The woman at the Wall....

Several weeks ago, I took a group of students on a walking tour of a section of Paris known as the Marais. Since the Marais is the third oldest section of Paris, it follows that it would also have a wealth of history. This tour started out like all other walking tours that I do in the Marais: Quick discussion about the Marais and how it was changed from a swamp into a living area by the Knights Templar, a discussion about Space Invaders, a history about the strong Jewish population, and a walk past the Memorial de Shoah (the holocaust museum).

Upon arrival at Shoah, I noticed that there was a very old woman sitting on the stoop of the Boy’s school just across from the memorial. At first, I didn’t think anything of it since the Marais is filled with the homeless and infirm. However, after a few minutes of talking about Shoah, I started to translate a placard located on the wall of the school just above the woman. The placard marks the history of the Boy’s and Girl’s schools of the Marais where, in 2 days, 400 children were deported to various camps in the east and exterminated. During my translation, the old woman started to speak very loudly at me. It was not as if she was yelling at me, but as older people with hearing problems sometimes do. Naturally, I stopped explaining the placard and tried to understand what she was saying, but it was very, very, difficult to understand.

At this point, the kids had a very confused look on their face and I was struggling to find the words to explain what was going on. As I was turning to explain to the kids that this lady was most likely homeless and a little crazy, a woman in her mid forties ran up to us saying, “Mom! Mom! Let the man do his job he is teaching these kids!” Then it all made since. This lady was just waiting for her daughter at the step because she could not make it down the alley to the bakery. Most likely, she lived around the area and was just out for a walk to get her daily bread.

After the younger woman reached us, she apologized profusely for her mother’s actions and asked me what I was doing. I explained that I was taking the kids on a walking tour of the Marais and that they were American students spending some time in France. As soon as I said “American students”, the mother exploded into cries of “Thank you, Thank you, my children!” Now I was extremely confused and convinced that this lady was a little unstable. Her daughter, most likely seeing the confusion painted across our faces calmly explained that this lady was a resistance fighter during the war.

Jackpot!

This usually benign tour had immediately become ten thousand times more interesting and a huge opportunity for the kids to talk to one of the only surviving French resistance fighters in the world. But that wasn’t all.

After I got the ridiculous grin of surprise off of my face, I turned to the woman and started asking her questions. This was like turning of a flood gate of memories for the lady. It was very difficult for me to understand what she said at first, but after I got past the aged accent it made sense. Her story was this:

In 1940, she was a 21 year old Jewess living in the Marais quarter of Paris. Initially, when the Nazi’s began to occupy Paris, the Jews in the quarter were content with obeying the ever growing restrictions on their rights and believed fully that the Vichy Government would not let them be deported because, after all, they were French.

Finally, when it was declared that the Jews had to wear the Star of David and were unable to leave there various quarters, it was too late. Early one morning, she awoke to the sounds of children yelling in the street beneath her apartment. She said that she was used to hearing these sounds because the schools for the elementary age children were just beneath her window. However, this morning the cries were different. When she got up to see what was happening, she said that the police and German officers were loading the young children into the backs of large trucks and taking them away. The officers were telling the children that they were going to join their parents in a new home outside of Paris. These children were being deported to the concentration camps in the east and she informed us that their parents were arrested later that afternoon when they came to pick up their children from school.

Her eyes were filled with tears after telling this part of the story and she had to take a minute to steady herself in order to continue. After 70 years the wounds were obviously still fresh.

Immediately that afternoon, she began conversing with various people in the Marais that were known to be in touch with the French resistance in “Free France” in the south, and with de Gaulle in England. She became a courier for the resistance and managed to survive the mass deportations from the Marais by, and this shocked me, befriending German officers and hiding in their basement.

Apparently, two German officers who had fought in the first World War hid her in their basement and aided in her sending messages because they were fiercely opposed to the Nazi’s. In fact, their names were enshrined on the Wall of the Righteous (a list of people who sheltered and saved Jews in France), just behind where this lady was telling me this story. Finally, she ended the story by telling us how she lived in the basement of an apartment for 4 years, risking death every day until Paris was liberated. She then went on to marry a fellow fighter and have 9 children, 21 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren.

I’m sure I had this ridiculous look on my face and then tried in vain to transmit to the kids how I was feeling and how important this woman was. I’m not sure if I got it across substantially because of my own shock, but I hope I did. It’s amazing to hear those stories and they are getting rarer every day. Its times like these that remind me how much I love this job and remind me how blessed I am to hear these stories.

- Pondhopper.