FACING

THE

LION

Memoirs of a Young Girl in Nazi Europe

Simone Arnold Liebster

Facing the Lion: Memoirs of a Young Girl in Nazi Europe

Copyright © Grammaton Press, U.S.A.

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ISBN: 978-2-87953-139-7

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to my beloved father who surrounded us with so much loving attention and beauty, and who provided gentle authority, exemplary courage, and a sense of humor, making our home a haven of peace.

I dedicate it to my cherished Mum who led her “little one” and helped her to grow into a happy adult, comforting her and surrounding her with motherly love and patience.

And also to Adolphe Koehl, Dad’s intimate friend, who so generously helped us to face our situation and whose exceptional courage and practical wisdom has enlightened my path.

And to my devoted aunt Eugenie who sacrificed all of her earnings and risked her life for us. She endeared herself to me like a second mother.

I shall not forget to dedicate this book to Marcel Sutter, whose life became an example for me and sustained me. He was a brother to me, a close friend.

I must include Charles Eicher, who encouraged me to go to New York. He put me in contact with my “Liebster,” and got me started in a new full and fruitful life.

HISTORICAL NOTE (von Abraham J. Peck)

HISTORICAL NOTE

During the period of National Socialism, the religious beliefs, teachings and actions of the Jehovah’s Witnesses were a public proclamation that approximated a way of life whose central tenets collided with those of the National Socialist state. Here was a small group of some 20 to 25,000 “average Germans” and those from other regions incorporated into the Third Reich who were publicly proclaiming their belief in a kind of shadow state, which was in direct opposition to the Nazi regime. Here was a group, which rejected the racial laws of the state, the oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler, the German salute, and the duty to take up arms for Germany.

We are familiar with the statistics: nearly 10,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses imprisoned and at least 2,000 admitted to Nazi concentration camps of which at least half were murdered, over 250 by beheading.

What we do not know as well is the day-to-day existence of this extraordinary group of committed men, women and children under the rule of National Socialist terror.

That is why Simone Arnold Liebster’s autobiography is of such importance. It brings a name and a voice to these statistics. It tells the story of spiritual resistance to a monstrous evil, and does so through the eyes and memories of a child.

Those who resisted the forces of Nazi evil when a simple declaration of state loyalty would insure their well being, when a simple signature would free them from the hell of a labor or concentration camp and protect them from violence and murder have earned a special place and a special admiration. They give us hope and a belief in the ultimate triumph of human good.

Simone Arnold Liebster must be counted among these special people.

— Abraham J. Peck

Vice President of the Association of

Holocaust Organizations FOREWORD

FOREWORD (von Sybil Milton)

FOREWORD

The autobiography of Simone Liebster, née Arnold, is a compelling story about her personal search for faith and identity that entailed difficult social, political, and religious choices in her childhood. Born in 1930 near Mulhouse in Alsace, then part of France, Simone Arnold Liebster grew up in an extended close-knit Catholic family during the 1930s—a decade of political and social unrest and uncertainty. Religious conformity was the norm in this overwhelmingly Catholic region. In 1938, Emma Arnold, Simone’s mother, converted to the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses, despite family opposition. Subsequently, Simone’s father, Adolphe Arnold, was also baptized as a Witness, and Simone converted while still a child, in 1941.

The areas of Alsace and Lorraine had been German between 1871 and 1918, reverting to French jurisdiction until mid-June 1940, when the region was again incorporated into the German Reich. Almost immediately, the Germans imposed their social and political values, rapidly excluding large numbers of so-called “undesirables,” including Jehovah’s Witnesses, who had no place in the German “new order.” German again became the language of the region; soon nonconformists had to fear denunciations by neighbors as the bonds of civil society were undermined.

Simone’s father, Adolphe, was arrested on September 4, 1941, less than one month after Simone had been baptized as a Witness. With his arrest, Simone and her mother faced mounting economic hardships since her father’s wages had been confiscated at his arrest, his bank account impounded, and her mother denied a work permit. During the following two years, Simone and her mother secured food in exchange for small jobs.

After his arrest, Simone’s father was initially imprisoned at the Schirmeck-Vorbruck internment camp in Labroque. This prison camp had been opened in mid-July 1940 “for individuals, whose behavior would damage German authority in the region” and “to teach disobedient elements in Alsace proper attitudes to work and the political order of the German Reich.”[1] The list of so-called “undesirables” and “disobedient elements” followed the usual categories applied by the Germans in all occupied territories and also included Jehovah’s Witnesses. Since their beliefs did not allow them to render unconditional obedience to any state, the Witnesses in Alsace and Lorraine were subjected to the same persecution that other Witnesses had been facing in Nazi Germany after 1933. Simone’s father, Adolphe Arnold, was subsequently moved from Schirmeck to Dachau and Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camps, and later liberated in May 1945 at the Ebensee subcamp of Mauthausen.

After 1941, Simone came under increasing physical and psychological intimidation at school to conform to her classmates’ behavior, since she had refused to use the “Heil Hitler” salute or to join the League of German Girls (Bund deutscher Mädel). Intimidation and retaliation extended to school-age Jehovah’s Witness children both in Nazi Germany and in incorporated Alsace and Lorraine. When Witness children refused to enroll either in the Hitler Youth or the League of German Girls or to conform to the norms of Nazi social and political behavior, school officials removed them from parental custody and sent them to Nazi homes and juvenile correctional institutions.

More than 500 such minor Jehovah’s Witness children in Nazi Germany were involuntarily separated from their parents after formal judicial proceedings. Simone’s autobiography gives us explicit details about the lives of these children in a Nazi reform school during the war years. Parental custody and contact was suspended if a child was found guilty of immoral and dishonorable behavior—that is, not belonging to Nazi organizations. School officials, police, and juvenile and district courts ruled that Witness parents endangered their children’s welfare by not conforming to the norms of a Nazified educational system and society. The subsequent fate of these children removed from their families has seldom been told in detail. Simone Arnold Liebster’s memoirs enable us to understand more about the experiences of these children.

Simone Arnold was expelled from school after being subjected to physical and psychological brutality and pressures to conform. At the age of twelve, she was taken from her mother’s custody and involuntarily transferred to the Wessenberg Erziehungsanstalt, a reform school, in Konstanz (Germany). Plunged into a world of persecution and lacking contact with her parents, Simone Arnold had to surrender her adolescence in order to survive. The world of childhood and adolescence is usually a time of growth and development. For children trapped under Nazi rule, life became an inverted world of shrinking horizons and terror.

Simone Arnold Liebster’s autobiography restores individuality and identity to the otherwise anonymous victims of the Nazis and reveals her strength of will to maintain whatever normality was possible in her fight for physical and psychological survival. Her story is one of hope, strength, and courage. Despite the harsh and tragic Nazi period, Simone Liebster’s narrative reveals her courage in maintaining her social and religious values. It is a story worth reading and enables us to understand the fate of Jehovah’s Witness children during the Holocaust.

— Sybil Milton, former Senior Historian, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Spring 2000

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have told this story as accurately as I can remember it, but I am grateful to many people who helped me put my account in its present form. Among them are Germaine Villard, Francoise Milde, Adolphe Sperry and his granddaughter Virginie, and Esther Martinez, who all did historical research to confirm the events and places I remembered. I also compared notes with Rose Gassmann and Maria Koehl, who have vivid eyewitness recollections of their own. Mrs. Bautenbacher at the Wessenberg’sche Erziehungsanstalt fur Mädels and the staff at the city archives of Constance assisted in obtaining documents relating to my incarceration. Author Andreas Müller, who has written about my husband’s story, also shared interesting background information with me about the activities of the Hitler Youth. Additional documentation and photographic material were supplied by the archives of the Watch Tower Society in Selters, Germany, Thun, Switzerland, and Brooklyn, New York. The Cercle Européen des Témoins de Jéhovah Anciens Déportés et Internés, of which I am a foundation member, also contributed archival material.

Claudia Walter, Daniel and Nadège Foucher, and Elaine Siegel did the important and tedious work of processing my manuscript. Werner and Michelle Ebstein and Norman Gaydon translated letters and documents for me. Suzanne Glesser applied her considerable creative talent in designing the artwork for the cover. Rick and Carolynn Crandall and their colleagues patiently edited and drew together the various pieces into a coherent work.

Two persons have meant a great deal to me: Fred Siegel, my publisher, whose positive attitude and backing have brought the project to reality, and Eunice Timm, whose meticulous proofreading was indispensable.

The urging of two wonderful friends, the late W. Lloyd Barry and John E. Barr, gave me the needed motivation to write my story.

I must acknowledge a very special debt to Jolene Chu who gave me an enormous amount of help—for illuminating discussions, for her careful review of the manuscript, for her efficient writing skills, and for her cheerfulness, which was a source of encouragement for me. This work has brought us together and has built strong ties between us. I have found in her a daughter who could chronicle my story as if it were her own heritage.

Finally, I owe special thanks to my dear husband Max for his exceptionally patient and loving support.

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

All over Europe people were getting ready. The fiftieth anniversary of liberation from Nazi terror was designated as a period of remembrance. The world would once again focus on the period often referred to as “the pit,” “hell,” “the age of terror,” or “the night.” The little group of survivors, eyewitnesses who had borne the purple triangle (the concentration camp uniform symbol for the Jehovah’s Witnesses) also had their own commemorations in Strasbourg and in Paris. They traveled to many French towns with an exhibition and told their story. And then came the flood of questions—questions about facts, but also inquiries about life, our lives—piercing investigations that pried my mental shutters open one by one. I felt like I had returned to my childhood. I became “the little one” again, with all her memories, feelings, joys, and fears. Questions shone the spotlight on my dreams and nightmares and made me relive it all. Everything was so vivid, so precise, that I could recall even the smallest details of when I faced the Nazi “Lion” of oppression.

More friends joined the chorus. “Write it all down, draw a portrait, fix your memories. Capture the events now, while there is still time.” Here is my story.

Part One June 1933 – Summer 1941

Part One

June 1933 – Summer 1941

Life Between City and Mountain Farm

CHAPTER 1

Life Between City and Mountain Farm

U

ntil World War II intervened, I was a happy, outgoing child. Little did I know that my life course would be dramatically altered by the war. The Nazis took over our town, my parents were put in concentration camps, and I was put in a home for delinquent girls because I had defied the “Lion” of the new Nazi order. It was a crushing experience that scarred me for many years. Yet my survival is also a testament to the adaptability of the human spirit. My wish is that my story will help others triumph over whatever “Lions” of the future may threaten the human spirit anywhere.

JUNE 1933

My parents and I had come from a village called Husseren-Wesserling in the Thann Valley in the Vosges Mountains near Grandma and Grandpa’s farm. There we had lived in a wonderful cottage surrounded by rose hedges and meadows. We lived in Alsace Lorraine, a region that lies on the border of Germany and France. Ownership of Alsace Lorraine had been disputed for centuries.

I was almost three years old when we and my little dog Zita moved to the third floor of the apartment building at 46 Rue de la mer rouge in the town of Mulhouse. My world was my family. I could not have anticipated the pain, hardships, and terror that lay ahead.

The name of our street, Rue de la mer rouge—Red Sea Street—could serve as a symbol for the fate of my family. Despair. Partings. Journeys. Hope. I wonder if my parents ever remarked upon the street’s name.

The railroad station at Mulhouse-Dornach marked the beginning of Rue de la mer rouge, a long street that wound its way through gardens and fields, past a neighborhood of family homes and apartment houses. Number 46 was a four-story building with eight apartments. It housed workers from the Schaeffer and Company factory, a world-famous manufacturer of textured fabric. Dad was an art consultant for Schaeffer and Company.

Here in the city, I was not allowed to get close to the windows or go out to the street on my own. How sad for a little country girl...even the flowers on the balcony were prisoners of their pots!

Happily, we often returned to my grandparents’ farm. We’d get off the train at Oderen, where there was a chapel for the Virgin Mary. The footpath scaled the mountain; it passed a cool mountain stream and, climbing sharply, followed a rocky cliff to a plateau of green meadows. The meadows were strewn with many different kinds of fruit trees. This isolated area was called Bergenbach.

In the midst of rocks, ferns, and undergrowth, stood my grandparents’ house. After entering through the tiny door, a person’s eyes would have to adjust to the dim light before it was possible to make out the huge black chimney in the corner. Into this chimney, a big kitchen stove had been set. The odor of smoke mixed with the aroma of hay and cereals was the best of fragrances to me. Outside of the house was a stone-hewn fountain. The sound of the bubbling water in the fountain had been a soothing lullaby for generations.

Oil painting of Bergenbach by Adolphe Arnold

In the 1890s, my grandmother Marie had left the ancestral home only to return widowed with two girls—Emma and Eugenie, my mother and my aunt. Remy Staffelbach, my grandmother Marie’s second husband, fathered my Aunt Valentine and Uncle Germain. Remy was a true grandpa to me.

Grandma was a very industrious woman who took care of all of the animals and the garden while the men went off to their jobs.

Grandpa was a color mixer in the printing factory, and Uncle Germain hewed stone in a quarry. Grandma always fretted about Uncle Germain. Because he was deaf, she worried that Uncle Germain might not get the message that the rock was about to be dynamited. Whenever she heard a blast from the quarry, no matter where she was or what she was doing, she would stop and say a prayer for her son.

With tears in her eyes, Grandma would tell me the same story over and over again: “Your mother wanted to become a nun, a missionary in Africa. We went to the convent to see about it, but the required donation was just too high. We would have had to sell all our cows.” I wondered to myself why it was necessary to sell cows to serve God.

“The family decided that she should work and use some of her earnings to pay for Germain’s boarding school. That’s how she became a weaver of damask and met your father, Adolphe. He was a penniless orphan and an artist—not a farmer—but at least he was a strong Catholic.”

Uncle Germain and I communicated easily. I enjoyed his lively homemade sign language.

Uncle Germain also did carpentry work, stone carving, and tree grafting. He had ten beehives. Each time we came for a visit, he showed us his latest achievement with a broad, happy grin. His joy in life was to be productive. Germain was very attached to his mother and, because of her, he was very religious. So was I.

When she was young, Grandma must have been beautiful. Her attractive features had hardly diminished with age. Her deep blue eyes paled next to her sunburned complexion. A small chignon of white hair on top of her head looked like a halo. During the week, Grandma wore a stern black dress covered by a big apron. But on Sundays, she wore a flowered dress with tiny pink or lilac flowers that softened her serious face.

Grandma was a little heavy, yet always quietly on the move. As soon as I came into the kitchen, she would launch into lively talk. “Let’s get the soup done for the little hog—with some potatoes.” She would mash them in her hand. “We will get some bran, our leftovers from the noon dishes, no bones, and the whey from the cheese...come, Little Girl, we’ll pour it into the manger...” The hog’s pink nose went in the soup...ch-ch-ch. “Look how foolish—it searches for the best pieces first!”

All of the chickens would gather in front of the kitchen door. “It must be five o’clock. We’ll give them some corn.”

“Back, back,” she’d say, clapping her hands and sending the vigorous ones flying onto each others’ backs. “Little Girl, see that! Just like people, no consideration for the weak.”

“Now let’s call the cats. ‘Busala busala, come...here is your milk.’” It was the foam of the milk from the cow that Grandpa had just milked. I had already had my share in a special black cup, my cup. The cats rubbed up against our legs and purred. One of them let her little one drink first. “You see, that is a true mother, and most everyone says thank you.”

Whenever possible, my parents and I would go to Bergenbach on weekends. I got to attend the great Mass with Grandpa, which was such a treat. Uncle Germain would leave the house after us, but somehow he would always beat us to church. After Mass, we three would go to the café where all of the men of the village gathered. They often talked politics, either that or about farm animals: “I bought a cow from the horse dealer.” “Which one? The Jew or the Alsatian?” “From the Jew, and he cheated me again!” “Why don’t you go to the Alsatian?” “Well, he’s too expensive. He always inflates the quality and price of his animals. He is dishonest!” I couldn’t follow their reasoning. Why did they hate Jews and yet prefer to buy from them? It didn’t make any sense.

Climbing the mountain back up to Bergenbach, at high noon in the summertime was, as Grandma said, penance that added more value to our church attendance. She must have been right, but in the summer I wished it weren’t quite so hot!

Grandpa’s face was almost as red as his hair. He wore a dark brown velvet suit with a golden chain for the watch he kept tucked in his vest pocket. He would undo all of the buttons and with his handkerchief, constantly wiped off his neck. Uncle Germain always headed home ahead of us, running off like a gazelle; then he would hide and wait for us. As we passed by, he would jump out at us with his special “horse laugh!”

Aunt Eugenie with Simone and Grandfather-Godfather Paul Arnold, August 1930
Father and Mother with Simone

(from rear left) Mother, Father, Grandpa Remy, Aunt Eugenie, Grandma Marie, and Uncle Germain; Simone in center

Grandma attended the early Mass so she could be home in time to cook our delicious Sunday meals that included special homemade pastries of all kinds. At the meals, the chats were always interesting and lively, but always peaceful, as long as we were six at the table. How different when Grandma’s youngest daughter, my Aunt Valentine, came with her husband, Alfred, and my cousin Angele. Alfred, a tall man, always took over—he knew it all! While Alfred talked and talked, my father sat there silent. I didn’t like that. My father was smarter—why didn’t he speak up?

Drawing battle lines seemed to be Uncle Alfred’s regular goal, and it wasn’t hard to accomplish. Grandpa disliked the harsh German authority. He had served in the German maritime service for four years and had seen with his own eyes how a rebellious sailor was punished: A rope was tied around his waist, and then he was thrown into the sea and dragged behind the ship for hours. I thought that those sailors must have been very fast swimmers to be able to keep up with the ship!

Grandma always picked on the French, calling them lazy. She hadn’t forgotten that during the Great War, the French army had fed on her cows and never compensated her for them. But she had nothing but glowing praise for Hitler’s achievements in Germany.

When the verbal wars ended, usually Grandpa seemed to shrink, while Grandma seemed to grow taller. Her hands would stiffen as she angrily snatched up the dessert dishes from the table. The lacy antique dishes were beautiful and delicate, and I was always afraid that in her anger she would break them to bits.

Father, Mother, Uncle Alfred, Aunt Valentine, Simone, Angele

After dessert, Angele and I would go out to play. I’d make a doll from a little round potato, two tiny stone eyes, a stick fixed to a carrot body, with a big leaf serving as a dress. My city-girl cousin didn’t appreciate my doll. She soon would lie down and close her little blue eyes. Her red eyelashes looked like a hand-stitched seam; her mouth shrank and looked like a strawberry. Her round red cheeks surrounded her tiny freckled nose while her beautiful curly locks spread over the green grass like rays of sunshine. In her light-blue dress with her ribbons, she became my doll.

My doll needed my care. I would search for a big leaf to make an umbrella, then I too would lie down under the fern enjoying its familiar scent. I lay there, listening to the buzzing bees, watching the rolling clouds, once in a while catching sight of a grasshopper. I would think about the adults’ conversation and try to figure out what it meant.

Grandma had given me another picture of a holy image to add to my collection. Father’s round face stretched long. He raised his eyebrows, pulling his eyelids up, while his lips rounded into a dot. I saw a question mark on his face. Mother’s face was neither serious nor smiling. The corners of her mouth drooped and her eyes were drawn inward. She waved her right hand a little bit, spreading all five fingers. Obviously, they were not enthusiastic about my holy image!

“Put it in your missal,” Dad ordered. I had received a white pearly missal—my own prayer book— before I had started school. I replied with a determined, “No.” That image had been blessed by the priest and was given to me by Grandma. I wanted to make it part of the altar in my room. “Grandma said it will chase evil spirits away,” I protested. “She even put a few like it over the doorway of the shed!”

Father didn’t insist. He let Mum have the last word, which meant that I could put the image on my private altar. It was good that way. Ever since she bought her new sewing machine, Mum used my room for sewing. She would benefit from the protection of the saint who dominated my altar.

Sitting on the floor with my teddy bear, I was fascinated by the big wheel of the sewing machine that Mother worked with her feet. No one could do it faster than my mother! I loved the sound of the sewing machine and Mum humming. I was inspired by the sight of fabric turning into beautiful clothes and wonderful shirts that made Dad look like a great man.

JUNE 1936

One day, Mother was not humming. She dragged her feet as she walked, and she would stop once in a while and put her face in her hands! She got up and looked out the window. When I asked, “Mum, are you sick?” she shook her head, and turned away. I sat down next to her; she stroked my hair.

Dad left at 1:30 to work the afternoon shift. I waited in vain for Mother to play with me as usual. Bedtime arrived. She came to my room and had me take holy water and make the sign of the cross. Then she said a prayer and kissed me while tucking me in.

Mum would usually close the shutters, but this evening she sat at the edge of my bed. Slowly the night fell and the moonlight shone on my mother’s black wavy hair. Her ivory complexion became even whiter. I couldn’t see her deep blue eyes, but I felt them. Slowly, her silhouette vanished. I fell asleep. It was eight o’clock, my regular bedtime.

Most nights I would wake up at a quarter past ten to the hum of bikes as the workers came home from the factory. I would hear Dad stowing his bicycle in the garage, climbing the creaking wooden staircase, turning the key, and opening the door ever so quietly. My dog, Zita, slept next to the entrance by the toilet, and would jump high up to Dad’s waist and follow him to the kitchen. There, Dad would take off his shoes, put on his slippers, and hang up his jacket. This was the signal for me to pull my bed cover over my nose and squeeze my eyes shut. Then came the delightful moment when Dad would enter my room, lean over me, his warm breath brushing my face, and place a warm kiss like a butterfly upon my forehead. His hands like a breath would caress my short hair. I would feel his loving gaze while I pretended to sleep, enjoying that exquisite moment to the full.

That night, I suddenly awoke with the distressing feeling that I was alone. I called out desperately, and Mother came running into my room in her nightgown, a hair net holding her wavy hair.

“Where is Dad? He didn’t come to kiss me.”

“Shhhh, it’s past three o’clock. Dad must be sleeping. You must sleep too!” She sat next to me stroking my hair, which was soaked by the sweat of my terror.

The following morning, Dad was not at the breakfast table, and there was not even a cup ready for him.

“Dad will be away for a few days,” Mother said, trying to hold back her tears.

Dad has left us! Dad has run away! That’s why he had seemed unusually quiet, sad, and tense. I remembered a conversation between him and Mum. “It was an error; it should not have happened,” he had said quietly to Mum.

“Adolphe, don’t worry; everybody makes mistakes.”

How could Mother accuse Father, saying that he makes mistakes? Dad never makes mistakes. I knew it! Dad must have run away from her.

Where did he go? He must have gone to Krüth, the village at the end of the valley. It was one of my favorite places. I wished I could have gone with him, to get away from my mean mother.

Krüth was where Dad’s stepfather and uncle, Paul Arnold lived. He was my “Grandpa-Godfather.” He would stand in the small doorway of his house, his right hand holding the door post, just underneath the stone-hewn cross with numbers on it. He would smile, his eyes disappearing in all those crinkles and wrinkles. He was so old and dried out, just like a prune! He rolled his trousers several times around his belt. I would like to have visited Grandpa-Godfather again.

Why didn’t Dad let me go along?

I sat in my room sulking. After a while, I started to cry.

“Adolphe, Adolphe, you’ve come home!” Mother’s excited voice woke me up. Was I dreaming? I jumped up and ran into my father’s arms. Mum quickly went back to the kitchen to prepare him a warm meal.

Dad explained what had happened. “The workers shut down the factory and stopped the printing plant without even taking the fabric off the presses! Everybody ran out, but the ones with white shirts had to go back in. Some were even beaten. No one could go in or out anymore.”[2]

“How did you get out?”

“I had decided to sleep among the fabrics along with the engineers. We could hear the workers’ threats and their slogans. It was quite frightening, I’ll tell you! At 2:00 p.m., I figured that my working crew—the printers, the men in the ink shops, and the engravers—would be at the gate. I went down. As soon as they saw me, they opened the gate. They said, ‘He is on our side in spite of his white shirt. Let him go home.’ But I needed their protection against the workers who didn’t know me.”

My father needed protection? He was afraid? He slept in a shop among ink and didn’t have spots on his shirt? So strange!

Father ate and talked all at once, using strange words. I had never seen him so agitated. His face turned red and his voice was tight. I was afraid that he might drop dead.

He continued his speech. Such strange words: proletarian, communists, socialism, slogans, claims, salaries, human rights, dominating class, confidence.

I got tired of listening to all that nervous talk. I went out onto the balcony. The kitchen light shone on the blue and white petunias and the red geraniums, but the night had silenced the birds and the bees.

“Daddy, look! The sky has put on its velvet evening dress with its diamonds.”

Dad finally stopped talking and came out; he lifted me up in his arms, while Mum took the dishes away.

“Simone, those diamonds are stars. They are very big, but they are far away.” Pointing to some of them above our heads, he added, “See those four stars in a square with three stars as a tail?”

“Oh yes, it’s a pan.”

“Those are called the ‘big bear.’”

“I can’t see a bear!”

“You can’t because we cannot see all the stars.”

“Oh, I understand—the bear is in the pan!”

From then on, I kept looking in the dark velvet sky trying to find the “big bear,” but every evening the pan stayed empty.

SUMMER 1936

During summer vacation, Mum and I went up to Grandma and Grandpa’s place. The summer slowly passed away, taking along the hot sunny days. Mum had almost finished her sewing work. Uncle Germain was happy with his new shirts, Grandpa was pleased with his new velvet trousers, and Grandma enjoyed her remodeled church hat. It had lilac ribbons and flowers. She would cause a sensation when she attended Mass.

For the last time that year, Grandpa diverted the cold mountain water from the trough. The water warmed up in the midday sun, and my cousin Angele and I would cool off in it. But first we had to rest, lying on the couch, between holy Joseph and holy Mary. The light was subdued because of the half-shut blinds; beneath them a row of jam-filled jars were cooling off. The colors, from wine red to bright yellow, caught the rays of sunlight. Some of the jars had gold and others had rubies. I listened to the buzzing of the bees and flies trying desperately to come through the window. It was one of my favorite melodies! I dreamed with open eyes, picturing myself as a saint in heaven.

I was glad when Mum said, “Tomorrow, Dad will come here. Afterwards, he will go to Mass in Krüth.”

Early the next morning, Grandpa stood at the fountain washing himself. He plunged his head and torso into the cold water. Then looking up at the sky, he announced that he would not go down to Mass, but rather would try to gather the cows before the black clouds hanging over the forest between Oderen and Krüth overtook the Bergenbach farm.

“I hope Adolphe makes it. It looks like a very bad storm is building.”

I was disappointed. I loved to go to church with Grandpa. Grandma and Mum came up from church, Grandma holding her new hat against the wind, and Mum fighting with her dress. They both arrived out of breath, as did the excited cows. Everyone wanted to get inside at once. Aunt Valentine, who had kitchen duty, got all the candles ready in case the electricity was cut off. She ran out to the garden to get some lettuce before it was all destroyed by a hailstorm.

It wasn’t raining yet, but the rolling of the thunder signalled that the storm was near. Grandma ran to the most secret place of the farm, taking along her rosary. Her fear was contagious. Angele started crying, her mother trembling. Uncle Germain turned white and sent me inside. He pointed to the dog, who had gone into his house and put his head between his front legs. He looked at us with wet, imploring black eyes. The rooster was the last one to enter its coop, a squall of shameless wind blowing its tail feathers like a fan.

A big drop fell on my head and another one on my nose when a flash illuminated the Bergenbach. “One, two,” the thunder drummed. “Only two kilometers away,” said Grandpa. I sat down on the sill separating the kitchen from the next room and looked at Mum’s face. She had that same inward-turned face I had seen when Dad was locked in the factory.

Then the downpour began. “If Adolphe is in the forest right now, it will be dangerous.” Aunt Valentine’s voice was dramatic as she continued, “If he is out of the forest, he won’t be able to take shelter under the tree.” And turning toward us two girls she said, “Remember, girls, never go under a tree when there is lightning.” She pulled the meat soup aside to keep it from boiling over. She added to her silent sister, “and if he runs to escape, the flash may hit him.” While loading the fire with a damp log, she went on. “And never run, never use an umbrella.”

Mum was roaming from one place to the other. So was the dog’s bowl in the courtyard.

A silhouette sneaked under the vine and up to the door. Dad looked half his size, standing there soaking wet. But what a relief when he entered the house!

Firelighter

A flash came that gave us no time for counting. “That one,” said Grandpa, “hit the rock behind the house.” Dad unfolded himself as he entered the kitchen. He was careful because of the porcelain dish that hung down from the ceiling and served as a shade to the electric bulb. Mother took his wet jacket off and went to get some old dry clothes, while Aunt Valentine served him a bowl of hot soup.

tlc

Simone and Father in the Oderen valley, 1935

Dad started eating. He asked Uncle Germain for a cigarette even though, like everyone else, he vigorously condemned the young abbot who smoked secretly. On the wall was an electric fire lighter. At the very moment Dad went close to it to light his cigarette, a flash struck the apple tree in front of the house just next to the electric wire. Dad was thrown up to the ceiling. He landed on his back on the floor. Everyone shouted, “Adolphe, Adolphe!”

Aunt Valentine lit the candles. In the flickering light, Father lay on the floor looking whiter than chalk.

“He’s breathing,” said Aunt Valentine to Mum, who had just come back with dry clothes. Both sisters said, “Thank God.” Slowly Dad opened his eyes.

“Can you move your legs?”

He tried and they worked. Mine didn’t—I was paralyzed.

“I’m all right, just a little dizzy,” he said, and to prove it he got up, hung up his wet clothes and drank the famous Sunday meat soup.

Another flash made us all tremble, but the next one hit the other side of the valley. The rainfall weakened. In the garden, the plants, overloaded with water, were tired and were lying down for a rest. Grandma came out of her hiding place, went to the holy water basin, and made the sign of the cross. “We have escaped fire with all that warm, fresh hay upstairs,” she said.

The meal tasted even better after the heavens had been appeased. Grandma made a cross with her knife on the fresh loaf of bread before cutting big slices. Outside, the trees slowly emerged from the fog like phantoms.

“Girls, if you want to play, you may go to the attic,” said Grandma. Going to the attic was a treat—there we could get away from the boring conversation about the strike.

“First I want another piece of cake,” demanded Angele. And she got it! My mother would have turned a deaf ear to me had I asked for it that way! “Ladies never say ‘I want...,’” Mum told me, “They say ‘I would like.... ’”

The stairs to the attic were in a corner of the house. To the right, in the attic, some hay was stored. To the left, just above the dining room, was the chest with all the precious souvenirs with which we could play. Voices, cigarette smoke, and the smell of coffee rose up to us through the floor. We emptied a part of the trunk that had old dresses, and we played with cups and plates from the last century.

We heard Grandma’s voice from below: “If we were Germans, we wouldn’t have any strikes! On the other side of the Rhine River, no one strikes!”

“Remember,” Grandpa answered his wife, “when Adolphe’s mother was a leader in the very first socialist strike, we were Germans.”

“That was before the Great War, but now, under Hitler’s leadership, Germans have work and good pay. They are prosperous.”

The rain returned, hammering on the roof. Downstairs they drank more coffee and some liquor—homemade sweet wine for the women but a strong drink for the men.

Grandma started complaining again. “Adolphe, it’s because of the French and their allies that German money has lost its value, not because the Germans are lazy! The French are lazy,” she asserted. “They are slow, unorganized . . .” She was talking and talking—only there was no argument because no one replied.

“Mother, it would be fairer of you if you read other newspapers also, not only one kind that speaks for Germany,” someone said.[3]

“Simone! Angele! Come down from the attic. It’s not raining anymore.”

Someone suggested that we take advantage of the sunshine. We all went out. But as soon as we came to the crossroad, Grandpa, looking up to the mountain top, said, “We’d better stay near the house.”

We walked up toward the end of the meadow, where Uncle Germain had installed a wooden bench and planted three pine trees at the edge of the cliff.

It was too wet for anyone to sit down, but from that place we could see the whole valley: Krüth, where Dad was born; Oderen, our village; Fellering, with its two churches—the Catholic church in the middle of the village and, at the outskirts, a Protestant church.

I asked Grandma what was the difference between the churches. “Protestants are enemies of Catholics.”

“Girls, you’d better go on your way.” Grandpa pointed to the violet-colored clouds.

“Yes, and you see that fog?” added Grandma. “It’s coming up—that means that it will come down again as rain. If you hurry, you can catch the earlier train and avoid getting drenched.”

The first thing Mother did when she arrived home was to cut some flowers from our garden “to put life in the place.” Red and yellow dahlias in the gray and blue Alsatian clay vase started our city life on a familiar note again.

“Simone, let’s prune the petunias on the balcony.”

“Mum, look! My sugar is gone!” I had left a sugar cube on the balcony before we had gone to Grandma’s.

Mother smiled. “Did the stork take it?”

“Yes,” came the answer from the other balcony. The voice belonged to one of our neighbors—Mrs. Huber—who added, “They’re gone. You’ll have to wait for your little sister or little brother. The stork will return in the spring and may bring a baby for you.”

Here in Mulhouse, the storks bring the babies, but, in Wesserling, babies choose their mothers by hiding in a big cabbage. But here in Mulhouse, cabbages never have babies, they only have worms! I knew a baby would come. I was sure of it because I had chosen the best mother in the world! I wanted a baby brother or sister so badly.

No. 46, Rue de la mer Rouge

Once in a while, other children came around. Mr. Eguemann, a neighbor, had two grandchildren who visited sometimes. “Take the dog downstairs and play with them,” Mum would say. “They can be your younger brother and sister.”

But I wasn’t comfortable with them. Their grandfather made mean eyes toward me every time he saw me, ever since the day I had caught him stealing. It was early one morning. Mother had asked me to bring up the bread and the milk. Every family would hang up a basket and a pot with the money for the milkman and baker in the entrance of the house—eight baskets for our apartment house. When everyone was still sleeping, the milkman with his carriage pulled by two dogs, and the baker with his harnessed dog, would fill each one’s basket according to how much money had been left. That morning, I caught Mr. Eguemann with his hand in somebody else’s basket.

But we managed to have a good time, Mr. Eguemann’s grandkids, Zita, and I. We were so involved in playing that I didn’t hear Mother call me for supper. The following day it happened again.

“Now listen to me,” she warned. “Again I called you three times. What will people think? ‘Mrs. Arnold’s child is disobedient, and Mrs. Arnold is weak and cannot make the child obey her!’” With dark eyes amid serious wrinkles, she added slowly, “If this happens again tomorrow, then we’ll have to deal with you like we do with Brumel the cow.” After a long silence, she said, “Woe to you if I have to call a third time!”

I was downcast and hung my head. Would Mum treat me like Brumel? She had never spanked me before; neither had Dad. But I knew she had the authority. She might do it.

I was sure of one thing—Mum meant what she said—and obedience was especially important now that I was a big girl—I was six years old! So when the supper call came, I had to be ready.

The following day when Mother called me, I hurried to gather my toys. They were spread all over the place. The second call came. I started for the house when one of the little girls ran in front of me and fell, her elbow bleeding. We both started crying. Then the third call came. I left the little girl there and ran upstairs terror stricken. The door was open, and I saw the Ping-Pong paddle lying on my bed. I turned white. Before I knew what was happening, Mum took me by my sweater to my room, stretched me out on the bed, took off my panties, and without a word paddled me firmly. As she went out, she said, “As soon as you’re finished crying, you may come and eat your soup. If you wait too long, it will be cold.” I stayed face down, crying and sobbing. The worst was the shame of my bare buttocks and the pain in my heart because she didn’t know that I had been ready to obey!

I heard the doorbell ring. It was Mr. Eguemann, demanding that I be punished in front of him for pushing down his granddaughter. I was terrified. Mother answered with a very firm voice, “Mr. Eguemann, punishment is my business, not yours!”

“Your child had better not play with my grandchildren anymore!” he threatened.

Now, Mother figured out what had happened and why I had not answered her supper call. She came quietly in my room, turned me around gently, and sat down next to me.

“I’m so sorry that I made a mistake. I feel very bad about it. Will you forgive me?” My mother was asking me for forgiveness— that stopped the tears! “Come eat your soup, I’ll heat it for you.” Even though my buttocks were still burning, I felt much better. And with Dad at work, I had Mum all to myself.

Usually after supper, Mum would spend some time with me. She’d have me come to the little room my parents proudly called “the salon.” There was only enough space for the green couch and the armchair, and a half-moon table leaning against the wall. A big orange silk lampshade, mother’s handiwork, gave a warm sunset light. The door had been removed in order to put a stove in the left corner. Next to it was a shelf with a globe and a radio. In the hallway, a mirror above the small table reflected the bouquet of dahlias, the balcony window, and the lampshade. It doubled the size of our tiny, cozy family room. Zita would lie at the very spot where Dad usually put his feet while reading or when “traveling” by using the map.

What a day it had been! I had learned the importance of obedience and respect. I had learned how humble Mother was; she acknowledged her misunderstanding and asked me to forgive her. That event taught me a lesson, one that would be valuable later in my life.

I was a happy little girl by the time Mum tucked me in bed. Her deep-blue eyes, her tender kiss, and her last words, “Good night, my treasure,” made it a memorable day.

OCTOBER 1, 1936

The cool morning breeze helped me to open my sleepy eyes. Even though I knew the way to school, Mother had to come along. The girls’ school was next to the church. The school was a three-story pink sandstone building. We all gathered in front of the stone steps. On the top step stood the teacher and the supervisor, who had a list. Only a few girls had brand-new book bags. When we bought mine, Mum had said, “It has to be good-quality leather, because it has to hold up for the next eight years.”

“School from 8 a.m. to 12 noon and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday off,” read the circular. “The child must have a book bag to be carried on the back, a slate with a dry rag fastened to it, and a wet sponge. The child must wear a blouse with long sleeves, closed with buttons in the back. It has to cover the dress and have two pockets, with one handkerchief. The blouse will be left at school and must be washed and ironed over the weekend.” Three blouses, one pink, one light blue, and one light green flew out of my mother’s fairy fingers—my mother worked magic with her sewing machine. My blouses had big seams “to grow with me for at least two years.”

“Simone Arnold.” I was the first one to be called. I stepped forward and looked up at Mademoiselle, starting from her half boots and following the hem of her long gray dress. She had an unforgettable stature, like the pictures of Dad’s mother in our photo album. The white lace collar and her light-gray hair tied in the back made her face look as round as the full moon. Behind round glasses her deep-blue eyes looked like Mother’s. Her skin was dotted with warts, white hairs sticking up in the middle, just like my Aunt Eugenie’s. She was an old lady like Grandma, but she had authority like Dad! I felt at ease, because she was the combination of all my loved ones.

Mademoiselle pointed out my place next to Frida. “This desk is rather new and has no ink spots. Sit here in this second row, because you are among the smallest pupils.” I knew right away that I had her favor. The first day finished quickly.

Four other girls in my class lived on my street. Andrée, Blanche, and Madeleine lived past my house, but little Frida’s house came first. Frida always trembled like a poplar tree leaf. I felt I had to protect her. She was so frail. Her blond hair, her translucent skin with her little red cheeks, and the black rings around her burning eyes gave her a frail look.

“Children who wear gray or dark blue blouses are from poor families,” Mother had explained. Not only was Frida’s blouse blue, but it was baggy and frayed, and her book bag was worn out.

We walked as a group along our mile-long street, Rue de la mer rouge, passing the railroad station. Next came the section with some very small and rundown factory buildings, the bakery, the haberdashery, the grocery, and the milk store. Then the street name changed to Zu-Rhein, the name of a noble family whose house was in a big park, and on the other side of the park to the right were some very fancy homes with big balconies.

“Adolphe, did you read this circular?” asked Mum. It said the class was to have a collective shower on Friday—no exceptions. Soap and bathing trousers would be provided. All welfare children were to get a bowl of milk and a roll at ten o’clock.

“We didn’t have those advantages in our youth,” Dad said, “but I’m not surprised. Mulhouse is a socialist town.”

“Dad, what’s a socialist town?”

“It’s a town where workers get together to defend their rights and fight for justice. Their wages are so low that it is a plain injustice.” “Dad, what’s an injustice?”

Dad pointed to a five-foot oil painting hanging in our little salon. It represented a shepherd praying the Angelus at noon. He had painted it at art school when he was fifteen. “It was shown in an exhibition and I got the highest score. But when the prizes were distributed, I got a silver medal instead of the gold one. Gran’papa went to the school supervisor to find out about it.” Dad sat down and took me on his lap and became very bitter.

“Remember, Simone, for your whole life, remember the school supervisor’s answer: ‘It is just unthinkable that we give the gold medal to a unknown little mountain lad whose name doesn’t mean anything. The gold goes to the son of Mr. So-and-so, who is our sponsor and a famous man in town!’” A long silence followed.

“He even said to my stepfather, ‘If you take it badly, I won’t force the boy to take the silver one either.’” Opening the drawer, I examined the silver medal while Dad repeated, “Injustice—yes, this is what the workers fight against. This is what being a socialist means.”

In the school yard, the lime tree turned yellow and the wind snatched the leaves, playing with them before we could catch them for our toys. But Frida never chased after them. She would just watch us play while she ate my butter and jam sandwich, which I exchanged for her dry roll; I did not feel comfortable with my pink blouse. I did not want to be considered a “rich girl.”

“You look tired, Frida,” I told her.

“I just don’t like the wind,” she said between coughs.

“Where does your father work?”

“In the garden.”

“He doesn’t get any salary in the garden, does he?”

“No, he is an invalid.”

I will have to find out what kind of factory that is, I thought to myself. She couldn’t explain it. She was so bashful. On Monday morning, she was absent from school. The little house where she lived always had its shutters closed on the street side. Happily though, Frida came to school in the afternoon. I had missed her badly, and I had to give my sandwich to another girl. I couldn’t eat buttered bread in front of so many poor girls.

The following Monday, it rained again, and Frida was absent from school. She is made of sugar, I said to myself. Why is she scared when it rains? Our rain-soaked hooded capes, drenched hair, and wet shoes made the whole classroom smell like a stable. Our four big windows were of no use this morning. The light bulbs behind their dishes gave us a yellow light, just enough for the Monday morning check-up ritual.

Blanche and Madeleine chattered excitedly about the firemen, the ambulance, and the police we had seen that morning. “Mademoiselle is coming!” someone warned us. We scrambled to our desks and put our things in order—the slate with its scrubbed white wooden frame, the clean sponge, and the folded handkerchief. Even our ten fingers had to be placed properly on the desk. When she entered the classroom, silence fell over it like a switched-off radio. It took a while until she went through the whole class, checking our shoes, our skirts, and even our ears!

That day, I couldn’t get my mind off the river flowing behind our house, the one that disappeared underground. I had seen a light-blue thing floating downstream and two men with hooks trying to pull it to shore. “Simone, quickly go inside,” Mother ordered. Later I heard the neighbors talking about three-year-old twins. The body of one baby boy had been found; the other had been swallowed up by the swirling abyss.

“Mum, where are the twins now?”

“In heaven. They are angels now.”

While walking up and down the rows, Mademoiselle explained to us the danger of the river. “The shore can be treacherous. You may step on it and it will cave in.” It was obvious that today she wouldn’t talk about saints, their lives, or their sacrifices. This time the subject was drowning and death, not religion or saints. I missed our religion lesson.

Coming home in the late afternoon, I always felt sad to leave Frida behind. She had no mum waiting for her, no soft music filling the air, no hot tea or cold drink to refresh her. She didn’t even have a little dog like Zita jumping up to welcome her. If it rained, Mum always had a hot footbath and a tasty piece of bread with jam ready for me. I loved our intimate chats. I could talk with Mum, opening my heart wide—or almost. I had a little secret, a secret “love.” I wouldn’t tell Mum. I didn’t want her to be jealous!

A young, well-dressed lady had moved to our street. I admired the beautiful, distinguished lady; she became my model. She had a set hour to come by, and I would run to the window with a racing heart. I longed for the moment I could be close, very close to her.

Dad took my homework very seriously. He just wouldn’t accept any scribble, and he wouldn’t let me put it aside even if I tried to be stubborn. He liked to say, “I know you can do better, and you carry my name.” His authority was quiet and gentle, and I always felt ashamed after rebelling, telling myself, “Why did I stand up against my dear dad?”

Discovering Death and Life

CHAPTER 2

Discovering Death and Life

T

he days grew shorter, fog crept through the fields, the dahlias hung their heads. We children ran after leaves and gathered chestnuts. The boys used them like missiles, forcing us girls to hide. I just hated them!

People headed toward the cemeteries in carriages full of white and pink chrysanthemums. It was Halloween and people were going to visit the graves of their loved ones. This meant another family gathering. Even Aunt Eugenie would come from far away.

Again our neighbors would mistake her for Mum. That tickled me. She had the same black hair, yet her complexion was more like her amber necklace, and her eyes were like dark cherries. But her cheerful personality made her look like Mum’s twin sister. And that was the way both sisters felt. She was like a second mother to me.

Grandma and I went to the Oderen cemetery to clean the graves. Aunt Eugenie carried a huge pot of chrysanthemums. She went to her husband’s grave and cried and prayed.

“Grandma, why does she cry?”

“Your uncle died not long ago. They were only married three years.”

“Did he drown in the river?”

“No, he died of tuberculosis.”

“Mum told me death is the door to heaven.” I was a very little girl when by mistake I had gone in the room of my grandmother’s father. He was lying with his eyes closed and looked like he was praying, surrounded with crowns made of artificial flowers. Four huge candles gave a soft light, and the smell of incense filled the room. He was on his way to heaven, they told me. But now in front of the grave, my feelings changed.

“Grandma, is the tomb the door to heaven?”

“It also can be the one to hell.”

“I have seen the smoke of hellfire coming from the basement of Dad’s factory. I always make a big detour when I see it!” Grandma smiled, took my hands, and said a prayer, and Aunt Eugenie joined in with us.

“Why do you pray? Do the dead hear?”

“Yes, they do, and they can help us if they are not in purgatory.”

“Purga– what?”

“Purgatory is a place where the mean things we do, called sins, are burned up by fire. Only saints go to heaven right away.”

“Who kindles the fire?”

“Lucifer, the archangel. Because he was full of pride, he had to leave heaven and become the guardian of hell and purgatory.”

“Grandma, it’s cold here. I’m shivering. Let’s go!”

We called the cemetery the “church court” in Alsace. When we left, the graves were in the shadow of the church; there were so many flowerpots, all those people must have been saints!

When we arrived back at Grandma’s house, my cousin Angele had not yet arrived.

The family finished preparing for Halloween. Uncle Germain carried the table and chairs into another room. Grandpa brought in big logs for the fire. My mother and Aunt Valentine prepared chestnuts for roasting, while Grandma lighted a big candle next to a crucifix that had been placed between the two windows. The whole family got down on their knees. A person’s name was called. “We pray a Rosary for his soul.” Those prayers sounded like a murmuring complaint; the sighing wind in the chimney and the crackle of the fire made it seem even gloomier. I studied each one’s attitude.

Peeking, I saw Uncle Alfred’s eyes open. “Uncle, why don’t you pray correctly?”

“You wouldn’t see me if you would do it properly yourself,” was Uncle Alfred’s quick reply. But I knew how to do both—pray and peek. The firelight of the lone candle danced on the ceiling. Was it the fire of hell? Purgatory maybe? Outside, a pale moon darted in and out of the clouds, casting strange, spooky shadows. Were they ghosts? An uncomfortable feeling came over me. And there was no end to the praying. My knees were hurting. The last log burned down. No more exploding chestnuts. The room got darker. The candle started to shiver, like me. A long black column of moving smoke made all kinds of figures. The flame was now down to the holder, its very last flickerings illuminating the picture of Mary. There she was, neatly framed. She held the babe Jesus, who had a ball in his hands. Her chest was open, showing a bleeding heart. As I looked at the heart, it was quivering and bleeding even more. Then she finally disappeared in the darkness.

Somebody got up and switched the light on. Uncle Germain brought the table and chairs back; cups and milk were brought in, while my mother and Aunt Valentine peeled the roasted chestnuts. To me, the nuts had no taste.

DECEMBER 1936

As I stood on a chair, my mother knelt down, pinning the seam of the vaporous white tulle angel costume with two wings attached to the back. I repeated my lines over and over again. Mademoiselle had asked my parents if I could be in a group of Catholic youth called the “Skylarks.” Under the direction of our parish priest, I was chosen right away to have a part in a theater play for Christmas—as Gabriel the archangel. Little by little, I got so involved that my Halloween nightmares of hellfire were extinguished. I felt sunny again.

I was so excited that it was hard to sleep. It was December 24th, the night the Christchild would come. I was determined to stay awake. In the middle of the night, Mother called me out of bed. A soft light flowed from the dining room. Mother combed my hair, had me put on my housecoat, and said, “The Christchild came by. Let’s go and see what he brought you.”

I hardly could believe it! In the corner of the room, he had put a small pine tree adorned with little burning candles reflecting in glass balls and covered all over with glittering wreaths. Under its branches were some oranges and nuts. As I got closer, I found a baby carriage and a beautiful doll. “Mum! Dad! Look! the Christchild knew exactly what I wanted!” Mum was right when she told our curious neighbor who had asked what I had ordered: “A gift cannot be ordered, and the Christchild knows what Simone desires and deserves!”

The doll sat there with outstretched arms, pleading for a mum. And the Christchild knew I yearned for a daughter. I took my doll and right away named her Claudine.

The next day was our Christmas performance. The curtain fell after the first act. More than the applause from the audience, the teacher’s congratulations gave me confidence for the longer act to come. So many times I had dreamed that I was on the stage with an open mouth and no voice!

During the intermission, Aunt Eugenie came to get me. “Leave your angel wings here and come with me. You have plenty of time.”

Aunt Eugenie worked as a governess for the Koch family. “The Kochs want to meet you. They are with your parents in the loge on the balcony.”

In the dim light, I could hardly see the balcony. It had a strange musty odor and red velvet chairs; the place was tiny. Mr. Koch got up, bent over, and extended his right hand to me. He said, “I’m honored to meet such a nice, capable little lady.” He took my hand and kissed it gently. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Happily, Mrs. Koch added, “and how beautifully dressed too!”

“Yes, I am, because Mum made this dress for me!” I loved my black velvet dress with a garland of little pink roses all around the little jacket, and I was proud to let everyone know about it.

Suddenly the loge door opened. Henriette, a poor mentally ill girl, stood in the doorway, a basket hanging around her neck. She trembled all over. With begging eyes, she pushed the basket under someone’s nose. “Buy a little raffle, please, please. You will win.” Everyone in the loge bought one, then she ran out. She went to the next loge. A solitary man waved his hand and shook his head “no. ” She blushed and ran away. Poor girl! How terrible! I felt so bad for her. Mother, disgusted, stared at the man. I followed Mother’s eyes and recognized our parish priest.

The bell rang for the next act. I had to leave. The lights slowly dimmed. I passed Henriette, coming back down the hallway. The priest had called her back in.

Simone with Claudine, her doll, Christmas 1936

The play was a success. The curtain fell after the last act, but rose again right away. We were called back onto the stage. Some of us had to step forward. The applause filled my eyes with tears. The city theater was packed and everyone was clapping. I felt like running away, yet my feet were as heavy as if they were nailed down. The red velvet curtain came down again. Everyone left, but someone had to take me by the hand. I was worn out and I longed to go home and crawl under the covers.

Mum, who had come behind the stage, kissed me and took me in her arms. I felt her body, stiff and tense. Something had made Mum very upset. With indignation, she said to the theater manager, “Simone will not be in the play again, and I am taking her out of the Skylark girls group. I do not raise a girl to expose her!”

“What do you mean?” the manager asked with surprise.

“You should have seen what happened in the loge next to us!” (The priest had abused Henriette.)

As we walked away, Mum said to me, “Now, you have your daughter, Claudine, waiting for you at home. She needs you. This is better than the Skylarks!” I was so tired. Mother could tell. She was wonderful!

“Yes, I have to take care of Claudine. Poor girl, she is all alone at home!”

Claudine sat next to us while I learned how to knit. Zita was there too. Looking out the window, I saw snow mixed with rain.

The rain spoiled the beautiful, smooth white blanket of snow. Our feet got wet and cold walking in the slush on the way to Aunt Eugenie’s. Her mistress, Mrs. Koch, had asked her to invite me for their Christmas Eve, some days after the 24th of December.

Mother had given me a lot of orders—always the same ones over and over again. I knew them all. Be polite. Don’t put one foot on the top of the other when you stand. Don’t touch the furniture. Don’t serve yourself. Don’t chew with your mouth wide open. Don’t go in a room if you’re not invited. Don’t put your elbow on the table and hold your head. Don’t play with your hair. Don’t swing your legs when you sit. Don’t, don’t, don’t!

The big villa with marble steps, crystal mirrors, and a colorful carpet made me feel embarrassed. The odor of pine, candles, chocolate, and cake; the loud laughter of the three sons and their cousins; a pine tree reaching up to the ceiling, underneath a mountain of colorful parcels—I wanted to run away.

“Come in, Simone. Don’t be shy. The boys won’t hurt you.”

Aunt Eugenie introduced me to the three boys and their cousins, who clearly were not interested in meeting a girl. Boys are all the same, just like the ones at school who threw chestnuts at us girls. I don’t like boys, I thought.

I sat on a chair so high that my legs dangled. My hair bothered me. My aunt smiled and gently but firmly put one hand on my knee to stop the swinging. She took my hand out of my hair. I blushed. Did anybody else see it?

Mrs. Koch, wearing a wonderful lace dress with a long, three-row necklace, sat next to me. Speaking in French, she said: “Simone, Father Christmas (Père Noël) has brought something for you.” And taking my hand, she led me to the beautifully adorned pine tree standing opposite a big lace-covered table. The crystal glasses and silverware reflected the dozens of candles on the tree. This fascinated me more than searching for my gift among the many packages under the tree.

My aunt came to my rescue. “Simone, look for your name.” Under the tree was a manger like the one we had at Christmas in church, but today was not Christmas anymore. Why was it there? My gift was a small box; in it was a wooden man, 20 centimeters high, with a slot in his back. “This is a money box. You put your savings in that slot.” I opened it. It was empty.

I went back to my seat holding my package tightly. The maid in her black dress and white apron came and offered me some sweets. My aunt encouraged me to take one. I was very uncomfortable.

Finally Mrs. Koch said, “Eugenie, in ten minutes a streetcar will be leaving for Dornach. You may accompany the young lady.” What a relief! The maid brought my winter coat, my little polecat fur, and my felt hat. She tried to dress me.

“Oh, no. Please, I’m a big girl now. I can do it myself.” Everybody smiled.

“A true little lady,” Mrs. Koch said. She followed us to the door. Through an open side door, Mr. Koch nodded his gray head to me. Behind him I saw a table with drawers and golden feet and bookshelves up to the ceiling. What kind of room is this? I wondered.

Snow had fallen again. The yellow light shining through all the many windows made the Koch’s house look like a home in a fairy tale.

On the way home, I asked Aunt Eugenie why the Koch’s called the Christchild “Father Christmas,” why he brought me a gift at the Koch’s home instead of mine, and why he came on a different day. Aunt’s answers seemed incomplete. I was totally confused.

I was happy to return to school after the holiday. However, the classroom was cold. It took quite a while for the newly lit fire to give off some heat. Madeleine, Andrée, Blanche, Frida—none had had a pine tree for Christmas. Each only got one orange and one apple with some nuts, “because,” said Mum, “they are poor.”

That night, under my covers, I accused the Christchild. “Why do you treat rich and poor differently? Why did you give the Koch boys trains, books, games, cars? They got so many presents that they were tired of opening them—and yet you brought nothing, absolutely no toys, to most of my schoolmates? This is injustice, yes, injustice!” Wasn’t that how Dad had explained injustice— favoring the rich over the poor?

I decided to correct that terrible injustice. So every day I bought chocolate or cookies to give out at school. One day, passing by a toy shop, I saw a little doll sitting on a baby chair. I decided to buy it for Frida. She had been completely forgotten at Christmas. I went in and asked for the price: five francs. “Please hold it for me. I’ll get it this afternoon.”

I went home for lunch. After lunch, Madeleine came to call for me so we could walk back to school together. But Mum asked her to come upstairs. “Madeleine,” she said, looking at me, “would you have a thief as a friend? Please tell Mademoiselle that Simone will come to class later.”

Obviously Madeleine didn’t understand. Me, either! She left without me.

“Give back the money you have stolen.”

“Mum, I did not steal!”

“Don’t make it worse by adding a lie.”

“I am not lying. I didn’t steal anything.”

Quickly she put her hand in my pocket and pulled out a five-franc piece.

“And what is this?”

“I took it, but I did not steal!”

“Can you explain that?”

“Yes! I just had to correct the Christchild’s terrible injustice to Frida. I wanted to buy the doll for her.”

To my surprise, Mum bought the doll and put it on my shelf next to my bank from Mrs. Koch.

“Girl, stealing is taking something that is not yours, no matter what you do with it. This doll is going to remind you. It will stay there. Don’t dare take it away. As long as you leave it there and do not steal again, I won’t tell Dad. You know, he had to work many hours, yes, days to earn five francs. It is going to be our secret between us two. You know how your father stands for honesty. You watch it. He has never spanked you before, but for sure he will. Never remove that doll from there if you don’t want to have a problem!”

Thursdays, we had no school and sometimes my cousin Angele would come over with her doll while I was holding class with my doll, Claudine. I took it all very seriously, repeating Mademoiselle’s civic lessons. But I had trouble explaining to the dolls the idea of conscience. I didn’t understand what it was, how it worked, how a person could lose it, or even be without one in the first place.

So one day I asked Dad, “What is a conscience?”

“It is a voice inside you that tells you what is good or what is bad.”

“Dad, my teacher said that each evening we should think about our day and what we have done.”

“This,” Dad said, “is called the examination of one’s conscience. As you grow, you’ll be able to do that. Little ones can’t do it yet.”

“I don’t hear anything. Every evening I listen. No one inside me talks. Where can I find it?” I did not want to be a “little one” anymore.

“Continue searching and listening. One day it will come. It is in you.”

“Daddy, last night in bed my legs talked!”

“What did they tell you?”

“That they wanted to turn.”

“And how did you answer?”

“I changed position.”

“Those are your muscles. But, someday, the same feeling will pop up in your thoughts, and you’ll have to listen to them and do what they tell you.”

Teaching Claudine was a serious matter to me. I was sitting in my “classroom” one day, watching Mum sew. When Dad stepped in, I was happy—until I saw his gaze fall on the little doll sitting on the shelf. I felt like Zita who, when she had done something bad, crawled under the bed!

“Where did that doll come from?”

I knew I was in trouble.

“Isn’t it cute? It is Simone’s taste,” Mum answered without taking her eyes off her work. I got stiff and ducked out of Father’s sight.

“It must have been expensive, because a miniature is always very expensive!” I was doomed! I stared at Mother. She continued sewing.

“By the way, Adolphe, talking about being expensive, did you check on the price of a new bicycle?”

“Yes I did. We can’t afford it. It’s much too expensive.”

“How long do we have to save?”

My dear mother had kept our secret. What a relief! That evening in bed, I looked at the doll and thought of my cookie and chocolate distribution; I remembered the happy faces of my classmates. Then my heart started pounding. All that money I had taken could have bought a bicycle for Dad. My heart was beating even faster. Was that my “conscience?” How could I know? I couldn’t ask Dad without giving away our secret. It was a painful situation!

The next morning, I pushed the doll out of my sight. I did so every day for days. But every evening it was back in its place. Each day my heart beat more wildly. I trembled in the morning when I would hide the little doll away on the shelf. One day I just couldn’t do it anymore. My mother’s presence became unbearable; her silence a load. I had become conscious of my conscience!

Back in the classroom, a breathtaking vision unfolded before us as Mademoiselle vividly described God’s throne. Full of enthusiasm, she spoke about the angels that God had specially created. Playing divine music on golden harps, they surrounded his throne. I yearned to be there.

“Men cannot see them because they are spirits. We cannot see spirits. They have big wings and fly through the heavens.”

After that inspiring talk, I had a hard time concentrating on arithmetic. After two hours of class work, the priest came for our religious lesson, the catechism.

He entered class at 11 a.m.

“Blessed is the one that cometh in the name of God,” he said in a ceremonial voice.

The class stood up and said, “Amen.”

“How can we get into heaven?” he asked.

That was just what I wanted to know.

“The best way is to suffer,” he answered. “Each time a person suffers, he gets chastised by God, and God chastises everyone whom he loves. So be happy and rejoice when you suffer.”

After class I went up to the priest. “My Father, why did God create angels right away in heaven while we have to suffer to get there?”

The face of the priest became menacing, his eyes fiery. With a trembling voice, he said loudly, “You are just six years old, and you dare judge God?”

“My Father, I just...”

“Shut up! You have a rebellious spirit; you are on the way to hell if you continue like that! Learn your lesson and never question it!”

I walked away slowly. I was crushed. I thought, I’m so ashamed of myself. I won’t tell Mum about my religion class today. It will make her feel bad. The thought made me cry. From then on, I never felt at ease in my catechism classes. The priest’s dark eyes and threatening voice upset me. It seemed he only knew how to talk about hell. I preferred to go to church.

FEBRUARY 1937

On Sundays, we walked down the street dressed in our best clothes. Mother had a nice hat. Dad always wore a smart beret that he touched with his right hand when people would greet him. I held on to Dad’s left hand and held my pearly covered missal in the other hand. Mother clutched her purse and her missal tightly to her chest. She greeted everyone with a nod and a smile.

“It must be ten o’clock. The Arnolds are on the way to church,” some of our neighbors said. I was very proud to see how people greeted my parents courteously.

Our church was impressive. The door was wide open. The sun’s rays came through the high windows, illuminating the golden altar and making the light from the candles almost invisible. But it was not quite the same anymore. I looked at the images. They all had dramatic faces. I could no longer look at the priest and his assistant during the Eucharist, but I kept beating my chest like everyone else while repeating, “It’s my fault, my fault, my fault only.”

It was a nice warm February day. After church, we went on an outing. “Leave Claudine home. You can’t take her along. We’ll be hiking through fields and meadows.”

As far as our eyes could see, the brown earth stretched out; some meadows were turning green.

A stork, the state bird of Alsace, walked in the swamp beside the Doller River. Zita, with her tail wagging, ran back and forth across the meadow, chasing everything in sight and playing hide-and-seek with me. The rays of the setting sun danced between layers of mist that hovered just above the grass. Suddenly in the distance, I spotted a man and a young boy crawling out from underneath the thicket. They hurried off and quickly disappeared from view.

That Sunday evening before going to bed, Mum sat down to talk with me. I felt uneasy.

She looked at me tenderly but seriously with her deep blue eyes. “I know you go to church every morning to pray before going to school, but Dad and I ask you never go to church without us!”

Her words felt like a slap! “But why, Mum?”

“The church is a very large place, and there is not much light. A bad person may hide himself and then attack you.” Taking my chin in her hand she repeated in an undertone, “Never go to church for prayer by yourself, all right?”

On Monday morning, I passed by the church. My heart was pounding. I obeyed my parents’ order, but I wasn’t happy about it. At school, we had the usual Monday routine, the story of Saint Theresa de Lisieux, the review of our homework (I had the best marks again and Mademoiselle’s compliments), and Frida was there. But now she had to sit in the last row all by herself because of her cough. The sky turned brownish gray and snow had started to fall. We had to turn the lights on again. By the time the morning class was over, a snow storm was in full force. We had to walk backward alongside the houses. Frida had a hard time fighting against the wild wind. She coughed constantly, gasping for breath.

“I didn’t go to church, Mum!” I whispered in her ear as I kissed her.

“I know you are an obedient girl.” Mum brushed the snow off and brought me nice warm slippers, and I told her about the struggle we had to get home.

“And you know, poor Frida has to sit in the last row in class, all alone by herself because she coughs.”

“When she coughs, turn your head away from her!”

In the afternoon, the sky got brighter. Frida was absent from school again. The empty bench in the back of the class brought home to me what sickness could do. I decided that before becoming a saint, I would first become a nurse.

Sitting in the class, I could see the sparrows across the way, perched on the ledge of the church window. I imagined the rays of sunshine passing through the stained glass, illuminating the altar. But I couldn’t go in.

Under my covers, I fumed against my parents. I tried to get Dad to give me permission to go to church. “What did your mother tell you?” And, of course, he backed her up.

Why did my parents always stand up together against me? When Mum said something, Dad stuck by her. If I asked Mum about something, she’d say, “Did you talk to Dad? If not, we will do it together!” There seemed to be no way around it. I just couldn’t sleep.

My parents were sitting in the salon as they did every evening, Father reading aloud, Mother knitting. But now they were both talking. Maybe about me—I thought for sure it was about me. I got up to listen, but my heartbeat was so loud that I went back to try to listen from my bed.

They were talking about religion. It was hard to follow; often their voices disappeared. “Adolphe, it is unacceptable, impossible that God is willing to come down in a Host that is elevated by such dirty hands as the priest’s.”

“Emma, we humans have no right to judge God and...”

This conversation was hard to understand. I covered myself up again. But I wondered about the priest who didn’t know that he had to wash his hands before he said the Mass!

I stood by the side door of the church. My heart raced. “This is the house of God. There can’t be a danger in there, can there?” I opened the door. The church was empty and gloomy. I quickly closed the door and left! By the following day, I had made up my mind. I would take the holy water and quickly make the sign of the cross, walking on my tiptoes and crouching down to hide behind the church pews. In front of the altar, I would quickly kneel and apologize that I could not stay, because I was not allowed to stay in the church alone. I would cross through and go out on the other side.

My jumping heart almost stopped me. The door made a grinding noise. I shook all over. The faces of the saints seemed to move. In front of the altar, I was breathless. By the time I got to the other side, my legs vanished. I thought I heard a voice in the nave. I ran out the side door as fast as I could and slammed the door behind me.

My conscience had been in turmoil over whether or not I should again visit the church alone. I came to a decision. “God is above my parents, and they don’t know my goal—I want to be a saint.” It was my great secret. I was ready to pay the price and face my parents’ disapproval. It never came to that because they never found out about my secret visits.

I had been consecrated to the Virgin Mary since my baptism and was to be present at the procession. The priest would walk under a canopy carried by four men. He would hold a golden image of the sun upon his face, and the girls would throw rose petals in the air in front of him. What a sacred service that was! Mother made me a white organdy dress with a light blue belt. She bought some new shoes and a rose crown for my head. I couldn’t wait! But then, suddenly, a bad cough canceled everything. I had never been sick; why did I have to come down with a bad cough? Was God mad at me? Mother gave my special outfit to another girl! I burned with jealousy! Three days later I felt well enough to go out again. That made me feel even worse.

When I went back to school, Frida was still absent. The doctor said she couldn’t come to school until her cough cleared up. Each day, I would call out to her, and each day her house remained silent.

Passing by her little house, I saw pots of beautiful white flowers in the backyard. Finally someone had given Frida a little attention.

Mum sent me to Aline’s shop to buy some sugar for our strawberries. I climbed up the four steps into the grocery store and stood behind a lady wearing crocodile shoes. She was tall and wore a summer overcoat—a true lady, so different from the women on our street.

As I saw her left hand in a lace glove, I was breathless. Here she was—the beautiful lady that I so admired! I must have stared with my mouth open. Good thing Mother didn’t see me.

Aline whispered, “Simone, don’t gape like that. The lady has eaten too many cherries and drunk water.” What a disappointment! Didn’t that fine lady know any better? I hadn’t noticed her big belly before. I saw only her nice blouse with that beautiful necklace, but now I realized that her stomach was so big she might burst at any moment. I stepped aside, running away as soon as I got my purchase, leaving that stupid lady behind!

“Simone, why didn’t you take Zita along to the store?” Mum asked.

“Zita is sick, and so is Claudine.” I was a nurse and Mother had made a special outfit for me. Mother said, “But this is only make-believe. You still can take Zita out. She needs it.”

“I’ll dress her and put her in Claudine’s carriage because she’s sick!” Mother laughed. She knew that I loved to dress my doggy, put her on her back like a baby, and surprise passersby with her.

Simone as a nurse

“But now Zita badly needs to be on her four legs.”

“But Mum, she is really sick!” I was the nurse. I knew better than Mum.

“How do you know?”

“Can’t you see that every day her head gets smaller?”

Mother had put the sugar on the strawberries. “You see, all the juice will come out and dissolve the sugar. We will cook it when we come back from the garden.”

We had a nice view from the garden. On the horizon on one side of the hill, we could see the blue line of the Vosges Mountains; on the other side, the Schwarzwald Mountains, and a bright sun too!

“Keep an eye on Zita. She loves to make holes in the ground.” This wasn’t an easy job. When Zita smelled a mouse, she was determined, and she was strong too. I had a hard time pulling her out by her back legs.

Suddenly, night climbed up behind the trees. We gathered up the garden tools quickly. I had tied Zita on her leash for the walk back home. We heard noises like the wind and saw a fire-red sky. A dark cloud raced over our heads. Mother took me by the hand. We had to run for cover to keep from being harmed by the “fireworks.” A farm was ablaze!

Fiery sprays jumped out of the huge flames, sparking little fires in the dry grass. We saw chickens running all over the place; some were already on fire. The cows and the pigs couldn’t be saved. All the fire engines from the city arrived and sprayed water out of long hoses to wet down the farmhouse and the neighbors’ homes. The firemen’s helmets reflected the flames, their faces were red, their clothes dark. A terrible crash rekindled the fire, and the desperate cries of all the animals inside were silenced.

When we were permitted to pass by, the charred beams were still smoldering. The air was heavy with smoke for a long time.

I came home freezing. I couldn’t eat or play. Mother suggested I go to bed because I had a fever. Zita, too, was all upset and lay down next to my bed with wet eyes. It wasn’t bedtime yet, but Mother said, “Get a good night’s rest and you’ll feel better.”

But the night wasn’t “good.” I saw fire everywhere even when my eyes were closed. In my dreams I heard the terrible cries of the burning animals. Mother decided to sleep with me.

The next day was no better. “Mum, did Lucifer burn the barn and the animals in it?”

Mother named all the different ways that fires could start, but it didn’t take away my fear of hellfire. Dad tried to distract me by encouraging me to do some painting, but I was too restless.

Even though the weather was nice and warm, Frida was missing from school again. “Mademoiselle, why can’t Frida come to school?” Instead of answering she caressed my hair.

“Is she still coughing?”

“Oh, no, she’s not coughing anymore. She’s in heaven now.”

“That’s why.”

“Why what?”

“I saw the pots of white flowers.”

Passing in front of her modest home with the shutters closed, I started to cry. The flowers were withered. They too had died. I just couldn’t look at the house anymore. My sadness about her departure for heaven made me cross the street. Yet I was relieved for her. She didn’t cough anymore but would play harps sitting on a cloud. Could she see me?

Catechism class—what would the priest talk about today? “It is necessary to make a distinction between hell and purgatory. When a person dies and has committed sins, that person can avoid burning eternally in hell if he takes the last Sacrament. One has to call for a priest, the person has to confess all his sins without omission, and afterward he can eat the Communion. Maybe he cannot go to heaven right away, but instead will have to go to purgatory. It is a sort of an antechamber of hell. People suffer and burn, but they can get out after their sins have been purged. This time can be shortened if the family asks the priest to say Masses. The family has to make sacrifices and prayers for the dead.”

The night was terrible. I saw Frida in the flames, the lady with her burst tummy moaning. The firemen had tails like the Devil, their faces were fire-red, and the twins were drowning in a river of fire. The saints didn’t hear my prayers because of the roaring fire. I screamed and woke up. Mother was sitting on the edge of my bed, wiping the sweat off my forehead. My bed was a snarled mess of covers. Mum tucked me in again and kissed me. I fell asleep, but a similar dream haunted me. The following evening I didn’t want to go to bed. My bed had become hell.

Zita’s head went back to normal again. She had given birth to puppies! Soon after, on one sunny day, my fancy lady passed by pushing a baby carriage. She, too, had shrunk. Running to Mum I asked her, “Do mothers carry their babies in their tummies like Zita?” Mother’s answer made liars out of Mrs. Huber and Aline!

“But why do people say I should put sugar for the stork in order to get a sister?”

“That’s a story for little ones!”

Again, for little ones! I’m not a little one. “Why, Mum, why do adults lie?” I got no answer.

“Didn’t God say ‘You shall not lie?’ Aren’t they afraid to go to hell?”

That night, while under my covers, I decided to avoid Mrs. Huber. I was not going to talk to her anymore. But why didn’t Mother answer my question? Why do grown-ups lie to children? I would have to beware of them! That put me in a very bad mood.

Dad was a wonderful playmate—always encouraging me to try new things. I had some trouble with the spinning top Uncle Germain had made for me. It turned, slowed down, wobbled, and fell motionless. To get it started again I had to wind the string around it, put the point on a level place, and swiftly jerk the string to liberate it.

“Keep trying. You’ll do better next time,” Dad said from the balcony, where he stood watching me. No cars came down our block; I had the whole street to myself. Some of our neighbors, who spent their summer evenings leaning on cushions and looking out the window, kept on teasing me. They made me even more determined. But it was time for me to go to bed, even though the sun had not yet set. It was so hot that Mum had decided not to close my shutters completely.

“Mum! Dad! Hurry, help, help! There is fire everywhere!” A strong orange-red light had enveloped my room. Dad took me from my bed and brought me to the balcony. Mrs. Huber, Mrs. Beringer, Mrs. Eguemann—everyone had come outside to look at the spectacular light show. The sun had set, the blue line of the mountain had turned black, the sky was fire red, and, downstairs, our teenage neighbor John played the blues on his mandolin.

“Who opened the door to hell?”

“This is not hellfire. It’s a spectacular sunset!”

“But only a giant fire could send so much red light into the sky!”

Mum and Dad looked at each other and shook their heads.

“I know for sure it’s hell because the priest said that a person either goes down to hell or up to heaven,” I insisted.

Dad explained something about fire and lava inside the earth, convincing me about hell even more and making me even more terrified. Mother brought me back to bed. Sitting with me, she told me once more that it wasn’t hell; it was the sun.

“Don’t be so scared about hell. We have the saints to pray for us, and we have a guardian angel.”

It didn’t help because I knew how terrible it is to die unprepared.

How awful, how terrible if my parents would die during the night! Every night I would sneak into their bedroom and put my finger under their noses to find out if they were breathing. Only then could I go to sleep!

One Sunday, as usual, the three of us went for our afternoon walk. It brought us near a tavern with a garden. I remembered being there when I was about three years old. I had danced on a tabletop and the customers had applauded. Dad recalled my performance, too, and he said sternly, “Remember this place? Let it be said, I do not want you to become a show girl!”

Really! It wasn’t necessary for him to remind me. I was now a serious girl—nearly seven years old! I know about sickness, death, purgatory, hell, and God sending all kinds of situations to test us. My parents tried to cheer me up, but my innocent childhood free of sorrow was gone. My religious education at school taught me how painful life on this earth can be and what effort one has to go through to become a saint. That had become my chief concern.

One year of intense religious instruction had propelled me into a state of permanent fear, fear of God—the Father who was so severe, so exacting. I really had no desire to dance—how could I?

Sitting on a little footstool, I was holding class for Claudine, trying to teach her the pronunciation of the German alphabet. Mother was waxing the shared wooden stairs outside our apartment; it was her turn to clean them. She was always unhappy because our neighbor only used water to wash them down, while Mum believed in shiny wooden steps. I heard her talking to someone in the hallway; suddenly she came in to get something and went back out.

“I’ll read them,” I heard Mum say. “I believe our God is sleeping and doesn’t see what is going on. I wonder what you have to say.”[4] I couldn’t imagine why Mother would say something like that! Will she go to hell? I knelt down in front of my altar, begging the saints to ask God not to be angry with her! I was afraid for her soul!

That same day it was my turn to wash the dishes, but I just couldn’t scrub the burnt food off the bottom of the pans.

“We will put some water in them and soak them; it will come off easier later on,” Mum said absently. She put the pans on top of a shelf on the balcony, just behind a blind she had installed to keep people from gazing into our kitchen. For days, the pots remained there!

Mum was enthusiastic about the booklets she had gotten. She went to the bookstore to get a Bible. Day after day she would read and read and read—she barely cooked anymore. Ever since the day she had forbidden me to go to church alone, she hadn’t returned to our church for confession and communion. She started going to another Catholic church nearby. But, after a while, she decided that she wouldn’t attend Mass anymore. So Dad and I went together. He seemed really down, and I felt uncomfortable, too. Even the beautiful organ music didn’t make me feel better.

My mother also forgot how to cook. She reads too much, I said to myself.

One night as I was lying in bed, I could hear my parents’ voices. I stretched my neck and tried to listen in. I was convinced they had a secret I was not supposed to know. I had to discover it. Creeping alongside the wall, I tried to hear what they were talking about. Father’s voice was insistent; Mother’s was very firm, but in an undertone she said something about being free to worship according to conscience.

“We are Catholics!” Dad kept repeating.

“We all know that! What is Dad thinking?” I wondered. Mother’s answer was inaudible.

Dad got really irritated and insisted, “We have to stay faithful,” and he added something about a rock in Rome called Peter and the pope who sits upon it. All of a sudden Dad stood up. I quickly turned to hustle back to bed, but it was too late. He saw me. As he came out of the salon, disgusted, he said to Mother, “Do what you want!” He continued to walk away, then suddenly turned to Mum and added in an emphatic tone, “I forbid you to talk about your ideas and your readings to Simone!”

I was ignored, left out, treated like a baby! I felt like I would burst from anger. I was so mad at Dad. I was determined to resist.

“Mum, what do you read every day?” I asked her first thing the next morning.

“Bible literature.”

“What’s that?”

“The Bible is the Word of God.”

“I’ll read it too.”

“Later.”

“No, right now.”

“Simone, I promised your dad that I wouldn’t share a Protestant Bible or any literature with you.” I knew they were keeping something from me!

“But Dad isn’t here!”

“Yes, but I promised him.”

“Dad won’t see you, and I won’t tell him!”

“That would not be right; it would be lying. Child, your father is working hard to feed us and to pay the house rent. He has the right to make decisions concerning your education.” Inside I was burning up.

“But why? Why can’t I read what I want?”

A strange atmosphere had crept into our home. Mother still didn’t go to church, but at least she didn’t burn the food anymore. Father didn’t talk anymore, not even about socialism! His greetings to Mother were mechanical—no warmth, no enthusiasm, only questionings.

“Who have you seen? Where have you been going?” What foolish questions! Father knows that she sees only the grocer, the butcher, and the baker. Why does he bother her like that? But one time his questioning got worse.

“Do you mean the men who gave you those booklets didn’t come back?”

“No, and I feel bad about it. I have so many questions I want to ask them.” Dad didn’t like this either. They were so absorbed in their conversation they didn’t notice me. He kept on.

“Who brought you those other brochures?”

“I ordered them,” and nervously Mum pulled out a brown paper with stamps. “Here is the proof,” she said with annoyance.

“Why did you order so many, and where are they all?”

“I ordered three kinds. They sent me ten of each.”

“And what did you do with them?”

“I shared them with our neighbors in the apartment and down the street.” Dad shook his head angrily.

Sneaking farther back in the corner of the room, I said to myself, Dad has forgotten that I’m here. I’ll try to keep quiet.

He looked straight into Mum’s eyes and said, accentuating each word, “Are you spreading propaganda now?” Mother turned pale. Would she fight back? I would have! Dad was treating her like a child.

After a while she said, “Adolphe, people have the same right that each one of us has—the right to choose. But to do so, they have to have a choice; this is not propaganda.”

I thought, “Well done, Mum!” And without realizing it, I spoke up, murmuring that people have the right to read what they want, and I did too! Turning to gaze at me, both of them fell silent.

Books Broaden My View

CHAPTER 3

Books Broaden My View

A

fter we learned of Frida’s death, we remaining four girls walked on the other side of the street, along the apartment houses. A young girl I had never seen before lived in one of them. She was always coughing badly. Blanche knew her. Her name was Jacqueline. She had been sent away from home to live in a special house; she was older than we were, and she had tuberculosis. We wanted to know what kind of sickness it was. I promised the girls that I would look it up in my medical book because I was the nurse.

Standing way up on top of the ladder in Dad’s library, I felt my heart pounding. I could feel the beating in my temples. My hands trembled as I reached out for the red, leather-covered, heavy “house doctor” book. I decided to sit on the top of the ladder. That way, as soon as I heard Mum going down the cellar stairs to put the garden tools away, I would have the time to put the book back, climb down and put the ladder away.

My inner voice kept saying, “You didn’t ask permission. But if I ask Mum, she’ll say no! I’m the nurse; I have to learn. I’m not going to risk being told ‘no’!” My parents had already refused to let me read the book called the Bible. It was very exciting to do things on my own. I really liked the feeling of doing things in secret.

The doctor book became my favorite secret reading. I would have liked to copy the diagrams, but I might have been caught! And there were so many strange words. The description of the sicknesses usually ended with the same words: “It results in death.”

“Nothing happens outside the will of God,” our priest always said. “God decides on the hour of death.” But as pictured in this book, the means by which we can die were terrifying. Yet I had to understand the information. I had promised the girls. I decided to ask Mum.

Carefully, one day I asked, “Mum, what is tuberculosis?”

“A sickness. But where did you get that question from?”

I had to be careful how I answered. “Well, we talked about it when we passed in front of Jacqueline’s house. Blanche said she’s not allowed to go to school.”

“That’s right. She does have tuberculosis; she already had it when she took care of Frida as a baby.”

“Did Frida get it from her?”

“Probably. That’s called contagious. You see, Simone, when I constantly remind you not to sit on the sidewalk, it is not only because dogs ease themselves but also because some people spit!”

“Oh, yes! I read they even spit out their lungs!”

“What did you say?”

“I said I was afraid they spit out their lungs. Is it what Uncle Louis had, the sickness he died from?”

“It is.”

“Then does Aunt Eugenie have tuberculosis?”

“God be blessed, no!”

I got the information and the necessary explanation. I could go to school and tell the girls not to pick anything up from the streets because lungs might be lying there. As a nurse, it was my duty to make them fear tuberculosis just as I did.

Summer vacation had finally arrived, and Dad was on vacation, too—the first one he ever took. He didn’t want to take time off from work. “But I have to—the factory will close down for two weeks.” This was because, from 1937 onward, all factories in France were required by law to close down for vacation as a result of concessions won by the strikers. At least this forced vacation meant that Dad’s mood would improve.

Dad had something new to talk about. “Emma, what about buying those bicycles?”

“Can we afford it?”

My five-franc baby doll on the shelf gave me that uncomfortable feeling again.

“Well, we would have to take the money from the bank. I don’t like that idea because something unforeseen might happen. But on the other hand, bicycles are also an investment. We could cycle through the mountains with them.”

Our brand new bicycles were the admiration of our whole neighborhood. Both shiny cycles were dark red with gold trim and had three speeds. There was a special seat for me on the handlebars of Dad’s bike and another one on the rear of Mother’s bike. I would sit on Dad’s when climbing up the mountain, but sit on Mother’s when going down. We planned to go up to the Lakes Longemer and Gerardmer. Then I found out that we were supposed to take my cousin Maurice along—that was bad news for me.

Maurice was a tall fourteen-year-old with blond hair and steelblue eyes. He bragged constantly. Mum said he was a “poor orphan.” He would only go cycling with us, and we would bring him back before going to Bergenbach. This meant I had to endure.

I figured out how to handle him. I did whatever he did, climbing, running, never complaining. And when he said he was tired, I would say, “I’m not!”

Back at Grandma’s, I declared proudly to my astonished cousin Angele, “From now on, I’m a boy.” And in order to prove it, I climbed up a mirabelle tree to shake the small sweet yellow plums from the upper branches. When I jumped down, my dress got caught on a branch. I swung back and forth until the skirt pulled apart, liberating me. I fell to the ground flat on my stomach. Angele ran away screaming, and Joly, the Alsatian puppy, tugged at my dress, tearing it to pieces. I got slowly and painfully back on my feet. Do boys cry? I decided to bite my lip and pretend I was okay. I had my basket full of mirabelles. I dragged it home, struggling with the heavy load.

All of the animals on Grandma’s farm had to have nice faces. If they didn’t, Grandma would sell them. Joly was a beautiful, well-built dog. Joly was also very strong. I thought that it was a waste to have Joly only do the job of barking while Uncle Germain and Grandpa had to bring the hay down on a huge sled.

“Angele, we could train the dog to pull a sled, so we could load it!” We took Joly and Uncle Germain’s homemade sled and went uphill behind the house. We attached Joly to the sled. At first the dog refused to walk and we had to pull him. Then he felt that something was following him, and he started to run faster and faster downhill. We laughed, but only in the beginning. Soon our laughter turned to panic. Joly ran down the eight steps between Germain’s workshop and the farmyard. The sled banged down the stone steps. The terrific noise brought everyone outside, except for deaf Uncle Germain who was sawing wood. Joly was determined to get rid of his harness. He jumped into the granitehewn fountain, shattering the sled to pieces and splashing everyone. His wild eyes bulged, his tongue hung out. We both were sent to bed for what the adults called “mischief.” The adults just didn’t understand our brilliant idea.

Taking a big, black book out of her bag, Mum called to me. “Look what I bought, a Catholic Bible.”

“What’s a Bible?”

“It is the Word of God, written for men to guide their lives.” I tried to read from it, but the print was too small. I kept stumbling over the words.

“Every morning, while you eat breakfast, I’ll read to you.” At least my mother didn’t treat me like a baby!

“Sit down next to me,” she said, and turning to the first page, she showed me the signatures of some cardinals and bishops. “You see? This has the approval of the Catholic church and the pope. Every parish priest has a copy. Dad wouldn’t forbid us to read a Catholic Bible, would he?”

“He can’t.”

“I’ll leave the book here next to the radio. We won’t hide it, will we?”

“No. That way Dad can read it too.”

But he didn’t.

The weeks that Dad worked the morning shift, I got the promised Bible reading while I ate my jam-and-butter sandwiches and drank hot chocolate, which perfumed the whole apartment. Sometimes Mother would read a sentence or two twice and add, “Remember this,” or “Did you hear?” followed by the reading of a few words out of the previous sentence. This made it easier for me to learn verses and repeat them. On those Bible-reading days, I had something special to share with my classmates.

I thought that Dad might be sick—even contagious—because he started keeping away from us and even out of the sight of our neighbors. I worried a lot about him. Day after day, Mum would make Dad’s favorite dishes. Yet, day after day, it was the same scenario. With outstretched hand, a scowl, and a harsh voice, Dad would say, “Not so much; I’m not hungry.”

I felt bad. Dad was living on cigarettes. After supper he would quickly get up from the table to smoke a cigar and listen to the evening news. Zita looked up at him, waiting to be petted. Dad didn’t notice Zita’s imploring eyes. But when the time came to take Zita out, Dad didn’t ask me or Mum. He would go out, not for a short time but for a long walk.

We never seemed to talk anymore as a family. And even when I was gone, Mum and Dad had no conversation. I kept coming back to the same conclusion. Dad must be very sick, maybe even contagious. Whenever he was on the balcony, he stood behind the blind to avoid chatting with that curious neighbor of ours, Mrs. Huber. I kept thinking, our neighbors must think we are all contagious; they keep avoiding us.

At school, my popularity had dwindled. I wasn’t the leader or instructor anymore. Somehow my popularity had melted. Never mind, I reasoned. Mum always said, “You do not want to be like everyone else; you want to become a lady.” And for a long time, this had been another goal in my life. One day I, too, would wear crocodile shoes, a three-strand necklace, and gloves.

My wonderful mum helped me in many ways to reach my goal of becoming a lady. One day I was standing next to Mum in a fabric store, and she had me choose a piece of material. I needed a new Sunday coat, one I would not use during the week. While the saleslady took some pieces of material down, she said, “This is in style; everybody chooses this one or that one.”

Bending toward me Mum said, “Simone, you choose, but remember you do not want to be like everybody else; you want to be you. There is only one Simone Arnold. Each one has a personal taste, and you want to be a lady. Ladies do not copy, they create. They have personality.”

The elderly saleslady’s astonishment showed in her eyes. She just stared with her mouth hanging open; it’s a good thing there were no flies around!

“You are very young to make a personal choice,” she finally said. Didn’t she know I was not a baby anymore? I was seven years old!

“Quality and price are the only limits,” Mother replied.

“Please show us this one, that one and that one,” I said, pointing to some fabrics.

Mother asked the price, then she said: “This one is too expensive, Simone. I’m sure you wouldn’t like your father to work for a full week just for your coat, would you?” And she had it put back on the shelf. “You may choose among the others.” That was so exciting! I was going to be different; it would be my own taste.

“You shall not make any images—eyes they have and cannot see, ears they have and cannot hear. Those trusting in them will become like them.” That was the day’s Bible reading. Before Mum finished a second reading and before my cup of hot chocolate was empty, I had pulled off the medal with Mary that was on my necklace and the other one that was on my bracelet. I flushed them down the toilet. Then I ran into my room and crushed my altar to pieces. Mother was speechless, paralyzed. When I came back to finish my breakfast, Mum said, “We could have given those gold medals to Angele.”

“Mum, if God doesn’t want any images, it would be the same sin for Angele to have them!”

It was a Thursday. I was home when Dad came from work. For some reason he headed straight for my room. He turned white, just like the day he was almost electrocuted in Grandma’s kitchen. I was scared. Without a word, he went to the kitchen. Mother was silently preparing his meal. I decided to stay away; Father’s angry face reminded me of a storm.

“Where is Simone’s altar?” he asked roughly. Mother calmly continued fixing his food.

“She broke it into pieces.”

“You’re the one who told her to do that!”

“No, I just read the laws written in the Bible to her.”

“You told me you wouldn’t teach her. You promised me.”

“Adolphe, it’s a Catholic Bible, and Simone ran out before I ever finished my reading. I can’t understand you; you never liked Simone’s altar, her pictures and candles. Why, why, do you get so upset now?” And taking back his plate, she said, “I’ll warm it up once more. Please eat it for our sake.” Dad grumbled something no one could understand; it looked like the storm had quieted down, but my question again had no answer. Why did Dad get so mad? He really scared me. I wondered if those statues were very expensive. Had Dad spent many days working for them?

Our appointment with Aunt Valentine was a welcome change. It was a foggy October afternoon, and I was happy to get away from the awkward situation at home. Aunt Valentine was waiting for us at the streetcar stop. Around her neck, keeping her warm, was her fox fur with its staring glass eyes. The smell of mothballs surrounded her. Angele wasn’t with her.

I was to choose a gift that Aunt Valentine would get for me, and Mum would buy a gift for Angele. I selected a sewing kit.

The odor of the broiling chestnuts filled the air of the business section in Mulhouse. As we approached the station, we passed by a man who had a big iron pan upon a coal fire. Once in a while he would turn the chestnuts. Meanwhile, he made small cone-shaped cups from newspaper. Handing him some money, Aunt Valentine asked for some and offered me the hot grilled chestnuts. What a delightful afternoon! I forgot all about Father’s anger.

We hurried along because of the late afternoon hour. My gift made me so happy, especially because it was my aunt’s first gift to me, and I had been allowed to choose it! “Mum, Dad will be happy too, won’t he?”

“Certainly, but do you realize how tired he is? Lately he hasn’t played with you very much; he’s even skipped looking over your schoolwork. Maybe he doesn’t feel up to it tonight; so don’t insist. It might be better if you go to your room and have a chat with Claudine.”

The two flights of stairs seemed to be only a few steps. I ran up to Dad. “Look, Dad, look what I got!” I tore open my parcel to show him my gift. Dad sat in his armchair doing nothing. It was so strange. He always said that only bums and dead people do nothing. I handed my gift to him.

“Mm hmm.”

“Isn’t it lovely, Dad?”

“Mm hmm.”

“Aunt Valentine bought it for me.”

“Oh, did she?”

“But I chose it.”

“I see.” Mother’s blue eyes told me to let Dad rest.

I went to my doll Claudine and showed her my beautiful box covered with flowered fabric. Inside were colorful spools of thread and little scissors. At least she appreciated it.

A heavy silence enveloped our family. Mother didn’t try to communicate with Dad, who had no voice anymore. Dad’s sickness must have become much worse. My room too was strange, empty. The only thing left on my shelf after my destructive zeal was the innocent baby doll. It had always been in my way, and now it bothered me even more. It represented my conscience, a solemn thing to look at, but Mother had insisted that it stay there. The gloomy days seemed endless.

Back at school, Mademoiselle accepted my dahlias with indifference and put them in an ugly pot on the windowsill. She certainly doesn’t like dahlias anymore, I thought. I often used to give her flowers, and she would put them in a nice vase, while smiling and thanking me. But even flowers didn’t cheer her up anymore. She looked sick, too.

Finally, after many gray days, a pale white sun appeared. A timid ray of sunshine hit a parcel lying on the table in the salon. Mum took my schoolbag and pointing to the wrapped package said, “Dad has ordered a book from the Bible Students Association in Strasbourg.[5] This is a surprise; we won’t say a word. Perhaps he wants to read it in secret,” putting her finger on her mouth to indicate silence about the matter and taking an air of conspiracy, she added, “Shhh!”

When Dad came home from the morning shift, he entered the salon, took the book, and let it drop noisily on the table. “They really are in a hurry! I only wrote a few days ago.”

For days, the parcel just sat there waiting to be opened, and the intensity in Mother’s eyes told me to keep silent and wait.

Whenever somebody knocked at the door, I wasn’t allowed to open it. Mum had explained, “You are a well-mannered girl and you only open when I ask you to do so.” I was to go into one of the rooms because “it is very impolite to be curious and step out in the hall to see who has come.” But what my mother didn’t know was that I would go to a place where I could see who was at the door by looking in the mirror!

Uncle Germain had come for the last time before the snow would close in on Bergenbach for the winter. I came running out of the room. Mum’s glaring look was sufficient to turn me back, but this made me even more suspicious and curious. Uncle Germain was loaded down. Quickly Mother took him through the kitchen to the balcony, where she stored our food until the weather outside was freezing. When they had deposited everything, Mum called out to me, “You have no business on the balcony— Dad’s orders!”

Dad makes our life restrictive, I said to myself. Sometimes I can go; sometimes I can’t. How inconsistent adults can be!

Uncle Germain had brought some wonderful red apples and nuts, and they filled the place with the scent of Bergenbach. I tickled him, surprising him and making him laugh. Through the kitchen window I saw a Christmas tree! “What is it doing out there?” I gave myself the answer: The Christchild has too much work, so my parents provide the tree for him. Didn’t he forget something last year and bring it to the Kochs’, knowing that I was invited? But why did the tree come so long before Christmas?

I had decided I would stay home with Mum and not go to church. Mother looked at me in surprise, while Dad said with a very stern voice, “And why?”

“Because I’m not a Catholic!”

Dad said harshly, “As long as I have a word to say in this house, I am the one to decide what you are. I give the orders!”

My mother’s order followed swiftly, “Simone, hurry up and get dressed to go with Dad to church!”

Hiding under our umbrellas facing wind and icy November rain, Dad asked, “Did Mother tell you that you are not Catholic?”

“Oh, no, my classmates did!”

“Because you talk about religion with them?”

“Yes, I do.”

“So Mother teaches you?”

“Yes, every day she reads a part of the priest’s book, the Bible.”

“That’s all she does?” his voice full of doubt.

“No, sometimes she reads the same words two or three times, so I can learn them and repeat them correctly like they are in the Catholic Bible.” Dad was silent. “Daddy, they say I’m not a Catholic. Am I?”

“You are a Catholic, and I will certainly see to it that you stay one!” I was fidgety during Mass. Wherever I looked, I saw eyes that couldn’t see and ears that couldn’t hear. All of those saints and angels in the house of God were haunting me. Here God’s word said that images were forbidden, and yet His house was full of them. Finally, I came to the conclusion that God was being like my parents: Don’t touch the fire, yet they did! Don’t climb up the ladder, but they did!

In spite of the cold weather, Father had decided to take another route home. He said that no one would disturb us. “How come your classmates came to that conclusion? How did that happen?”

“It’s because I refused to recite a poem with my doll.”

“What do you mean?” Again Dad’s voice got tight.

“We had a doll in class, and we had to act with it while reciting. Mademoiselle asked me to recite the third verse. It was the doll’s morning prayer. I just refused.” Dad’s eyes seemed to turn dark, with his eyebrows making their famous question mark.

“Did Mum tell you to refuse?”

“Oh, no, she never heard the poem.”

“And?”

“I couldn’t do it!”

“And why not?” He stopped walking and looked down at me.

“Because Claudine has no heart to pray to God, and it is not right to play with a prayer. Claudine does not pray; she has ears but cannot hear, and legs but cannot walk. She is only a doll. Dolls do not pray, Dad!” This ended his suspicious questioning for now.

Returning home, we smelled the wonderful aroma of Mum’s Sunday cooking as we came into the house. She had prepared one of Dad’s favorite meals, Bergenbach sauerkraut, and linzertorte— a tasty pie—for dessert. But Dad’s sickness was not over yet; he hardly ate. Leaving the table, he went into the salon to smoke his cigar and drink his coffee. Zita did not lie on his feet because Dad was too restless. As soon as Mum sat down beside him, he burst out and accused her violently: “You are teaching Simone behind my back!” I had to rescue my mother, I decided. My heart was full of hatred for my stubborn father.

“I will never play with you anymore; you don’t believe me!” I screamed, “and I will never go with you to church again,” underlining my saying with a stomp. “I am not a Catholic!” Dad stood up, as tall and erect as a statue.

Slowly he raised his arm and pointed to my room. With authority he said, “You stinky little girl, go to your room to get over your rebellion. I do not want to see you anymore today!”

I walked off, just about to say something back. “And not another word out of you if you don’t want me to give you a spanking!”

He did not move from his place until I dashed into my room. I was furious. I sat down on the carpet, leaning on the bed and crying, more out of defeat than because of the punishment.

My parents debated heatedly—they talked fast, too fast for me. The only things I heard were what Dad said when he was near my door; once in a while, a word of Mum’s came through.

“Adolphe, I’m surprised how unreasonable you can become! Why do you not read the Catholic Bible? Check for yourself!”

Full of spite, almost contempt, he said, “You know-it-all! Of course, since you started reading that Bible, you think you’re smart!” I was burning in my room. Never had I heard such language!

Mum said, “Let me ask you one question. Why do the priests not teach what is in the Bible?” That question made me jump.

“Priests have studied for years; they are the guardians of tradition. To them belong the teachings. What are you? You left school at age twelve.” How Dad humiliated Mum! He had changed so. And I wasn’t allowed to come out of my room and tell him a word!

Finally Mother stood up and defended her actions. A strong voice full of determination hammered her words home, “Adolphe, I know how to read French and German. And when the Bible writes the words of Jesus, ‘Call no one on earth your father,’ or, ‘My Father in heaven is greater than I,’ or, ‘you are my friends if you keep my words,’ tell me, what has to be explained in those words? Do you need someone to help you understand them?”

Well done, Mum, you got it! I cheered silently in my room.

“Look at this. When Jesus says, ‘In your hand I entrust my spirit,’ is he talking to himself? And where is the third person of a so-called Trinity?”

“Shut up with your Bible texts!” How awful Dad talks against the Catholic Bible! Dad left the house in a fit of anger, Zita following him. Mum brought me a piece of cake and a cup of tea.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I muttered.

“Don’t worry, I’ll continue to read the Bible to you, but you have to obey Dad. You can compare what we read together and what the priest says. Learn both and choose.” She left, telling me, “Play with Claudine,” and she went back into the salon.

I was extremely unhappy. I didn’t want to obey Dad. And yet I had received the order from Mum. What a frustrating situation!

Later on, Dad came back home, still upset. With an attitude bordering on contempt, he muttered, “I’ll investigate that book of those Bible Students, those Jehovahs.” And laughing, he added: “They must write lots of nonsense in that Jehovah’s Witness Creation book.”

“Claudine, did you hear Dad? Finally he will open the book that he got in the mail. Dad is very keen on astronomy; he studies books. Sometimes, before he was sick, he would take me on his lap and show me pictures. Claudine, did you know Saturn has a ring around it? I’ll teach you.”

Sometimes late at night I would have to go to the toilet. Dad would still be reading and smoking. The following morning, he would be reading and coughing. Every morning he had that same terrible cough. Maybe he, too, had specks in his lungs. I knew he was sick; he was pale and crotchety, and he even got mean. I tried to get by without being seen.

In school, the priest talked a lot about the nativity, the day God came down to earth and chose Bethlehem in the land of the Jews. But they had no room, no house for him and Mary and Joseph. The holy family had to go to a stable, and Jesus had to be warmed up by the breath of a cow and an ass. “And remember,” the priest said, “the Jews killed Jesus, the incarnated God, and asked that his blood come upon their children. That’s why the Jews are condemned for eternity.”

At home, the smell of the anise cookies had replaced the smell of the waxed furniture. Mother was busy finishing baking the different traditional cakes and cookies. They were spread out on a white cloth on the dining room table. The end of the year with its festivities was at hand. It was going to be a wonderful Christmas. Ever since Dad read the Creation book, he had recovered and was enjoying food and games again.

Mother called me to come to the dining room. She had put the Christmas tree in the corner next to the wooden carved cupboard. In her hands she held a big box. “Come and help me,” she called. She put the whole package on the sofa and opened the lid. She had saved all the colorful glass balls from the previous year.

“You saved them; this way the Christchild won’t have to bring more!”

“Simone, we have always celebrated Christmas, but there is no such person called Christchild. For the French it is Père Noël; every country has its own fairy tale. Look how I do it; you never put two of the same color together, and we will put the candleholders here.” It was fun, and it smelled like Grandma’s forest. A little shy ray of sunshine reflected in the glass and made the “angel hair” glitter.

“Our priest told us that Christmas is the day of Jesus’ birth. That’s why there is a manger set up in the church next to the altar. A baby is lying in the manger with lots of animals all around.”

“December 25th isn’t Jesus’ birthday. And besides, Jesus is not a babe anymore. Like you, he has grown up. Then he died, was resurrected, and is now a King in heaven!”

“Mum, Zita wants a cookie. Can I give her one?”

“One, no more.”

The tree was almost finished before I realized what Mum had told me.

“But if it isn’t Jesus’ birthday, why do we put up the tree? When was Jesus born?”

“Jesus was born in the autumn, not in the winter.”

“What does that tree stand for?”

“It has nothing to do with Jesus; it comes from ancient pagan times.”

“Then why do we do it?”

“I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

I had the golden glass ornament in my hand, ready to put it on the top. “Mum, does God accept a pagan tree?”

“I guess not.”

I let my glass ornament fall, and I took all the other ones down and began trampling them to pieces. I was shaking all over.

Silently, Mother swept up the broken glass and put the fir tree back on the balcony.

That night, under my bed cover, disappointment and anger invaded my heart. Adults just lie. The stork and the baby, the fairy tale about the Christchild, the tree that is not really for Jesus but is pagan, and they say it’s just a nice story like the Grimms’ fairy tales! They make religion into a tale. My anger grew.

Mother explained herself. “Yes, we have been cheating you. People who do not study the Bible don’t think that it is bad to make a pagan feast, and they do not know that Christmas started with the Roman sun feast. You made the right choice; always go according to your conscience. Together we will work to get all the fairy tales and lies out of our worship.”

I was appeased, but something was broken in my heart. My parents had been lying to me for seven years, and the priest still did! From that day on, I was even more suspicious because I realized grown-ups can tell tales, grown-ups can cheat, grown-ups can mislead.

It was impossible to reach Bergenbach; it was buried in snow. We would go in the spring. Dad played with me and Zita; he threw snowballs in the air, and Zita chased them. At the end of that wonderful vacation, Dad said: “Tomorrow, Mum will go with you to school. Your classmates are right. You, we, are not Catholics anymore. Your mum has found the truth: the Bible is the truth, and we all will hold to it as closely as possible.”

Music, laughter, and games had returned to our home. Dad was happy again, pampering me whenever possible; he was as jovial as ever. His return to painting and the violin indicated the extent of his healing. He had even stopped smoking. Because I had put some chocolate cigarettes in his tobacco box to tease him, he had proclaimed to Mum, “I’ve always condemned priests who smoke, so I have to stop, too. And Simone needs to have a father who sticks to what he says!” Dad never smoked again, and his terrible morning cough went away.

With much enthusiasm, he brought the new cotton print fabric for my room, the one he had promised long ago and had forgotten for months. Humming along with the sound of the sewing machine, Mother cheerfully made my curtains and bed cover. Our young downstairs neighbor John would soon wallpaper my room while we were away in Bergenbach. Dad gave me some lessons about cold and warm colors, and then had me choose the color for my room. I decided not to have blue because I did not want to freeze in my room.

At school, no one wanted to hear my Bible quotations anymore, and my teacher’s reaction was a sample of how people would view my family. I was no longer her favorite. Whenever possible, Mademoiselle ignored me, and she seldom gave me an opportunity to answer questions in class. But the peaceful, happy atmosphere at home outweighed the cold one in my class. I realized that the same thing had happened in the past. My teacher often talked about the first Christians in the time of the Romans. Whenever we children had done a fine work, she would relate the story of Fabiola, Nadine, Ben Hur, and the famous “Quo Vadis.”

At home among Dad’s art collection, we had a reproduction of an Italian painting picturing the first Christians in the Roman arena, ready to be eaten by lions or to die by fire rather than give up their belief. From my very first school year, it had been my aim to be like them. But I couldn’t understand one thing: Why didn’t anyone want to hear more about the Bible? It got even worse. As soon as my parents took me out of catechism, the class started hating me. The same children to whom I had given my bread, cookies, and chocolate now turned against me. Why do they do that? I asked myself. What had changed?

When the priest held catechism classes, I attended special civics lessons given to me by the school director. One day after catechism, the children were waiting for me outside in a half circle. Both sets of stone stairs were blocked. I was trapped. As soon as they saw me, they chanted in unison: “Heathen, you are a heathen, heathen!”

Then someone else shouted, “You don’t go to church anymore!”

Another one screamed, “You don’t attend catechism!”

Still another yelled, “You’ve become a Communist!”

I stood all alone on top of the steps and shouted, “I am a Christian!” This made them mad.

“Then tell us why you do not attend catechism!”

I had read in the Bible that God does not live in man-made houses. So I pointed to the church and said, “God cannot be in there because it’s full of idols, which have eyes but cannot see and ears but cannot hear, and God forbade us to have such idols in the second commandment and . . . ” I stopped short and all the children were silenced when suddenly, we heard somebody clapping hands. Across the street, in an expensive villa, a finely dressed lady got the children’s attention.

“Let her go. Don’t you see she has a devil’s face coming out of hell? Escape, she is dangerous!”

Immediately one ran away in fear, screaming, “Run! Run!” Soon the others followed, even Blanche, Madeleine, and Andrée. I was left alone. I turned around and saw Mademoiselle standing in the hall—stiff, cold, and silent.

When I got to the corner of the street, another smaller group of children confronted me. Some of the boys jumped at me, circling around me like bees swarming around candy and calling me “dirty Jew, dirty Jew.”

Why do they call me a Jew, and why dirty? I wasn’t either one! Passersby finally chased the children away.

Mother’s Bible reading in one of the Gospels was about persecution, hatred, and insults. I felt confident in my beliefs that came from the Bible. But I wanted to know, “Why dirty Jew?” Our butcher was Jewish, and he was very clean. Mother liked him because he was honest and kind. I felt terrible about the accusation without understanding why.

Sitting on my father’s lap, and listening to my mother reading the Bible to me, I learned the meaning of this expression. At the table one day they explained, “As you learn more about history, you’ll find out that so-called Christians wouldn’t let the Jews have jobs as craftsmen or similar work. They were kept in special sections of town, being accused of killing God.”

“I knew that. The priest told us about it.”

“But God never came to earth to be killed by men. How could the Almighty, the Source of Life, be murdered? He does not punish by evil. He doesn’t make a distinction between races, colors, rich or poor, because Jehovah is not unjust. He is love. Those who do not follow this teaching are under the power of evil and can do and say bad things, thinking they are right.”

Little by little, the children tired of chasing me on the street. I had told them that Jesus, the son of God, was a Jew, and being called a Jew is an honorable statement. I was proud of it; all of the apostles and Bible writers had been Jews and I wanted to follow them.

SPRING 1938

Spring had spread flowers over the land just like the blue and pink and yellow dots on my new wallpaper. Mum and I went up to Bergenbach while John wallpapered my room. Dad would come up on weekends. When Uncle Alfred arrived, another verbal table war about French and German ideologies again spoiled the family’s noon gathering.

Another argument, this time a religious one, broke out in the afternoon. The men had gone out for a walk, while the women stayed behind talking. I had a hard time understanding what was going on.

What was Grandma talking about? Then Aunt Valentine said, “The Bible is a Protestant book.” Mother showed her the Catholic cardinal’s signature in the front of the Bible. Aunt Valentine replied, “Anyone can sign anything!”

Aunt Eugenie added: “We Catholics have the Gospel, not the Bible!” Mum tried to show them that the Gospels are in the Bible, but no one wanted to see.

“Get that Protestant book out of here.”

“But it’s accepted by the church.” I felt I had to step in.

“Grandma, the priest has the same Bible.”

“He has the right to have anything, to read everything.” Looking at us she insisted, “You are my daughter, and you had better stay Catholic if you want to keep up a good family relationship!”

The men had come back, still talking about that mysterious word Lebensraum[6] that had started the men’s verbal war around the table. When Dad overheard the women fighting about religion, he said, “I’d better take the next train and go back home. I don’t like the inquisition spirit.” And he left us in that “wasps’ nest,” as he would call any argument. Mum and I stayed a few days longer.

A few days before Easter, Mum and I went up to Bergenbach for spring cleaning. Grandma decided to get her yearly baby pig and to exchange some eggs to introduce new “blood” into her farm stock.

We climbed to the top of the mountain. The sun was shining brightly. Grandma called it “a biting sun” and, according to Grandma, the cloud formations foretold a change of weather. At the end of our two-hour walk, we ended up in a small, serene green valley with only a few big farmhouses. At the end of the valley was a mountain bluff named Felleringenkopf (after the village), our favorite place to search for blueberries. It was a great relief to finally reach the place called Langenbach.

During our journey Grandma insisted, “Bring your mother back to church; she will bring evil upon the whole family.”

“But the Bible is not a bad book.”

“The Devil wants you to go out of the church; he wants your soul! He will send you right down to hell.”

“There is no hell. And I don’t have a separate soul—I am a soul.”

“This is exactly what the Devil does. He takes away the fear of hell, and he will bring you right into it.” She told me some scary stories about how charming the Devil could appear and how he could even act as a lure.

Grandma’s cousin was happy to get some news from the other side of the valley. Some money and eggs exchanged hands, and we went to look for the baby pig. The nice little pink animals were running around. We chased a squirmy little thing and tied its legs despite its grunting protests. We put it in a sack that hung around Grandma’s neck. Her cousin pointed to a tiny cloud and said, “You’d better go.”

A small cloud above the mountain grew very fast. By the time we reached the top, we both were sweating. Grandma’s pace was so rapid that I had a hard time keeping up. As soon as we reached the Thalhorn, the promontory from which we could see both valleys, a terrible cold wind caught us. Grandma said, “Let’s run so we don’t catch a cold in the lungs!”

In front of us, a big brown cloud was coming straight toward us. Soon the entire valley was hidden, and hail started to fall. There was no place for protection on this barren mountain slope, so we had to go on. The poor little hog being beaten by the hail started to complain, adding its squeals to the sound of the howling wind. We couldn’t see our path anymore, but we had to keep going. At first I didn’t cry (I was a boy, wasn’t I?), but I was cold and soaking wet. My handknit woolen dress was torn and full of holes. I was tired and out of breath, barely able to resist the strength of the storm, and now caught in the dark cloud that covered the mountainside. It wasn’t long before tears came to my eyes. Grandmother told me to hang on to her apron, because she had to use both hands to hold the squirming animal in the sack around her neck.

As we came down the slope, we came underneath the cloud and could see Bergenbach. The smoke was slithering down the roof of the house like a big serpent.

“We made it! Thank God.” But I knew that Grandma believed it was God’s punishment. Whatever happened came from him, especially storms. We still had to walk for a while through a marshy area.

“Look, our path is over there.” We had deviated from the path quite a bit. Now, we were stumbling with great difficulty through the marsh grass. Every time we put our foot on a flat rock, the water would squeeze out of our drenched shoes with a squishing sound. Finally we made it home.

“My dear child, your dress has turned into a sieve.” Warm underwear, heated in the baking stove, awaited both of us. A warm footbath got my blood moving, and with excitement and pride, I recounted our adventure. Grandma looked at me. I could see in her eyes how disappointed she was. My enthusiastic report was not what she had expected. She kept silent while she worked to revive the poor stiff little hog.

The odor of fresh paint got me all excited. I ran upstairs as fast as I could to see what John had done. He was so proud to have had the opportunity to do his first room as a professional. He had even painted my wardrobe light green. Dad had moved my bed to a different location and put flowered material on the wall around the bed to match my bed cover. Above it, John had painted the Seven Dwarfs and put them under glass. I was delighted! What a wonderful room it was—if my door were kept open, everybody who would come into our apartment could see it.

Mother gave me realistic advice. “It’s your room. You keep it clean; you make your bed. The way you leave it in the morning, that’s the way you’ll find it at noon. If you want to have a good reputation, you know what you have to do.”

Mum and Dad had given John a Bible. Dad told us that John was very happy about getting it, but that his mother had become upset and had made a scene. She treated him like a schoolboy. “Maybe because she’s a widow, she wants to hold on to her authority,” Dad explained.

As usual, early one morning Dad had gone down to get the milk can and the bread hanging in the basket next to the basement door. When he came back, he was as white as chalk. He was breathless and sat down as beads of sweat dotted his forehead. Dad told us that he had been downstairs when suddenly the door swung open. There was Mr. Eguemann standing in front of him with an ax raised over his head.

“I ran outside and down the street with my milk can and spilled some of it. He ran after me screaming, ‘You traitor, you should be killed!’ He only gave up chasing me when he saw somebody coming.”

“Emma,” he continued, “you’ll have to buy milk and bread in the shop. I’m sorry for the extra work, but with an alcoholic like him, we have to be careful and smart. I’ll ask for a change in my work shift. That way I won’t meet him alone on the way to work. No use taking a chance.”

What a shock! A good Catholic man like Mr. Eguemann trying to kill my dad! My heart started burning against them. Trying to calm me down, Mother read to me the words of Jesus: “You will be objects of hatred by all the nations.” Then she said that the Apostle Paul said, “Return evil for evil to no one.” Dad would be very careful when he left the house, and we would too. We stopped talking to the Eguemanns to avoid a sudden violent reaction. Zita had to be taken out secretly. Whenever possible, we took her down in the daytime and stayed in the front of the house where passersby would serve as protection. I had never forgiven him for demanding to have me punished in front of him. Now I really hated him!

The last day of second grade was a hot summer day with pouring rain. After the usual admonition to “buy a vacation text and notebook and review one lesson as well as the catechism every day,” the time had come to say farewell to Mademoiselle, who was retiring. Each girl went up to the pulpit, and she had a nice cheerful word for everyone, or rather for almost everyone! In the autumn, we would get a new teacher. What a relief for me!

The gutters were overflowing. Since I was wearing rubber boots, I decided to walk right into the puddles. As long as Mum couldn’t see me from the window, I wanted to be a savage girl, free to do things on my own. I gleefully splashed everyone on the sidewalk because vacation was at hand. But once around the corner, I had to behave like a civilized girl! But my underwear told on me; everything was saturated with mud and water!

The vacation ahead meant a different schedule for us. My parents had finally contacted the Bibelforscher (Jehovah’s Witnesses) and were attending their meetings. A few families, people who loved to study the Bible, met in the city hall. There they learned about a Sunday school held by a retired nurse. Her name was Laure. About eight children attended the classes on Sunday mornings and answered the questions from a textbook called The Harp of God. I got to go. I was offered a Bible with a black cover and red edges. It was the greatest gift—I treasured it! It was my Bible. How different from catechism! Finally, I could freely ask any question and would be shown in my Bible how to find the answer. The hour was always too short for me, but too long for some others. And there were even some complaints when Laure ran overtime.

Aunt Eugenie was upset when she heard about the school. She had made an appointment with Mr. Koch and her brother-in-law. Mr. Koch, as an educated man, would be able to get Father back where he belonged, in the Roman Catholic Church. But his efforts were in vain.

“Adolphe is a poor victim of you, Emma,” Aunt said, wagging her finger in Mum’s face. She continued in a scolding voice, “Mr. Koch told me, ‘Mr. Arnold gave in because his wife wears the pants and he prefers peace in the house!’” How could she say that? Why do grown-ups judge without knowing the facts? My father certainly wasn’t weak. He was the one who took me out of catechism. He stopped smoking in just one day. He was the one who took us to the meetings. He was the one who introduced prayer at our meals. He was the one who asked me to attend Sunday school and to go out with Mum visiting people. But my aunt acted like her mother—she closed her ears tightly, accusing further, “It is a shame to drag Simone from house to house like a beggar.”

“But Aunt Eugenie, I love it,” I protested. Her ears were shut. Her eyes narrowed.

“You’re already poisoned by your mother’s fanaticism!” I learned a new word, “fanaticism.” But as soon as I found out what it meant, I came to the conclusion that it applied more to my aunt and to my grandma!

I often went with Mum as she visited the neighbors. Listening carefully to the remarks of the people helped me to clear up many questions I had asked myself. Strange ideas, like the one of that pastor who tried to defend the Trinity. Trying to prove the equal might, position, and eternity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, he said, “Take three eggs and make one omelet. It is still three eggs.”

Just as confusing to me was the idea that the soul would be judged right after death while the body was reserved for judgment at the end of the world. “When a person sins, which part commits the sin—the brain or the body? Can the body sin by itself?” The conversations started at people’s houses would continue at home around our table.

I also wanted to go alone to some farms to present a booklet about Cure for all Nations. It told about the wonderful prospect that under Christ’s rule the earth will become a paradise, no more death, no more sorrow. I had a keen desire to share this peaceful Bible message with the farmers—they were all very nice to me and gladly accepted the booklets. An hour or so later, as I returned to the village, the booklets came flying out of one house. The farmer hollered, “Doomed Bibelforscher! It’s a shame, a shame to exploit children!” Couldn’t they see that I wasn’t a child? I was eight years old! All by myself I had decided to visit those people!

I gathered up my booklets, raised my head high, and walked on, slowly repeating to myself, “The slave is not greater than his master.” I felt proud as I met the group who had called on other farms.

Why did all the Catholics say that the Bible is a Protestant book, looking at it like something damned? Later that day, Dad took a history book and sat down with me, helping me to find the true answer.

“The Bible used to be in Latin. Some Catholic priests translated it against the will of the Roman priesthood, which believed in keeping it in the Latin language. The love of its contents was stronger than the ban. Look here at that image—it shows the night of Bartholomew, the day Protestants were killed by the order of a Catholic government (August 24 and 25, 1572, when French Huguenots were massacred by Roman Catholic nobles and other citizens of Paris). During the Inquisition, the church tried to do away with its opponents. They were often burned alive, like the 15th-century Czech religious reformer John Hus and others.”

“I thought the inquisition was against the Jews.”

“It was against anyone who didn’t think according to the church teaching.”

I came to love our little Bibelforscher congregation. I had two young playmates, André Schoenaur and Edmund Schaguiné. I also gained a surrogate grandpa—Mr. Huber, a retired engineer who was a widower. He was a white-haired, well-mannered, fatherly man with a golden chain attached to a watch in his vest pocket. Marcel Graf was an office clerk at the potassium mines—tall, bald, and a real talker. The Zinglé couple often wore knickers because they were Swiss mountain climbers. Mr. Lauber, a widowed father of two small children, had lost one leg in the war. He faithfully attended all activities of the congregation, coming with his five-year-old Jeannette sitting behind him on a very old bike. There were the Dossmanns, whose son was in the Paris office of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and some others coming from outside the city.

Mum, with her missionary spirit, played a big part in the group’s activities, visiting many families, helping people like the Saler family to live a better life, getting them out of their needy situations. She believed not only in teaching but doing charitable work. Among the people she visited was Martina Ast, the lively 20-year-old maid of a Jewish family who owned the Galerie Lafayette, the main department store in Mulhouse. I loved to go visit her. She always had interesting Bible questions, but she also had nice pastries! She would even play with me sometimes.

Among our many friends, one couple was really special—the Koehls. One day when they were to be our guests, I eagerly waited for them at the window. They came in spite of the freezing weather. Adolphe, a barber, with the same name as my father, gently held his wife Maria’s elbow with one hand, and led their dog by the leash with the other. Maria’s hands were tucked in a fur muff that matched her silver fox collar. Both looked like they had just stepped out of a fashion magazine. Seated in our little salon, the two Adolphes got into a spirited conversation. Meanwhile, Mum and Maria exchanged recipes in the kitchen. After I played Maria’s favorite song, “La Paloma,” on the piano, Mum told me to serve the tea. My ears navigated between the two groups. But for some reason the left ear was “bigger” than the right. It stretched toward the two Adolphes.

“Who does he think he is—a god?” one said to the other.

“He’s just a puppet in the hands of the demons,” the other answered.

“He claims himself to be Germany’s savior—Heiland. He’s just a worm.”

“A very harmful worm, one made of rotten material.”

“He goes from victory to victory.”

“He does, but he will never prevail over Jehovah’s Witnesses.”[7] I just wondered who was this “he” that they were speaking about. In the center of the conversation was a book that our visitors had brought, Crusade Against Christianity.[8] They had it open to a drawing of some kind of camp.

“The information we learn from this book is very important. It will help us to become cautious like a serpent, and yet innocent like a dove,” both Adolphes agreed.

As the Koehls departed, they left behind the perfume of their barbershop. But they also left a big emptiness. I somehow felt that I now had another set of parents.

I returned to Bergenbach with Aunt Eugenie, who had decided not to come to our place anymore. I noticed that Grandma was treating me very differently from the way she treated Angele. She put me to work. “You are old enough to go down to the village to get our two loaves of bread.” Skipping joyfully downhill, I wondered if I had sprouted invisible wings.

Strangely, everyone in the village seemed to whisper as I went by. “Isn’t she quite little?” Quite little? My cousin—she was the one who was quite little, almost two months younger. But I had grown overnight like mushrooms do, and my Grandma recognized it. So did the cows. I had to lead them to the pasture ground, enjoying the music of their different bells. The cows could see that I wasn’t little anymore. Why couldn’t people see that I was a big girl?

But struggling back up the hill with two fresh-baked five-pound loaves, I wished I hadn’t grown so fast. I had to put my hands under the straps of my rucksack because of the burning hot loaves and the blazing sun. A few times I had to put down my load altogether. The babbling of the brook called to me, tempting me to come and cool off. But in my head I heard Mum’s warning: “When you’re sweating, never cool off your feet or you’ll get sick. Look at my arthritic feet and hands—that’s how I got them.”

Facing that steep path leading up to the farm, I could have cried. But when I heard the dogs barking, the chickens squawking, and the gurgling of the fountain, I had renewed energy. I stuck my nose in the air when I saw my little cousin, who hadn’t grown overnight as I had.

Grandma was more irritable and melancholy with each passing day. Aunt Valentine, her favorite daughter, would soon depart for Cusset, near Vichy, where Aunt Valentine’s husband had found an apartment.

Even Aunt Eugenie had no riddles, no games, no songs for us anymore. When my aunt’s employers, the Koch family, also moved to France, to the safety of the intérieur, Grandma ordered Aunt Eugenie: “You stay here! There’s nothing for you in France!”

Angele and Simone, “The Oath” 1938

Rumors about war filled the air. Grandpa didn’t believe in war; Grandma did. Downstairs, the conversation among the four women flared up again.

“Angele, don’t worry. My father can stop a war. He says that to stop it, just take away men’s uniforms and let them go around in their underwear.” We both were sure that remedy would work!

The last family gathering was one of broken hearts around a festive dinner table. It didn’t affect Angele and me. We had a solemn ceremony to perform in the afternoon. Once more we went to the attic, putting on our dresses, ladies’ shoes of the last century, ribbons and laces to perform a sacred vow. It was in this attic that we had learned a lot from those stacks of yellowed newspaper stories, novels, happy ones, sad ones, and even Inquisition dramas. But those were over now. It was a time to make a solemn vow to keep faithful to each other. We promised to exchange our dolls’ homework by mail.

Downstairs, the conversation among the four women heated up.

“Bibelforscher are Communist agents!” Grandma shouted.

“You must earn lots of money running around like you do,” Valentine yelled.

“Yes, for that you have good feet,” added Aunt Eugenie. “You fool! You only make those American leaders rich,” Aunt Valentine said sarcastically.

“You are paid by the Jewish world power and are undermining the Church,” said Aunt Eugenie.

With a threatening voice, Grandma said emphatically: “If you want to stay a member of the family, you keep away from that sect.” Aunt Valentine, Aunt Eugenie, and Grandma kept up the attack of words.

All of a sudden, I bolted downstairs and burst into the room. “You are all mean, unfair liars!” I screamed.

Mother interrupted me, leading me outside by the hand.

“Go play in the barn; this is none of your business!” she said, calling Angele out. My curly-haired cousin was all inflamed by what she had heard.

“I’m not going to play with a heathen!”

“I’m a Christian!”

“You’re a heathen!”

“I’m...”

Mother had to separate us. Angele went back into the house singing her favorite song, the French national anthem, the Marseillaise. This kindled my Grandma’s uncontrolled temper even more.

“Dad just went down to Krüth to see your godfather. Go with him,” Mum ordered. What a good idea! I loved being with my godfather. He was such a gentle man, and so brave. He had a nice garden and fruit trees, and my cousin Maurice wasn’t at home anymore. I could enjoy myself in peace.

Godfather’s plums tasted like honey. I went up to the window and looked inside. On the table, I could see two glasses with a little Kirschenwasser, cherry liqueur, and a book, a gift Dad had brought along.

“Take this away or I’ll burn it!”

“But it’s a Catholic Bible.”

“Anyone can say that!”

“I’ll show you,” Dad said, taking the Bible. “Look, here it says the same thing as in the gospel reading at the church. The problem is that they read it but don’t apply it.”

My gentle godfather jumped to his feet and turned stiff like a statue. He threw the Bible outside and pointed to the door. Dad got up slowly, white and speechless. Godfather grabbed Dad by the belt and threw him out of the front door. As I came around the front of the house, I saw it happen. My father had glassy eyes and stood there without saying a word.

“I never should have raised you! Never will you see my face anymore unless you repent and come with me to confess and take Communion in my presence. Don’t send Emma or Simone to see me. As long as you don’t return to church, your family doesn’t exist anymore! You will be doomed!”

We were in danger of being killed with an ax by Mr. Eguemann in Dornach. We were the constant target of the parish priest, who crossed the street just to spit at Mother’s feet, even when I was with her. Now, being outcasts from both parental homes made us feel like we were really “doomed!”

FALL 1938

My parents searched for reconciliation without compromising. But didn’t our relatives make the price out of reach? How could we possibly fake our return to church just to appease them without sacrificing peace in our hearts? How could we deny Bible truth? After many efforts to talk with them, it became very clear that they were unmovable. To open their doors and their hearts to us, they demanded that we had to return to church.

Dad concluded, “I cannot act against my conviction, or I would be a hypocrite!”

And Mother said: “Even if my mother casts me out for getting baptized, I’ve already made the vow. I’ll do it, no matter the cost.”

The Witnesses held a convention in Basel that autumn. Standing next to the pool in Basel, I was cuddled up in Dad’s arms, feeling sad because the baptism wasn’t for me, still a “young child”! Dad held me close. I could sense his deep emotions as Mother stepped into the pool. Then a tear came down his cheek and he whispered, “It is accomplished.” Looking at me, he added, “From now on, your mother will put God before everyone else, dying for him if necessary.”

“And you, Daddy?”

“I’m not ready yet.”

Later, I asked, “Mum, what does he mean, ‘I’m not ready yet’? Doesn’t Dad love God?”

“Your father takes everything seriously; he has very high standards. As soon as he is baptized, he will also take on heavy responsibilities in the congregation. He feels that he is not ready for that yet.” Was it because it looked like there might be a war?

Hitler’s demand of autonomy for Germans in the Sudeten region precipitated an international crisis. At the Munich Conference, September 28 and 29, 1938, the leaders of France, Great Britain, and Italy met with Hitler. As a result, the Sudetenland was annexed by Germany on October 10, 1938.

During the Sudeten conflict, Dad had accepted a military noncombatant assignment. He was stationed at the Mulhouse post office, monitoring telephone conversations. I didn’t understand how the telephone worked—we didn’t have one—only the rich had telephones. I decided that Dad had to catch words coming along an electric wire.

Even though the danger of war had subsided, tension still hung in the air. Dad had come home and put on his civilian clothes, but, he fell silent just like before. His appetite was gone. Zita couldn’t get his attention. The days grew shorter, the leaves started to turn brown, and we felt more and more gloomy. Was it because we felt like outcasts from our family?

Maybe our relatives thought that this isolation would bring us back to our senses and make us return to the Catholic Church. But how could we ever go against our conscience? My parents were determined to stick to the Bible. The small congregation of Bibelforscher filled our needs. They had become close and dear to us.

The main street leading to the railroad station of Mulhouse followed alongside a square garden. It was surrounded by arches that cast a cool shadow upon the sidewalks. In the nice shade, we could stroll along the row of shops. Among the boutiques was a barbershop with three armchairs and three waiting chairs. The place belonged to Dad’s barber, his close friend, Adolphe Koehl. He was going to become my barber, too.

Nearing the shop, I could smell a delightful aroma of eau de cologne floating over the sidewalk. Opposite the entrance a big curtain separated the salon from the service room. It was a little place with a table piled up with towels; one chair was in front of it and a stool was underneath it. Between the last steps of a winding staircase going up to the apartment and a door leading out to the inner courtyard, there was just enough room for three people. Every Thursday was children’s haircut day, the day the two Adolphes chose to meet. I got my haircut at the same time. It was easier for Adolphe to leave his employee to tend the shop by himself on that day. Children seldom asked for the owner himself. That was not the case with his most select clients: doctors, judges, managers, and so on. Many asked to be groomed by the gentlemanly owner who had such a charming personality.

On Adolph Koehl’s face, a sharp-cut little black brush moustache underlined a well-sculpted nose that carried a bold forehead with overgrown edges. Behind his black wild eyebrows, sparkling sapphire eyes flashed with meaning. His fine lips spoke cheerful words, practical wisdom, and humor. The man behind the face was slender and nimble. His wife, Maria, standing beside him, was even smaller, her presence almost imperceptible. She had a welcoming smile on her lips when she greeted the clients. Maria reminded me of one of those painted Chinese ladies on our teacups. Her husband said jokingly: “She is so frail that a breath would tip her over!”

After he groomed both of us, Mr. Koehl would take Dad behind the curtain. I’d sit on one of the chairs, the one nearest to their conversation to make sure I could get some scraps out of their undertone exchange. I always had my weekly Mickey Mouse magazine to read. I also used it to hide my face whenever a client turned to look at me in the huge mirror that covered the wall in front of me. I could hide behind it when I would see Mr. Koehl’s finger moving the edge of the curtain back just a bit to check on happenings in the shop while he himself kept out of sight. When Dad subscribed to the “Mickey Mouse” journal for me, he said: “You are a serious little girl, far too serious for your age. But life is also made of fun and laughter. Learn to laugh, Simone. Look closely at the drawings; they tell you a lot more than the words! We’ll have some fun together!”

It had become a semimonthly habit. Thursday, my day off from school, was the day my journal arrived in the mail. It was also the day for the barber. Adolphe’s place became a source of encouragement and a well of practical counsel.

I heard Dad’s weary voice as he complained to the barber, “Those long hours alone, listening to the telephone conversations, wearing my heavy khaki outfit, made me feel uncomfortable. My conscience has been in a turmoil,” Dad confessed, “and I asked myself if any apostle would have done what I did.”

My father’s confusion was very troubling to me. How could he act against his conscience, he who constantly insisted on the need to be at peace with oneself? Why didn’t he follow his own prescription for peace: ‘Stop the war by making everyone walk around in their underwear!’

“Do you believe the first Christians would have performed activity like I did?” The barber’s answer was inaudible, but I said to myself, “There cannot be anything wrong with catching traveling words!”

“For sure the first Christians didn’t fight in the Roman Army!”

Behind my “three little pigs” story, I agreed. Mademoiselle had told us in school how a Roman soldier had quit the army and was sentenced to the arena. Finally I understood Mr. Koehl: “It is not easy to find out what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God. We have to pay the things to Caesar but also the things to God. This is a personal decision.”

My parents never told me that there is a Caesar today, I thought. I never heard it in school either. I knew about the King of England, the French President, the German Führer, the Duke in Italy, the Spanish Caudillo, and wondered where Caesar lived.

The Threat of War

CHAPTER 4

The Threat of War

„G

randpa, are you still sure that we aren’t going to have a war?”

“Hard to say, but I hope not.” After a silence, he said bleakly, “Who knows? The nations are so fickle!”

“But Grandpa, you said...”

“Yes, yes, I know I said, but, Simone, even priests have fought in Catholic Spain!”

“I saw a picture somewhere with priests in their long robes standing behind cannons.”

“I did too. Maybe it was in Consolation.” Consolation was the magazine of the Bibelsforcher.

“Grandpa, you read Consolation?”

“Your mum subscribed for me, and since I go to the village to get the bread I also pick up the mail. So I put the magazine in a hiding place,” adding in an undertone, “I’ll show it to you.” His red mustache twitched as he whispered: “It’s there by the toilet.” After a long pause, his mustache moved again and he said: “If your grandma ever found out, oh, my!”

He suddenly became very serious. “She is working in the farthest field today. I’m surprised that she didn’t drag you along. Lately she really loads you down with work, you poor kid!”

“But I love it! I’m a big girl, Grandpa!”

Grandfather got up and went over to the milk cupboard. I told him that I had walked along the former French-German border up on Felleringerkopf and the Drumont Mountain but this time I had not seen any skull.

“A skull?” Grandfather asked while carefully taking down a large bowl of the morning milk. He took a piece of bread and swished it around in the cream. His mustache pointed upward, his eyes narrowing to slits. Putting the bowl back, he said jokingly, “This is Grandma’s Most Holy. No one else has the right to touch, eat, and enjoy it. If she comes, you’ll have to disappear through the window in the back!” Putting one finger to his lips, he added, “I’ll steal some more.”

He took another bowl. “You see, in this glass bowl I have some leftover Muenster cheese. I’ll put some cream on it, cover the bowl, and put it in a secret sunny place to let it ferment. One day we will have it together when Grandma is not around. Don’t be afraid. She is like an old hag; she always finds out my mischief. When the thunderstorm breaks out, I just let it go by.”

His blue eyes opened wide, and his mustache turned down-ward. He said with a conspiratorial voice, “As soon as I can, I just start off again!” My wonderful grandpa! But he asked again, “Now, what’s this about a skull?”

“Our class went for an outing to the mountain that you can see from our balcony. You know, it has a blinking light at night.” Grandpa seemed to know about it.

He said, “People say it is for secret war communication.”

“What’s the name of the place?” I asked.

“It’s the Hartmann’s Willerkopf.”

“Have you been there?”

“No, but it was the site of the greatest battle between the French and the Germans during the Great War, killing thousands. It was called the Verdun of Alsace.”[9]

“Grandpa, why isn’t there a forest anymore? We had a hard time finding some shade to eat our lunch.”

“War kills more than men; it kills all the vegetation too.”

“You know, we saw a rusty helmet right by where we were sitting. And when I went to have a closer look, I found a skull inside it. Grandpa, tell me—was he young? Did he have children? How did he die—by bullet or by bayonet? Was he French or German? Catholic or Protestant? Who was he?”

“It doesn’t really matter, Little One. He was just a man.”

“Grandpa, you know what the Catholics say? If it’s a Frenchman, he’s up in heaven.”

“Little One, you know they said just the opposite during the Great War.”

“Grandpa, I know he will be resurrected. He’s just sleeping.”

Grandpa looked up to heaven and shrugged. I could feel his breath on me as he heaved a sigh. After a long silence, he finally opened one of his jars filled with cheese, inhaling with delight the escaping aroma.

“Doesn’t it taste wonderful?” Grandpa asked. The cheese had ripened, and we had our secret snack and little chat. True, it smelled awful to me, but what a creamy taste! And above all what excitement—all of this behind Grandma’s back!

“Grandpa, why does Grandma always grumble every evening when you listen to the news?”

“She hates that radio your parents gave her.”

“But why?”

“She is against anything new, things her parents didn’t use. She was upset when we got electricity. We had the first mountain power line. I was in charge of the community and had decided we should have a light at the crossroads of the two paths and another light near the little mountain river. Grandma’s uncle had missed the little bridge there one night. He fell into the ice-cold water and died. But even so, Grandma didn’t want to have the light inside the house. ‘Fire on a wire does not come in,’ she said. And she still won’t have it in places she can’t supervise, like the attic or the basement. That’s why you see her going around with her candle holder. ”

“But candles are dangerous, Grandma always claims.”

“Of course, but she has it in her hands. That makes her feel safe. You know, we’ve been raised with candlelight or petroleum lamps, and we still use them during bad storms.”

“My dad said that one day we will have pictures on the radio.”

“I don’t know if that will ever be possible. Your dad reads a lot and tells you many things. Do you understand what he says?”

“It will be like a movie.”

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