Hammberger, Feldw, 23599 A.[18]

[18] O.U. 1 July 1941. Comrades. We lived with the Epstein family for a long time and got to know them and they are a very respectable and obliging family. We therefore ask you to treat them accordingly. Heil Hitler!

I still don't know where my wife is. The children are in good health, as for me, I am still standing.

Thank you for everything, my dear friend. Perhaps it would be helpful if you could discuss all this with the Count de Chambrun[19] and Morand. Best wishes, Michel.

[19] Count René de Chambrun was a lawyer and son-in-law of Pierre Laval, whose only daughter, Josée, he married. (Editor)

27 July 1942

? to Michel Epstein

Are there in your wife's works, apart from the scene in Vin de Solitude, passages from novels, short stories or articles that could be pointed out as clearly anti-Soviet?

27 July 1942

Michel Epstein to André Sabatier

I received your letter of Saturday today. Thank you so very much for all your efforts. I know that you are doing and will do everything you can to help me. I have patience and courage. I just pray that my wife has the physical strength necessary to bear this blow! What is very difficult is that she must be horribly worried about the children and me, and I have no way of communicating with her since I don't even know where she is.

Please find enclosed a letter which I insist be sent to the German ambassador as a matter of URGENCY. If you could find anyone who could approach him personally and give it to him (Count de Chambrun perhaps, who, I believe, is prepared to take an interest in my wife), that would be perfect. But if you cannot find anyone able to do it QUICKLY, would you be so kind as to take it to the embassy or just post it. Thank you in advance. Of course, if this letter will upset the steps already taken, then tear it up, otherwise, I really wish it to be sent.

I fear the same thing might happen to me. In order to avoid material concerns, could you send Mlle Dumot an advance on her monthly payments for '43? I am afraid for the children.

27 July 1942

Michel Epstein to the German ambassador, Otto Abetz

I know that I am taking a great liberty in writing to you personally.

Nevertheless, I am taking this step because I believe that you alone can save my wife, my only hope lies with you.

Allow me therefore to explain to you the following: before leaving Issy, the German soldiers who were occupying the village gave me, in gratitude for the way we treated them, a letter which reads:

O.U. den I, VII, 41

Kameraden. Wir haben längere Zeit mit der Familie Epstein zusam-mengelebt und diese sehr anständige und zuvorkommende Familie kennen-gelernt. Wir bitten Euch daher, sie damitsprechend zu behandeln. Heil Hitler!

Hammberger, Feldw. 23599 A.[20]

[20] For translation, see note 18 on p. 369.

And yet, on the 13 July my wife was arrested. She was taken to the concentration camp at Pithiviers (Loiret) and, from there, sent somewhere else, but I do not know where. This arrest, I was told, was a result of general instructions given by the occupying authorities regarding the Jews.

My wife, Madame M. Epstein, is a very famous novelist, I. Némirovsky. Her books have been translated in a great many countries and two of them at least-David Golder and Le Bal-in Germany. My wife was born in Kiev (Russia) on 11 February 1903. Her father was an important banker. My father was President of the Syndicat des Banques Russes (Union of Russian Banks) and Executive Director of the Bank of Commerce of Azov-Don. Both our families lost considerable fortunes in Russia; my own father was arrested by the Bolsheviks and imprisoned in the Saint-Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg. We had the greatest of difficulty in finally managing to flee Russia in 1919 and we then took refuge in France, where we have lived ever since. All this must satisfy you that we feel nothing but hatred for the Bolshevik regime.

In France, not a single member of our family has ever been involved in politics. I was a bank manager and as for my wife, she became a highly esteemed novelist. In none of her books (which moreover have not been banned by the occupying authorities) will you find a single word against Germany and, even though my wife is of Jewish descent, she does not speak of the Jews with any affection whatsover in her works. My wife's grandparents, as well as my own, were Jewish; our parents practised no religion; as for us, we are Catholic and so are our children who were born in Paris and are French.

If I may also take the liberty of pointing out to you that my wife has always avoided belonging to any political party, that she has never received special treatment from any government either left-wing or right-wing, and that the newspaper she contributed to as a novelist, Gringoire, whose director is H. de Carbuccia, has certainly never been well-disposed towards either the Jews or the Communists.

Finally, for many years my wife has been suffering from chronic asthma (her doctor, Professor Vallery-Radot, can attest to this) and internment in a concentration camp would be fatal for her.

I know, Ambassador, that you are one of the most eminent men in your country's government. I am convinced you are also a just man. And it seems to me both unjust and illogical that the Germans should imprison a woman who, despite being of Jewish descent, has no sympathy whatsoever-all her books prove this-either for Judaism or the Bolshevik regime.

28 July 1942

André Sabatier to Count de Chambrun

I have received this very moment a letter from the husband of the author of David Golder, a copy of which I have taken the liberty of enclosing for you. This letter contains details which might prove useful. Let us hope that they will allow you to bring this matter to a positive conclusion. I thank you in advance for everything you are trying to do for our friend.

28 July 1942

André Sabatier to Mme Paul Morand[21]

I wrote to Monsieur Epstein yesterday saying what we had agreed, thinking it would be better to write than to send a telegram. This morning I received his letter in the post. It clearly contains some interesting details.

[21] Paul Morand was a French writer and diplomat who retained his post under the Vichy government. In 1958 he was refused entry into the Académie Française but was eventually admitted in 1968.

28 July 1942

Michel Epstein to André Sabatier

I hope you received the letter I wrote yesterday and that the one intended for the ambassador has been given to him, either by Chambrun or by someone else, or directly by you. Thank you in advance.

In reply to your note of yesterday: I think that in David Golder, the chapter where David does a deal with the Bolsheviks to buy oil rights cannot be seen as very kindly towards them, but I don't have a copy of D. Golder here, could you check? You have a copy of the manuscript of Les Echelles du Levant,[22] which appeared in Gringoire, and which is more savage towards the hero, a charlatan doctor who comes from the Levantine, but I can't remember whether my wife specifically made him Jewish. I think so.

[22] This novel appeared in instalments in Gringoire beginning in May 1939. It was published in 2005 by Editions Denoël under the title Le Maître des Ames.

I see in chapter XXV of her biography of Chekhov, the following sentence: "The short story 'Ward 6' contributed greatly to Chekhov's fame in Russia; because of it, the USSR claimed him as their own and stated that, had he lived, he would have joined the Marxists. The posthumous fame of a writer is filled with such surprises…" Unfortunately, I can't find anything else and this is very little.