It was time to move on. Though he didn't fully understand the reason, his instinct told him that the family had been in this village for too long. Ten-year-old David Allouche began to gather his meagre belongings into a small, battered suitcase. He helped his six-year-old sister Martine do the same. David sensed that their father and mother would return very soon to their little hiding place in the corner of the barn.
In bygone days, there would have been much fun and laughter at the prospect of spending a gloriously hot summer's day here in rural France. But in those two short years since they had been forced to flee their comfortable Paris flat, where their father practised psychiatry, their childhood had been anything other than natural. They had learned to be silent, even in times of physical and mental pain; for fear that they would be discovered by those who supported the Vichy regime or, even worse, the occupying German army.
Joseph Allouche had stayed in practice after the initial occupation of Paris in 1940. May 10th had become etched in his mind as the day his family's freedom and that of the quarter of a million or more Jews living in France had been savagely taken. His heart had wanted him to stay, to resist. To fight this cancer which was taking a grip on his beloved France. When he and his family were forced to wear yellow badges singling them out as 'unclean' Jews he wanted to take the revolver he had hidden in his draw and shoot every German soldier he could find.
But Joseph Allouche was a loving, caring, family man whose head told him that however much he wanted to rise up against this invasion, his first duty was to protect his wife, Muriel and little David and Martine. Without them, life itself would lose its purpose. Under cover of darkness one night in late June 1940, Joseph and Muriel gathered up their children and as many clothes and personal effects as they could carry in suitcases and fled. Since that night they had heard of friends and family being rounded up by the invading Nazis and its Vichy servants in France and taken to holding camps before being taken on to Auschwitz as part of the infamous "final solution".
Earlier in 1940, Joseph had taken an active part in the FSJF (Federation of Jewish Societies in France) which had, with the aid of some communist activists and others, set up soup kitchens to provide meals for the newly impoverished community and helped the beleaguered Jewish community to continue to meet together. They had initially high hopes of forming a real resistance, but those hopes rapidly faded and many lost heart as the Vichy regime hardened its stance against Jews.
But Joseph's instincts told him that if he stayed in Paris with his family they would be doomed. And so their life changed from that of an affluent middle-class family in a wealthy Paris suburb effectively to the life of a family of gypsies with no means of support except their own guile and no shelter except for that which was taken surreptitiously or offered occasionally by people they could trust.
As David had sensed, his mother and father quietly appeared at their shelter in the barn. Joseph explained that they had to continue their journey. A friendly ear in the village had told him that some Vichy collaborators had spread the word there was a Jewish family hiding nearby. It would only be a matter of time before they were found unless they moved on. This was the pattern of their lives now.
David showed his father some eggs which he had hidden in his trouser pocket. Joseph smiled. He had explained some time ago to David that although God told them they must not steal, he was firstly a God of love. If they were hungry and the only food available was stolen food, then they would be forgiven. Just so long as they kept things in perspective and did not become greedy. Just four eggs. One for each of them. Joseph was proud of his son.
The family took up their battered suitcases and belongings and started to walk through tracks in the woodland, avoiding open spaces and being always prepared to lie low and hide at the first sign of trouble. Martine clutched her small ragged doll as tears fell silently down her little face.
"Don't fret, my little braveheart", whispered Joseph. "We'll show them how strong we are."