Inhaltsangabe
True story of two women, an American, and an English woman, who are friends, and roommates. They are living in Paris when Germany invades Paris, during WWII. The book is narrated thru the eyes of Ms. Shiber. The two ladies become involved in the underground movement of transporting stranded English soldiers out of occupied France, and then back to England to rejoin the war effort. The two ladies are apprehended and thrown into jail. Compelling reading of war time conditions and atrocities.
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CHAPTER TWO
Flight from Paris For the third time, Kitty hung up the telephone with an air of resignation. For the third time, the repeated muffled ringing of the phone had told her that the friend she had called was not at home. "All our friends seem to have left Paris already," she said. "We're the only ones left." "I'll call the American Embassy," I said. "After all, I'm an American. They ought to be willing to tell me if the Germans are going to besiege Paris." A startled voice answered me at the Embassy: "Are you still in town? Don't you know that the government has moved to Tours? The Germans will be in Paris in a matter of hours -not days, hours. The city is being handed over without resistance." For an instant, terror clutched at my heart. Then I hung up, and told Kitty what I had just heard. Pain and astonishment showed on her usually beautifully impassive features. "No!" she cried. "No! It can't be! It's impossible! The French give up Paris without a battle! Why, only a few days ago Premier Paul-Reynaud said they would fight before Paris and defend every building, house by house. He begged the people not to flee, he told them not to listen to rumors, he said every one should stay where he was." "And meanwhile," I said, "he and his government have gotten away to Tours. That's proof enough that Paris has been abandoned to her fate. It's a pity they wouldn't tell the people. Don't they remember what the Germans did in Vienna, Prague, Warsaw, everywhere they set foot? Of course, a lot of people have gone already, but they went without really knowing what the situation was. We've just been handed over to the Germans, a million or two of us, without even being asked how we felt about it!" I took Kitty's hand in mine, and went on: I don't intend to be handed over to the Nazis like that, Kitty! I didn't come to Paris from New York to live under German domination. Let's try to get out before they get here." Kitty was efficiency itself. A few seconds were always enough for her to make a decision. Almost before the words were out of my mouth, she was on the way to the garage to get the car. Left alone in the apartment, I moved from one room to another in hopeless despair. I pulled out a trunk and began to stuff our most valued possessions in it-the things I hated above all to leave to the Germans. But what to leave behind, what to take? The choice was difficult. Our five-room apartment had long been too small for all our things. When Kitty decided to live apart from her husband, she had taken all her belongings with her, and after my husband's death, I brought all my movable property to Paris when I joined her. In the years we had lived together since, we had accumulated antique furniture, pictures, rugs, bric-a-brac-innumerable beautiful things which we had planned to spend the rest of our lives enjoying. Our closets and drawers were crammed with clothing, furs, linen, and jewelry. I saw at once that we could not possibly take everything we treasured, and the impossibility of deciding what to leave behind soon brought me to a dead stop. I was standing before the almost empty trunk, staring into it stupidly, when the door was flung open with a bang and Kitty rushed in. "Everybody's gone, Etta!" she cried. "Even the garage owner has disappeared. The only one left there was the old watchman. It was all I could do to get him to let me take the car." She shot an accusing glance at the unfilled trunk. "My God, haven't you started packing yet?" And she dove into the closets like a whirlwind, throwing out a storm of clothing which I crammed into our bags. In a sort of blind frenzy we packed what we could, shoved everything else back into the closets, and pushed cherished personal belongings into the deepest recesses of bureau and secretary drawers, in a vague undefined hope that they would not be disturbed. Then we snatched up our three precious dogs, Winkie, Chinka and Mickey, and fled. We locked the door carefully behind us, and took the key along-though even then we had little hope that this would protect us from looting. Our trunk, containing only jewelry and our most necessary clothing, was stowed away in the rear baggage compartment. Our bags shared the car with us. Kitty twisted the ignition key, stepped on the starter, threw in the clutch-and we were off, on a journey to nowhere in particular. Just away. Away from the Germans we could almost feel hurrying after us. June 13, 1940, was a Thursday-but the deserted Paris streets through which we drove gave the city a feeling of Sunday. Hardly a car was to be seen. Only a few scattered pedestrians were in the streets. They looked nervous and apprehensive, hardly reconciled to the idea of living in Paris under German occupation. But as we turned into the Boulevard Raspail from the Boulevard St. Germain, the impression of Sunday suddenly vanished. Ahead of us, the broad avenue leading towards the southern exits from the city was jammed with vehicles. The Boulevard Raspail had become a one-way street. Both roadways, on either side of the strip of green grass in the middle, were jammed with cars heading south, running an obstacle race with one another to reach the Porte d'Orleans. Route Nationale No. 20, the broad highway which connects Paris with the south of France, was too narrow to accommodate the stream of frightened humanity which tried to flow along it to safety. In autos, on foot, on bicycles, thousands of refugees, as far ahead as we could see, blocked the road and struggled to advance. It was easy to understand now why the streets of Paris had been deserted. All Paris was on this highway.
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