Page 129 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SUMMER 2019 PORTUGAL

valise, as I came to call it, save that it held
family documents that might prove useful one
day. My brother and I understood at a young
age that asking about our Jewish ancestors,
my mother's Alsatian grandparents and great-
grandparents was taboo, a subject too painful
to bring up. Thus, the petite valise remained
closed for decades.
I was compelled to reach for it after watch-
ing a C-SPAN special on the 75th Anniversary
of the Liberation of Auschwitz. My impetus
for my writing a second memoir lay in the fi-
nal words of the speaker, an Auschwitz sur-
vivor named Marian Turski: "We need an
eleventh commandment," he proclaimed as he
stood in front of a crematorium at the infa-
mous death camp. "Thou shall not remain in-
different." The latter statement electrified me.
That is how, a week before the COVID lock-
down, I felt ready to examine the contents of
the petite valise. I set it on the rug in our bed-
room, and lifted the lid. The rusty lock broke
free allowing me to lift up the worn black
leather top. To my surprise, a small medical
notebook came into view. I hesitated a few
seconds before carefully leafing through what
turned out to be Dr. Prosper Lévy-Neymarck's
handwritten journal chronicling the advance
of the Nazis from April to December 1940. I
took my time examining faded photographs
and documents showing my great-grandpar-
ents at various stages of their lives. I was as-
tounded to find Prosper's military record,
which showed he had twice been awarded the
Légion d'Honneur, a prestigious French mili-
tary medal. But the next family treasure—two
little notebooks filled with Blanche's hand-

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