A Chosen Few - Mark Kurlansky [23]
But while other Parisians, especially Jews, were fleeing, Emmanuel wanted to go home to Rue Bleue. By the time he got there, the exodus was over. The shop and apartment were deserted except for one non-Jewish employee. Nobody in the neighborhood seemed even to realize that Emmanuel had been away. Things were not bad. People talked about how the metro was working well again. The big fear had ended. The German soldiers didn't seem as bad as everyone had expected. In fact, some people were starting to come back. Jews were coming back. Nothing had happened, and perhaps they had fled too hastily.
Yankel sent word from Grenoble: “You must leave Paris immediately!”
“But we have merchandise,” Emmanuel pleaded.
“Its nothing,” Yankel insisted. “Come right away!”
I'll come as soon as I liquidate,” Emmanuel answered.
On September 27, 1940, an item appeared in the newspapers: “All Jews must report by October 20 to the sous-prefet of the arron-dissement in which they live to be registered on a special list.” A Jew was defined as “anyone who belonged or used to belong to the Jewish religion, or has more than two Jewish grandparents.” Emmanuel went, as did 149,733 other Parisian Jews. The French police put a stamp on his identity papers indicating that he was Jewish. Then he went home.
Confined to their buildings by a nighttime curfew, Parisians passed their evenings talking to neighbors. One neighbor on Rue Bleue was a French pilot who kept warning Emmanuel to get out of Paris. The pilot knew he was Jewish. Everyone knew that a man named Emmanuel Ewenczyk was Jewish.
But it took months for Emmanuel to unload all the stock at good prices, even with the high demand. Then there were taxes to pay. And rent on the apartment. How long would he be away? Finally, he paid several months’ rent in advance and joined his family in Grenoble.
WHEN PARIS WAS lIBERATED, Emmanuel got on the first train available and went directly from the Gare de Lyon to Rue Bleue. He climbed the stairs to the third floor. The concierge, who had seen him come in from her perch behind the curtain at her glass door, followed him up the stairs trying to call him back, whispering, “Monsieur, Monsieur!”
Emmanuel knocked on the door on the third floor. A man answered and explained in a meek voice that he was a refugee. “And,” he added, his voice growing less meek, “I have a lease.” He waved the document.
Emmanuel went downstairs to the lower shop floor. Where sweaters had once been stacked, there now stood a neatly arranged pile of wooden legs. A full staff of craftsmen were working on artificial limbs. Then Emmanuel climbed up the shop stairs to the upper floor and discovered that a gendarme was living there.
True, he had signed the paper releasing the apartment, but with collaborationists being chased through the streets, beaten, arrested, and put on trial, no one would want to go to court and explain that they had forced a Jew in hiding to relinquish his property.
Before he went into “hiding,” Emmanuel had left a forwarding address with the concierge. While in Grenoble, the Ewenczyks had received a letter from the manager of the building on Rue Bleue, saying that it was apparent that they had left the building, and could they therefore write a letter agreeing to let the apartment go? The Ewenczyks wondered if non-Jews got such requests. Yankel reasoned that it would be better to avoid trouble and write the letter.
But Emmanuel thought differently. “I paid three months’ rent in advance!” he argued.
“But ihey have our address,” Yankel said gravely.
“But the rent is not that much! We can afford to keep paying—a few