NOELLE
Paris: 1941
6
To some the Paris of 1941 was a cornucopia of riches and opportunity; to others it was a
living hell. Gestapo had become a word of dread, and tales of their activities became a
chief—if whispered—topic of conversation. The offenses against the French Jews, which
had begun as almost a prankish breaking of a few shop windows, had been organized by
the efficient Gestapo into a system of confiscation, segregation and extermination.
On May 29, a new ordinance had been issued. “…a six-pointed star with the
dimensions of the palm of a hand and a black edge. It is to be made of yellow cloth and
bear in black lettering the inscription JUDEN. It must be worn from the age of six visibly
on the left side of the chest solidly sewn to the clothing.”
Not all Frenchmen were willing to be stepped on by the German boot. The Maquis,
the French underground resistance, fought cleverly and hard and when caught were put to
death in ingenious ways.
A young Countess whose family owned a chateau outside Chartres was forced to
quarter the officers of the local German Command in her downstairs rooms for six
months, during which time she had five wanted members of the Maquis hidden on the
upper floors of the chateau.
The two groups never met, but in three months the Countess’ hair had turned
completely white.
The Germans lived as befit the status of conquerors, but for the average Frenchman
there was a shortage of everything except cold and misery. Cooking gas was rationed, and
there was no heat. Parisians survived the winters by buying sawdust by the ton, storing it
in one-half of their apartments and keeping the other half warm by means of special
sawdust-burning stoves.
Everything was ersatz, from cigarettes and coffee to leather. The French joked that it
did not matter what you ate; the taste was all the same. The French women—traditionally
the most smartly dressed women in the world—wore shabby coats of sheepskin instead of
wool and platform shoes of wood, so that the sound of women walking the streets of Paris
resembled the clip-clop of horses’ hooves.
Even baptisms were affected, for there was a shortage of sugar almonds, the
traditional sweet for the baptismal ceremony, and candy shops displayed invitations to
come in and register for sugar almonds. There were a few Renault taxis on the street, but
the most popular form of transportation was the two-seater cabs with tandem bikes.
The theater, as always in times of prolonged crisis, flourished. People found escape