The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Josie E. Martin -- March 22, 2010
Writing sometimes resembles putting a note into a bottle and throwing it into the sea: one never really knows who will be affected by our efforts or what changes those efforts will cause in the lives of people we touch with our words. Josie Martin's example makes us pause and wonder.
My little book, Never Tell Your Name, the story of a hidden child saved by a Catholic nun during WWII is now in its 3rd printing in France. But there is more.
The nun, Soeur Saint Cybard, has finally been named "Juste Parmi les Nations", a declaration of honor for "Righteous Christians" conferred by Yad Vashem, the first Museum of the Holocaust in Jerusalem. This is no small thing since the criteria for this honor is much more rigorous these days because of the Holocaust deniers who like nothing better than to trounce on each and every claim made. More witnesses and evidence had to be found which was very difficult 65 years later.
The ceremony will be in the Fall and I will go back to the tiny village of Lesterps where I was sheltered from the Nazis by the good nun. A street will be named after her and there will be a few of her descendents, nieces and nephews, to receive Yad Vashem's medal of honor.
But here comes the real surprise: the French version of, Ne Dis Jamais Ton Nom was assigned to a high school class in nearby Angouleme. The professor/drama coach guided the students to extract, improvise, and write a play from the story! They not only had to read, but to actually grapple with the material of what happened to me, the hidden Jewish child. It will have its premiere on March 27th before the villagers and students, and then it will "go on the road" where these young people will perform it for other high schools in the Charente Limousin region.
Vive la France! I am overjoyed at this amazing development.
I couldn't ask for a more meaningful legacy than to have the story acted by and before a generation of young people who can have but a few bare inklings of WWII. How could they possibly comprehend the suffering and betrayals, and horrors their grandparents endured in those war-torn times? Two of the students have contacted me by letter, respectfully requesting if they could interview me as well. The e-mails have been flying back and forth ever since. Thanks to the French education system, they write English better than I write French, so it has become great fun. They've also sent a group photo of "Theatre Pause". To my disappointment, they don't look any more French than the Lompoc High School kids who visited Portraits of Survival Exhibit yesterday at the Jewish Federation where I also give tours. But their names are different, Mylenne Tifenn, Gwendoline, Natacha, Kevin; Celtic and Russian influences, I suppose. Where are the Jacquelines, Yvettes, Luciennes, and Jean-Marie of my days?
I feel blessed in a most surprising way. It feels like a gift; I am reminded of the poet, Holly Prado who reminds us that one never can tell what will happen when a book is sent out into the world. A bright group of kids might come along and perform your story before your very eyes!
I will be in the audience in October when we celebrate Soeur Saint Cybard and Le Theatre Pause will perform our story.