That is the Jew! He is the drone of humanity. He is the exploiter of the labor of others. He is an enormous danger for all the nations. If one overlooks this danger, whole peoples can be destroyed. History is rich in examples that prove to us that the Jew has ruined millions of people.
—Lines from a Nazi children’s book, 1940
It was the biggest assignment Andrée had worked out yet. Six children to be placed, and preferably together. But she’d done it. She had a place for them and a willing family to claim them as cousins.
The single father would be thrilled and relieved.
Andrée would not pretend that they could do this all the time, or even frequently, for families. There were just not enough places for multiple children at one time, and the risk of travelling with more than three children at once was great. And getting worse by the day, it seemed.
But the pain in this father’s eyes as he had pleaded for help for his children had been too much to bear. This man, who had done everything in his power to raise his children alone in this horrendous time, now needed help. And the only thing he had specifically asked was that his children be kept together, if at all possible.
They had already lost their mother. He couldn’t bear to have them lose each other when they would already lose him to hiding.
And she had done it.
Not alone, of course. There had been a great number of resources for her to call upon to find the perfect place for these children, and each person she had contacted had worked with the same passion and drive she had been filled with. They had all come together to find a solution that would work for this family.
She had not been this excited to relay information in ages.
It had been only a few days since she had taken over the children’s sector, and she still felt as though she were treading water in a rough sea, but she finally had the sense that she was at least treading that water in the right direction.
Surely that was all she could do at this point.
She passed a pair of Nazi soldiers on the walk and smiled rather cheerily at them, if for no other reason than because she was on her way to thwart yet another one of their plans to destroy a family. They returned her smile with nods and smiles of their own, continuing on their way.
Someday she wouldn’t have to smile at Nazis anymore. Those were the days she worked and yearned for.
She turned at the next block and walked five houses down, advancing to the porch and ringing the bell, feeling the odd desire to dance a little while she waited. She resisted, of course. She couldn’t approach something like this being that lighthearted, no matter how relieving the solution was.
The door opened and the oldest child stood there, looking rather worried and drawn, the shadow of tears in her eyes.
Andrée sobered at once, all desire to dance having vanished. “What’s happened?”
The girl stepped back and let Andrée in without a word, just a small sniffle.
“Where’s your father?” Andrée demanded, afraid he had been taken away from these children.
“Here, Mademoiselle Fournier,” the low, resigned voice answered from within the house.
She followed the voice and found the man in the kitchen, sitting at the table, looking more dejected now than he had when he first asked for the CDJ’s help.
Andrée breathed a little more easily at seeing him there, but the relief was minimal. “What’s happened, monsieur?”
He rubbed at his brow and slid a piece of paper across the table to her.
Andrée picked it up and read quickly. It was an order to report to the authorities. She had seen these orders time and again in her work, usually when she picked up the children and took them away. Or strewn across the street in the aftermath of a razzia.
But now . . .
“When did this come?” Andrée all but growled.
“Not ten minutes ago.”
Her mind flashed to the two soldiers she had smiled at on her way here, and she suddenly wished she had tripped them instead.
She shook her head, pressing her tongue to her teeth hard. “No,” she snapped. “No.” She tore the notice in half, then in half again, and then one more time. She slammed the pieces on the table and looked at the man. “Pack a bag. For yourself and for each of the children. We’re changing the plan. You are all coming with me. Now.”
He stared at her as though she had lost her wits. “What are you talking about, Mademoiselle Fournier? We cannot possibly—”
“We can,” Andrée overrode. “And we will. I came to tell you that I had a placement for your children all together, and now I am telling you that you are going as well. We will come up with some story, put you in a neighboring house, have you work as a gardener for the nearest convent, I do not care. But neither you nor any of your children will be reporting anywhere that the Nazis order.”
He blinked, then rose from the table. “Children! Up to the rooms! We are packing!”
The next several minutes were a flurry of activity. Andrée helped the children pack a bag each, aside from the youngest two, who would share a bag, and got them changed into travel clothes as well. The father got his bag packed and explained the plan to the older children while they packed, and the entry filled quickly with the six bags.
“Food,” Andrée instructed the oldest girl. “Anything that we can travel with. Nothing excessive, just enough to get us where we’re going.”
She nodded and dashed into the kitchen.
The little ones were putting on coats now, each of them bearing stars.
Andrée shook her head. “Not those coats, darlings. Do you have any without stars?”
They stared at her in confusion, so young that they likely did not recall ever being without their stars.
“Never mind,” Andrée murmured, yanking on the stars of each and tearing them from the coats. It would leave the coats looking a little frayed, but no more than any other well-worn coat in Belgium.
It would have to do.
Moments later, they were all assembled, and Andrée looked at them. “We are going to travel as a family,” she explained in a straightforward tone. “I will pretend to be the mother of the family. We are going on holiday to the country. Just smile and act as though we have planned this whole thing. We will see to the details later. Understand?”
Everyone nodded, even the youngest two, who clearly did not understand anything.
Andrée opened the door and gestured for them to go out. She picked up the youngest as well as the bag for the little ones, then put her arm through that of the father’s. The second oldest child, a boy, closed the door to the family home, and returned to his bag at once.
Not one of them looked at the house after that.
“Let’s go,” the father announced cheerily, his voice almost convincing.
As a pack, they walked together toward the train station. The older siblings held the hands of the younger ones, apart from the one Andrée carried in her arms. If anyone thought the sight of them together was strange, they made no comments as they passed the group. No one appeared to think anything of it, which was exactly what Andrée had wanted.
What she had expected.
She could feel the stiffness and apprehension of the man whose arm she held, but he held his head high and continued to walk with them. He was the one to start the games with the children as they walked, encouraging them to find things beginning with a certain letter he called out. It had most of the children laughing as they walked, and seemed to do the trick of reminding them all that they were still a family and that they were in this together.
None of them knew Andrée all that well, but they trusted her enough to go with her without much thought. She felt the weight of that trust and would not see it misplaced. She would house this family with her own if she had to. In her parents’ home, if she must.
Luckily, she did not think that would be necessary.
A truck approached on the street, and the children clumped together, some of them whimpering.
“It’s all right,” Andrée told them, continuing to smile. “They’re not for us.”
She didn’t dare suggest what, or whom, the truck was for, given the realities of life at present, but she was confident it was not for them.
She had to be.
Sure enough, the truck rumbled on by without even slowing for their procession. Everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at that, and Andrée began to whistle a jaunty tune.
One of the girls caught on and began to sing along, or at least hum when she didn’t know the words, but it did seem to lift the spirits of the others while they continued to the station.
When they arrived, Andrée purchased the tickets for the entire group, being excessively sweet and gracious to every worker, every guest, every person. She wanted their faux family to be viewed with fondness from the very first moments.
Adorable, happy children with a mother and father, all heading out to the country on a holiday.
That was what they needed to see.
She loaded the family onto the train, got everyone situated, and settled the youngest child on her lap, encouraging her to sleep, if she could. The father took the next youngest and did the same, and only when the train moved did they speak.
“Thank you for this, Mademoiselle Fournier,” he murmured, his voice thick. “I know this is not what you had planned on, or when, and likely not what you are supposed to do.”
“What I am supposed to do,” Andrée replied softly, “is see children and families to safety. Which is exactly what I am doing now.”
He chuckled, stroking his child’s hair gently. “People don’t say no to you very often, do they, Mademoiselle Fournier?”
Andrée managed a smile herself. “Not often, no. And I don’t usually give them the chance to.”
“Well, we will be eternally grateful for that. Thank you, again.” He nodded fervently, and turned to the child on his right, speaking softly.
Andrée looked at the children across from them, all seeming to stare at nothing, just moving with the motion of the train.
Would they find themselves smiling over something genuine soon? Over something that was not forced? Over something spontaneously joyful or fun?
That was what this was all about. Putting the smiles back on the faces of children.
She needed to see the children smile again.
It wasn’t a particularly long train ride they had to take, and the family that had agreed to take in the children were perfectly understanding and willing to help the children’s father when they learned what had happened. They assured Andrée that they had the room and the means to house him as well, and that they would be more than happy to host them all for as long as needed, even without aid.
Andrée protested, of course, and promised they would receive all the aid possible for the CDJ to give.
They deserved nothing less.
Once back on the train, Andrée focused on her breathing, which was actually quite difficult to keep steady. The stresses of the day and their sudden appearance had taken a toll on her that she had not allowed herself to experience until now. It was not like her to tear up an official notice in irritation, but it had felt like the right thing to do.
It was the right thing to do.
Getting the entire family out had been the only solution.
How she would explain that to Yvonne and the others, however . . .
She shook her head as she got off the train back in Brussels. Yvonne would understand. She would comprehend exactly why Andrée had done it, and probably support her fully in it.
Or else simply not make her write up a specific report on it.
After all, the children were exactly where she had planned to place them all along.
The fact that their father was also with them was beside the point.
Andrée shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat and forced herself to let her shoulders droop as though she were relaxed. Perhaps if she made a concentrated effort to appear relaxed, she might actually relax. It would start with not being so tense, even if she had to remind herself not to be so tense.
But everything was tense these days, not just her bearing.
She was waiting to hear back on the success of smuggling a child out of the Malines camp, courtesy of Maurice Heiber, who had become an unofficial camp leader during his time there. The interventions of Queen Elisabeth herself had prevented the deportation of the Heibers, and having them in Malines had done a great deal of good.
As much as having them in any camp at all did anyone any good.
This child had been caught up in a raid before they could get him to his fostering home, and Andrée felt responsible for his being in there. He was only two, the poor thing, and a camp was no place for a child to be. Especially without parents. Though there would be some good and worthy people there to make sure he suffered as little as possible, it could not replace the safety and security of being free.
It would be difficult to smuggle adults out of the camp, given the careful stock that was taken of those interred there, but children were less tracked and recorded. And a child of two could be easily misplaced when no one was paying attention to him.
Or so she hoped.
She entered the office at Rue du Trône with a groan, a little fatigued by the unexpected excursion, but not displeased with its outcome. She had families to visit still but needed to update the notebooks before anything else.
To her surprise, Paule was at a desk, working at some notes herself.
“Solange,” Andrée greeted, smiling. “I expected you to be out.”
“And I will be shortly,” Paule told her as she dotted the end of her present record. “But we had a sudden change today.”
“Another one?” Andrée rubbed at her brow. “I just finished with a sudden change. A complicated one.”
“Well, this one was not so complicated.” Paule turned in her chair, grinning at her. “Maurice got the boy out.”
Andrée gaped for a moment, then matched her friend’s grin. “Did he? Oh, thank heavens! Where did you put him? How did it go? What location did you secure for him? Is he well? Was he hurt?”
Paule chuckled at the rapid succession of questions. “Slow down, dear Claude. You’ll wear yourself out before lunch. Maurice claimed the child was ill and had him taken to the Hôpital St. Pierre for diphtheria. I reported to the camp as the social worker to take him there.”
“Hospital?” Andrée shook her head in disbelief. “How are we going to get him out of a hospital? What is Maurice thinking?”
“Maurice is thinking,” Paule said with some severity, “that the child will die. Not in actuality, of course, but he will be made to die according to records. Then we will take him to a house.”
Andrée sank onto a chair, exhaling in a huff. “You see? This is why Maurice and Esta ought to be out here instead of in there! That is a stroke of genius!”
“It is a desperate move only made possible because he is in that camp.” Paule rose from her chair and patted Andrée on the head like a child. “You have your own genius, Claude. Don’t envy others theirs.” She moved to the coat rack and plucked hers down. “635 is going to 32. I know they said last time they were full, but not all of their students returned this term, so they have room now.”
“Fine,” Andrée said with a wave of her hand. “Be safe.”
Paule waved back and exited the office, leaving Andrée alone in the workspace.
She had so much to do. She had so much to check and examine and see to, but she wanted nothing more than to breathe and remember how to smile in moments of private solitude. To smile because of something unrelated to the success of her work.
She thought back to the sweet little singing that accompanied her whistling earlier in the day, and, though it had taken place in the course of her work, it seemed more genuine than a great many things lately.
And that sweet little singing made her smile.