Michael at the Invasion of France, 1943 Read online

  BOYS OF WARTIME

  Michael

  at the

  Invasion of

  France

  1943

  LAURIE CALKHOVEN

  DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  A imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  For my sisters, Kim Carbone and Leslie Maggio,

  with love and thanks

  DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group

  Published by the Penguin Group * Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. * Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) * Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England * Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) * Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) * Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India * Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) * Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa * Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Laurie Calkhoven

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Aviator’s Escape Route: Map reproduction Courtesy of The University Press of Kentucky, based on a map by John Hollingsworth, from Silent Heroes, Downed Airmen and the French Underground by Sherri Greene Otis, 2001.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Calkhoven, Laurie.

  Michael at the Invasion of France, 1943/by Laurie Calkhoven.—1st ed.

  p. cm.—(Boys of wartime)

  Summary: Michael, a thirteen-year-old French-American, watches in fear as the Nazis invade Paris, and is spurred to become part of the French Resistance movement, defying Hitler, helping American aviators to safe zones, and delivering secret documents at great risk to his own safety. Includes historical notes, glossary, and time line. Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-1-101-56027-3

  1. World War, 1939-1945—Underground movements—France—Juvenile fiction. 2. France—History—German occupation, 1940-1945—Juvenile fiction. [1. World War, 1939-1945—Underground movements—France—Fiction. 2. France—History—German occupation, 1940-1945—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C12878Mi 2012

  [Fic]—dc23 2011021634

  Published in the United States by Dial Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014 * www.penguin.com/youngreaders

  Designed by Jason Henry

  Printed in USA * First Edition

  occupation noun 1. The capture and control of an area by a military force.

  Contents

  BLITZKRIEG

  The Roundup

  The Flame of Resistance

  Verboten

  Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

  Long Live France!

  Pearl Harbor

  Good-bye, Sophie

  Nazi Checkpoint

  The Wolf

  “Are You Looking for Me?”

  Arrests!

  84 Avenue Foch

  Questioned by the Gestapo

  A Traitor Revealed

  An American Aviator

  “Newspaper, Monsieur?”

  “Bone Joor”

  The New York Dodgers

  Gestapo

  On the Run

  Uncle Henri

  Night Flight

  Étienne Michaud

  A Reward of Ten Thousand Francs

  Aunt Simone

  Nighttime Confessions

  A Bike Ride

  Climbing the Pyrenees

  The Lights of Spain

  A Final Decision

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  CHILDREN’S ROLES IN THE FRENCH RESISTANCE

  HISTORIC CHARACTERS

  TIME LINE

  GLOSSARY

  FURTHER READING

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  BLITZKRIEG

  The Second World War began on September 1, 1939, when German troops invaded Poland. They brought with them a new type of warfare—blitzkrieg. In the blitzkrieg, or lightning war, thousands of German fighter planes and bombers, fast-moving tanks, and ground troops swarmed into Poland at the same time in a massive attack. Poland was forced to surrender in less than a week.

  That was the official start of World War II, but it really began twenty years earlier at the end of World War I, when Germany was defeated by Allied powers that included Great Britain, the United States, and France. The Treaty of Versailles, which was signed at the end of the war, forced Germany to accept blame for the conflict and pay for the damage it caused.

  The German people believed the treaty was cruel and unforgiving. The government had to take drastic measures to pay for the war, and the country suffered. People grew hungry and desperate, and they looked for someone to blame.

  When a new leader came along who promised to rip up the Treaty of Versailles, the German people supported him. That leader was Adolf Hitler, the head of the Nazi political party, and he was appointed chancellor of Germany in January 1933. He quickly dismantled Germany’s democratic government and made himself the dictator of a new, fascist government—a government that insists on obedience to one powerful leader. Hitler also built up Germany’s military forces.

  Hitler believed that Germans were members of a master race and were superior to all other races. He blamed much of what was wrong in Germany on the Jews and passed laws that discriminated against them.

  Hitler’s power grew. He made partnerships with other fascist governments and took back land that Germany had lost in World War I. He marched into Austria in 1938 and made it part of the new German Empire, which he named the Third Reich. Next, he took over Czechoslovakia.

  The other European countries hoped he would stop there, but then Hitler invaded Poland. France and Great Britain declared war on Germany. Italy entered the war on the side of Hitler. One by one, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium fell under the enormous force of the Nazi blitzkrieg.

  On May 10, 1940, the Nazis entered France. Six weeks later, France asked for an armistice, or truce. The armistice divided the country in two. Hitler allowed the French to keep their own government in the southern part of the country, called the “Free Zone.” The French people in the north a
nd those along the entire Atlantic coast were trapped and controlled by Nazi troops.

  At first, the French people were too stunned and scared to do anything about the German occupation. Nazi soldiers paraded through their streets and ruled every aspect of their day-to-day lives. Punishments for breaking the rules were fast and terrible. But over time the French people found ways to band together in secret groups and resist the Nazis. That’s how the French Resistance was born.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Roundup

  July 16, 1942

  We heard them before we saw them. Whistles. Stomping feet. Running. The most surprising thing was their voices—French voices, not German, barking orders. Maman, Charlotte, and I left our small, rationed breakfast and ran to the front windows.

  Paris policemen were doing the work of the Nazis. They had sealed off the street and were leading families away—old people, children, women and men carrying suitcases. All wearing the yellow star. Even from our third-floor apartment I could see that some were crying. The policemen stared straight ahead, ignoring those who pleaded for information about where they were going and what would happen to them.

  Onlookers gawked from the sidewalk. Most seemed embarrassed, but one woman shouted encouragement. “Well done!” she yelled. “Get all the Jews out of France.”

  We watched the police go from building to building. Soon they were at ours. Boots pounded up the stairs. The metal grille of the elevator gate creaked open and closed. There was banging on a door below us.

  “The Grossmans,” Maman whispered.

  My five-year-old sister, Charlotte, looked at us with round frightened eyes. She played with Sophie Grossman, who was seven, and with Sophie’s four-year-old brother, Ernst.

  “What can we do?” I asked.

  Maman shook her head. “Come,” she said, sweeping us toward the kitchen. “Let’s not watch.”

  We stood together feeling weak and helpless. Then there was a knock on the kitchen window. My friend Jacques Dubois from upstairs stood on the fire escape holding Sophie Grossman’s hand. I opened the window and he thrust her into my arms.

  “Hide her,” he whispered.

  I looked over my shoulder at Maman. She nodded. By the time I turned back, Jacques was gone. Had he saved Ernst too? I wondered.

  Charlotte and I led Sophie, white-faced and trembling, into my bedroom. There was no need for words of instruction. Charlotte patted Sophie’s arm and then the little girl burrowed her way to the back of my closet.

  Maman nervously paced in the living room. She took Charlotte by the shoulders and peered into her face. “No one must know Sophie is here,” she said. “Do you understand? It will be very bad for all of us, especially Sophie, if anyone finds out.”

  “Jacques knows,” Charlotte said, her lower lip trembling.

  “Yes, but no one else,” Maman said. “If anyone asks, we have not seen her. Do you understand?”

  Charlotte nodded.

  “Come, let’s sit.” Maman settled on the couch for a moment and then jumped to her feet, turning to me. “Michael, do you have anything to hide?”

  My eyes widened with surprise. I didn’t think Maman knew about my secret activities. “No,” I answered.

  She sighed and then sat again.

  Seconds later, there was a knock on our door. “Open up. Police.”

  Maman smoothed her skirt, nodded to me and to Charlotte, and then crossed to the door.

  “Bonjour, Madame Durand,” a policeman said.

  “Bonjour, monsieur,” Maman answered coolly. She didn’t ask how he knew her name.

  “The Grossman children,” the policeman barked. “Have you seen them?”

  Maman opened the door wider to show him we had nothing to hide. “Are they not with their parents?”

  He didn’t answer, only consulted a paper. “They play with your daughter?”

  Maman drew herself up. A look of disgust came over her face. “Who told you that?” she demanded. “Not with Jews. My daughter does not play with Jews.” She spat the words. I couldn’t believe they were coming out of her mouth. She smoothed her skirt again and spoke more calmly. “We’ve finished our breakfast, but would you like a cup of coffee?”

  The policeman’s eyes swept across the room, settling for a moment on the photographs of Papa and my brother, Georges, in their French army uniforms. He knew our name. Did he also know that Papa was with the Free French in England? That Georges was a prisoner of war in Germany?

  Perhaps it was Maman’s offer of coffee. Perhaps it was her ugly words. For whatever reason, he didn’t search the apartment but only thanked us for our trouble and went on his way.

  I collapsed on the couch and wondered what would happen next.

  • • •

  The police pounding on the door reminded me of the first time our street was sealed off and searched. It was two years ago. That time, it was my brother, Georges, who was in hiding. The Germans found him and threw him in a truck. We never saw him again.

  It happened a few days after the Nazis marched into Paris in June of 1940. Our government had fled south, and we’d received a telegram from Papa telling us that he’d evacuated from Dunkirk with the British and was in London. His only question—where was Georges?

  Maman had wanted us all to go to America when the Germans swept through Norway, Denmark, Holland, and finally Belgium. We visited her family on Long Island, New York, every summer.

  “The children know the language. They can go to school. America needs engineers too,” she had said to Papa. “You can get work.”

  “A Frenchman’s place is with the military now,” Papa answered. “The Nazis will never get past the French army. They’ll be stopped at the border. You’ll see.”

  My eighteen-year-old brother, Georges, agreed with Papa. He joined the army too. He left Paris in his new uniform, marching confidently. He laughed at Maman’s fears. “France has the best army in the world,” he said. “We’ll have the Nazis on the run in no time.”

  But it was Georges who was on the run, not the Nazis. The Nazis smashed through the French lines and swept across France. The French army retreated. Three weeks after Georges marched away, he was back. I woke up to a city that was eerily quiet. The air was filled with thick black smoke. I opened my window and within minutes my face and hands were coated with black soot. I thought the Germans were trying to choke us with it, but I found out later that the French army had set Paris’s fuel-oil depots on fire to keep them out of enemy hands. I found Maman in the living room with Georges—his uniform torn and dirty. They were both crying. The Nazis were just a few miles from the Paris.

  The next morning, we woke to the sound of loudspeakers from German trucks warning us to be calm and orderly. Nazis swarmed all over the city. They tore down the French flag and replaced it with their ugly swastika. It hung from the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and every public building in Paris. It made me sick to see it. It made me sick to hear their ugly German voices telling us to do what we were told.

  A few days later, the Gestapo, the German secret police, sealed the streets leading to ours. They searched the entire block, apartment by apartment, and arrested the men of military age. Maman had taken Charlotte to the market to try to find some food. As soon as Georges and I realized what the Nazis were doing, he ran to hide in the cellar.

  I was alone when the Gestapo burst into our building. They didn’t wait for the elevator. I heard their boots pounding up the stairs. I nearly jumped out of my skin when they knocked on the door.

  “Open up!” a German voice demanded.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Flame of Resistance

  June 1940

  Open up!” the German voice demanded again.

  The Gestapo didn’t wait. I was reaching for the knob when the door burst
open. They barked words at me in their ugly German accents. I stammered that Georges and Papa were not here. “Georges is American,” I said. “Half American. He’s not a soldier.” In 1940, Germany was not yet at war with America. I thought that would help.

  They pushed me aside and went from room to room, searching in closets and behind doors and even under beds.

  My mouth went dry when I realized what they would find in my bedroom. Georges had thrown his uniform away, but I had pulled his army shirt out of the trash when no one was looking. I wanted to wear it. It reminded me of Papa. I thought it would make me feel strong.

  They found nothing in Georges’s room. Then they opened the door to my room. The shirt lay on my bed where I had left it, tangled in the bedclothes.

  The Gestapo turned to me with a sneer. “Where is he?” he demanded.

  I stared at Georges’s torn and dirty uniform. Why had I not thought to hide it?

  “Where is he?” the Nazi yelled.

  My voice shook. “He left Paris. He went south.”

  He grabbed my collar and pressed his face into mine. “Tell me where he is or I’ll arrest you too,” he snapped.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.”

  He threw me aside, but they kept searching. When they finished with the apartment, they went to the roof, and then to the cellar. Of course they found Georges, and they wouldn’t even let him say good-bye. I watched from a window while they shoved him into the back of a truck.

  How would I tell Papa? Georges was Papa’s only son for eight years before I came along, and he was always Papa’s favorite. They were a team, the two of them. Together they went off on adventures and camping trips and took the train to Uncle Henri’s farm to help bring in the harvest. I was never included. I was never big enough or strong enough to join in. It felt like Papa never even saw me.

  I so desperately wanted to be included. There were times when I thought I might win Papa’s favor. When I was five and joined the Boy Scouts, I was sure he would finally notice me. I stood by the front door all afternoon in my uniform, waiting for him. Finally, he opened the door. I stood straight and tall and raised my hand in the Boy Scout salute.