Read Tell No One Who You Are Online
Authors: Walter Buchignani
Tell No One Who You Are (10 page)
A
S THE DAYS PASSED
, Régine began to feel more uncomfortable in school. Partly because of her accent, she was considered an outsider by the other children. Her avoidance of answering their questions also alienated them. One question would always lead to another. Better not answer the first.
One day on her way back from school she was confronted by a gang of boys in a field which she and Marie had to cross. The boys chased Régine across the field and, after catching up to her, tried to pull off her clothes. Régine was terrified and began to scream. She bit and kicked and managed to run free, dragging Marie after her. When she got back to the farm Marie told the story to her parents, who seemed to think that the episode was all Régine’s doing.
Even in the schoolroom, things were not going as well as they should. Back in Brussels, Régine had sat at the front of the class because she did not want to miss anything and she had liked to be called upon to answer questions. Augusta Dubois sat in the last row and never raised her hand.
She soon had another reason for wanting to be at the back of the room. When she scratched her messy hair, a few small insects came out under her nails. She would try to drop them on the floor and crush them without any of the other students noticing she had lice.
She was so careful that even Madame Carpentier didn’t
notice. But Madame Carpentier did see something else. One morning at breakfast, she stopped as she was about to remove a dish from the table.
“What’s that on your hand?” she said, and grabbed Régine’s hand to examine it. “There are scabs all over it. Let me see your other hand. And your legs. Pull down your stockings.”
Régine stood up. The horror on Madame Carpentier’s face deepened as she found scabs everywhere on Régine. “You’ve got
la gale!”
she screamed — scabies.
Madame Carpentier was like a crazy woman as she went to work to get rid of the parasitic mites under Régine’s skin. She was terrified they would infest the rest of the family. She told Marie to stay away as she carried basins into the bedroom. It was while she was scrubbing Régine and rubbing her with a sticky yellow lotion which stank of ammonia that she found the lice in Régine’s hair.
Madame Carpentier knew what to do about that, too. She took her scissors and cut off Régine’s hair as close to the scalp as she could, then poured vinegar over her head and plunged it into a strong stinging liquid.
Twice a day for the next several days, Régine went through the scrubbing, the smearing and the dousing. Embarrassed as she was by it all, she felt a certain relief that something was being done to get rid of the itching.
Her next worry was returning to school. Everyone would guess why her hair was cut off.
She need not have worried. Three days later, Madame Carpentier told her to pack her bag. Only a month and a half had passed but the Carpentiers had had enough of Augusta Dubois. They were sending her away.
R
ÉGINE PULLED
her canvas bag from under the bed and began to fill it. It was a morning in late November, her last day in Andoumont. There was a knock on the door and Marie entered the room. She sat on the edge of the bed. “Mama says you’re going to your grandmother’s in Boitsfort. Is that true?” she asked.
“My grandmother’s?” Régine said, holding a sweater against her chest. She had not figured out her next step, but she certainly didn’t want to return to Madame André.
“Yes, I heard her on the telephone. She spoke to the people who brought you here.”
“I can’t go to my grandmother’s,” Régine said.
“Why not?”
Because I don’t have a grandmother in Boitsfort, Régine thought, but said: “Oh, she’s very old. I can’t go back there.”
“Mama says you can’t stay here anymore. I heard her on the telephone. They’re sending someone over right away.”
“Now?”
“That’s what Mama says. A man from
Aide paysanne
is coming to get you.”
Marie went downstairs and Régine resumed packing. At a time like this, it was important to think very clearly.
The first problem was lying about having a grandmother in Boitsfort. How could she explain this grandmother did not exist? Admitting that she had lied would draw further suspicion.
Questions would be asked. Anything might happen if the man from
Aide paysanne
found out she was Jewish. He might tell on her, or tell someone else who might tell the Germans.
She had two options. The first was to pretend that Madame André really was her grandmother. She could tell the man from
Aide paysanne
to take her to the house in Boitsfort. But she could not warn Madame André beforehand and did not know how the old woman would react. She might deny the whole story and tell the truth about Régine Miller.
No, Régine thought. Better to stay away from Madame André altogether.
Her second option was to say nothing at all. If the man asked about her grandmother, Régine would just stare at the floor and not say a word. He could not take her to Madame Andrés house if she did not tell him where she lived.
Yes, Régine decided. That was the best thing to do.
Then came the other problem. Where would he take her? Who would look after her from now on? Régine could think of only one person who could help her, and that was Nicole. But Régine had not heard a word from her, except for the book that had arrived in the mail without a return address. Nicole had to be very careful, Régine thought, as she packed the book with the rest of her belongings into her duffel bag.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. Marie poked her head inside the bedroom. “Mama says to come down now,” she said. “The man from
Aide paysanne
is here.”
Régine carried her bag downstairs where Madame Carpentier was standing with the man near the door. Madame Carpentier handed Régine her ration book. The man had kept his winter coat on and seemed anxious to leave right away. Monsieur Carpentier and his son Jean were nowhere to be
seen. Régine was not surprised they had not come to say good-bye.
The man stepped forward and said, “I’m going to take you home. To Boitsfort.”
He knew where she had lived before coming here.
There was nothing she could do.
Brussels, Belgium. June 1942. Régine is 10 years old. All Jews in Belgium are ordered to wear the yellow Star of David. Régine’s father in anger glues a red star of protest on the back of the yellow star, then takes her to a photographer’s studio for this formal portrait. He tells her to think of the red star and smile, that at war’s end they will return for her to be photographed again with the red star showing.
(This photograph and the other prewar photographs of the Miller family were retrieved from their flat by a neighbor after the Gestapo raided it in September 1942)
Montreal, Canada. May 1991. Régine, now 59 years old, is photographed by the Montreal Gazette as she is about to leave for New York City to attend the first international gathering of Jewish Children Hidden During World War II. More than 1,600 people from 28 countries attended “to find each other, to find themselves, to find a reason, to find some comfort, to share, to cry, to begin.” Journalist Walter Buchignani interviewed Régine at that time and felt her story should be told.
Warsaw, Poland. November, 1923. The wedding portrait of Régine’s parents, Zlata and Maurice Miller. Their son Léon was born two years later and the three left for Belgium in 1928 to give their children a better life. Régine was born on March 16, 1932. Mr. Miller earned his living sewing small leather goods at home.
Brussels, Belgium. 1937. The Miller family with Régine and Léon. Mrs. Miller became ill with cancer and started to lose weight shortly before the German invasion of Belgium in 1940. For the next two years she was in and out of hospital. She was sent home to die shortly before the Gestapo raid on her home in September 1942 when she was taken from her bed and sent to Auschwitz.
Brussels. April 1994. The second story flat at 73 rue van Lint in the Anderlecht section of Brussels where Régine’s parents were arrested by the Gestapo. The building looks today very much as it looked 50 years ago. There is still a café downstairs, the streetcar still passes and the old cobblestones have only partially been paved over.
Brussels. Summer 1938. Régine, 6 years old, walking with her father on a Brussels street. He took her to political gatherings from the age of five when she watched Solidarité members pack parcels during the Spanish Civil War.
Warsaw, Poland, 1938. Left is a photograph of Fela Mucha as she looked just before leaving Poland where her father had been a well-to-do businessman. All of her family were killed by the Nazis.
Brussels, 1942. Right is a photograph of Fela as Nicole. She has dyed her hair blond and taken an alias to avoid detection while she worked to hide Jewish children. She would meet messengers on a street corner, go to the address given, receive the child (or children) from the parents, take it to the designated hiding place, make sure it was properly cared for and, at war’s end, search for surviving relatives. The directors of Belgian institutions (schools, convents, camps)usually knew or guessed they were giving refuge to a Jewish child. But many of the private families—like the Wathieus— were not told and did not guess the identity of their ward, believing they were providing a “country stay” for a city child. Four thousand Jewish children were successfully hid in Belgium, an impressive record for a small country and one of which it is justly proud.
Liège, Belgium 1945. Sylvie and Pierre Wathieu with their dog Tommy, where Régine spent two years in hiding. The childless Wathieus were the fourth and kindest Belgians to shelter her. After the war, Régine returned to visit them annually, bringing her own children to meet them, until she immigrated to Canada in 1958.
the Wathieu farmhouse with Régine standing in front.
