Read Online A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Caroline Moorehead
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knew that what she saw and heard were not things that should be repeated. From his prison camp, her uncle Pierre sent her letters covered with little drawings of birds; when he came home, he told her, he planned to become an artist in glass. Georgette loved to sing. One day she took Pierrette to hear Edith Piaf, whose songs she knew by heart and sang at the top of her cheerful voice. Living in a world of secrets and high spirits was exhilarating for the little girl.
Another household which decided to put a small child into care in order to work for the Resistance was that of the Serre sisters. Lucienne, known as Lulu, was the eldest, born in 1917; then came Jeanne—known as Carmen—in 1919, followed by Louis and Christiane. Their mother, a formidable Algerian woman who had left their Catalan father and moved from the Marseilles docks to Paris, taking all four children with her, kept the family by working as a cleaner in a concert hall. She was illiterate, having left school at the age of seven to work in the fields, but she spoke five languages fluently and she was a charming and devoted mother. She too loved music and singing, and in the evenings the little flat in rue de la Huchette rang with arias from Rossini and with flamenco dances. Madame Serre made couscous and îles flottantes , spun of egg whites and sugar, for them all.
Lulu found a job as a secretary; Carmen and Louis worked in a metal factory. Christiane, the youngest at 11, was still at school, and their mother was adamant that she do well at her studies, rewarding her efforts with presents of books of history and politics, which she could not read for herself but longed to understand. After school, the little girl would be told to read the books aloud to her mother, who would then explain their meaning to her.
On reaching Paris, Madame Serre had taken in as lodgers former fighters in the International Brigades in Spain and it was thought perfectly right and natural for Lulu and Carmen to join the JFdeF and Louis the Jeunesse Communiste. Indeed, to do anything else would have been unthinkable. As Mme Serre saw it, resistance was ‘notre affaire’, our business, and it didn’t much matter who you joined as long as you did something.
Danielle Casanova
Lulu, who was married to a young communist, Georges Thévenin, who was now a prisoner of war, had a new baby called Paul, but since food and milk were so scarce and the baby was not thriving, she sent him to live with a foster family in the countryside. It gave her more time, in the evenings, to work for Danielle. Carmen had become a liaison officer with Viva Nenni’s printing firm, and when the police seemed to be closing in, she could be seen hastening through the streets of Paris with a printing press, ink and paper loaded on to a wheelbarrow, searching for a better hiding place. When Mme Serre was arrested, the police having discovered boxes of clandestine papers in the flat, and sent by the Gestapo to the prison of the Cherche-Midi, Lulu and Carmen simply added her work for the Resistance to their own.
The Gestapo eventually decided that there was too little evidence against Mme Serre and let her go. After her release, she decided to take the two younger children down to Marseilles, paying a passeur , a guide, a kilo of dried bananas and 30 francs to take them across the demarcation line. In Marseilles, by now almost totally blind with glaucoma, she took a job with a grocer and used his horse and cart to distribute clandestine copies of L’Humanité to the dockers. For the Serres, resistance was more a state of mind than an activity. Surrounded by political convictions and a sense of duty, the four children, like Pierrette Rostaing, admired and loved their indomitable mother.
Throughout the cold winter of 1940 and early spring of 1941, more and more women of all ages were drawn into the Resistance, swelling ranks decimated by the early arrests of men, taking on tasks for which they found themselves
Another household which decided to put a small child into care in order to work for the Resistance was that of the Serre sisters. Lucienne, known as Lulu, was the eldest, born in 1917; then came Jeanne—known as Carmen—in 1919, followed by Louis and Christiane. Their mother, a formidable Algerian woman who had left their Catalan father and moved from the Marseilles docks to Paris, taking all four children with her, kept the family by working as a cleaner in a concert hall. She was illiterate, having left school at the age of seven to work in the fields, but she spoke five languages fluently and she was a charming and devoted mother. She too loved music and singing, and in the evenings the little flat in rue de la Huchette rang with arias from Rossini and with flamenco dances. Madame Serre made couscous and îles flottantes , spun of egg whites and sugar, for them all.
Lulu found a job as a secretary; Carmen and Louis worked in a metal factory. Christiane, the youngest at 11, was still at school, and their mother was adamant that she do well at her studies, rewarding her efforts with presents of books of history and politics, which she could not read for herself but longed to understand. After school, the little girl would be told to read the books aloud to her mother, who would then explain their meaning to her.
On reaching Paris, Madame Serre had taken in as lodgers former fighters in the International Brigades in Spain and it was thought perfectly right and natural for Lulu and Carmen to join the JFdeF and Louis the Jeunesse Communiste. Indeed, to do anything else would have been unthinkable. As Mme Serre saw it, resistance was ‘notre affaire’, our business, and it didn’t much matter who you joined as long as you did something.
Danielle Casanova
Lulu, who was married to a young communist, Georges Thévenin, who was now a prisoner of war, had a new baby called Paul, but since food and milk were so scarce and the baby was not thriving, she sent him to live with a foster family in the countryside. It gave her more time, in the evenings, to work for Danielle. Carmen had become a liaison officer with Viva Nenni’s printing firm, and when the police seemed to be closing in, she could be seen hastening through the streets of Paris with a printing press, ink and paper loaded on to a wheelbarrow, searching for a better hiding place. When Mme Serre was arrested, the police having discovered boxes of clandestine papers in the flat, and sent by the Gestapo to the prison of the Cherche-Midi, Lulu and Carmen simply added her work for the Resistance to their own.
The Gestapo eventually decided that there was too little evidence against Mme Serre and let her go. After her release, she decided to take the two younger children down to Marseilles, paying a passeur , a guide, a kilo of dried bananas and 30 francs to take them across the demarcation line. In Marseilles, by now almost totally blind with glaucoma, she took a job with a grocer and used his horse and cart to distribute clandestine copies of L’Humanité to the dockers. For the Serres, resistance was more a state of mind than an activity. Surrounded by political convictions and a sense of duty, the four children, like Pierrette Rostaing, admired and loved their indomitable mother.
Throughout the cold winter of 1940 and early spring of 1941, more and more women of all ages were drawn into the Resistance, swelling ranks decimated by the early arrests of men, taking on tasks for which they found themselves
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