CAST OF CHARACTERS[1]
Claire A.
Born in 1916 in Constantine, Algeria, an attractive woman, she came to France much earlier than the rest of her family. Since 1948, she has been a worker and seems emancipated. Nevertheless, she feels a need to speak Arabic every day: "I think it's the most beautiful language. . . . Every day, three or four words of Arabic come to me, I say them, no matter where I am."
The interview took place in her home, amid the aroma of coffee. She showed a photograph of her father playing the mandolin (he was born in 1885 and had had a shop in Constantine). Claire A. is the first cousin of the next two narrators. We will find her on pp. 23, 235, 283.
Alice B.
Born in 1913 in Aïn Beïda, Algeria. Remaining single, she lived with her mother in Algeria and in Paris. She fulfills the role of family chronicler and genealogist; another example of such a character will be found later on. Alice B. will be seen on pp. 24, 117, 279, 288.
Manou B.
Born in 1926 in Aïn Beïda, Algeria, earned her living as a technician in Paris. See pp. 25, 59, 63, 113, 241, 278, 283, 285, 286. These three interviews were done by Raymonde Adda.
[1] By order of appearance. Only the major characters are introduced here.
Tita
Born in Tunis in 1902, was questioned in her home, in the Belleville quarter of Paris, by her grandson, a young history teacher, who translated her long narrative from Arabic. The daughter of a shoemaker and a laundress, wife of a traveling peddler, a widow at 36, illiterate, she was employed successively as a servant, a chambermaid in a hotel, and a factory worker. Worn out by a life of trials, her narrative is nevertheless full of humor and love. See pp. 25, 54, 219.
Camilla N.
Born in Tripoli, Libya, before 1900. We interviewed her in her home. She has a lovely Italian accent and elegant manners. Serving tea, she is reminded of a Turkish prince in exile in Tripoli—he, too, reduced by circumstances, as she is now, to making his own tea. An image of fallen grandeur. Her childhood memories in fact present a series of vignettes illustrating a fairy tale. See pp. 30, 45, 59, 60, 151, 163, 224, 227.
Laure A.
Born in Istanbul in about 1910, defines herself as a spoiled child. She receives us in her home, in a pink housecoat; she wears makeup, her hair is styled and dyed blond. She tells us that the only thing she has preserved of the Orient is her taste for sofas, on which she spends her days. So, stretched out on a sofa, she gives us an account of her gilded youth. She has preserved a thick accent, inserts English, German, or Italian expressions into her speech, thus demonstrating the good education she received (one of the central themes of her biography). Nothing in the apartment is reminiscent of Istanbul; there is not even a single one of those precious rugs her father dealt in. See pp. 32, 63, 149, 160, 216, 230.
Gabriel D.
Born in Salonika in about 1910, came to France after being an inmate in Auschwitz Concentration Camp and nursed back to health in Sweden. In Paris, he worked as a peddler. During the interview, done by Monica Tiffenberg, he shows a photo-
graph from his youth, "himself at 17, his sisters, his cousins, all the kids, each one on his bike," dressed in the style of the 1920s. Monica Tiffenberg comments: "How handsome you were!" And he replies: "Yes! We're Spaniards!" Iberian pride emerges in other memories of Sephardim from Istanbul and Salonika. See pp. 33, 63, 66, 111, 222, 263, 286.
Ida O.
Born in Salonika in 1906, in France since the 1920s. Widow of a textile merchant in the Sentier quarter of Paris, she has known a certain comfort. She receives us in her home, offers tea with Salonikan pastries she has made and bought for us: the only trace of the home country. There are some objects of European manufacture but brought from Salonika and an abundant collection of photographs on which she comments with great liveliness, in tones and expressions that are strongly Salonikan. See pp. 33, 65, 115, 221, 223, 229, 271.
Gerges X.
Born in Tunis in 1908, studied medicine in Paris, practiced in Tunisia, emigrated at the beginning of the 1960s. He receives us in his home, surrounded by the furniture and the rich library he had in Tunisia. See pp. 35, 143, 148.
Gioia A.
Born in Alexandria in 1909. The appropriately named Gioia receives us in her home, derides everything she tells us, and is amused by everything. Even the exodus that led her, her husband, and her young daughter to the south of France, Portugal, Africa, and finally Cairo is told in a joking manner. Of her life in Egypt, she kept only photographs, and she comments on them for us. But her memories are especially filled with the flavors of sweets, that reappear during the interview in the form of Egyptian pastries. See pp. 35, 143, 148.
Edmund H.
Contemporary of Gioia, born in Cairo, a businessman. The reverses he suffered in Egypt feed a resentment that is still very
keen. Again, nothing in his apartment is reminiscent of his long stay in Egypt, except for the pastries he makes himself and serves at each of our meetings. See pp. 36, 152, 161, 273.
Suzanne T.
Born in Sétif in 1910. Approached by H. Benzakki, then a student of history, Suzanne T. preferred to write the account of her life and give him the various chapters. During their meetings, she added commentaries and documents to the text she provided. He describes her as living alone in a suburban low-income housing project, speaking with a loud voice, a marked accent, and a great liveliness in spite of physical handicaps. From her kitchen comes "an odor of pimento and oriental spices," "the reception is warm, spontaneous, the bottle of anisette is quickly out on the table for the visitor."
Her text is first an epic of daily life, with the detailed account of family conflicts, the birth of her ten children, the death of two of them, the professional successes and reverses of the husband. It is also a testimony: Suzanne is deliberate in recounting the political climate and events, details of the material conditions of life (for example, the introduction of domestic electricity in Constantine in 1930, and everything else that seems to her to be typical in the life she has lived. But, underlying the chronicle and the testimony, the autobiography utters a protest: a protest against an unsatisfactory present that lacks dear and departed persons, that lacks the objects of love and hate that fill her memories, that lacks the repayment by her children for all the attention she gave them.
The writing of the account is almost bereft of punctuation, and its spelling translates the sounds of the spoken rather than the written language. Regretfully, we have had to correct the spelling and introduce punctuation to make this text intelligible to a reader. See pp. 38, 50, 106, 231, 236, 240, 276, 279, 281, 285.
Georgette D.
Born in 1899 in Tunis, converses with her husband, born before her, a nephew born in 1906, and his wife, who hardly
intervenes. The conversation is lively, constantly interrupted. I was taken to Georgette because she is considered the repository of the family memory. Indeed, on the basis of tenuous clues—a first name, an address—she immediately reconstructs the biography of an individual and his relatives. The names that populate her discourse ultimately go well beyond the limits of family relationships. The personage of the family chronicler is a widespread social type. Among North African Jews he (or she) keeps oral records of personal statistics with associations such as: "X had his bar mitzvah when Z got married and Y was living on such-and-such a street." And people turn to this data bank for every verification of identity.[2]
Georgette's husband comes from a Livornese family and is thus higher in the local hierarchy. That will be recalled at length in the course of the conversation but is not reproduced here. See pp. 41, 119.
Louise G.
Aïn Beïda, 1921, is the first cousin of Claire A., Alice B., and Manou B. See pp. 43, 116, 278, 284, 285.
Papou N.
Born in Salonika in 1894, was interviewed by his granddaughter, who describes him as tall, erect, filling the space. With his abundant hair "thrown back with a crazy elegance," he laughs. And when he stops laughing, "you can see the blue of his eyes, very blue. Papou rolls his r's and talks with his hands, or rather, his hands also talk, in an ironic or earnest counterpoint, with those gestures which come from far away, which nobody else in that family still has. What remains on paper resembles Papou very little. The tone of his voice, his gestures, the expressions of his face, everything is lost except for the
[2] This character is also found in Salonika: "The date of birth, already a big deal. Let Cousin Rachel and Aunt Binouta remember (that's all they had to do) the births of our twenty cousins, that was enough." Henriette Asseo, "Du miel aux cendres. . . . Où sont passés soixante-dix mille Juifs de Salonique?" [From Honey to Ashes . . . Where Did the Seventy Thousand Jews of Salonika Go?], Les Temps modernes, no. 400 (November 1979): 828–845.
meaning, a black skeleton on white paper."[3] We will see him on pp. 44, 164, 265.
Henri Z.
Born in Cairo in 1913. Like Edmond H., Papou N., Laure A.'s father, and so many other characters who will appear in the course of this book, he is a dragoman par excellence: an intermediary between East and West, an importer-exporter and major entrepreneur by profession, and a master of several languages and cultures. See pp. 46, 66.
Mathilde B.
Born in Bizerte in 1892, receives us at her home in a studio she occupies in Sarcelles. All that is left of her life in Tunis is the round table at which her family used to eat its meals, the children did their schoolwork, and friends played cards. Mathilde pours out countless photographs onto the table and comments on them. She sees her life as a love story she wants to leave to posterity. (Interview done by Lucette Valensi and Nine Moatti.) See pp. 60, 65, 103.
Charles H.
Born in 1906 in Nysko, a shtetl in Galicia. His father was first a bailiff in the court and then a bank employee. Charles studied in the State Polish high school and then immigrated to France (Nancy) in 1924 to study medicine. After marrying Hélène, he moved to a small city near Paris. During the Occupation, he hid with his family in a village of the Creuse. He speaks a very elegant French, modulated by a slight accent. See pp. 3, 70, 94, 133, 247, 295.
Georges F.
Born in 1915 in the Polish little town of Skarzysko-Kamiena (between Radom and Kielce). Childhood lived in poverty, a "happy poverty." Studied in heder and, at the age of 13, became
[3] Since the publication of this book, Papou N. has become the subject of a book written by his son, Edgar Morin, Vidal et les siens (Paris: Le Seuil, 1989).
an apprentice tailor. He immigrated to France in 1936 (following his brother who left in 1933). Went to Lyon after the roundup of September 1941, followed by his wife after the roundup of the Vel' d'Hiv of July 1942. Returned to Paris after the Liberation. He has preserved a deep nostalgia for the places of his childhood and dreams of one day crossing the bridge of his village again. See pp. 6, 74, 82, 85, 89, 95, 99, 124, 129, 130, 133, 177, 245, 249, 252, 301, 339.
Hélène H.
Born in 1906 in Bialystok, descendant of a line of famous rabbis. During World War I, she fled with her mother to the Ukraine (to Ekaterinoslav). Immigrated to France (Nancy) in 1924 to study medicine. Married Charles H. A perfect mastery of French, which she speaks without any accent. See pp. 75, 174, 295.
Lazare M.
Born in Kalisz in 1910, studied in heder, then the Jewish (Hebrew) high school. A poor student in Warsaw, in a seminary of the C.Y.S.H.O. (to become a teacher). Active in the leftist Po'alei Zion movement.[4] Came to France in 1937, where he continued his activism. Volunteered for the army in 1939, was assigned to a Polish regiment that crossed the Swiss border in June 1940; was imprisoned in various camps and then was able to resume his studies in education in Switzerland. Returned to France after the war and worked as a teacher in the institutions that took in the children of deportees. See pp. 76, 80, 126, 135, 249.
Mathilde R.
Born in 1928 in the suburbs of Paris, her father was from Lodz, her mother from Brest-Litovsk. Her assimilationist parents first raised her in ignorance of her Jewish origin and sent
[4] C.Y.S.H.O.: Central Organization of Yiddish School. Po'alei Zion: a movement that combined Zionism and Socialism, it began in Russia in the 1890s and then spread to other European countries. The leftist branch joined the Third International.
her to a Catholic school. She discovered her Jewish identity during a trip to Poland in 1938 with her mother. Hid during the Occupation, first in Toulouse and then in a village of the Cantal, she returned to Paris after the Liberation and later became a psychoanalyst. She received us in an apartment in the chic neighborhood of Faubourg Saint-Germain and spoke with elegance, intensely reliving the emotions of the past, accompanying her account with a running analytical commentary. See pp. 81, 197, 253, 258, 292, 303, 317, 320.
Louise M.
Born at the turn of the century in a little town in Silesia, she then lived in Berlin, where she got married. Daughter and granddaughter of an educated middle-class family, she was one of those "assimilated" German Jews who were taken by surprise by the onslaught of Nazism. Immigrated to Morocco via Holland in 1936. See pp. 88, 178, 251, 257.
Anna D.
Born in Lodz in about 1918. A poor dressmaker, she spent the war in Poland; was deported to the camp in Skarzysko. Immigrated to France in 1946. This interview was conducted by Claudine Guittonneau. See pp. 34, 327.
Yacob-Jacques L.
Born at the end of the last century in a shtetl in the area of Lublin, Yacob is the son of a watchmaker, and he studied in the heder; his reading (particularly Around the World in Eighty Days, translated into Yiddish) led him to question religious beliefs. He became a watchmaker too and moved first to Warsaw and then to Moscow (where he experienced troubles during the Revolution of 1917). He immigrated to France in 1920 and worked as a watchmaker near Montbéliard, then in Besançon, and finally in Paris, where he becomes Jacques. Speaks French with a very thick accent. His speech is constantly interspersed with biblical allusions. His family having been exterminated during the war, he had always kept silent about that period. He
welcomes us gratefully, relieved to have a chance to tell his story at last. See pp. 94, 100, 128, 134, 172, 189, 324.
Maurice N.
Born in 1920 in Okouniev, near Warsaw. His father, first a hasid, later became a Communist. Studied in heder, then in Polish school. The father immigrated to Paris in 1929, and was followed by his family in 1931. At the age of thirteen, after one year of schooling, Maurice went to work tanning leather. Member of the Yiddish Arbeiter Sportive Klub, then the Communist Youth and the Communist party, he joined the Resistance in Lyon (Décines). After the war, he went into the leatherworking business on his own. Left the Communist party in 1956 and states his sympathy for Israel. Interview done by Alex Kurc.[5] See pp. 98, 132, 188, 200, 210, 246, 309, 314.
Robert S.
Born in 1907 in Przemysl, in Galicia, to a family of modest means (his father, a traveling salesman in rather poor health). Studied in the Polish high school. Came to Nancy, France, in 1928. He led the life of a poor student (of dentistry), forced to work to support himself while also regularly sending help to his parents in Poland. Obtained French citizenship in 1935. Then he brought his brother and one sister to France. Drafted in 1939, he was taken prisoner and then freed. He lived in a town in the center of France during the Occupation and then hid in a village of Auvergne. He established his dental practice only after the Liberation, almost twenty years after his arrival in France. A longtime fellow traveler of the Communist party, he finally returned to his former Zionist sympathies. Speaks perfect French with a slight accent. See pp. 101, 171, 191, 207, 246, 250, 253, 298, 322.
[5] This character also inspired the joint article of Martine Cohen, Michèle Feldmann, Colette Guigui, Claudine Guittonneau, Alex Kurc, Monica Tiffenberg, and Inna Weber, "L'histoire de Maurice: essai d'analyse d'un récit de vie" [The Story of Maurice: Analysis of a Life Account] Yod. Revue des études hébraïques et juives modernes et contemporaines 6:1 (first and second trimesters 1980): 78–86.
Viviane B.
Born in Constantine in 1929, in France since 1926; profession, secretary. She is the first cousin of Claire A., Alice B., Manou B., Louise G., and a few others. She is seen again on pp. 112, 278.
Reine A.
A cousin of the previous characters, was born in Aïn Beïda in 1917. She was a seamstress and "sewed the trousseau" of several young Jewish girls of Constantine. She is loquacious and vociferous, her French mixed with Arab words. See pp. 114.
Bernard P.
Born in 1922 in Kalisz. His father was a worker specializing in lace. Studied in the Jewish (Hebrew) high school. Immigrated to France (Roanne) with his family in 1938. He went to work immediately in the hosiery trade and was then a member of Hashomer HaZa'ir, the Zionist-Socialist youth movement. During the war, he joined the Resistance in the U.J.J. [Union de la Jeunesse Juive] in Roanne and later in Lyon (Décines). Left the Communist party in 1956 and declares his support of the State of Israel. Interview done by Alex Kurc. See pp. 127, 134, 197, 246, 252, 309, 317.
Marc B.
Born in 1900 in Warsaw (Praga), to a family of Hasidim. An apprentice leatherworker at thirteen, he was active in the Bundist movement at a very young age (he was especially involved in the organization of the large Bund library in Warsaw).[6] Came to France in 1925, where he worked as a leatherworker. Continued to be active in the Bund and was one of the founding members of the Medem Library. Arrested in May 1941, he was sent to the Beaune-la-Rolande camp, where he spent eleven months and then managed to escape. He hid successively in Toulouse, Lyon, and finally Grenoble. Interviewed by Claudine Guittonneau. See pp. 137, 199, 306.
[6] Bund: Jewish Socialist party founded in Russia in 1897, very active in Poland between the two world wars.
Julien K.
Born about 1914 in a village in Galicia. His father was principal of a Yiddish school in Chelm, then editor of a Jewish journal in Cracow. Julien K. studied in the state Polish high school in Cracow and became a political activist at an early age. He followed a rather turbulent personal itinerary, moving from leftist Zionism to Communism and then to Trotskyism, later to Bundism and Socialism, all the while preserving his revolutionary faith intact. Condemned as a Trotskyite in Warsaw, he escaped before he was sentenced and, after much wandering about, arrived in France in May 1936. Participated in the Spanish Civil War with the troops of the P.O.U.M., the left-wing anti-Stalinist party. Arrested in Barcelona by the Stalinists, he was back in France in 1938. Managed to escape in 1941 to Switzerland, where he was interned in various camps. After the war, a journalist in the Yiddish press of Paris. The dramatic vicissitudes of his life are a surprise, coming from one with such a weak voice and such an apparently sickly constitution. An account that keeps us constantly charmed by its intelligence, its liveliness, and its quiet humor. See pp. 128, 138, 179, 200, 252.
Madame K.,
An elegant and lively woman, who has known comfort ever since her childhood in Tunis. She meets us in a large café in the Opéra quarter of Paris. Love of music figures prominently in her memories, a sign of the high culture, good taste, and fine education with which she was raised. Her pleasure in those memories does not prevent her from offering critical remarks on the prejudices of her milieu. See pp. 156, 218.
Golda R.
Born about 1910 in Warsaw (Praga). Came to Paris for the first time at the age of thirteen but had to return to Poland. Immigrated to France ten years later (preceded by her parents). Worked first in a restaurant in Belleville, then as a salesgirl in a pastry shop, and finally as an operator in a textile workshop. Married a construction worker in 1937. Interview done in Yiddish. See pp. 172, 202, 319, 338.
Léon W.
Born in 1905 in Kalisz (where he lived in the same building as Lazare M.). After studying in heder, he began to work as an apprentice tailor at the age of thirteen. Immigrated to France, to Metz, in 1923. Enlisted in the army in 1939. After the German invasion, he hid with his family in Clermont-Ferrand in 1940, then in Brioude in 1942. Continued to live in Auvergne after the war, practicing the trade of tailor. See pp. 177, 245, 249.
Annette B.
Born in Mogador in the 1920s, did not go to school in Morocco. She simply learned leatherworking. She was not yet twenty when she married a young grain dealer. Starting out with nothing, he succeeded in amassing a comfortable fortune, symbolized particularly by the construction of a big house in Casablanca. Moving to France was accompanied by a social decline and a reversal of roles: at the time we speak to her, Annette B. is a dressmaker and supports the whole family, her husband being unable to find work. But the rise begun in Morocco is picked up again by the children. She encourages us to meet one of her daughters, who is married to an Ashkenazi intellectual in Paris. Exile was at the center of the mother's talk. It remains at the center of the daughter's, Sonia.
Annette B. received us in Strasbourg, at the end of Passover. All the tastes of spring in Morocco appeared on the table for the ritual of Mimouna, in which we were generously invited to participate. See pp. 280, 281, 287, 289.