Tell No One Who You Are Read online

  The names of the first three Belgian households where Régine Miller was hidden have been changed.

  Copyright © 1994 Walter Buchignani

  Copyright © 2008 Walter Buchignani and Régine Miller

  Published in Canada by Tundra Books,

  75 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2P9

  www.mcclelland.com

  Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York,

  P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901

  Library of Congress Control Number: 92-80412

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Buchignani, Walter

  Tell no one who you are: the hidden childhood of Régine Miller / by Walter Buchignani.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  eISBN: 978-1-77049-006-2

  1. Miller, Régine – Juvenile literature. 2. Belgium – History – German occupation, 1940-1945 – Biography –Juvenile literature. 3. Hidden children (Holocaust) – Belgium – Biography – Juvenile literature. 4. Jewish children –Belgium – Biography – Juvenile literature. 5. World War, 1939-1945 – Personal narratives, Jewish – Juvenile literature. I. Title.

  DS135.B43M54 2008 j940.54’81493 C2007-905454-4

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

  Cover image provided by Régine Miller

  v3.1

  Per mamma e babbo – WB

  To Fela Mucha; and to her memory – RM

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Photo Insert

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Afterword

  Appendices

  The German Deportations

  World War II in Belgium

  Bibliography

  Foreword

  THE WAR IN EUROPE had been going on for months, but for Régine Miller it started just after breakfast on a Friday in the spring of 1940. She was eight years old.

  Régine already knew a little about war. Every evening since Germany invaded Poland the previous September, she sat with her parents near the radio and listened to the news. Her parents had left Poland and come to Belgium when her older brother Léon was a baby. They lived in a district of Brussels among other Jewish immigrants, and everyone seemed to have relatives back in Poland. Whenever neighbors met on the street, they asked if anyone had news from those left behind. Régine’s grandparents on her mother’s side lived near Warsaw. She had learned the Hebrew alphabet from her father so she could write a few words in Yiddish to them, but since the war began she had not received a letter back.

  The war caused other problems. Her mother spoke of how little food there was in the market when they went shopping. “The war is doing it,” she said. Fathers of school friends were out of work “because of the war.” Her own father brought home less work than before.

  The war was blamed on Adolf Hitler and the Germans. She saw his picture on the front page of newspapers. She heard his name spoken with anger and fear on the streets and among the teachers at school. Only her father seemed not to be afraid. He was sure it would all end soon. “Hitler wants to take over the world, but he’ll be stopped. England and France will stop him.”

  In spite of all the talk, war to Régine was something bad that went on in other places. This war was in Poland. There had been a previous war in Spain.* She knew about the war there when she was five years old. She had watched her father pack boxes of food and clothes donated by Jewish families “to help the people of Spain.” This was part of his volunteer work with a group called Solidarité.

  Régine did not understand much of what went on at the Solidarité gatherings. They took place in the homes of the members and there was a lot of talking. Régine’s mother did not like Régine going there. “She’s too young to go to political meetings,” she complained. But her father said it was never too early to learn about politics and how to make the world a better place.

  Sitting beside her father, pleased to be with him, Régine could feel how serious this new, bigger war was to the members of Solidarité as they talked about what was being done to “stop Hitler and the Germans.” While reports were given on the fighting, on people killed and people rescued, she liked to watch one of the women in particular. Her name was Fela; she was pretty and sure of herself and had a nice way of speaking. Régine wanted to be like that when she grew up.

  This new war was killing people, even children. But like that other war in Spain, it went on far away. Until that Friday morning. When war started for Régine, it did not start with the sound of guns, bombs or planes. It started with the noise of her brother’s feet running up the stairs.

  * The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

  Chapter One

  IT WAS NOT YET 7 a.m. but Régine’s day had already begun. She had helped her mother clear the breakfast dishes and was getting ready for school. She set down her schoolbag on the kitchen table and filled it with exercise books. She collected her pencils, dropped them into her wooden pencil box and slid the lid closed, then placed the box in her schoolbag and fastened the leather straps.

  “Haven’t you left yet?” her father called from the other room. She could see him through the open door, bent over the black sewing machine with which he earned his living.

  “Almost ready, Papa.” She went to where he was working, leaned over and kissed him on both cheeks.

  The sewing machine and a large table took up most
of the workroom in the apartment at 73 rue Van Lint. Handbags were piled on the table ready to be taken to the company that provided the leather and paid her father for each bag he cut and sewed. In the neighborhood, Maurice Miller was known as a maroquinier, a leather worker.

  Régine stood, watching him sew a small piece of leather.

  “You still here?” he asked, looking up at her.

  “I’m leaving. I’m leaving.”

  She returned to the kitchen where her mother was wiping the table. “Why is Papa always worrying? I’m never late.” She kissed her mother, grabbed her schoolbag and was about to go out the door.

  The école primaire — elementary school — Régine attended was just a few minutes’ walk along rue Van Lint. Not like her brother’s school. Léon Miller was fourteen and had to take the tram to get to his école moyenne — secondary school. He left the apartment early and traveled with his best friend, a boy who was also called Léon. His family, the Saktregers, lived on rue Van Lint only six doors away from the Millers. They also had a son Régine’s age named Maurice who sometimes came to the Millers’ with his brother.

  On school days, by the time Régine got out of bed, her brother had already left and she would not see him until suppertime. That’s why on this particular morning she was surprised to hear his footsteps running up the hallway stairs. The apartment door flew open and she jumped out of the way to avoid being hit as he rushed in. The noise brought her mother from the kitchen and her father from his workroom.

  “Léon, what’s wrong?” her father asked.

  “No school today,” her brother said, out of breath.

  “Why? What happened?”

  “School is canceled,” he said. “All the schools are closed. And all the shops. Nothing is open.”

  Régine’s mother let out a cry and covered her mouth to stifle it. Régine looked at her father, expecting him to explain. But he stood silent with his head bowed as he had done the night before while listening to the news on the radio. His whole body seemed to tighten and he closed his eyes as if to clear his head. Régine kept looking at him. Before that day, if you had asked her about the war, she would have tossed her red hair and said it would soon be over. Her father had told her so. Now hearing her mother cry out and seeing the look on her father’s face, for the first time she felt frightened.

  It was May 10, 1940, the date history would record as the day the Germans invaded Belgium.

  Chapter Two

  THAT FRIDAY not only marked the beginning of war for Régine, it also divided the “before” and “after” of her life. It was only later when she thought back to “before the war” that she realized her family had been poor. She had never felt poor.

  Sana Moszek Miller and his wife, Zlata Miller, had left Poland and come to Belgium because they dreamed of a better life, if not for themselves, at least for their children. They believed the way to that better life was through education. They wanted their children to be good Belgians and even though Yiddish was the language of their mother, Mr. Miller always spoke French to the children. He even took the French version of his name, Maurice.

  Léon and Régine were never allowed to stay home from school unless they were very ill. Sometimes they had to help their father late into the night because there was more work than he could finish, but they had to do their lessons first and were not allowed to skip school the next day.

  Her father worked long days, starting before Régine left for school in the morning and continuing long after she returned in the afternoon. When the others helped, they stood at the long cutting table in the workroom. Léon and Mrs. Miller cut out the leather patterns with huge scissors while Régine scooped glue out of a jar and applied it to the pieces. Her father did all the sewing, bent over his machine and working the treadle, his face inches away from the needle.

  There were only two other rooms in their second-floor flat. The windows looked onto the cobblestone street. In summer it was stuffy and, when the windows were open, noisy from the trams passing. Downstairs was a café and the sounds of comings and goings also drifted upstairs.

  Régine slept in the same room as her parents, in the crib she had used as a baby. She could not stretch her legs in it; she slept on her side, her knees bent to her chest. She had done this for so long, she found nothing strange or uncomfortable about it. Next to her parents’ bed was another small sewing machine where her mother did the family mending.

  Léon did not have a proper bed, either. He slept on a sofa in the main room that was both a living room and a kitchen with two stoves. A gas stove was used for cooking, and in the winter Léon had the job of feeding the heating stove. He carried the heavy shovelfuls of coal from where it was stored out in the hall in a closet under the stairs that led to the third floor.

  He did not seem to need much sleep. When he finished his homework, if he didn’t have to help in the workroom, he liked to go out with the other Léon and their friends. Régine would listen from her crib for him to come in, see the light go on under the door to the main room and know that he was reading the library books he brought home.

  The most imposing piece of furniture in the main room was a wooden radio with large, round dials and four short legs. Régine’s mother turned on the radio first thing in the morning and shut it off before going to bed at night. The music seemed to help her now that she was ill and went out only to shop for food.

  Régine had loved to go shopping with her mother before she got sick. At the fishmonger’s, Mrs. Miller prodded the fish and studied the eyes to decide if it was fresh enough. She was equally fussy with chickens, which she brought home from the market freshly killed according to Jewish law. She plucked the feathers and held the chicken over a flame to burn off ends that clung to the skin. Then came the ritual of soaking it in salted water to get rid of all traces of blood. The neck was stuffed before roasting in the oven, and Régine liked eating that part best.

  Her mother still shopped carefully, but lately she seemed in a hurry to get home and lie down to rest before starting supper. Régine liked to help. She learned to crush almonds with a mortar and pestle for apple cake and make dough for noodles. The dough had to be stretched over a white tablecloth until it was paper thin. It was left to dry and later cut into narrow strips, ready to be cooked and eaten in chicken soup.

  While they worked together her mother asked how school had gone that day. She wanted all the details, not just what she had learned, what her marks were, but what songs they had sung and whether they had played hopscotch at recess. She told Régine she was lucky to have such a good teacher as Mademoiselle Descotte. But Régine knew that.

  Before getting sick her mother had been very busy and popular with the other Jewish mothers in the neighborhood. They asked her how to cook certain dishes, what to give a sick child and sometimes even asked her to help settle an argument. She seemed to have time for everyone then. But now she was always tired.

  On that Friday morning when Léon ran in, her mother started to tremble after crying out. She looked about to faint and Mr. Miller and Léon helped her onto a chair so she could sit down.

  When she was able to speak, she put out her hand to her husband. “Maurice,” she said, “you should have gone to England when I begged you.”

  Régine knew what came next. Her father had been sure the war would end before it got to Belgium, but her mother had always been afraid. When the Germans invaded Poland, her mother had pleaded with him to go to England where her brother Shlomo lived. “Belgium is a small country,” she had argued. “The Germans came here in the last war. If they do it again, they will take you away.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” her father said each time the argument started.

  “But it’s you they’ll take. They want men to work for them. They won’t touch me or the children.”

  That morning, as Régine and Léon stood watching, her mother tried again. She was almost in tears as she begged: “It’s not too late. Why don’t you go, now? I hear people ha
ve been escaping through France in the last few days. Please.”

  Her father tried to sound his old calm self: “I’m staying with you and I’m staying to fight. If everybody leaves who will fight them?”

  “Fight them?” her mother cried. “What can you do? You and your Solidarité friends. You think you help with those tracts urging people to resist the Germans? You think you can stop them by blowing up a few bridges and rail lines? And if they catch you, they’ll …” She broke into sobs and could not finish.

  Her father put his arm around her mother and his voice was gentle. “It’s no use, Zlata. I’m staying with you, no matter what.”

  Chapter Three

  A FEW DAYS after the invasion, Régine saw German soldiers for the first time. She watched, standing at the apartment window with her father and mother, as they marched past, parading through the city, showing off their power.

  “What will they do to us?” Régine asked.

  Her father pursed his lips together and did not answer.

  Everyone seemed to talk less. The schools reopened, but the teachers spoke to each other in whispers, as if they did not want to be overheard.

  As soon as the shops opened, there was a rush on them. Housewives bought as much as they could carry, as if expecting that the following day there would be no food left to buy. Often there was very little, only rutabagas. Régine’s mother brought home pain d’épice, a kind of honey cake with ginger that would not easily go stale. And rutabagas. Coffee, loved by everyone in Belgium, including her parents, was no longer to be had. Instead the family drank a substitute made from chicory and malt. The only plentiful food was rutabagas, and Régine hated the vegetable.

  She had always been a finicky eater, but as the war went on she stopped being finicky. For the first time in her life, she felt hunger. Léon suffered even more. He was a teenager and always hungry. The small rations became smaller. Before the war, the baker nearby sold all kinds of delicious bread. Now the only bread was gray and sticky. The once plentiful red potatoes that used to arrive by train from Poland were difficult to come by, and the few that turned up in the shops were often rotten. Meat rations were tiny and had to last for an entire week. Then, in October, the Germans outlawed the killing of animals according to religious laws. “It’s bad enough we have so little meat,” Mrs. Miller said. “Now we can’t have it kosher.”