My younger daughter asked me to return to writing blog posts about my early recollections of Paris and my family. My mother's birthday was in May, French Mother's Day is the last Sunday in May or May 30,2021, so I'll write a very old memory about my mother during the war years. In 2009 I wrote a post about my mother's childhood "Mother's Birthday" you can read it here. It was followed in 2010 with a post about her youth and work in Paris and on the French Riviera "Mother's Youth and the House of Worth" you can read it here. For many years I gave my mother a hydrangea plant for Mother's Day; this is why I show some here.
As time passes, our memories fade and the visual information on them becomes vague. But some memories seem etched in the mind for ever. There are different types of memory: short term memory, sensory memory, long term memory that includes explicit memory, semantic memory and episodic memory. Episodic memories are generally about specific moments in one's life, with sensations and emotions associated with the event. Subsets of these are autobiographical memories including "flashbulb" memories which are highy detailed vivid "snapshot" of an exceptional and often emotional circumstance. The story I'm going to relate belongs to this type of memory as I was just past 4 years old but I still remember it. I don't have many photos of that period, of course, but I have photos showing me at the time.
One thing I remember about that time is the sound of the sirens urging us to go down to underground shelters as bombers were in the area. Some afternoons we would also go to public garden squares where my mom would sew and I would play. Once in a great while we would take a bus around Paris - I liked to stand in the very back of the bus in the open air.
From the bus I could see the rare cars (as gasoline was unavailable to private people,) bicycles, bike-taxis or tandem taxis as well as horse carriages. (Click on collage to enlarge.)
Mother must have left me with a neighbor when she went food shopping as I don't remember going with her then. Queues were long.
The Germans occupied Paris from June 1940 through August 1944 and seized about 80 percent of the French food production. There were acute food shortage and malnutrition amongst children, the elderly and in large cities where people could not maintain a vegetable garden. (Only 3/4 pound of meat with bones a week per family, if you could find it.) French food rationing was more stringent than that of any other occupied country in Western Europe. Ration books were issued for everything: food, clothes, coal, etc. until 1949. I don't remember eating much as food access was not normalized until the early 1950s.
Farmers raised rabbits to sell to city folks as they reproduced quickly. Some city people even raised rabbits on their balconies or cellars. My mother had been a "première d’atelier" or head seamstress in high fashion houses in Paris. She presided over the "atelier" (workshop) overseeing up to 30 seamstress and apprentices. She was the right-hand of the designer and had to be able to translate the designs into the right fabric, cut, etc. She could work with furs as well. She had a friend, Sarah, who worked in a fur shop, not far from our apartment. We would stop there often and my mother would make rabbit vests or other small garments that she would barter with farmers for one egg a week for me. I remember the little shop well; it was about 1/2 mile down the street Rue de Rochechouard. Several years ago while in Paris I tried to find where the fur shop used to be, but it was no longer there. I think it was located in Rue Lamartine. Below are maps of Paris arrondissements or quarters. We lived at the top of the 9th, below the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, that is located at the top of Butte Montmartre, the highest point in Paris. Below, on the top right is shown in blue the 1/2 mile walking trip from our apartment to where my mother's friend worked, a 10 minute walk.
My mother's friend wore a yellow star on her coat. At the time, I did not know why. Later, of course, I read about it. In May 1942, on the advice of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler ordered all Jews in occupied Paris to wear this yellow ID badge on the left side of their coats. Two months later, on July 16-17 1942, the Nazis had the French Police make mass arrest of 13,000 foreign Jewish families in Paris and suburbs. This was called "La Rafle du Vel d'Hiv" an abbreviation of the Rafle du Vélodrome d'Hiver. The victims were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp. (In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron apologized and admitted the responsibility of the French State in this raid.) (Photos courtesy French Wikipedia.)
I don't have photos of the various capes, hats, jackets, vests and manchons (hand warmer) my mother made with the rabbit fur, but years later she made a white rabbit cape for my eldest daughter, shown below. I also found examples of rabbit vests as she used to sew (she made one for my late husband to wear outdoors.)
My memories of that time are rather vague, but I was 4 years old at the time. However, the following event I remember well. We had walked to Sarah's shop and my mother was upset. I remember she was arguing with Sarah - I don't remember the words, but Sarah kept saying no and my mother yes. Then Sarah took her coat (with the yellow star) and my mother threw it away. Then I remember trying to keep up with them as they walked up the street toward our apartment. My legs were not very long as seen in the photo below, in a dress my mother had made for me.
We proceeded to walk up to our apartment, which was on the 6th floor (without an elevator.) Then I played while Sarah and my mother went up the 7th floor where my father had his jewelry workshop (he was an artisan jeweler, diamond dealer.) I am not sure how long Sarah stayed there - days? weeks? Later I remember going up when Sarah had left. There was a small bed on the side and heavy navy blue blankets on the window to keep the lights out. In old Paris buildings the seventh floor used to have single rooms for the maids, with one or two toilets in the hall. Mother would be careful to make sure no one was around when she took food up to Sarah. In the collage below you see the entrance to the Cité on top left, next to our building, below on the left with window ajar is where my father's workshop was, then the main courtyard. We kept this apartment until the mid 1970s.
Several days later, or a couple of weeks, I am not sure, there was a loud knock on our front door. My mother opened the door and was pushed forcefully out of the way by two or three scary looking tall men. I remember they were loud with mean voices. Then my father arrived and they pushed him against the wall. They were looking for gold they said (I was told later) because my father was a jeweler. My father, an Armenian, had his business name changed at the time - he had the 3 last letters taken off, ian, that showed his Armenian name; he was stateless then. The Nazis sent many "stateless" people to concentration camps, too - they wore blue ID badges. Anyway, I remember that I wanted those men to stay away from my mum and dad and kept telling the men "I know something... Where someone is hiding..." Later my mother told me she had been petrified that they would listen to me and find Sarah upstairs. But I was annoying them and one of them walked on my feet with his heavy boots and I howled and kept howling. The men shouted at my mum to keep me quiet then they took my father away. It turns out that they were the Gestapo. My father returned a couple days later and went to bed for a while to recoup.
For those who may not know, the Gestapo, abbreviation for Geheime Staatspolizei (German: "Secret State Police",) in partnership with the Sicherheitsdienst(SD "Security Service") were responsible for rounding up the Jews throughout Europe for deportation to the extermination camps. I don't remember what they looked like but I do remember the boots that were so loud on our hardwood floor, and so painful on my feet. I think that for several days afterwards my mother had to carry me down the six flights of stairs and then down to the cellar during air raids. This is my "snapshot" memory - I'll never forget these loathsome men. Then I don't know what happened to Sarah. I think my mother's cousin worked with or had a friend in the French Resistance who had told him about the roundup of Jews in our Paris quarter. He also was able to get Sarah out of Paris and to a safe location or overseas. Both my parents never talked about it. But my father had our front door secured after that. The outside view looked the same but the inside was in metal. It was an armored door with a bar (in case the Gestapo would come back.) I found a couple of pictures that give example of the outside and inside door - our door was a double door.
All this happened a long time ago. The Nazis are gone (well, maybe not everywhere, as seen in the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, by supporters of Donald Trump.) Germany has given reparation to the Jews and the Jews have moved to Israel. Although, there again, the citizens of Israel of nowadays are not the old citizens of after the war. I have been reading articles by the late Maurice Rajsfus (1928-2020.) He was a writer, journalist and militant. He wrote numerous essays on the Jewish genocide in France, the police and politics. His parents were Jews from Poland who had moved to Paris in the 1920s. His parents were rounded up in the Vel d'Hiv rafle of 1942 and sent to Auschwitz. His elder sister and he survived as they were born in France. 75% of French Jews survived to the end of the war (many were hidden like Sarah) in contrast with countries like Poland and the Netherlands where a lot more perished. It is said that the French Police collaborated with the enemy and denounced foreign Jews to save French Jews, but I don't absolve the French Police anyway - they were not innocent. (Below, Paris under German occupation - 1939-1944.)
Maurice Rajsfus wrote several books and I'll look for them when I go to Paris, in particular the book he wrote when he returned from a trip to Israel. I'd like to read what his feelings, as a Holocaust survivor, are about current Israel. I did read a remark he made, in French, and I'll translate: "...Israel is not my problem. It was a country like any other, to visit perhaps, if the opportunity arose. Once there, I modified this assessment ... I have always distanced myself from this state - since 1948... The world looks at Israel, judges its actions, admires or condemns them. As far as I am concerned, I refuse to bear part of the burden of this Jewish country which subjects the Palestinians to conditions of oppression that some of its citizens experienced in the past, elsewhere. I don't want anyone to think I am an accomplice - to any degree - of those who consider it normal to make the Palestinians pay for the crimes commited by the Nazis."
After my mother died in 2002 I found out that she had saved more Jewish people, when I was a baby. This will be for the part 2 of this post... more to come...
"Peace has no borders." - Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel (1922-1995)
A tall decorated pine tree atop a department store has been a holiday tradition in Atlanta. It started in 1948 on the downtown Atlanta store of Rich's Department Store. It was a large 70 to 90 feet tall (21-27 m) decorated white pine that was named Rich's Great Tree. Rich's was sold to Macy's and now a Great Tree sits on their store at the Lenox Mall off Peachtree Road in Atlanta.
The lightning of the Great Tree starts the Christmas and Holidays celebrations in Atlanta. This year the 72nd annual Great Tree Lighting event was on 24 November, 2019, and featured live musical performances with a fireworks finale set to favorite music. There were more than 45,000 multi-colored lights on 490 branches of the tree, with a big red LED lighted star on top. There are many holiday light displays in and around Atlanta: Atlantic Station, Atlanta Botanical Gardens, Christmas Lights at Callanwolde (former home of one of the original founders of the Coca-Cola Company,) Light Festival at Centennial Olympic Park, Mountain Country Christmas Lights at the Stone Mountain Park, Lights of Life at the Life Chiropractic College in Marietta. There are more places and neighborhoods with twinkling lights. Below are some (courtesy the AJC.) (Click on collage to enlarge.)
I was in Georgia for about nine days, driving back to Nashville on December 21, 2019. To get into the Atlanta holiday spirit I drove to Lenox Mall where I had not been in several years. I used to work across this mall in the early 1980s and it would take me half hour from my home in Cobb County during morning and afternoon rush hours. This time, mid morning, it took me 1 hour 10 minutes! Still, as the sign said I was glad to be back in Georgia. I enjoyed walking and watching the decorated shops, the shoppers and the benches to rest my feet ... I took several pictures of a grassy reindeer before sitting next to him ... but he never spoke to me -:)
Since I was close to the Neiman Marcus store I went into it to admire their Christmas decorations which are always beautiful. First I stopped at the counter of Maison Francis Kurkdjian perfumes, mostly because of its Armenian name. Two gentlemen there told me that Francis Kurkdjian was a French Armenian perfumer of repute who had created many famous perfumes. They sprayed my wrist with a sample that did smell wonderful. I forgot its name though when they told me that the 2 ounce bottle costs $345! I thought it was safer to admire Christmas decorations ...
There were several lovely ornaments with the Neiman Marcus name. I was tempted to buy one but since they started at $50 each I passed as I don't have a tree this year anyway.
After walking all around and up and down Neiman Marcus I walked outside and sat on a leather bench facing the store where I talked to someone this time.
A couple was standing nearby. The lady went inside the store and the man came and sat next to me. We started talking. He told me he was a Japanese business man visiting Atlanta and had brought his wife to do some Christmas shopping. He added that Christmas was big in Japan. I was surprised as I thought Japan was mostly Buddhist. Yes he said, we are 99% Buddhist but we all celebrate Christmas. He added we don't celebrate it for the birth of Jesus Christ or any other religious reasons; we celebrate the mythical Santa Claus that we call Santa-san ((サンタさん .) He said they also have a Japanese equivalent of Santa Claus. It is Hoteiosho, a Buddhist monk who gives presents to well behaved children on Christmas morning. (Later I found pictures.)
He explained that the Japanese love public lights at Christmas time that they call "Illuminations." Most major cities, hotels, shops, malls, etc., display these incredible lights. Osaka he said has major light exhibits that people come from afar to enjoy.
Another thing, he added, that would surprise me is that the big Christmas dinner in Japan is traditionally a KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) dinner! Later, on a French site I found out that in the 1970s when western expats were trying to find chicken or turkey in Japan for the holidays they could only find chicken in the KFC fast food restaurants. KFC jumped on that and had a huge and aggressive (and rewarding) marketing campaign. In 2017 the KFC chains sold, between December 23 and 25, 6 billion of yens in chickens (49 million Euros or approx 55 million dollars.) Close to 4 million Japanese families get their holiday meal from KFC and have to order it months in advance or have to stand in queues for hours, the rest do go to the KFC fast food restaurants to eat. Some people even think that Colonel Sanders is Santa Claus (pronounced as Santa Kuroosu ((サンタクロース ) in Japanese.)
The other cultural difference is that Christmas Eve is considered the most romantic night of the year - like St. Valentine Day in western countries. Couples start making plans months in advance to throw a party or go out to fancy restaurants and nightclubs that are solidly booked. Hotels are booked as well and stores sell lovers' Christmas gifts while shops have displays of romantic items.
Another interesting fact he added that his American friends find unusual is that for the Japanese traditional Christmas music is not listening to Christmas carols, no, it is to listen to the "daiku." The daiku I asked? Yes, it means number nine he replied, we love Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. But he could not explain anymore as his wife was exiting Neiman Marcus with a shopping bag. I said good-bye to him and he replied "Merii Kurisumasu" (Merry Christmas in Japanese.)
It certainly had been a fascinating conversation. But I still had some shopping to do. I drove back to Nashville at the end of that week and spent Christmas at my youngest daughter's home. There was a beautiful Christmas tree there with many ornaments and gifts. The two au pairs, one Chinese the other French, enjoyed their new Nashville Predators' sweatshirts (the Predators are the professional ice hockey team based in Nashville.)
For this post I read more on the Japanese Christmas. I found out that during World War I, the first performance of Beethoven's Ninth was played by Germans held as prisoners at the Bando POW camp in Tokushima. The Japanese loved this piece of music and it has become a holiday hit. Japan goes crazy for the final movement of the symphony "Ode to Joy." In 2018 Beethoven's Ninth was performed more frequently in Japan than anywhere else in the world. It received more than 170 performances in Tokyo alone. The last two weeks of December, Suntory Hall presented 11 sold-out performances and Yomiuri Nippon Hall seven. It is so beloved by the Japanese that they sing it in choirs (even in German) all around the country. The Osaka choir called "The Number Nine Chorus" comprises close to 10,000 members who perform it every year. I found one performance on YouTube.
Many people in the US might complain that is is not right for the Japanese to celebrate Christmas in a non-Christian way. Well, millions of people in the West celebrate Christmas in a non-religious way as well; they see it as a more cultural event than a religious one. It is really a winter festival that predates many faiths. It is about family, friendship, charity, gift giving, kindness, happiness and joy. Why can't it be shared? We share the earth, the sea, the rivers and mountains, the trees and wild animals, the sky, sun and stars, even a sunset (such as the one below on Christmas Day from my daughter's window,) so why can't we share a holiday if it makes everyone happy? It does not take away from those who celebrate it in a religious manner. We should all be able to share the Yuletide for peace and goodwill to all.
And since we are just a few days to the end of the year, I wish each of you a Happy and Prosperous New Year!
Hopefully, everyone enjoyed their Christmas or any other holiday they celebrated, and the end of year festivities. Since my husband, because of his illness (Alzheimer's,) did not know what season it was I had not planned to do anything for Christmas. But then ...listening to Christmas music, reading holiday blogs and seeing all the bright lights everywhere I decided to get a little Norfolk Pine plant and decorate it. (Click on collage to enlarge.)
Our Christmas ornaments were away in boxes plus they were too large for the little tree. I found the ornaments bought a couple of years ago in St. Petersburg, Russia, but the little doll ornaments in folk dresses were too heavy. I then placed my wooden matryoshka nesting dolls in front of the tree until our cats thought they were cat toys and started pushing them around ...
I bought a 2017 cat calendar for my husband - each day a new cat! We bought some pecan pralines for us and as a treat to myself I bought some French imports from Le
Marché shop in New York: my favorite Amora mustard for my vinaigrette, some specialty hard candy "Bergamot de Nancy," some bouchée from Suchard - they are dark chocolate you can buy by the piece in French grocery stores. I could not pass up a 1980s vintage mystery paperback in a second-hand bookstore. We received some good candy and other gifts from family as well. My French blogging friend, Claude, sent me a couple of souvenir magnets, very useful hot pads and tricolor paper napkins (to be used on the 14th of July! (Bastille Day.)
So that Mitsouko, our Grey Korat, would not bother our little tree I had to place on my iPad cat videos that she loves to watch.
The decorations were not removed from our tree until yesterday, January 7th, in honor of my late father who was an Armenian Christian Orthodox. As I mentioned in earlier posts, while Christmas decorations have been taken down in the USA and many countries, other countries following the Eastern Orthodox Church, such as Armenia, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Georgia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Ethiopia, etc., celebrate Christmas on January 6 and 7th according to the Julian calendar. The Julian calendar pre-dates the more commonly observed Gregorian calendar. (I explained this in my post of January 2011, click here to read it.) Below is an Armenian Christmas card (written in English and Armenian) I received on January 6th. Next to it is the Holy Etchmiadzin, the Armenian cathedral located near Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Bottom left is Russian Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost) next to his grand-daughter Snegurochka (Snow Maiden.) (See more on them in my post of January 2015, click here to read it, although in Russia New Year is a bigger holiday.) Bottom right is a group of Ukrainian ladies celebrating Christmas in their folk dresses.
As 2016 came to a close, we were reminded of the many people we lost, such as David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, George Michael, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Gene Wilder, Prince, Robert Vaughn, Patty Duke, Merle Haggard, Leon Russell, jazz great Pete Fountain, Frank Sinatra, Jr., The Eagles' Glenn Frey, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, French actresses Michele Morgan and Nicole Courcel, French composer Pierre Boulez. In sports we lost Arnold Palmer and Muhammad Ali. We also lost writers Harper Lee, Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel, Pat Conroy, Umberto Eco, and Franco-Belgian writer Francoise Mallet-Joris. Two founding members of the rock group The Jefferson Airplanes also left us this year - guitarist Paul Kantner and vocalist Signe Anderson. The Jefferson Airplanes were a rock band from the 1960s from San Francisco who pioneered psychedelic rock. I saw them performed live in San Francisco in the mid 1960s.
We also lost Papa Wemba, a Congolese singer and musician, called "The King of Rumba Rock" - I have several of his CDs. Another terrible tragedy was the loss of 64 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, also known as The Red Army Choir. The choir was founded in 1928 by composer and conductor Alexander Alexandrov and has a worldwide reputation for excellence. The Ensemble had been dubbed "Russian's singing weapon" by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill after he assisted at their performance at the Yalta Conference in 1945. I have several of the choir's CDs, too. They have powerful voices; there are also dancers in the group. (Photos courtesy Alexandrov Ensemble.)
At the end of my 29 December 2013 post I mentioned that we had seen a Russian choir in Atlanta and attached a video of one of my favorite Russian's folksongs, The Monotonous Little Bell. I wrote down the lyrics in French and English (click here to see them.) I had noted then that it was a melancholy song - a song of remembrance. This folk song is also in the Alexandrov Ensemble's repertoire - listen to it below. Isn't it beautiful? (Photos by Alexander Shadrakova.)
Another personality we lost in 2016 was David Bald Eagle, a Lakota Chief. He passed away at age 97 after a long and extraordinary life. He was born in a traditional teepee on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation in South Dakota. He only spoke Lakota until he was 12 and at 15 he underwent the traditional Sundance ceremony. During WWII he was awarded the Silver Star for fighting at Anzio, Italy. Afterward he parachuted into the fighting in Normandy, was injured by German soldiers and saved by British commandos.
He married an English teacher and they became ballroom dancers. Unfortunately she died in a car crash. David Bald Eagle then took up skydiving and was a stunt double. He also drove race cars and was in the rodeo circuit. He toured in a Wild West Show as a rodeo performer and while in Brussels at the World's Fair in 1958 he met his second wife, Josee Kesteman, a young Belgian actress (seen in collage below.) Bald Eagle appeared in over 40 Hollywood films including "Dancing with Wolves." He achieved more than I can tell here and had an outstanding long life, well lived.
On television I watched the celebrations and fire works for the end of 2016 and the start of 2017.
On New Year's Day I made the traditional Deep South recipe to bring us a prosperous year with good health and good luck: Hoppin' John with collard greens and cornbread. Hoppin' John is made with black-eyed peas, rice and bacon or smoked turkey (I have my own recipe.) Black-eyed peas being for coins, collard greens - green being the color of money, and cornbread which is the color of gold ... we usually pour some spicy pepper sauce on the collard greens. I started making this dish for New Year way back when we moved to Georgia and have made it every New Year's Day, except one year we were in Columbus, Ohio, and I could not find fresh collard greens there and last year when I was in bed with pneumonia. The next night I was not too hungry so used the "pot liquor" or pot likker - it is the brothy juice left from cooking the collard greens. It is full of nutrients and is very tasty. Now for y'all not to believe that I have lost all my French ways, I did start the meal with a little bit of "pâté
de campagne"(country
paté) and "cornichons" (French sour pickles) and ended with a piece of Camembert cheese - both with crusty French country bread and a glass of red wine ... voila!
On January 2nd, I watched the Pasadena Rose Parade. The Armenian Rose Float presented "Fields of Dreams." It was the 2017 winner of the "Past President's Trophy" for the most creative use of floral and non-floral elements. It comprised 18,000 white and red roses and other flowers near the rendering of Mount Ararat. Other elements such as pomegranate, lentils and nuts covered the Artsakh stallion.
Now it was time to remove our old calendar and replace it with the new 2017 calendar. We went from St. Petersburg, Russia - a calendar I bought a couple of years ago there, to a new Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, calendar that our daughter Celine sent us. She moved to Pittsburgh after her July wedding and is hoping to entice us to visit her. We will but not now when it is so cold there (a blustery 14 F (-10 C) feeling like 0 F (-17.7 C) today, Sunday January 8, 2017.)
Actually today is also the coldest day in Georgia at 28 F (-2.2 C.) It snowed a bit during the night of Friday to Saturday. Saturday morning, January 7th, I took some pictures in our backyard. The snow was not deep but the surface had a sheer layer of ice on it. It was very sunny though.
It was so sunny that our cat Cody decided to jump back by the window-sill for a nap. No birds were close by although I could see by their tracks that they had tried to get some water from the frozen bird bath.
Today, from the computer room upstairs I can see the front and side of the house. It looks the same as yesterday - light snow on the ground, full sun and no traffic. People have been told to stay indoors because there is "black ice" on the roads. This is what happens when the sun hits the surface of the roads and melts the top of the snow. It ices again and becomes invisible. It is a real hazard when driving.
But in Georgia the weather warms up quickly. We will be back in the 60s F soon, and 66 F (18.8 C) is predicted within four days, on Thursday January 12, 2017. Sunshine, blue skies and a good year ahead, that is my wish for all of you. Let's look forward to 2017, hoping for less noise and more joy. We need to look and see the beauty that is all around us and also remember that we live on the same planet and need to take care of it. The French fleur de lys vintage postcard below says "On
vit de souvenirs et d’espérance" - we live from memories and hope.
