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How I Came to Write My Memories

By Jacqueline Mendels Birn

When I grew up in Paris, after we survived World War II, there was not much talk at home about what we had endured. I knew that all of our close relatives were dead, I no longer had grandparents or cousins or aunts and uncles. I envied my school friends who went for lunch and holidays at their relatives’ homes.

After I met my husband, Richard, in 1957 in Paris and he proposed to me, we were married and I began a fantastic journey with him in my life. When I arrived in New York, my parents-in-law invited relatives of their family for a meal and to introduce me to all of them. Everyone wanted to know how I, a Jewish girl, had survived the war. Although we had gone back with my parents to the village where we were hidden for 29 months, I knew very little then of the events we had lived through because my parents did not want to talk about the horrors they had gone through.

So I told Richard’s relatives what I knew, and what I remembered. I told them my mother’s phrase that she repeated often when I asked her questions: “It was horrible, it was horrible.” As for my father’s family in the Netherlands, all I knew was that everyone was dead. I did not elaborate at the time. Many years later, and after living in many countries, Richard was assigned to be a foreign service officer in Washington, DC. I started to teach at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US Department of State. There they teach diplomats not only the language of the country where they are assigned, but also the politics, history, economics, and culture of that country. There was always a professor or other specialist who came once a week to lecture on topics, including World War II in Europe. Little by little, and because I went with my students to the lectures, I started to raise my hand and add information that I knew. This was during the time when historians had just begun to do research and write books on World War II and the fate of the Jews.

I read more and more about the Jews in France and began to understand what had happened to us and to my extended family in the Netherlands. I read in French and in English. I read from my library and from my husband’s library. We both went to listen to many lectures in a variety of venues in Washington, DC. I filled many folders on the history of the Second World War. I also added many books in French and in English, mostly biographies of people who had survived. My husband, who wanted to know about World War II as much as I did, bought history books on Hitler, on Poland, on the events before the war, on collaboration and more. Because he is a specialist in foreign affairs, he was always able to answer my questions. 

After a while, the lecturers at FSI were asking me to speak about my survival in France. I prepared my presentations with great care and I spent many hours reading and learning about events that I had not been aware of before. Little by little, I started to remember details that I had forgotten. I talked to my sister every day on the telephone, which triggered our memories and we reminded each other of small events that we had lived together and had forgotten over the years.

Six years ago now, I became very ill with a deadly and rare disease of the blood, amyloidosis, which necessitated a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy. I survived. I did not go back to work and the recovery was slow. I became very depressed, having nothing to do but try to regain a normal life. I was away from the job I loved and in isolation during the long months of recovery. 

We went on vacation to our home in Cape Cod that summer and my son-in-law, who was spending the month of August there with our daughter and granddaughter, saw how distressed I was and suggested that I start writing my memoirs. He knew that during the war years, I was the age of his daughter, between four and nine years old. I could see what a different life she was having compared to my life at the same age. I told my son-in-law that I did not know where and how to start writing and he said, “Why don’t you write one sentence at a time,” which I did. I had my laptop with me and I started.

I worked many days and nights until midnight or one in the morning and I finished writing ten chapters. I have gone to many sources of information thanks to the many books that I have acquired on the topic of World War II in France. I also went to the numerous folders where I added clippings from newspapers, excerpts from events, obituaries and biographies of individuals.

I was able to get detailed information from the archives of the Département of Dordogne where we were arrested and interrogated. My daughter, Anne-Emanuelle, my niece, Jessica, my sister, Manuela, and I had returned in 1997 to the village where my family was hidden. At that time, Jessica wanted to know more about her father, Franklin, who was born in 1943 in the village under terrible circumstances. Jessica wanted to do a documentary film on her father and the circumstances of his birth. She also wanted to know why he tragically died at age 44 in 1988. We found many of the village people or their children still remembered us. Most of them still live in the same area and we were able to locate them. Jessica took photographs and she filmed interviews, which were very helpful to me when I was writing.

At first, Jessica wanted to complete the documentary film she planned to do. But she ran out of money and the material that she had accumulated remained dormant. When I started writing, she gave me all the interviews she had transferred to DVDs. She also gave me her notes. They were very helpful to me and added to the knowledge that I had from my papers, my books, and my memory.

I wrote ten chapters with many footnotes, a large appendix, and numerous photos and documents from archives in Périgueux, the capital of the Département of Dordogne. My daughter Anne-Emanuelle reread my writing several times and advised me all along. 

My niece Jessica became my chief editor, and we were on the phone and computer with each other many nights over the past year. She reviewed my errors and gave me suggestions.

My book was published in June 2013 under the title A Dimanche Prochain: A Memoir of Survival in World War II France.

This has been a labor of love and memory. The result is a book for our children, grandchildren, and the little family that we have. To my surprise, many people have bought and read my book and have given me much praise. They also say how much they learned from my experience as a child during those terrible years in France.

I wrote those pages because I feel that the present must not forget the past, however painful it still is for me, a hidden child and a survivor. My book is dedicated to the memory of my beloved brother and of my two grandmothers, one of whom committed suicide in 1941 at the age of 64 and the other who was murdered in Sobibór in 1943 at the age of 69.

©2013, Jacqueline Mendels Birn. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this website are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.