She smiles. “It is all right. I speak some English. I am Carole Didot. Would you like to come with me?”
I nod and follow her through the rest of the exhibit, where we walk briskly past another series of videos, and more walls full of documents and information. She leads me out through a hall filled with photos of children; they go on as far as the eye can see. I stop and lean forward to read one of the captions at eye level.
Rachel Fournier, 1937–1942, it reads. In the photograph, a dark-haired little girl grins into the camera, her hair done up in pigtails tied with ribbons. She’s clutching a big rubber ball and smiling directly at the camera.
“These are the French children whose lives were lost,” Carole says softly.
“My God,” I murmur. This hall hits me even harder than the chilling photographs of death I’d seen in the other room. As I gaze dazedly at the photos, I can’t help but think of my own daughter. Had fate placed us in a different country, in a different time, she could have been one of these little girls on the wall.
“Nearly eleven thousand children from France died in the Shoah,” Carole said, reading my expression. “This hall always reminds me of all that could have been and never was.”
Her words ring in my ears as I follow her to an elevator, where she pushes the button for the fourth floor. We ride up in silence as I think about Mamie’s family and all that was lost.
Carole leads me into a modern office with two chairs facing a desk piled high in books and papers. Out the window, I can see a church tower over a series of apartments, and on the wall are pictures drawn by children that say Mama. Carole gestures to one of the chairs and takes a seat behind her computer.
“So what makes you come all the way to Paris?” she asks as she jiggles her mouse and hits a few keys on her keyboard.
I briefly tell her Mamie’s story and that I think the names she’s given me were family members who’d been lost in the Holocaust. I explain that I’ve found all but Alain, for whom no records seem to exist. I also explain that I can’t figure out what happened to my grandmother; there’s no record of a Rose Picard in the deportation documents either.
“But your grandmother, you say she escaped Paris before arrest, no?” Carole asks.
I nod. “Yes. I mean, I think so. She’s never explained. And now she has Alzheimer’s.”
Carole shakes her head. “So the past, it is nearly lost for her.”
I nod. “I just want to know what happened. She wanted me to find out what became of her family. If I go home without an answer about Alain, I’m afraid it will break her heart.”
“I am sorry we cannot be more help, but if he is not in the records, he is not in the records.”
My heart sinks. “So that’s it?” I ask in a small voice. “I may never find out what happened to him?”
Carole hesitates. “There is one more chance,” she says.
“There is?”
“There is a man,” she says, but her voice trails off and she doesn’t finish her thought. Instead, she flips through an old-fashioned Rolodex, pauses, and picks up her handset to dial a number. After a moment, she says something in rapid French, glances at me, says something else, and then hangs up.
“Voilà,” she says. She jots something down on a piece of paper. “Take this.”
I take the piece of paper from her and glance down to see a name, an address, and a series of four numbers and the letter A.
“This is Olivier Berr,” she says. She smiles slightly. “He is a legend.”
I look at her questioningly.
“He has ninety-three years,” she goes on. “He is a survivor of the Shoah, and he has made it his life’s work to make a listing of all the Jewish people of Paris who were lost, and all those who returned.”
I stare in disbelief. “His lists are different than yours?”
“Oui,” she replies. “They are from the people themselves, the people who were in the camps, the people who came to the synagogues after the war, the people who walk around still with the scars of loss. Our records are the official ones. His records are the verbal ones, which sometimes are more revealing.”
“Olivier Berr,” I repeat softly.
“He says you may come now. The number there is the code to his front door. He says to come in.”
I nod, my heart thudding. “How do I get there?”
She gives me walking directions, explaining that it may take less time to go there by foot than to find a taxi. “Plus, you will see the Louvre and cross the Seine at the Pont des Arts,” she says. “You should see some of Paris on your mission.”