See you soon Caroline! Chapter 13 Drancy

Chapter Thirteen:

 Drancy

Getting to Drancy sounded complicated, and the Weavers were feeling hungry, so Mum led them back up to the Bazaar Hotel de Ville, the ‘BHV’, where they knew that they could rest and find food.  Having eaten, Dad and Simon pored over a Metro map and tried to follow the instructions they had been given, while Mum and Caroline had a last look round the store.

“We need to take the Metro to ‘Republique’ and change there.” said Mr Weaver. “Then we take this one as far as…. where did she say we had to get off?”

“Porte de Pantin!” replied Simon. “Look, it’s there! Then we have to take the bus number 151 as far as the Avenue Jean Jaures. That sounds simple enough!”

When they were altogether again, they set off on their journey to Drancy. Caroline was thinking about Grandad’s mother who had also made this journey. Like her, they didn’t know what they were going to find when they got there, but unlike her they could come and go as they wanted.

Everything worked out fine! They emerged from the Metro to find a 151 bus waiting, and soon they were on their way up a long straight road that seemed to go on and on forever. Actually, it was only about twenty minutes before the digital display told them that the next stop was ‘Jean Jaures’. They got off, and found themselves on a suburban crossroads in a rather shabby district.

“It’s this way!” announced Simon, leading the way around the corner. On their right was a large car-park, and just ahead on the left they could see a grassy space. When they got nearer, they realised that they had reached their objective. Beyond the grass was a large rectangular area with trees and seats. Surrounding  this open space, was an open rectangle of flats, the two longer sides on their left and right, and in the distance the shorter side joining the other two. The flats stood four stories high with a covered terrace below them. They looked to be in reasonable condition, and were obviously inhabited. This could have been any elderly suburban housing estate, but what made it different was the fact that in the centre of the open end of the rectangle, there were railway tracks. On these tracks stood one solitary cattle wagon.

“What does it say on that wagon?” asked Mrs Weaver. The words were written in French and were faded with age, but their meaning was clear.

“It says ten horses, or forty men!” said Simon.

‘So this is what took them to the death camps!’ thought Caroline. She looked around her. People were going about their business without a second glance at the wagon. ‘They must pass it every day!’ she thought. ‘Does it mean anything to them after all this time?’

There were several plaques, in French of course, and the two youngsters struggled to translate the notices.

“This one was placed here in 1993, the fiftieth anniversary of what happened here” said Simon. “It says that thousands of Jews, gypsies, and foreigners were sent from here to the Nazi camps where nearly all of them died!”

They were trying to translate another notice placed some distance away near the edge of the area when an elderly man stopped and asked them if they needed any help.

“We are finding it a bit difficult!” said Caroline. “We know this is something to do with a tunnel, but we don’t understand what the tunnel was for!”

“This notice marks the route of an escape tunnel” he said. “Let me translate it for you! It says,

‘Under this pathway, at a depth of one and a half metres, is the escape tunnel of the Drancy camp.

70 prisoners, in three teams, worked day and night to complete it

Commenced in September, 1943, it was 36 metres long when it was discovered by the Nazis in November 1943 and was never finished.

They were just 3 metres from liberty!’”

“How awful!” said Mrs Weaver. “Just three metres away from freedom! I wonder what happened to them!”

“I don’t understand!” said Caroline, looking around. “This isn’t like I imagined at all. This is just three blocks of flats. Surely they could walk out anytime!”

The man smiled sadly. “I’m afraid it wasn’t that easy!” he said. “There was barbed wire enclosing the whole area of course, and there were watch towers at each corner. These flats were built to hold seven hundred people, but at times there were over seven thousand held here. Not just in the flats of course, but all over this open space which had no grass or trees then, just concrete. Sometimes there were fifty people sleeping in one room! They were in bunk beds, two or more to a bed. They were on the floor under the beds, on the tables, on the stairs and landings.  And no proper place to wash or to use the toilet.  Altogether, almost one hundred thousand people, men, women and children passed through here, and only one thousand, five hundred and eighteen survived. You can read that on the memorial over there!” He turned and pointed back to the way they had come in.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but I find it hard to believe that there were fifty people sleeping in one room!” said Mum

The old man smiled ruefully. “I’m sorry, I should have explained better! These flats were not finished when all these people were imprisoned here. The internal walls had not been completed, so the spaces inside were more like dormitories than rooms. Even so, the overcrowding was terrible. And there was no electricity or water at first, the first batch of prisoners were left several days without food or water and there were many deaths and suicides. Conditions improved gradually, but they were always shocking. On a few occasions, prisoners were taken at random and shot in retribution for the activities of the resistance.”

Mrs Weaver shook her head in disbelief that such things could have happened to people in a civilised city such as Paris, to people who had committed no crime.

 “Do you have any personal interest in this place?” their new friend asked.

Mr Weaver answered for them all. “Yes, my grandmother was here! She was brought here from Rivesaltes. We are going to visit that camp soon.”

“Ah well, this place will mean something to you then! For most who pass by, it’s just a bit of history that’s best forgotten! And for others, it’s something they don’t want here at all. Just four years ago, someone painted a swastika on that wagon! And there used to be more wagons here, but some were burned eight years ago! But it’s not all bad! Last year, they opened a new museum – it’s over the road there – that concrete and glass building. But like many things in Paris, it’s closed for the August holidays! You must come back again when it’s open!”

They thanked the old man for his help, and wandered over to look at the memorial, a huge concrete column depicting an imprisoned family, with two other columns which their friend had told them represented the doors of death closing on the family.

“I just can’t believe what’s happened to us in the past few weeks!” murmured Mum. “A month ago, we knew nothing of this. Now, thanks to Caroline’s homework, we’ve discovered so much about Grandad’s family, and about ourselves!”

“We need to get in touch with Grandad and tell him what we have found out here in Paris” said Simon. “The trouble is, it costs so much to use our phones to ring England! If only he would learn to text or use Facebook!”

His father answered. “I don’t think there’s much point in ringing him, there’s so much to tell him, he wouldn’t remember it all, and then he’d be confused, wondering exactly what we’d said. I think the best thing is to write a letter as soon as we get to the camp-site.”

“I want to tell him that he’s got a brother or sister!” exclaimed Caroline.

Her father shook his head. “It’s too soon for that!” he said. “We don’t know anything for sure yet. It’s unlikely that he or she is still alive, and even if he is, we will probably never know!”

“Just like Grandad’s father!” added Mrs Weaver. “We know that he was taken away somewhere, but we don’t know where!”

They stayed a little longer, taking photos to show Grandad, and trying to take it all in. Then, knowing that tomorrow was going to be a very long day indeed, they took the bus and the metro back to where they were staying.