Jean-Philippe Mitrani

My name is Hélène and 1952 was not an easy year for me. First, because my parents decided to leave Montpellier for Paris but without taking me and my big brother Michel along with them. Why, I don't know... The fact remains that I had to leave the south for Lille, in the North, where my grandmother Yaya (her true name is Alice but this is the way call her) and my grandfather Georges were living. What I disliked most was that Yaya had a preference for Michel and that Granddaddy was too grumpy. In Lille I also got very upset when pupils at the catholic school I attended told me I was... Jewish. Jewish? I didn't even know that Jews even existed. And when I knew better about them (Michel was more informed than I was), what a shock it was when I learned that my two other grandparents had been sent to a concentration during the war. A little too much for a little girl like me. A sure thing is that I will never forget the year 1952, the year when I was seven...

My name is Hélène and 1952 was not an easy year for me. First, because my parents decided to leave Montpellier for Paris but without taking me and my big brother Michel along with them. Why, I don't know... The fact remains that I had to leave the south for Lille, in the North, where my grandmother Yaya (her true name is Alice but this is the way call her) and my grandfather Georges were living. What I disliked most was that Yaya had a preference for Michel and that Granddaddy was too grumpy. In Lille I also got very upset when pupils at the catholic school I attended told me I was... Jewish. Jewish? I didn't even know that Jews even existed. And when I knew better about them (Michel was more informed than I was), what a shock it was when I learned that my two other grandparents had been sent to a concentration during the war. A little too much for a little girl like me. A sure thing is that I will never forget the year 1952, the year when I was seven...