I remember three moments of great joy in my life. The first one was the day we were liberated. I was in a Catholic boarding school in Montfermeil, a suburb east of Paris. It was summer, and we spent most of the time on the playground. It was hot, and I was weak because of the lack of proper food; we didn’t do much, mostly just hung around. One of the kids who had left the school came running back announcing, “The Allies are coming!” We all were very excited. The teacher, whose name I never was able to find out, took us immediately to the main street. She held my hand because I was the youngest, just six years old, and I was like her protégé. She probably was the only one, maybe together with the priest, to know the circumstances of my presence at the school. She was like a surrogate mother to me, which helped a lot, because my mother was working as a governess with a family of eight or ten children, unable to communicate with my sisters or me.
Suddenly, on the main street, we saw a column of tanks, trucks, and jeeps—with soldiers wearing different helmets, smiles on their faces, distributing chewing gum, chocolate, cigarettes. They were American, and it was the first time I had heard of Americans. I knew about Germans, Italians, English, Russians. But who were these guys who were so friendly to us? After all, I was only six years old. From that day on, we knew that we didn’t have to be afraid anymore of being taken away. A few days later, the train service was restored, and my mum was on the first train to come see us. That would be my second moment of great joy.
The third moment was the day the war officially ended for us: May 8, 1945. By then, I was almost seven years old. The end of the war was going to be announced by the air raid sirens that had been used until then to warn us of bombardments. Normally when they were heard, we had to run to the shelters to be protected from the bombs. This day, I was playing downstairs with my friends. We lived in an apartment complex made up of two long buildings. We were at the end of the buildings when the siren blasted to announce the end of the war. It was around noon, and I remember that moment like it was yesterday. One of my friends, Jean (we called him Jeannot), who was one year older than me, used to run faster than me. He was always beating me when we were racing. But that day, when we heard the siren, we started running toward the front of the building, and for the first time, I beat him. I arrived first. I think it was the idea of the end of the war and what it meant to all of us, but particularly to me. It was like a big stone had been taken off my chest. I had wings!
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