Welcome to my website.
Everyone has a story, and every story has sub-stories, and so on. My story has many sub-stories, but it has two main parts: first, my life in France until I was about twelve and a half years old, during part of which France was under the Nazi occupation; and second, my immigrant story in the USA thereafter. Both stories are long, and detailed in my memoir, entitled Out of the Shadows, with subtitles Survival in Nazi-Occupied France and Making a Life in America. Here, I will give you an abbreviated version of Part 1, in a short sequence of vignettes.
— Michel Jeruchim
Vignette No. 1: In the Beginning
Allow me to introduce you to my family of origin: my father Samuel, my mother Sonia, my sister Alice, nine years older than me, and my brother Simon, seven years older, then me, of course. My siblings were born in Paris, as was I, in the 14th arroundissement. You who have been to Paris are likely to know that word, but if not, it’s a subdivision of Paris, analogous in some ways with a zip code, but it’s also an administrative area, having its own “city hall”, police station, etc.
Vignette No. 2: Extended Family
I also have or had an extended family, most of whom I never met. They were siblings of my mother or father. To my knowledge, they were all Poles. My mother had five siblings. Their parents were Tessie and Isaac. The oldest was Simcha (Yiddish for Sam) and the youngest was our mother. Uncle David was the next youngest. Our mother’s given name was Syma, and I was under the impression that she changed it to Sonia in France, but Alice says that she called herself Sonia to appear more Polish (than Jewish). The other three siblings of my mother were Manya, Sarah, and Golda, about whom I know nothing.
Vignette No. 3: z Polski en France (From Poland to France) – Part 1
As you can imagine, it takes courage to leave one’s own country, even if you’re at best a second-class citizen there. But my father, who was well-read, had a sense of the political climate in France, a certain atmosphere of liberty, even if anti-Semitism also existed. France was looked upon as modern and politically liberal. According to my brother, my father often said that France was a beacon of freedom and equality: going to France was one of his fondest dreams come true.
Continue Reading Vignette Nos. 4-9
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