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September |
Germans invade Poland
Great Britain and France declare war on Nazi Germany
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Anise’s family leaves Paris because her parents fear impending war. They stay with friends in Rennes.
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June |
Anise studies at the university for a masters in German, a language that will serve her well in Ravensbruck.
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Italy declares war on France; government leaves Paris, arrives several days later in Bordeaux
Germans enter Paris, declared an Open City
Marshal Philippe Pètain forms new government
From London, Charles de Gaulle issues appeal for continued resistance to French population
French and Germans sign an armistice that divides France into two zones. Three fifths of the country is placed under German military occupation, the remainder controlled by a puppet French government set up in Vichy, about 175 miles southeast of Paris.
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July |
National Assembly at Vichy votes full powers to Pètain, who becomes head of state the next day, establishing the Vichy regime
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Marshal Philippe Pètain
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October |
Vichy passes first statute on Jews
Shortly after meeting with Adolf Hitler, Pètain announces he is embarking upon “the path of collaboration”
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November |
Anise attends the first large student demonstration after the Germans invade Paris. The students plan to lay flowers on the grave of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe. The demonstration is brutally suppressed as hundreds of German soldiers set up machine guns and shoot low into the crowd to disperse the young demonstrators. Many are injured and arrested. Anise sees a Jewish boy she knows, his hands in the air, a revolver at the back of his neck. The ominous feeling she has, that she will never see him again, proves to be true. |
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Playground off limits to Jews
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November/
December
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First clandestine newspapers appear
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June 22 |
Germany invades Soviet Union, violating the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
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Autumn |
Anise rides her bike all the way to Drancy, the infamous internment camp for Jews located outside Paris. She tries to obtain the release of the father of her classmate and gets no further than the front gate.
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Autumn |
Anise begins Resistance activities through a friend of her mother’s.
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February |
Creation of what is to become the Militia, the French equivalent of the SS (an elite para-military unit of the Nazi party).
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March |
First Jews deported from France to concentration camps
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August |
Anise is arrested the same day as her father. When she signs the prison ledger, she sees her father’s signature just before hers. She believes she is responsible for his arrest. They had never told one another they were in the Resistance and working for the same group, no less.
Anise’s mother continues to hide Jews after her daughter and husband’s arrest.
Anise spends the next 11 months in prison, first at La Santé in Paris and then at Fresnes. When she arrives at Fresnes, a prison guard tells Anise she will be executed at dawn. She spends a painful night only to discover that she is a victim of a cruel, but not uncommon, tactic used to demoralize prisoners.
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November 11 |
Germans occupy southern France, the so-called Free Zone
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