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Before crossing over the Seine onto the right bank, I made my way along the Boulevard Raspaille in the 7th then over to the Rue du Bac. It’s an easy twenty minute walk. Once there, it was a walk back in time. I wanted to ponder and share with you a quick snapshot on a most remarkable person. I will call her Tante Elisette. She was not our “Tante” as in our aunt, it was just a terminology useful for children to grasp. Though she passed away many years ago, I do remember her from my days growing up in Paris. She was an old lady then and at that time, I must admit I don’t know if I was more afraid of her or just plain curious and afraid.
Operational details on the need for these visits were lost on me and I suspect on my brothers as well. Yet with some degree of regularity, usually on a Sunday we would climb into the old Peugeot and my father would get behind the wheel, light a cigarette and drive from Neuilly to the Rue du Bac on the Left Bank. My father always made sure he arrived with fresh cut flowers or a box of chocolates or sometimes just both. He was quite the charmer when he wanted to be. One does not arrive empty-handed, how simply rude. Both were guaranteed favorites and always welcomed by Tante Elisette. As I said, she lived in on the Rue du Bac in the 7th arrondissement just past the Rue de Grenelle. She lived in one those classic Haussmanian-style buildings that are familiar to many of us and which typify the grandeur of Parisian architecture; at least for me it does. Above the entrance way to the building was a blue and white ceramic sign which read “Gaz à tout les étages” – in the late 1880’s it was considered quite something to have gas on every floor and the owners were more than happy to announce it to all the world. It’s like my sign at home that says “running water call plumber!” She lived in a beautiful building and already I noticed that some brave homeowners had their flower boxes filled with one colorful spring varietal or another. It looked very nice and welcoming. Maybe Paris in the springtime was just around the corner.
Many years ago, one took the old-style elevator to the apartments, it was the kind you might see in an old movie where you would draw the screen shut allowing the elevator to climb ever so slowly from floor to the next. Through the elevator screen you could look out at the winding marble stairs and the heavily ornate iron and mahogany railing which followed you up. Looking back on all of this, it was like being transported back to some 1930’s – 1940’s black and white mystery and fully expecting to see Hepburn or Bacall and Bogey walking down the stairs. The ladies so elegant in their furs and Bogey in his classic raincoat and fedora of course. It was made for the movies except that it was all quite real.
My father knew Tante Elisette. How-when-where, I don’t know the details for certain. The two of them would sit and chat over a cup of English tea or perhaps a glass of sherry. It was as if he was just checking-up on a dear elderly friend to make sure everything was alright and nothing more. But there was history there you could sense it, I do believe. Was it strictly during the war or had the families known each other in the ’20’s and ’30’s. Perhaps she had known and visited with my grandparents at their expansive apartment on the Boulevard Suchet. My father was always tight-lipped about these sorts of things – either because children had no business being nosy or it was just a matter of professional practice. It was his métier.
Years later my father told us (I should say he answered our questions -there’s a difference and always prefaced his answer with “now why do you want to know that?” – more trade craft that way you answer what they want and not a crumb more!) Coming back, my father told us that this dear lady had been part of an effort to hide allied pilots who had parachuted out somewhere over Europe and were making their way across German lines through occupied France. Tante Elisette was one of many brave souls who decided they would “resist” by hiding allied pilots in their homes and in doing so contributed to winning the war; many payed for with their lives before a firing squad or were deported to death camps in Germany. The French Underground Railroad would move the flier’s from location to location gradually making their way down via Bordeaux or Toulouse then over mountains through Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and finally England. Supposedly, the first American flier downed over France and who used the Underground Railroad was in 1943. It’s something to ponder at the courage of one’s convictions to take part in hiding allied troops in the middle of Paris under the ever watchful eyes of local spies, neighbors and the Abwehr, the German militrary intelligence which had eyes and ears everywhere. The level of scrutiny by the Germans rose to a fever pitch as the allied air attacks increased in 1943 and 1944, yet still Tante Elisette and many others hid flier’s not only Americans of course but Polish, Canadian and English as well. It was her war and one which was played out in the shadows of Paris. A very deadly game of cat and mouse.
Checking my watch I knew I was doomed if I insisted on marching across the Seine so I took the Metro and a couple of stops later got off at the Avenue Montaigne, walked up Avenue George V and made a right onto the Rue Marbeuf. Like I said, just a petit détour.