Camouflage

Now married, Yvonne Salomon remembers her first home in El Salvador...and the war back home that changed her family forever.
************************
(Once you were married, where did you live?)

In San Salvador. First we rented a furnished—Georges had rented a furnished house at the place of an elderly lady, Mrs. Drews. She was very, very nice. It was a very old place, with a palm tree in the middle of the patio, and as soon as the sun went down, lots of animals came out of the bushes. It was not very nice. There were no windows.

(You were uncomfortable in that setting?)

I was very disturbed sharing space with so many animals. Then we found a house which was just recently built, a small house and we moved there. There were no apartments in San Salvador at that time.

(Were you in touch with your parents during this time?)

We were in touch with them just for two months. When the big rush started, on the 10th of May, the invasion started, in 1940. Then my parents, like everybody did, went as far down south in France as they could. They landed—they stopped when there was no more gas. They rented one room in a small village, Cousex, and the furniture was the back seat of the car, and the two front seats. The people from Strasbourg, my cousin’s family, were two kilometers away. That was good. It was very near Limoges. All the people in Strasbourg were directed to Limoges. My parents and my cousin’s family could get together.

My mother went to see the priest of the village. She told him that they are Jewish. When there is a—what do you call it? When suddenly the soldiers arrive to check, how do you call that?

(The Gestapo?)

No, the French troop from Vichy who had taken over, under German orders.
My mother asked if there was a raid, would the priest permit her and her husband to move in. Would he pretend that her husband was the gardener and she the cook. She talked a good while with him, and he agreed, and they did it for the whole war.

(And he knew they were Jewish?)

Yes. My mother told him. “First of all, we are Jewish.”

(And he treated them well?)

Very well.

It was one kilometer away from Limoges. So sometimes during the spring and summer they walked all the way to meet acquaintances from Strasbourg who were on the other side. And one day they went there. There was a religious Catholic procession. And my mother looks, and she sees a friend of mine called Yvonne Moise, no less. She searches around and she sees Yvonne looking to a certain side. My mother looked to that side and saw a lady who was crying. It was my friend's mother. Yvonne had made believe that she’s Catholic, she went into Catholic school and she was in the procession.

Well, they made it through the war.

(Did her entire family survive?)

No, no, no. I don’t have any close family beside my father and my mother. My cousins were the nearest ones. Bertrand and Alice were brother and sister of my two cousins from San Salvador. They were with their mother. Bertrand was for a time a prisoner of war, at the beginning. But as he spoke fluently German and French, he was hired by some official at a place in a town in Germany where he was, and that man needed a translator. So Bertrand was well off. One day the man didn’t need him any more, so he said to Bertrand, “I don’t need you any more.” Bertrand said, “What are you going to do?” “Do you want to go home?” He said, “Yes!” “OK. I’ll send you home.” He sent him home. Just like that. Bertrand must be one of the few ones who has been sent back. So he went near Limoges, where his mother and sister were. The sister's husband, who was not Jewish, was still prisoner, as long as the war lasted. Then afterwards, Bertrand joined a group of—

(Resistance?)

Resistance. He stayed in the mountains with them for a time.

(But you don’t hear any of this until after the war?)

Absolutely not. We heard—I told you there was one strictly kosher family in Sarreguemines. They went to Switzerland when the war started. They had relatives already in Switzerland. They could stay with their relatives. My mother had devised a way to communicate with us. You had no right to send closed envelopes, letters. Everything had to be open. So she wrote the address on a postcard. So my mother and my aunt sent each other postcards, writing very near the stamp. They would say things like, “We are all right, the weather is good. We have whatever we need.” Then they cut out the stamps and gave them to the man going to Switzerland, who sent them to us to El Salvador. This way we could see some of their handwriting and know that they were alive at that date. People used to carry stamps to collect.

(Camouflage.)

Yes. Camouflage, yes. And they sent it to us and my cousins in El Salvador. That was the only thing we heard from them for two years. Then suddenly, Uncle Sam woke up.

(What about your first child?)

My first child was born May 25, 1940, just during the invasion. In every business place, if there were several Britons or French or Italians, whoever was in the war, one has to stay. One could stay, the other one had to leave—could leave. And Georges and Enrique decided between themselves, and Enrique said to my husband, “You are married. You have a child. I go. You stay.” But before they had decided, we had all been ready. We were supposed to be sent to Martinique for training. None of the people who were in El Salvador, nobody had military service. They didn’t have to, being out of the country. And so we had already started selling one lamp and we were going to sell everything and leave for Martinique.

And then Pétain declared “peace.” Pétain stopped the war. He didn’t stop the war, he gave France away to the Germans. We decided to stay where we were, and then De Gaulle did his famous declaration, “La France a perdu une bataille, mais la France n’a pas perdu la guerre.” You understand? (France has lost a battle, but France has not lost the war.) So we all joined, naturally, De Gaulle’s party. Everybody but my husband’s boss. “Uhn-uhn, no, no, he has nothing to say. Pétain is the one who is—”

(So you joined. And what year is this?)

’40.

(So you’re still in 1940. And your first child is born, and her full name?)

’40. Andrée.

(And then 1942?)

1942, Hélène. Hélène Sophie. Andrée is Mathilde Andrée.

(And then in ’45?)

’45, Roby. Robert Samuel, after my father-in-law’s name.

(So at the end of the war, you have three children, and you’ve had no contact with your family?)

No, we only had contact with them after the war. France was liberated almost one year before the end of the war.. Immediately after the liberation, my mother wrote to the family who was living in their house in Sarreguemines. The Schmidts answered her in a very friendly way. My mother told them that she and her husband had both survived and were coming back, and they wanted to enter into their house. And—

(They owned the house?)

Yes. But at that time you couldn’t tell where things stood. It happened that Mrs. Schmidt had been a school mate of mine. She was terribly shy and withdrawn. She didn’t live in Sarreguemines, and she came on her bicycle, bicycled six or seven kilometers every day to come and go. Mr Schmidt was an employee of another butcher shop in Sarreguemines, and my father knew him. They wrote back, “Very happy to know you made it, and of course you will recuperate your house as soon as we will be able to leave it for you. Please come and we’ll receive you with open arms.” They were received with open arms. In spite of all restrictions, those people made them a meal. My mother was so touched. Then Mr. Schmidt asked my father, “Do you plan to work again?” My father said, “No. Now I’m too old. I haven’t done anything for four years. I wouldn’t start again.” He said, “Would you rent the entire house to me?” So my parents were happy to go back and live in their building. The Schmidt stayed there, and later they bought the house and my parents were overjoyed. They stayed in their apartment throughout their lives.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC.