Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany, convinced his nation that its Aryan heritage was a superior branch of humanity and that they needed to expand for ‘Lebensraum’ (living space). On 11 April 1939 he issued the directive ‘Fall Weiss’ – the strategic, planned invasion of Poland.
The war crept up behind me like poison ivy, a slow progress that I didn’t fully recognize or understand at first. The world didn’t fully recognize it either. After the First World War, my father had told me that German society had collapsed under the burden of its defeat. When the Nazi Party took control, he told me, Hitler had made promises about the future and reminded people that they were superior beings: white, unique in intelligence, best prepared to rule over the weak . . . especially the Jews. And bit by bit, the Nazis began a slow, meticulous rearmament that was done at first in secret.
He told me that the Nazis promised a return of national pride and that Hitler orchestrated the largest industrial improvement the German nation had ever seen. I was mildly interested, but didn’t really understand too much of what it meant at the time.
One summer afternoon I was bored. The sun was hot. I felt restless, so I went looking for something to read in my father’s study. As I scanned the bookshelf, I found a six-year-old newspaper article tucked inside Thomas Mann’s novel, The Magic Mountain. It was an article about Nazis burning books. An organization called the German Student Union had decided it was important to burn books in a public ceremony; books that didn’t support the pro-Nazi movement.
The newspaper article quoted part of a speech given in May 1933 by Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany, to more than 40,000 people at a book-burning ceremony in Berlin:
The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end. The breakthrough of the German revolution has again cleared the way on the German path . . . You do well in this midnight hour to commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past.
According to the article, Thomas Mann’s novel was one of the 25,000 books committed to the flames to consume the ‘evil spirit of the past’. I was horrified to learn that students my age had burned books, novels, plays, poetry. How could it be? I thought. I looked at my father’s bookshelf, at all of those beautifully bound pages. I would have to ask my father about this. This could never happen here, in Belgium, could it?
As I refolded the article and placed it back inside the book, I heard a knock on the front door. When I opened the door there stood Nicole, our neighbour’s eight-year-old daughter.
‘Is Charlotte coming today, Mademoiselle Simone?’
‘Yes, ma petite,’ I said. ‘Yes, in a few minutes. I’ll get the carrot.’
Every Sunday afternoon, for as long as I could remember, Corporal Anthony De Waden, a soldier in the Belgian army, led a great white horse down the centre of our street, knocked on our front door, and asked, ‘Is the general ready?’ The army did not name its horses, but I called her Charlotte, and always brought her a treat.
I went back into the house for a carrot and when I returned, Nicole was spinning on the pavement in one of her made-up dances, twirling with excitement as her mother stepped out onto the street.
‘Bonjour, Simone.’
‘Bonjour, Madame Johnson.’
‘I see you and Nicole are waiting for Charlotte again?’
‘Yes, she’s a bit late, but Nicole has been entertaining me with her dancing.’ The little girl twirled once more and bowed. Madame Johnson picked up her daughter and said, ‘When we lived in America, Nicole took dancing lessons.’
‘I learned the waltz,’ the girl said as Corporal De Waden arrived with Charlotte.
He waved and asked, ‘Is the general ready?’
Madame Johnson placed Nicole gently back onto the pavement, waved hello to the corporal and retired to her home just as I heard my father call out, ‘Simone!’
‘I’ll be right back,’ I said to Corporal De Waden as I re-entered the house.
I stood in the hallway shadows as my father walked down the stairs in his uniform. His medals hung like cherries. Gold buttons held his jacket tightly against his wide chest. White gloves covered his two hands. In his right hand he held his hat.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he extended his right arm and said, ‘Mademoiselle Simone may join me outside, if she’d like.’
Major General Joseph Lyon hooked his good right arm under my left arm and escorted me out onto Avenue St Margaret, where Corporal De Waden, Nicole and Charlotte stood waiting. Each Sunday I made sure that I wore a dress, stockings, and my church leather shoes to enhance the spectacle of the general and his daughter walking towards the large, white horse.
As my father placed his black boot into the stirrup and grabbed onto the saddle, Nicole and I fed the carrot to Charlotte. Corporal De Waden made sure the horse was stable, and that my father was comfortable as he adjusted his hat and slipped the reins into his gloved hands.
Every Sunday my father rode Charlotte through Parc de Bruxelles, the largest park in the city. People waved. In response, my father nodded his head, or gave a smart salute – Long live Belgium! – as my father sat erect in his saddle, a living monument in motion, galloping between the tulips, under the great elms, a visible reminder that the reins of victory, order, and law were held in competent hands.
As my father rode down the street, the corporal gave me a jaunty salute and a wink, and then stepped into a waiting car. Nicole thanked me for the carrot and disappeared into her house.