Paris, Marseille, Banyuls-sur-mer—Scenes from a Novel, a guest post by Linda Joy Myers

Linda Joy Myers, author of The Forger of Marseille, is here with an essay about her on-site research for her novel—which is published today by She Writes Press. 

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Paris, Marseille, Banyuls-sur-mer—Scenes from a Novel

Linda Joy Myers

There’s nothing like the thrill of approaching Paris on the train and seeing the Eiffel Tower rising into the sky. Finally, I’ve arrived to “research” my book in the City of Light. This is work? I chide myself as I pay the driver who stopped at my hotel in the Marais. Yes, I need to see and feel and smell Paris, and imagine it eighty years earlier. Paris is a city that speaks of history and centuries of traditions on every block, and I’m all in. Three locations are on my list to research my book The Forger of Marseille: Paris, Marseille, and a coastal village at the edge of the world, Banyuls-sur-mer, near the border of France and Spain where the shoulders of the Pyrenees rise from the sea into the sky.

My story is about three characters who find their way to Paris in 1938-39 as WWII ticks up toward conflagration. Cesar, a Spanish Republican, knows the gritty ways of survival having escaped over the border into France dodging machine guns wielded by Franco’s soldiers.

Sarah, a young Jewish art student and her father figure, Mr. Lieb, escaped Berlin just before Kristallnacht and feels safe in Paris. But the threat of war means they’re in danger again. In August 1939, France rounded up all “enemy aliens,” refugees who were from enemy countries, to be herded into internment camps.

Because of a chance meeting in a Paris café between Cesar and Sarah, he’s able to help them avoid that fate. Cesar knew that roundups were imminent and gave them forged identities just before war was declared. In May 1940 when the Germans threatened to occupy Paris, the three fled to Marseille located in the “Free Zone.” But nothing is free in Vichy France.

Linda Joy Myers
(credit: Reenie Raschke)

Through my research, I learned about the terrible danger to refugees, especially Jews, in the collaborationist Vichy government run by Phillippe Petain. And I learned there were heroes who risked their lives to save the refugees. One of those men was an American, Varian Fry. He arrived in Marseille with $3000 taped to his leg and a list in his pocket. His job was to save the crème de la crème of European intellects, artists, and writers, but once he arrived, thousands of desperate refugees lined up outside his hotel. Most were “stateless” and had no papers, in danger of arrest and internment. The underground and the rescuers were trying to save refugees, which meant they needed forgers to produce papers. The best forgers were artists who knew how to render and wield a pen.

As a fiction writer, on-site research invites me to enrich the story. I explored cobblestone back streets of the left Bank and felt the spiritual balm of the Notre Dame cathedral. Watched the sun set on the Seine. Ate baguettes and drank wine at Le Deux Magots café as an accordion played nearby.

Paris was the site of Part I of my book, then Marseille, and finally, the village of Banyuls-sur-mer. There, in the early part of the war, courageous rescuers risked their lives to guide refugees over the Pyrenees and out of France.

St. Charles train station, Marseille

Another thrill was arriving in the Marseille train station and looking out over the city. The Mediterranean sparkled shimmery blue beyond the Vieux Port at the bottom of the main street, the Canabiere. From my research I knew how frightening it must have been to arrive in Marseille where passport control and police were on the lookout for anyone whose papers were not in order. Even if they were able to get into Marseille, how would they escape France? Soon after France fell, all the ports were closed, but people still clung to hope that at the edge of the world in Marseille, they’d find a way to escape. The underground helped them get the necessary papers, and Varian Fry, among others, provided safe houses, money, and food. Guides would lead the refugees over the Pyrenees, and in Lisbon they’d eventually get a ship to America.

My heart beat hard as I stood on the sidewalk in front of the Hotel Splendide where Varian Fry first set up his rescue operation. A few months later he moved to offices at 62 Rue Grignon. Tears came to my eyes as I witnessed this place. I stood at the doorway where crowds of desperate refugees had begged for help.

The train to Banyuls-sur-mer follows the same route it did in 1940. With stops at Montpellier and Perpignan, I imagined how the breath caught in the throats of refugees, knowing that at any moment the police could haul them off the train. Finally, we arrived at the village, with its quiet winding one lane road that led to a safe house in the foothills. It was raining that day, and the slate was shiny, which meant the rocks climbing to the top of the Pyrenees would be slippery.

Safe house at the foot of the Pyrenees

I shuttered my eyelids and imagined the refugees wearing rope soled shoes, following the vignerons as they went up early in the morning to avoid being spotted by the Gestapo or the Vichy police. The wine workers would tend the vines as they had for hundreds of years, and quietly protect the refugees whose lives were being saved. I experienced a moment of reverence and gratitude that there were so many who risked their lives to save others in peril. In that same place where I stood. Witnessing history.

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Linda Joy Myers has always been deliciously haunted by the power of the past to affect people in the stream of time. She has integrated her passion for history and her own struggles with intergenerational trauma into her work as a therapist and writer. The power of the truth to educate current generations about the past led Linda Joy to explore the little-known history of WWII in the weeks following the fall of France—which in turn led her to write The Forger of Marseille. She is the author of two memoirs, Don’t Call Me Mother and Song of the Plains, and four books on memoir writing. She’s also the founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers. You can learn more about Linda Joy’s work at www.namw.org and www.lindajoymyersauthor.com. She lives in Berkeley, CA.