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had entered the boarding school in
1942, a few months after Dora Bruder ran away. She was about
ten years old at the time, younger than Dora. And her
memories of the Saint-Coeur-de-Marie are merely those of a child.
She had been living alone with her mother, a Jew of Polish
origin, in a street in the Goutte-d’Or district, the Rue de
Chartres, no distance from the Rue Polonceau where Cécile,
Ernest, and Dora Bruder had lived. To avoid dying of
starvation, the mother worked night shifts in a workshop that made
mittens for the Wehrmacht. The daughter went to school in
the Rue Jean-François-Lépine. At the end of 1942, because of
the roundups, the headmistress had advised the mother to
send her child into hiding, and it was doubtless she who had
given her the address of the Saint-Coeur-de-Marie.
    To disguise her origins, she was enrolled at the boarding
school under the name of “Suzanne Albert.” Shortly
afterward, she fell ill. She was sent to the infirmary. There, she saw
a doctor. After a while, since she refused to eat, it was decided
to send her home.
    She remembers everything in that boarding school as
being black—walls, classrooms, infirmary—except for the white
coifs of the nuns. It seemed more like an orphanage. Iron
discipline. No heating. Nothing to eat but root vegetables.
Boarders’ prayers took place at “six o’clock,” and I forgot to ask her
whether she meant six in the morning or six at night.
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    1. The Écoles chrétiennes de la Miséricorde ran the boarding school (the Holy
Heart of Mary).

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    D ORA SPENT THE SUMMER OF 1940 AT THE BOARDING school. On Sundays, she would certainly have gone to
visit her parents, who were still living in the hotel room at 41
Boulevard Ornano. I look at the plan of the métro and try to
retrace her route in my mind. The simplest, avoiding too many
changes, is to take a train from Nation, a station fairly near the
boarding school. Pont-de-Sèvres line. Change at
Strasbourg-Saint-Denis. Porte de Clignancourt line. She would have got
out at Simplon, just opposite the cinema and the hotel.
    Twenty years later, I often took the métro at Simplon. It was
always about ten o’clock at night. At that hour, the station was
deserted, and there were long intervals between trains.
    Late on Sunday afternoons, she too would have returned
by the same route. Did her parents go with her? Once at
Nation, she had to walk, and the quickest way to the Rue de
Picpus was via the Rue Fabre-d’Églantine.
    It was like going back to prison. The days were drawing in.
It was already dark when she crossed the courtyard, passing
the funerary monument with its imitation grotto. Above the
steps, a single lamp was lit over the door. She followed the
corridors. Chapel, for Sunday evening Benediction. Then, into
line, in silence as far as the dormitory.

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    A UTUMN HAD COME. ON 2 OCTOBER, THE PARIS
NEWSPAPERS published the decree obliging all Jews to register
at police stations for a census. A declaration by the head of
the family sufficed for all. To avoid long lines, those affected
were asked to attend in alphabetical order, on the dates
indicated in the table below  .  .  .
    The letter B fell on 4 October. On that day, Ernest Bruder
went to Clignancourt police station to fill in the census form.
But he failed to register his daughter. Everybody reporting for
the census was allotted a number, later attached to the
“family file.” This was known as the “Jewish dossier” number.
    Ernest and Cécile Bruder had the Jewish dossier number
49091. But Dora had no number of any sort.
    Perhaps Ernest Bruder felt that she was out of harm’s way,
in a free zone, at the Saint-Coeur-de-Marie boarding school,
and that it was best not to draw attention to her. Then again,
the classification “Jew” meant nothing to the
fourteen-year-old Dora. When it came down to it, what