Mâcon
October 11, 1942
Two gendarmes knocked at the door of the Koppel family. After being rescued from Vénissieux, Margot Koppel had been reunited with her grandparents and was now living with them since her parents had been sent to Germany on the trains. Margot was helping her grandmother fix breakfast when they heard the knock. The three Koppels were petrified when they saw who was on the other side of the door. The coffee began to boil and its fragrance filled the air. The toast was still warm when the policemen bound each Koppel’s hands and led the family outside. A group of neighbors had gathered to block the gendarmes’ way, but the policemen pushed through to the black van.
“Why are you doing this? What crime have we committed?” the grandfather asked, still in shirtsleeves.
“We’re just following orders,” the corporal answered tersely.
Margot was crying. At eleven, she could not understand why people hated her so much that they would chase her down across the country. She missed her parents, fully aware that they had likely already left behind the sad life they had the misfortune of calling their own. Though the echoes of the war seemed far off, little by little everyone began to feel its effects.
“God will not forgive you for this,” the grandmother said as the gendarmes forced her head down and shoved her into the van behind her husband and granddaughter. The neighbors were yelling in protest. They threw rocks and whatever they could find at the van as it drove away.
* * *
As Margot and her grandparents were being shipped to Auschwitz, Gabrielle and Maurice Teitelbaum were biking the last stretch of road to the Swiss border. At fifteen and thirteen years of age, they looked the part of lost children searching for their parents. Yet their parents had disappeared into the dark night at Vénissieux, and the Teitelbaum siblings, rescued that same night, held little hope of ever seeing them again. When they glimpsed the demarcation line of the border, they stopped to catch their breath and marvel at the sight. They had not stayed long with the family who picked them up from the Carmelite convent. The father had turned out to have a nasty, violent temper that he reserved for the Jewish children. So they had fled. They knew that their younger siblings were safe in the children’s home in Izieu. After the war, Gabrielle and Maurice would come back for them and start over at being a family.
As they resumed pedaling, they saw a car approaching with several gendarmes inside. The children increased their speed as much as they could. There were only about five hundred yards between them and freedom.
The car sped up and cut them off, sending the children flying from their bicycles. Maurice hopped up and started running, but Gabrielle was pinned underneath her bike.
“Maurice, help!” she cried.
Maurice, just a few yards from the border, turned back. The gendarmes were out of the car now and headed toward his sister with their pistols raised.
“Wait!” he screamed. He dashed toward Gabrielle and got her free, and they set off again.
But a mere lunge from a gendarme allowed him to catch Maurice by the leg. The boy fell hard against the grass. His sister kicked and bit at the gendarme, but two other policemen ran up and knocked her down. The wet grass pressed into their faces. Maurice lifted his head up enough to glance at the precious few yards that separated them from freedom. His eyes filled with furious, helpless tears. Once again the last image of his mother flashed before him: her blank, ruined stare as the bus drove her away from Vénissieux.
The policemen shut the children in the back of the car. As the vehicle drove back into France and toward the police station, Gabrielle and Maurice gripped each other’s hands. At least they were together. They prayed that would remain the case.