TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, POET
The Second World War left of German, neatly chalked in large quietly supplied by brothers Edouard its traces behind, including Gothic letters, the chosen script and Louis Miailhe. Yet after learning at Château Palmer, whose of Hitler’s Third Reich: of the round-up in Paris of more walls carry the Gothic-lettered than 13,000 Jews in July 1942, 1 graffiti of a German soldier. the Miailhes realized that their friends In that era, communicating had to escape. Thus, one dark night, in secret tongues was a matter “Far from the fighting, now in the the brothers led the families out of of life and death – as we learn garrison, the soldier wants his reward: the château, past the German sentries from the life of the late Leo Marks, peace and quiet! The Vth.” Upon being and through the vineyards to a pair Britain’s deeply imaginative read, the lines blossom with meaning. of parked cars. With forged papers they grand master of cryptography. Suddenly our minds begin to picture drove for hours towards the Spanish events that seem unfathomable border, finally reaching the port of Words by Jeffrey T. Iverson today – a world war, Germany’s Bayonne, where the families boarded occupation of France, troops marching the final boat to Argentina, safe at last. With its slender, fairy-tale turrets, into Bordeaux, the requisitioning The Second World War was a vast Château Palmer has always emanated of Château Palmer… we imagine the and terrible tapestry, yet it was woven a timeless aura. Yet this grand-cru soldiers’ voices echoing through these from strands of human tales like estate has a distinct and tumultuous halls, the smell of the grease they used these, stories that reveal our potential history all of its own whose memory, to polish their jackboots, the looming for both astounding courage and though known by few, is inscribed threat of violence. A menace then unthinkable savagery. Alas, those who in its very walls. all too real for the owners of Château recount them best – the men and Inside, if you leave the luxurious Palmer, for at the same moment as women who lived through them – are rooms of the ground floor and ascend a German soldier chalked these lines, disappearing. History books meant the marble staircase, the steps soon behind another wall downstairs were to preserve such stories can render give way to further flights, creaking hidden two families of Italian Jews. them too dry and distant for readers and wooden, leading to the château’s Since early in the war, the Miailhe – those who never knew a world war – uppermost storey. There, the light family, co-owners of Château Palmer, to truly grasp, a tragedy of which streaming though the small windows had sheltered their exiled Italian the poet George Santayana warned reveals nothing at first but wooden friends here, sharing candlelit evenings us: “Those who cannot remember beams and a few empty barrels. of chamber music together. Then, the past are condemned to repeat it.” But then something catches your in 1941, as German officers moved To really know the past we can’t eye on the wall across the room. into the château, the four adults rely on history books alone. As Ralph Walking over, you find yourself and three children were rushed into Waldo Emerson once wrote, “Poetry faced with the most startling, almost a secret annex behind the kitchen comes nearer to vital truth than anachronistic image: five lines wall. For months they waited in fear, history.” Words written in the heart
Fern vom Kampf doch jetzt in der Garnison wünscht der Landser seinen Lohn!: Ruhe!! Die V!ten 1
A graffiti by a German soldier, in the attic of Château Palmer.
40
DECRYPTION
TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, POET
41