See you soon Caroline! Chapter 19 Perpignan April 1942

Chapter Nineteen:

Perpignan

April 1942

Marion Oakes leaned over the balcony of her third floor flat and gazed down the street. It was still early, but the sun was up and the day promised to be fine. The trees in the Avenue Baleares were already in leaf and would give shelter from the heat later in the summer. But even today, in April, it was warm and there was a gentle breeze. It would not be like this where she was going today, she thought grimly.

She had a visitor staying with her for a couple of days. Margaret Smith from the head office in Philadelphia was over on a fact-finding tour. She was based in the main office in Marseille for the most part, but at her own request was now travelling around the various Quaker depots, seeing for herself what conditions were really like. Today, Marion was going to take her visitor to the near-by camp of Rivesaltes, where over three thousand men, women and children were detained in appalling conditions. She wondered how this elegantly dressed woman from the still peaceful United States of America would react when confronted with the realities of life in one of the many concentration camps of southern France.

They breakfasted together rather less frugally than was Marion’s custom, spent some time discussing some of the problems which were troubling them, and then towards noon they set off for the camp in the little Ford car driven by Marion’s chauffeur, Pedro. Like over half of the inmates of the camp they were visiting, Pedro was Spanish.

Margaret watched the passing scene through the car’s windows. Although Perpignan suffered badly from shortages of all kinds, the city was untouched by military action, and at a casual glance looked pleasant enough. Only the drab and shabby clothes worn by the pedestrians and the empty shop-fronts along the once proud Boulevard des Pyrenees gave any suggestion of the suffering of the city’s population. In fact, everybody was hungry, very hungry. But none more so than the inmates of the camp that they were travelling towards.

Soon, they were crossing the river Tet and passing through agricultural land. The fields were badly tended though, many of the workers still being in German prisoner of war camps, two years after the armistice. It was flat now, and Margaret noticed that it seemed more windy here than in the city. They turned to the right and passed through what would be called meadows if there were any grass. But this plain was covered only in dust and stones, and the dust was being swept up by the wind making visibility quite difficult.  They passed between two large concrete pillars and came to a halt alongside a low brick building. A guard examined their papers and waved them on. Evidently they were well-known here thought Margaret.

“We’ll get out here and walk” announced Marion. “Hold on to your hat or you’ll soon lose it!”

And indeed, it was extremely windy! Margaret looked around her. The plain stretched as far as her eyes could see, and it was broken by row upon row of single-storey concrete huts. They were widely spaced and could have appeared quite acceptable if set in grassland and separated by flower beds. But there was nothing but dust and stones. Margaret thought that she had never seen so many stones! Not a blade of grass could be seen, not even weeds. It was a desert, but with dust instead of sand.

They made their way between the huts, heads bent low and eyes almost shut to keep out the flying grit.  The heat became apparent too, the sun’s glare causing them to seek in vain for some welcome shade, but there was none.

“Where is everybody?” asked Margaret, for there was nobody to be seen.

“They all stay in their barracks when the Tramontane is blowing!” said Marion. “And that’s most of the time! In the summer it’s a scorching blast, and in the winter it can be icy cold. And there’s no escaping it! The dust gets into your clothes, into your food, in your bed. This is a terrible place to be. It was originally built as an army camp, but abandoned because it was considered unfit for the horses! Now over seven hundred children know it as home!”

“What are those higher buildings with the steps going up outside?” asked the American visitor.

“They are the toilets. They are open to the skies, with just a hole in the floor and a bucket underneath!”

Margaret shook her head in disbelief. “And you say that there are mothers and babies here?”

“Oh yes! Many of the women were pregnant when they were rounded up and brought here. Death amongst the babies is common. We are hoping to take some of the women out of here for a short break while they give birth if we can arrange it.”

“And then they will have to bring their new-born children back to this?” asked Margaret in horror, looking around her at the desolation.

“I’m afraid so. Mothers who have been in other camps tell me that this is the worst place of all because of the wind.” She led the way round the side of one of the buildings. “But here we are at the ‘dining hall’.”

The dining hall was a concrete barrack, just like all the others. But stretching out down one side of the building were several lines of children, each one holding a tin can or a small pail in their hands. Many of them were barefoot, though some had sandals which appeared to have been made from old car tyres. All were ill-clad, and they stood there patiently, with silent screwed-up faces, buffeted by the wind howling between the barracks.

The two women entered through a doorway which was decorated with bright paintings depicting a train, a truck, an aeroplane and a ship.

Marion indicated the ship, which had the stars and stripes of America on its side. “That’s supposed to be the Quaker ship bringing supplies from America” she explained. “But the ship seldom comes because of the British blockade!

“British blockade?” queried Margaret.

“Yes. The British have imposed a total blockade on all French ports, to cut supplies to the German troops. But of course it means great hardship for the French civilians, and the people in the camps are the last to get anything that is going. Technically, they are supposed to have a daily ration which is just enough to maintain life. But it passes through various hands on its way through the camp system, and each pair of hands takes a cut, and so by the time it reaches the people it is intended for, there’s very little left. Fortunately, the children receive supplementary rations from organisations like ourselves which is imported from across Europe, but there’s nothing extra for the adults – and that includes the teenagers!”

By now the children were filing into the room and showing their cards to one of the helpers and then proceeding to the table where their crude containers were being filled from a steaming kettle of rice and milk. Each child watched the big ladle filling their can with great concentration, and if a little dribbled down the side, they immediately licked it up so as not to lose even one grain of rice. They then quickly sat down on the benches, pulled spoons from their pockets and devoured the food as quickly as possible.

“I have watched many children eating their dinner” said Margaret quietly to her companion. “Usually there is talking and laughter, often too much, and they have to be told to behave! But look at these children – there isn’t a sound except for the scraping of their spoons in the tin cans. Look at their little faces as they scrape up the last scraps of rice!”

Later, the two women were in another barrack which had been converted into a workshop, where several women prisoners were making espadrilles.  A teacher working in the camp came in, and was introduced to the visitor from America.

“When we gave these children paper and crayons and let them draw what they liked”, said the teacher whose name was Mercedes, “most of them just drew lines of barracks. They had been born in the camps, and had never seen anything else. They knew nothing of houses, shops, streets full of people, nothing of the outside world. What sort of adults will these half-starved, captive children grow up to be?”

“And when we decorated their dining room with a colourful border of green fields and rabbits, the children were terrified because they thought they were rats. Rats are the only creatures they know!”

The three women moved out into the open air. The wind had dropped, if there had been some shade it would have been almost pleasant. Some of the less sick men and women began to appear in the spaces between the barracks, seeking the warmth of the sun. But there was nowhere for anyone to sit, no seats, no benches, no grassy banks, nowhere but the stony, dusty ground.  Some did sit down among the stones, and had great difficulty in getting up again! Marion Oakes and her visitor moved among them, and they were continually being stopped by people who wished to have a few words with the Irish worker.  Margaret  Smith noticed how they seemed to value the words that ‘Miss Marion’ (as they called her) had to say to them as she listened patiently to their problems and requests.

“It’s not just us!” Marion told her in the car on the way back to Perpignan. “The Swiss Red Cross do a wonderful job here too, as do OSE, the Jewish Children’s Aid Service. We all do what we can, but it’s nothing more than a drop in the ocean!”