Soeurette Levy de Joseph: Part II

Soeurette's work in the Resistance became more dangerous as the war progressed. Here she describes two very close calls.

…..And then I had another experience that’s so funny that I could tell you. I took an elderly man from one town and I had to take him – we had to hide him somewhere. And we had found a place in a town called Montelimar and I took him on the train to Montelimar and I told him – we don’t talk to one another. Actually, he didn’t speak French, he only spoke German.

He was a refugee of Saargebiet. And I said to him, “We don’t talk to another one. When I get up, you get up, you follow me. You follow me, you don’t know me, you don’t talk to me. You follow me until we get to a certain house. I will touch the door, I will walk away and you get in there and that’s where you are going to stay. But you don’t talk to me and you follow me.” We arrive in Montelimar, I get out of the train, he doesn’t move.

I get out, I am on the outside and I make him a sign, “Please come.” Finally he comes and he starts yelling at me in German in the train station with all the people standing there that I want him to be taken by the police, that I arranged everything for him to be arrested. What had happened was Montelimar is a place where they do nougat.

You know what nougat is?

And it says everywhere “nougat, nougat.” And he thought it was not Montelimar, it was nougat.

Finally he followed me. I had to go into the house to discuss with him what had happened and then I left and I never saw him again. I know that he survived the war and [chuckle] but that was an experience. A lot of things like this happened during the war. There were so many things happening. Then I went to, like I say, I went to Chateauroux I was arrested by the Gestapo on the 9th of August 1944. And there I was for several hours. Those were seven very long hours.

(What happened during those seven hours?)

What happened? I came out with a broken nose, missing eight teeth, burned all over, missing a nail, and very strangely after seven hours they let me go. They hadn’t gotten anything out of me. They had seen me at the train station on a certain day. Actually, the 6th of June, the day of – the D-Day. They had seen me at the station going to a place called La Chatre where there was a very big parachutage of weapons. We had gotten an incredible amount of weapons from the air. That was one of the most incredible things you could see in your life. They had big containers with weapons that came down and they had Jeeps – we got Jeeps out of the air. I was sitting the days before and before for hours listening to hear the messages when they would tell you when you – they would call you and let you know there would be something sent by the parachutage. And it was unbelievable. The parachutes coming down with material and sometimes people even that they send down. Unbelievable.

(Who sent this?)

From England they came. It was unbelievable. No. It was unreal. And they knew, they had seen me and they wanted me to say that I had been there and I wouldn’t talk. And it was – it was hard. When I left they told me that my papers were not in order, I should go to the police. And I went to the police and when I got there the man said to me, “You have to hurry. I --you have to leave as quickly as possible because the man that comes after me I don’t trust him – the policeman. You leave. Go to the hospital and ask for Sister So-and-So. She’ll take care of you.” So I went, took my bike.

When I got into the Gestapo one said to the other, “Take the bike, she won’t need it anymore.”

That tells you a little about what I thought was going to happen to me. And I got to the nun and the nun said, “I'm going to wash you up to see what I can do and I'm going to send you out. You are going to go for the night to somebody. Don’t ask questions, she won’t talk to you.” So she put me – so a carriage comes with a horse with the dirty wash from the hospital.

-- and she said, “You go under the wash and you get out of the hospital.” And the man took me with the wash to a certain place, got me out, got me into that woman’s house. I never saw the woman, I don't know where it was, I never knew the address. I come in, there was a young Jewish boy there hidden by her too. She said, “You can talk to one another and I'm going to give you to eat. She gave us to eat but we never saw her face. She didn’t want to be known. And she said, “They will come for you tomorrow and pick you up. Your bike is going to be delivered later.” Because the bike was in the hospital. They came, actually, to the hospital to look for me and the sister said, “Oh, she came but she was so afraid – she didn’t want me to touch anything in her face and she disappeared. I don't know where she is.” And from there, the next morning they took me out and they gave me my bike and the told me to leave to a certain place. I don't know how many miles, I have no idea. I should look into a map once to see how far it was. And I was told to go and see such-and-such a family, such-and-such an address, and they told me, “They won’t talk to you. You just go in and you rest and then next day they will tell you where you go.” So I took my bike, I left, and I was so sick and so tired that I put my bike down and went to sleep next to the road. What happens? A German convoy comes. I saw the German convoy, I didn’t move and they didn’t say anything. I waited until they had left – until they were far. I took my bike and went on. I arrived in that place near to Saint Benoit du Sault in the middle of France and the people opened the door for me, said, “You are going to sleep here and I am going to bring you food.” I never saw the people, they did not want to see me. But all of a sudden – and that was one of the worst things that ever happened to me – comes in the priest and he said to me that he’s.....I don't know how you call it in English when someone --

(Last rites?)

Last rites.

They found me– I looked so miserable. I was so tired that they thought it was the end and I got the last rites. You are twenty years old and they tell you you are going to die. What do you think? What goes through your head? I didn’t want to sleep, I was afraid I would die in my sleep. I didn’t know. I didn’t even tell him I was Jewish. He didn’t even ask me what I was. It was something absolutely awful because when you are twenty you don’t think you are going to die and they tell you that’s it. So the next morning I was still alive [chuckle] and they told me to go to a certain place and they would take care of me. So I left again – always on my bike ......

Transcription by Claudette Allison, Word-for-Word.com