Americans in Paris_ Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation - Charles Glass [89]
On 14 April, considering the possibility of a changed American status in France, the American Hospital in Paris asked Count Aldebert de Chambrun to become its director. Although an American citizen, General de Chambrun was also French and, more importantly, connected to the upper reaches of French society and politics that the hospital might have to call upon to survive. Clara lamented that 14 April became the day ‘my husband and I were obliged to separate’. She wrote, ‘As he seldom does things by halves, he felt that, to begin with at least, he must take up his residence in the hospital building, learn the ropes and become acquainted with his large staff.’ On 15 April, the hospital’s medical board, including Dr Sumner Jackson, voted unanimously to appoint General de Chambrun president. But, like the American Library, the hospital needed a legal mechanism to spare it from German seizure if the United States and Germany broke relations. Aldebert adopted ‘the same formula that proved so efficacious in the case of the American Library’. That is, he turned it over to a French organization, the French Red Cross. Officially, the American Hospital became the Centre d’Hospitalisation pour Blessés de Guerre Libérés, the Hospitalization Centre for Liberated War Wounded. General de Chambrun’s policy was to provide medical care to anyone–American civilians, Belgian refugees, wounded British and French soldiers–except Germans.
As 1941 progressed, the United States sent more and more supplies to Britain. In March, Congress passed the Lend Lease Act to exchange British bases in the western hemisphere for surplus American destroyers. This made the United States, if not a combatant, at least a partisan in the struggle against the Nazis. A German U-boat sank the American merchantman Robin Moor on 21 May 1941 off Brazil. President Roosevelt condemned the attack as an ‘act of piracy’. The following October, Nazi submarines torpedoed the American merchant ship Kearney and sank the US Navy destroyer Reuben James off the coast of Iceland. A hundred American sailors from the Reuben James died in frozen waters, giving rise to Woody Guthrie’s song with its refrain, ‘Tell me what were their names?/Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James?’ Another folk song popular in the United States demanded, ‘What are we waitin’ on?’
When I think of the men and the ships going down
While the Russians fight on across the dawn
There’s London in ruins and Paris in chains
Good people, what are we waitin’ on?
Good people, what are we waitin’ on?
In this atmosphere, many Americans in Paris realized that their neutrality would not last much longer. Some decided to leave of their own accord, while others were persuaded by family and employers that remaining would be dangerous. On 5 May 1941, Edward A. Sumner informed the Rockefeller Foundation that ‘a cable was sent to Miss Dorothy Reeder, Directress of the Library, recommending her immediate return to the United States, and a cable to the Comtesse de Chambrun, First Vice President, authorizing her to employ a non-American substitute for Miss Reeder. Whether Miss Reeder will be willing to accept this recommendation of the Board of Trustees remains to develop.’ Dorothy Reeder did not want to leave, but she accepted the board’s advice. In mid-May, she obtained permits to cross the Spanish border and booked a berth on a ship from Lisbon to the United States. Clara wrote, ‘When our popular directress Miss Reeder departed, after a whirl of cocktail parties and as much cheer as bunches of souvenirs could give, she left on the desk which was to become mine, a card solemnly delegating me to fill her place together with the verbal encouragement: “Of course you will never be able to keep open.”’
Clara, ignoring the board’s recommendation that she find a non-American to run the library, decided to take on the job herself: ‘Accordingly, here I was, obliged to add to my duties of directing the Library, a position for which no previous training fitted me. What I did possess