words, ‘very small’.

  I had so many questions to ask, so many memory blanks – but I didn’t know if I could even talk about the ugly past.

  As I walked through the hotel lobby, the slight figure of Jacqueline Goldstein approached me and we embraced for the first time since 1944. I was weirdly surprised by the tiny, fragile old lady she had become. The last time we had seen each other, the seventeen-year-old Jacqueline had towered over me. She had been like a mother to me and my sister all those years ago. I was overwhelmed as she stood with her arms open waiting for me. We held one another close, and I wept as I remembered the innocence of our last moments together.

  Samuel

  Metz

  April 1938

  ‘Come on, slowcoach!’ Claude shouted back to me as we ran onto the bridge over the Moselle river. I was breathing heavily and sweating under my jacket. My brother had been excitedly counting the days until his sixth birthday – only three more to go, as he had reminded me more than once that day. But even though I was three years older than him, I struggled to keep up. I’d just recovered from yet another chest infection – the coal dust which blew into town from the nearby mines made the air foul.

  The women in our family all doted on Claude. ‘Oh, what a handsome boy,’ they would say as they pinched his cheeks and ruffled his thick dark hair. Our grandmother Bubbe even said so, and she was blind. She might not have been so adoring had she known about the boyish pranks Claude and I played on her.

  ‘Let’s put pepper in Bubbe’s tea!’ said Claude, one rainy afternoon when we were stuck indoors.

  ‘Let’s move Bubbe’s slippers so she can’t find them!’ was my suggestion on another day.

  ‘Let’s pull ugly faces in front of Bubbe’s face. At least that’s something you can beat me at!’

  This was our favourite trick. When we pulled the ugliest face was the moment her eyesight was miraculously restored, at least it seemed that way because she always seemed to know when we were doing it. When Maman found out we would get told off, although she almost always ended the scolding by winking at us.

  Claude looked up to me and followed me wherever I went, which was fine because he was fun to be around and he was my best pal. Also, I remembered how upset I was when my older brother Pierre suddenly told me he didn’t have time to play ‘childish games’ with me anymore, and I didn’t want to cause the same hurt. Poor Claude, he didn’t seem to realise this was his last day of being the youngest and cutest member of the family.

  We were wearing our weekend clothes: white shirt, white shorts held up with a black leather belt, white knee-length socks and white shoes. It was asking for trouble living in such a filthy town. The huge cathedral and buildings in the centre of Metz were black from soot, so we would get our white clothes dirty if we accidentally rubbed along a grubby wall. But our family was in the clothing business, and Papa always said wouldn’t it be a fine thing if the clothing merchant’s own kids looked scruffy.

  Even though we were always well dressed, the bully boys called us dirty Jews. Anyone could see they were a lot scruffier than us. To
o often they waited for me, in groups of three or four, to come out of school alone. I would run home through narrow, cobblestoned streets, the sound of their feet close behind. They usually gave up after a few blocks, throwing stones at me before turning back for their next victim and leaving me to catch my breath.

  It was Shabbat and we’d been sent to have lunch with our uncle and aunt. Maman had gone into the hospital even before the pains started. Papa was with her. I hadn’t been allowed to give her a kiss because of my illness – the last thing she needed was to catch an infection. No one could get their arms around her huge belly in any case. She rarely complained, but she did say how uncomfortable it was to carry around two babies. She said it sometimes felt like they were fighting, but she knew they would be best friends once they were born.

  We were all nervous, despite the doctors telling us everything seemed fine. Maman was thirty-seven, which was ancient when it came to having one baby, never mind twins! Pierre and I remembered how happy our parents had been when our brother Phillipe was born. I would sit in the kitchen and watch him in his crib, I was so happy to have a baby brother. Only a few short days later he and the crib disappeared. Our parents’ joy turned to sadness and our home filled with relatives and neighbours – some we knew well, others we’d never met – but everyone brought us food. They comforted Maman and told Pierre and I in whispered voices that we needed to be quiet around the house. Papa told us Phillipe was in Heaven now. I was terrified the same thing might happen again this time.

  Lunch at Uncle Isaac’s home that day was a real feast. Aunt Dora needed to use up the chametz from her kitchen; Pesach was only a couple of days away and any food which was not ‘kosher for Pesach’ had to go. No one could afford to throw food away, so it all had to be eaten. I was delighted to help out. I knew that soon I wouldn’t get to eat bread for eight days – dry matzah was always a poor substitute, and it gave me a stomach ache.

  Before we ate we made the Shabbat blessings. Aunt Dora used her best tablecloth, as she was going to give it a really good wash before Pesach, and the silver candlesticks were still out after being used the evening before, so it felt almost like a celebration. Uncle Isaac was Maman’s brother, but he was twenty years older than her, so his five children were much older than me and my brothers. They were all there that day, crammed around the dining table in their modest apartment, even my cousins Simone and Louise who were both married with children of their own.

  ‘Well, boys, how is school?’ asked our uncle.

  ‘Terrible!’ said Pierre.

  ‘The teachers hit me with a ruler because I want to write with my left hand. And the German kids try to beat us up,’ I said.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder why they bothered building the Maginot Line,’ said Uncle Isaac. ‘It’s supposed to keep the Germans out, but Metz is half full of them anyway. We came here from the shtetls of Poland to escape persecution, but now we’re in danger of being persecuted here too. It’s been nearly twenty years since the Treaty of Versailles: can’t they go home now?’

  ‘Best not to grumble about it,’ said Aunt Dora. ‘That Line paid for the food on our table.’

  Uncle was a contract painter and had spent the last few years painting and repainting some of the five hundred buildings along the German border which made up the Maginot Line. I’d learnt at school that it had been the idea of military hero Marshall Pétain, to replace the crude trenches of the great war. Everyone knew someone whose father, uncle or grandfather had died in the last war and no defence was considered too much. The Line had been under construction since 1930, which suited Uncle fine, as it kept him in a steady job while so many others were out of work. With not enough work, money or food around these days, people were nervous. Some of them blamed the Jews, which was why we got bullied at school.

  After lunch, Pierre went to the hospital. I was disappointed he wouldn’t let me go with him; he said he would be quicker without me but promised to come back as soon as there was news. It wasn’t long before he returned to tell us that two baby girls had safely arrived.

  ‘Mazel tov! How wonderful!’ said Aunt Dora. ‘How is Maman?’

  ‘She is exhausted!’

  ‘Two daughters. Baruch Hashem,’ said Bubbe. ‘Please God they are healthy, and may He bless them, so they can grow up to be good Jewish wives.’ She began to quietly chant prayers of thanks.

  ‘Mame!’ said Uncle Isaac. ‘Give the poor girls a chance. They’ve only just been born and already you’re marrying them off!’

  ‘Can we go and see Maman now?’ pleaded Claude.

  ‘Yes, Papa says you and Samuel should come back with me,’ said Pierre. We grabbed our jackets and hurried off over the bridge towards the hospital.

  I’d been to the hospital before when I had a particularly bad chest infection, so it usually filled me with dread, but this time I was excited.

  I was so relieved to see Maman lying in her hospital bed with my new sisters in her arms. Papa sat next to her, looking adoringly at the two new members of our family. When Claude spotted Maman he rushed straight over.

  ‘Careful, my darling,’ she said, as he was on the verge of jumping into her bed in his hurry to give her a hug. ‘Mind the babies!’

  ‘You see, boys,’ said Papa, grinning, ‘God was listening to my prayers this time. “Enough boys”, I said to him. “Please, God, bring me a daughter.” And what happens? He brings me two beautiful girls!’

  The moment I saw the girls I fell instantly in love with them. They were tiny and very alike, but there was something in their faces which made them ever so slightly different. I couldn’t say what it was, certainly not their almond-shaped eyes which were just like Maman’s and mine as well. Maman gazed adoringly down at the little bundles in her arms.

  ‘Hello, girls. Aren’t you lucky little ones? You’ll never be alone because you will always have each other. I’m lucky too; I have my beautiful boys and now I can watch my darling daughters, Henriette and Georgette, grow up into lovely young women.’ She bent down to give each one a mother’s kiss on their forehead. It was the first time I heard their names. I’ll always be there for you, Henriette and Georgette, I thought to myself.

  Pierre

  Metz

  April 1938

  We left Maman resting in the hospital with the twins and walked home with Papa. My steps were wide and straight, like my father’s, while Samuel and Claude ran about from side to side, jumping over cobblestones and hiding from each other in doorways. When I was much younger I used to enjoy playing with Samuel, but now I had no interest in joining in with my brother’s silly games; I was practically thirteen and ready to take on my responsibility as the eldest brother of baby girls. Word had already spread around the neighbourhood and people were congratulating Papa in the street. As we walked past our synagogue, members of the congregation came out to greet us.

  ‘Mazel tov!’

  ‘Such a blessing! Such nachas!’

  I never understood how everyone knew everyone else’s business almost before it had happened. When we reached our apartment building, Maman’s good friend Madame Hausner came running over with a dozen cloth diapers.

  ‘You’ll need plenty of these with twins!’ she said.

  Papa brimmed with pride as he thanked everyone for their presents and good wishes.

  Once back in our apartment, Papa made the final preparations for the new arrivals. There was only one bedroom which my parents would now share with my sisters; the crib we had all used was placed there ready for when they came home. My brothers and I slept in the living room. When Zayde died and Bubbe came to live with us, her bed was put in an alcove in the living room, with a curtain pulled across. Much of our family life revolved around eating, which we did in the dining room.

  ****

  From the moment Henriette and Georgette were born, I understood that, as the eldest, it was my job to protect them. Papa wasn’t going to be around much. He worked as a merchant and he’d be off on the road again within days
, his car filled with clothes he bought in Paris and sold all over France. We were one of few families in our neighbourhood to own a car, which Papa had worked hard to pay for.

  Even in my earliest memories, Papa travelled all over the country, sometimes staying away for weeks at a time. When he was in the north-east he would come home at night, but I was usually asleep by the time he returned, and he would leave again early the next morning. When I was a bit older, I would pinch myself in bed to try to stay awake so I could spend a few moments alone with him, but I rarely managed it.

  Some mornings, when I woke, I got the feeling Papa had come to watch me sleep after coming home late at night. I imagined him sitting on my bed whispering to me, but soon realised it had been Maman. I knew the man’s job was to bring money in, and the woman’s job was to look after the children and the home. Soon would be my bar mitzvah when I became a man and took on the responsibility of looking after the family while Papa was away.

  Papa worked hard, but Maman was also always busy. Cooking, cleaning, looking after the little ones, shopping, scrubbing and caring for her own mother. Just doing the laundry was a huge task. Maman would boil the dirty clothes and bedding at home, then carry it in pails down to le lavoir on the banks of the Moselle river. When I was younger, before Samuel was born, I would go with her. While she struggled down the stairs with the heavy, wet clothes Maman would say how lucky she was that our apartment was so near le lavoir. There would always be neighbours and friends there and the housewives would rinse their laundry together in the river, then help each other wring it out before carrying it all home to hang up to dry in the attic, where each apartment in the building had a washing line.

  Maman took care of washing us too. Every Friday morning, she would take us to the public baths, a fifteen-minute walk from our home. She would scrub us clean and only when we were done would she take a bath herself.