Today is the 100th birthday of my
mother’s first cousin, Germaine Davys. Germaine was murdered in 1944, as she –
according to an eyewitness – tried to flee from Auschwitz. She was born in
Bucharest, had apparently been an active youth leader in the communist cell in
Bucharest before leaving for Paris to study for her doctorate in philosophy at
the Sorbonne.
In 1942, she was arrested by the French
police, who at the behest of the German authorities rounded up Jews and
delivered them to the SS for deportation to Auschwitz.
Her mother, my great-aunt Feli, told me how
for years, whenever she heard steps in the Garden, she would instinctively look
out hoping that it was Germaine who had survived and come back.
This portrait of Germaine
hung in my
great-aunt Feli’s small flat in Tel Aviv.
