On 14 May 1940, when Winston Churchill asked the French General, Maurice Gamelin, ‘How many reserve troops do you have?’ the general turned to the new Prime Minister of Great Britain and said ‘Aucune [None].’ Churchill was dumbfounded. It never occurred to him that any commander would be so unprepared.
When I woke the next morning, I was startled to see that Hava was not in bed. She was not even in the room. Her shoes were gone. The sun was up. There was no bombing. All was silent.
I walked down the stairs and asked the concierge if she had seen Hava.
‘Yes, she left early, just after sunrise. She said to tell you she went out to look for some food and that she’ll be back shortly.’
Relieved, I returned to the room and stood at the window that looked out onto the street, hoping to see Hava. The entire world seemed to be spread out on the street that May morning. There was a slow awakening. Already hundreds of soldiers were on the move towards the sea. It was as though I was witnessing the final act of a play: everyone was prepared for the climax, but no one knew what the end would bring.
It was the end of something, the shuttering of the city, the advance of the Nazi troops. Word was that many French and British soldiers were hoping to be rescued from the shore, as England might send boats across the Channel.
All I wanted to see was Hava making her way back to the hotel. And then, there she was, in the distance, among the soldiers and refugees, walking towards the hotel among children, farmers, nuns, all moving in a circle of confusion, trying to decide the direction in which to turn, trying to decide the direction of their fate.
Then their moment of calm indecision came abruptly to an end, as over the horizon German planes materialized once again with their bombs and machine guns. When the first plane flew overhead like a deranged crow, it dropped a bomb directly into the middle of the street, as if there had been a target painted on the cobblestone square. Muffled cries rose from below. The hotel shook so violently that I had to grab the windowsill to stay on my feet. The window panes rattled loudly. A vase shattered onto the trembling floorboards. I looked out of the window and watched the building to my left catch fire.
People ran into the side streets, dodging broken glass and scattered debris. Chairs outside the restaurants were jumbled like broken cobwebs. And thousands of British and French soldiers walked, almost aimlessly, between the buildings, making their way through the chaos.
Two soldiers bent down and gently moved a motionless, blood-soaked body from the middle of the road. Another soldier helped a dishevelled and panic-stricken woman to her feet. When I opened the window, smoke and fumes swirled around me like devils trying to blind me. I rubbed my eyes, coughed, and quickly slammed the window shut. I covered my ears, trying to block out the cacophony of aeroplanes, shouting, terror.
From the hotel lobby a radio announcement blared up the stairs:
This is an urgent message from M. Reynaud, Prime Minister of France: France will soon be unable to count on the help from the Belgian army. There are fears that it must capitulate to the Nazis under the orders of its King and that the roads to Dunkirk will be open to the German dictator. Holland has already fallen and Hitler is advancing quickly through the Netherlands, a barrier we thought would hold.
In the south, the French divisions are trying to hold a new front which follows the Somme and the Alps with the hopes of joining the Maginot Line.
Dunkirk is a critical supply port for the Allies, and we are making every effort to defend this sector. However, it has been reported that our soldiers and the British soldiers are being pushed quickly from Belgium into the northern corner of France. We are doing all we can to defend our borders, but we must be prepared for the inevitable. We will keep you informed, and there may be a time in the near future when all citizens need to evacuate Dunkirk.
I raced down the stairs of the hotel; my shoes untied, my hair a mess. I had difficulty breathing. I was halfway down the steps when I nearly crashed into Hava, who was running halfway up.
‘Hava! Thank goodness! I just heard on the radio, the Belgian army is struggling. The roads to Dunkirk will be open soon to Hitler!’
‘Yes, I’ve come for you, Simone. We’ve got to get out of here.’
She had a long piece of bread in her hand. ‘Here, eat this. We need to hurry.’
She took my free hand as we both ran down the stairs together. Girls our age ought to have been running down a flight of stairs into the arms of our boyfriends. But Hava and I ran for our lives.
‘I found the bus station. There’s a bus – the last bus. It’s leaving in twenty minutes.’
It is odd how, during war, a bus schedule is still maintained. That morning Hava, in her search for food, had also looked for a way out of the city. Everyone was trying to escape. Everyone knew the Germans were advancing.
We had escaped Brussels, run from a burning train, made it through the woods and found our way to Dunkirk, and still the bullets of the Nazi guns were upon us.
‘If there’s a bus, Simone, maybe there’s still a chance we can escape!’
As odd as it may sound, it was an exhilarating moment, running with Hava as if being chased by a bull, the devil, or death. Our legs were strong. We were young, bold in our tattered, bloodstained dresses. We ran past women laden with suitcases, past shops that were shuttered, churches that were silent, and schools that were closed.
‘We can make it, Simone.’ Hava kept up my courage as we ran and ran. ‘There’s the bus station. Just a little more, Simone!’
When Hava and I reached the end of the next street, we turned right and there, surrounded by hundreds of people, was a single bus, its engine running, the driver at the wheel, the ticket agent standing at the door waving his hat in the air, trying to create order from chaos.
Hundreds and hundreds of people had had the same idea: We can leave Dunkirk by bus. The Germans are coming; the bus will take us away.
‘Hold my hand tightly, Simone!’ Hava ordered, as she began pushing her way through the throng of wild people. She didn’t stop. When she said, ‘Excuse me’, people moved aside. When she yelled, people moved aside. When she pushed with her hand in front of her, people moved aside. She just kept dragging me behind her until we were at the front of the mob trying to board the bus.
We were standing near the middle of the bus when the ticket agent called for calm: ‘There are only fifty seats! Only fifty seats! If you don’t move back, I will tell the driver to leave you all behind!’
When people heard that they would be left behind, there was a sudden roar – a combination of fear and desperation.
Then all at once, the ticket agent stepped off the bus and waved his hat at the driver. The driver closed the door to the empty bus and it began to creep forward slowly. When the crowd realized that the bus was moving, devoid of passengers, leaving them behind, there was a sudden surge forward, like a giant wave rolling towards the shore.
Hava and I found ourselves trapped between the bus and the crowd behind us. We tried to stand our ground, to keep our balance, to maintain our place at the front in the hope that the bus would not leave. But the bus advanced slowly, trying to force its way through the people, as the mob continued to shove, pushing, pressing, and propelling itself forwards.
Then, with a sudden wild yell from behind, the mob thrust itself forward once more, and I lost my footing as I was shoved from behind and fell under the bus. The front wheels rolled forward. The rear wheels moved towards me. I was on my back. I turned my head and saw the large black tyre rolling towards my arms.
That is when I heard, as if from the depth of the universe, a scream, a pleading cry: ‘Stop the bus! Stop the bus!’ It was Hava. She broke through the mob, pushed aside the ticket agent, and pounded on the door. ‘Stop the bus! Please! My sister is under the bus! Stop the bus! You’ll crush her!’
The bus stopped. The driver opened the door, stepped out, and remonstrated with Hava. ‘How dare you interfere with the bus system! How dare you try and stop my bus!’
‘Please! My sister is under the bus. You’re going to crush her!’
The driver looked at Hava, then bent down, and there he found me. I couldn’t move. The rear wheel of the bus had rolled onto my dress. That is how close I had come to being killed. One more rotation of the wheel and I would have been crushed to death. The driver rushed back onto the bus and returned with a small pocket knife. He had to cut the side of my dress so that I could slip out.
He pulled me out from under the bus. I was shaking, my knees were bleeding. Word spread quickly that a girl had nearly been killed under the bus. Hava knelt down beside me and started stroking my hair. ‘Are you okay? Are you hurt, Simone? Are you okay?’ Then she began to cry.
‘Hava, I’m fine. Yes, look, I still have both my arms.’ And with my arms I embraced Hava and held her, then I too began to cry.
‘Because you’ve had such a shock,’ the bus driver said to me, ‘you and your sister may enter the bus first.’
The bus driver helped me onto my feet, and as he led Hava and me to the bus door, the crowd stepped aside. The pushing had stopped. Panic had ceased. After we entered the bus, we walked down the aisle in a daze and took two seats to the left. Then, forty-eight other people entered calmly. Once the bus was full, the driver closed the door and began to drive away as if we were on a normal route, on a normal day. I gazed through the window. Those left behind all had the same look of despair on their faces.
Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that ‘freedom is what you do with what has been done to you’. As Hava and I sat in the bus, as the war vanished behind us with each mile, I felt more and more triumphant and free.
Hava broke off a piece of bread and offered it to me. No one spoke. The groan of the engine was enough for our nerves. We had heard enough engines, planes, bombs, and screams. The steady hum of the bus soothed us, so much so that within minutes Hava and I were asleep.