1946: When four letters tell a bittersweet story of post-war life

    TLDR: Because I am nothing if not wordy, verbose, and even garrulous, you can totally skip my commentary and just read the translations of the four letters, which aren't long.  They are in  courier typeface, and the story will emerge, though with less historical and familial context.

An excerpt from the 4th letter in the original French

    When my grandfather demobilized in the fall of 1944, he went to work for an organization called the Vercors Reconstruction Service, where he held several roles: as a civil and structural engineer helping to rebuild and restore buildings damaged in the war (he focused on Valence), as the Valence-area liason to the Vand also as a personal assistant to his former commander, who was in charge of the FFI Social Services (a veterans association of sorts) for the area.

    It is due to this latter position that approximately 50 letters to, from, about, or involving my grandfather ended up in the Drôme Department archives.  These letters tell stories of tragedies, of the struggles to rebuild French life, of searching for jobs and finding food for demobilized maquisards, of court cases for murderers, and of building homes for orphaned children, all while life went on as it must. 

    It's something of a paradox - they were doing such mundane things, yet ... it was fascinating, and in a way, beautiful.  There is something about fighting in a war that turns strangers into family. The 4th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Drôme FFI was no exception.  They may not have been in an airborne division like the famous American 101st, but they became a band of brothers* nonetheless.

    This particular batch of letters all surrounded a man named Lt. Bergougnoux, who was about to be demobilized, and needed a job.  Unlike most letters, which are only one half of a conversation, we have the responses, and they make a story all by themselves.  They also demonstrate why, when it's done well, the epistolary format can be so effective in literature.

    I love it when I come across things like this. It's like finding a diamond ring while building sandcastles on the beach.

    The first two letters were from my grandfather, one to his commanding officer that enclosed another letter that Dr. Planas could send on if he agreed with my my grandfather's suggestion (Grandpa had a habit of doing that - using that same method, he smuggled a letter out of Nazi-occupied Belgium to his brother-in-law in the USA after his first daughter was born in 1940).

January 15, 1946

Doctor PLANAS, Etoile-sur-Rhône

RE: Employment – BERGOUGNOUX.  

4th Company - AL/JD 3063

My Commander,

     Lieutenant BERGOUGNOUX is looking for work, as he will soon be demobilized. I see no possibility of using him in reconstruction, but his situation weighs heavily on my heart.

    I wonder whether he could be usefully employed at the children’s village of Dieulefit. Enclosed, you will find the letter I would like to send to ROUX on this matter. If you find my idea sound, please pass it on, and possibly add a note from yourself.

     Do you see any other ways to assist Lieutenant BERGOUGNOUX?

     Looking forward to your reply, please accept, my commander, my complete dedication.

Enclosure: 1 letter

 

    I had to look up what a children's village was - it was a cross between an orphanage and a foster home, a place for children who could not live at home to be raised in a home-like environment.  After the war, there were many orphaned children, and I assume they were establishing this children's village in response to that. The system is still in use today, but is more focused on at-risk youth.

    This letter reveals a few things about my grandfather. In January 1946, he was still primarily focused on reconstruction work. And despite working full-time and having a wife, a school-aged daughter and a newborn at home, he still made time to help a fellow maquisard find a job.  

    Here is the letter he enclosed, written on the same day:

January 15, 1946

Mr. ROUX, Director of the Children’s Village, Dieulefit

RE: Employment – BERGOUGNOUX  

4th Company - AL/JD 3064

Dear Friend,

     I was very pleased to learn of your appointment as head of the new children’s village in Dieulefit, and I sincerely congratulate you.

     I assume you know Lieutenant BERGOUGNOUX, the very kind and dedicated officer from the F.F.I. Social Services. He will soon be demobilized and is seeking employment. We all have a duty to assist him as much as possible, since his family situation (his wife’s illness) is difficult, and he risks being left without means.

     Lieutenant BERGOUGNOUX holds a degree in literature and has long been devoted to social work.  Couldn’t you consider employing him at the children’s village?

     Awaiting your reply, and thanking you in advance, please accept my dear friend, my best regards.

     In this congratulatory letter, we learn that Mr. Roux (who had been one of Dr. Planas's officers in the 4th company, so my grandfather would have known him well) had been promoted, or at least, given more responsibility. We learned more about Lt. Bergougnoux - he had a sick wife to support, but at the time of the letter, was still working for the FFI Social Services, nearly 18 months after their area had been liberated.  

    Perhaps he wanted to work closer to home due to his wife's illness? Many Drôme FFIs (including my grandfather) were demobilized in September of 1944, and perhaps enough of them had started new lives, that there was no longer enough work for Lt. Bergougnoux to do?  I doubt I'll ever know why, but the man needed a job.  He also had a degree in literature (as an English major, I understand the difficulty in finding jobs in our field), which meant he might have been qualified for the job.

    Dr. Planas must have sent the letter on to Léon Roux, because a few days later, Roux sent a reply:

 

Die, January 18

My dear Lubinsky,

     I have just received your letter outlining the very interesting case of Lt. Bergougnoux.

     I’ve taken careful note of it. You should have written to me three months earlier. Because for the past three months, all our staff have been designated and are aware of their commitment to the Children's Village.

     However, when the Village expands, we will need additional staff. If at that time he is still interested, I will consider him a priority.

     I believe you will have received my letter from yesterday.

     Please accept, my dear Lubinsky, my very cordial greetings.

LRoux

    This brief letter tells us a few things: Grandpa and Roux were in very regular communication, and alas, there was no job for poor Lt. Bergougnoux, at least not yet.   And finally, Léon Roux misspelled my grandfather's name; he spelled it Lubinsky (with a y), which is the Russian spelling, instead of ending it with an i, which is how my very Polish family spelled it.  That seems odd given that Roux was a schoolteacher.  That tells me that either my grandfather didn't bother to correct the misspelling, OR that Roux was a little sloppy, rushed, or both.

    Anyway, a couple of days later, Mr. Roux sent another letter, and compared to the slightly terse tone in his previous note, this one was downright chatty, and observed the social niceties:

Roux L., schoolteacher in Die 

to Mr. Lubinsky in Valence

 

My dear Lubinsky,

     Yesterday, I replied to you very quickly, but I wanted my response to reach you as soon as possible.

     As I told you, I have taken good note of your request regarding Lt. Bergougnoux, but we will only be able to satisfy it once the children's village is operating at full capacity and we increase our staff (which should be in about a year).

     On my end, I'm writing to ask you for a small favor which, I believe, falls under your responsibility. I am the person in charge of the school cooperatives in the department (these are small societies that teachers manage within their schools). 

     In Soyans, the teacher Mr. Seignobos, with great zeal, runs one of these cooperatives, which has bought a printing press and publishes a school newspaper, the well-regarded "Flowers of the Maquis." His school was severely affected during the fighting at Beaufort and Gigors (do you remember that?), and the poor fellow is struggling amidst many difficulties.

     Could the Vercors Aid and Reconstruction Association perhaps help him by asking what would be most useful to him? (The members of these cooperatives are the school children who benefit from all the advantages of the society.)

     For informational purposes, ask Seignobos for some issues of his "Flowers of the Maquis."

     My dear Lubinsky, best regards. My regards to Madame Lubinska (I've remembered the lesson, you see!). And little Sylvie, is she well, and wise?

In Die, Jan 20, 1946

LRoux

    I love this letter.  He reiterates that he'll help Lt. Bergougnoux when he can, but he also asks for a favor from my grandfather: to reach out to a teacher running a school newspaper, to see if there's anything specific the teacher needs.  That tells me that my grandfather handled not just large reconstruction tasks (repairing and restoring damaged buildings), but also smaller tasks, to determine if the damaged schools needed anything immediate to operate.

    I love the reference to the battle of Gigors/Beaufort, which he used as a personal reference they would both understand, which shows they were still a band of brothers.  For what it's worth, I have a firsthand account of my grandfather's experiences in that battle, and it was terrifying. 

    I love the name of the school newspaper, Flowers of the Maquis ("Fleurs du Maquis"), and I love the glimpse into the education system, and how they combined resource-sharing (in a world of post-war shortages) with school clubs.  

    I love the irony of Mr. Roux mentioning an off-stage lesson in Polish naming conventions, calling my grandmother Madame Lubinska, which is THE most proper and formal way to refer to her, while simultaneously misspelling my grandfather's name.  That tells me that Grandpa probably DID try to explain how to spell his name, and Mr. Roux, out of habit, continued spelling it wrong anyway.

    I didn't understand Polish naming conventions myself, so I had to look it up: in Polish, the -ski suffix (and -ska is simply the feminine version) roughly translates to "from," or "of," and was used with place names.  So Arthur Lubinski meant "Arthur from Lubin" (Lubin is a town in southwestern Poland, about 140 miles west of Dresden, Germany).  Using -ska seems to be considered archaic today, and I think it might have been a little old-fashioned, even back in 1946.

    And finally, I adore the reference to "little Sylvie, is she well and wise?" That's a reference to my grandfather's newborn daughter, and it shows that Roux was close enough to my grandfather to not only know he had a new baby at home, but also that he knew the baby's name.  

    The reference is especially dear to me for another reason:  Sylvie is my mother (though she goes by her middle name, Jackie).  She would have been about six weeks old at the time. 

* Stephen A. Ambrose wrote a book about the American 101st Airborne Division called Band of Brothers, (he took the title from Shakespeare's Henry V; the full quote is, "From this day to the ending of the World / we in it shall be remembered / we few, we happy few, / we band of brothers."