A Pinch Of Time

Young Dominique was just seven when his father was arrested in May 1943.

“The night the Gestapo arrested him, he was carrying a basil plant and a modest piece of parmesan. The ingredients with which, he would later take pleasure in telling, he had enjoyed, in the Nazi camps, invigorating pistou soups that surpassed, or so he claimed, the ones made by my Aunt Virginie.”

After his father’s arrest, Dominique fled Marseille, now occupied by the Germans. His mother took him and his cousin Gérard to the countryside, to Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, and safety. In this isolated part of Provence, the sound of soldiers’ boots was but a vague echo, and they almost had enough to eat. Sometimes the usual rutabagas yielded to a tasty dish of potatoes – not to mention the eggs, bread and goat’s milk the village provided them. Dachau, April 1945. Dominique’s father was freed by the American army.

“Natzwiller-Struthof, Neue Bremm, Buchenwald, Vaihingen and the last stop, Dachau. Dad had travelled more than most in his early thirties. When he returned, something no one expected, those pistou soups hadn’t fattened him up. He weighed thirty-six kilos and a whisker!” In June of 1945, Dominique returned to Marseille to be reunited with his father who had miraculously survived the Nazi camps. But, it isn’t that easy to start life all over again…