You've Got to Tell Them by Ida Grinspan

Author:Ida Grinspan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 2018-03-19T16:00:00+00:00

Learning about the Resistance

Ida gets identification papers and a passport. The photo for it is the first one taken of her following her return, with hair that has just barely begun to grow back. She is offered a stay in Switzerland, in Montana.41 Her cousin Régine recommends the place. Ida is also eager to visit Switzerland.

“I start thinking about the mountains,” she says, “the chocolate!

“I will remain there for fourteen months, coddled. As far as comfort is concerned, it was a dream! We lived in individual villas. We ate good meals. The ambiance was ideal. I met lots of girls there who were to become close friends: Charlotte Delbo, Anne Baron, Anise Girard, who would become Anise Postel-Vinay, and Francoise Zavadil.42 An Englishwoman who was there caring for her son gave us English lessons. I was avoiding thinking about the problem of my future. It was Anne who thought about this the most.

“One day, two men came from the Joint, an American organization that helped Jews in difficulty the world over.43 They gave us pocket money. Towards the end of our stay, they proposed to send me to prepare for a career in the hotel industry at a school in Zurich. But I wanted to return to France. I should have asked them for advice, maybe some addresses. I didn’t consider the possibility that I might undertake studies at a university, which Madame Picard always said I had the intelligence for. Here I was seventeen with only a diploma from primary school!

“Deportation miraculously left me with my life, but it ruined my chances of entering a profession that matched my full potential.”

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