Rebecca: What inspired you to publish this journal drawn & written by the girls who made that long & arduous trek on foot after the Allies landed in Normandy, France in June 1944 during World War II?
Nancy: The inspiration came from knowing that the story is one that needs to be told & that at one time my Great Aunt Aggie had tried to have the drawings published. Through the publication of the book, I also hope to locate more survivors from the orphanage in St. Andre-sur-Orne in Normandy.
Rebecca: Why were those girls in an orphanage? Is there a roster of their names? What were their ages? Did they have any teachers with them on their quest for safety?
Nancy: After World War I many children & adults were homeless, the economy was bad, & there was a greater need for orphanages. I do not know when Le Clos in St. Andre-sur-Orne was opened as an orphanage, but I know that the reason for the girls living there were many. Some of the girls had no parents, some were there because their parents felt it would be a safe place for them to live during the German occupation; because some of the girls were Jewish or their parents worked with the French Resistance. I do not have a complete roster of all one hundred girls. I wish I did. As you have noticed, there is a name & age on each drawing. Their teachers were with them on the journey. It was Mme. LeValious, the director of the orphanage, who held the group together throughout their entire journey.
Rebecca: Seeing that dress on the cover of The Orphans of Normandy brought back memories as I too wore similar dresses made by my mother. What is tattersall, the red, white & blue fabric of their frocks? Does it have pockets & was it hand sewn? Is it still in good repair?
Nancy: The dress is in good condition & stored in an archival box wrapped in acid free tissue paper. On closer examination of the dress, you will find some hand stitched repair work. Originally, the dresses were sewn on a Singer sewing machine. The older girls were taught to sew by a dressmaker, who was described by one of the girls as tall & thin. A child of about five or seven wore the dress. She possibly wore the same dress for several years. The hem is about five inches in depth. There are no pockets. (I have learned from my documents & from talking to one of the orphans that they carried sugar in the hems of their dresses). I remember wearing smocked dresses of the same style with deep hems, made by my mother! My dresses lasted a long time & had deep pockets. Tattersall is a kind of weave, “which creates a pattern of dark lines forming squares on a solid, generally light background”. (American Heritage Dictionary) In my research, I found many photographs of children wearing similar red, white & blue fabric in various versions of woven patterns. My guess is it was cheaper for the orphanage to buy fabric by the bolt & they wanted the girls to be dressed alike.
Rebecca: How did your Great-Aunt Agnes Amis become the guardian of this precious journal? What else came in that parcel from France, & when did you first see it?
Nancy: Aunt Aggie received the journal in 1946 in a package with photographs & the dress. Included was a letter from Great Aunt Aggie's friend Yvonne Lescure, who was acquainted with the teachers from the orphanage & knew that they needed help. This is a portion of the letter sent to my Aunt:
“Dear Miss Amis, here I come a-begging, but not for myself. Do you think you could find a school that would adopt the little girls whose story is told in the booklet I am sending? There are now 80, as some of them have gone to Le Harve, and they need everything, and have no parents to provide for them. The Head of the school, Mademoiselle Levallois, and the teachers try to give them all the necessaries, but when you have to multiply everything by 80, unless you are a miracle worker, you always find you can't manage it. So the little girls sleep on pallets stuffed with dry grass, have no sheets, no woolen blankets, and go about in bedroom slippers, which are not so difficult to get as proper shoes.
I know it is a very bad time to ask for such a thing, and I hope you will excuse my doing so. Those girls were the “filleules” of the lycee at Caen at the beginning of the war, but now, of course, Caen can no longer help them; and if an American School could adopt them just as your school adopted the lycee of Caen, it would mean so much to them.”
The letter talks about adoption, but that is just a euphemism for asking for the help that was needed. In addition, Great Aunt Aggie's French class had been pen pals with Yvonne’s students at her school in Caen. Yvonne's students were “friends” to the girls in the orphanage. I hope that clarifies the letter. My aunt also raised money to help pay off the mortgage for the new orphanage in Vaureal, where the girls had been able to finally find a home in 1946. The city of Caen was destroyed & there was no question of going back to St. Andre. An organization called American Relief for France also played a major role in helping France after WWII.
I was five when I first saw the drawings & was, of course, quite intrigued with the story. As I got older, I went so far as to pretend that I was one of the orphans & created all sorts of journeys that I might have encountered as one of the orphans during WWII.
Rebecca: When you grew up, you took a copy of the girls' map & followed their amazing trek across France. Would you tell us how you did it, what you saw along the way, & did you ever meet any of the surviving girls who must now all be grandmothers?
Nancy: The idea for the trip happened after a very difficult time in my life. I was 43 years old & driving home from an appointment, when it struck me that I should go to France & bike the route the little girls had followed. I remember repeating over & over, “I am going to France!”
Simon & Schuster had already accepted the book for publication, yet I strongly felt I needed to know more about the story & the country. I had never been to France & my French was -- & is still -- not the best, but I made the plans using the hand drawn map & the hand printed itinerary on the back of the map. Taping together two large maps of Normandy & the Loire Valley, I highlighted the roads I thought they might have followed. It was a hit or miss process, but I believe I was able to match what the Orphans walked to some degree of accuracy. I photocopied the portions of the map I needed & stapled them together in the order in which I would need them. I also photocopied & decreased the size of the drawings to make a little book.
The map & the book became my ticket to opening conversations with the people I met along the way. Everyone was delighted by the story & wished me “Bon Chance” (Good Luck) on my Journey. Many of the people I met had their own stories to tell & were very patient with my American ear & inability to speak French correctly. Since my trip, I have met Americans who have told me some amazing experiences they had during that time.
Starting in the city of Caen I first rode to the coast of Normandy where the English & the Canadians landed on June 6, 1944. The coast was flat & the beach wide. I imagined very youthful German soldiers marching back & forth watching with fear the Channel waters crashing on the shore. This would have been before the invasion, before there was any hint that the coast where they marched would be a deathbed. I also imagined the little girls spending an early spring day at the beach, picking up shells, chasing the foam along the shore, & enjoying a picnic.
Rebecca: Did you ever find a US pilot who remembers seeing that flock of girls waving their white flags.
Nancy: No, but recently I discovered that American soldiers had helped the girls reach the town of Vaureal after they had left Beaufort-en-Vallee, where they had stayed for three months, from August 11 through November, 1944. I am presently trying to find the name of the regiment or squadron of US soldiers & their exact location when they helped the girls.
Rebecca: Do you hope someone will make a movie of this truly extra-ordinary & inspiring childhood adventure?
Nancy: Yes, I have been contacted by a producer who presented the idea of a documentary to A&E. Now that we have found several of the orphans, a teacher, & some people who worked at the Orphanage in Vaureal, A&E is planning to move ahead with the project. I am quite excited by this new development & hope that we will continue to find more of the orphans. It would be amazing to have a reunion!
Rebecca: What do you hope readers of The Orphans of Normandy will find in the pictures & stories those girls drew & wrote so long ago?
Nancy: It is clear that those who have seen the pictures are quite taken by the overall charm as well as the visual acuity of the drawings. What I hope is that the book becomes an impetus for conversations between all ages. I have talked to several people who were teenagers living in France during the occupation & who were very willing to talk about their own experiences from that time.
One woman, who is Jewish, was hidden by a family friend, joined the resistance, & after the liberation moved back to Paris where her family owned a business which had been taken over by the Nazis. On Yom Kippur, she was with her father in a synagogue, where she met her future husband, a US infantryman. They live in the United States where she taught French for many years. I met this woman at lunch & had shown her my book, which opened up the conversation we had about her life.
I also hope that through looking at the drawings, children & adults will gain a better understanding of what may happen during a war. It is a lesson in history as well as in keeping a journal, & lesson of society; the good & bad sides. It shows a part of life that can effect us all.
Rebecca: Thank you, Nancy Amis, for not only taking time out of your busy life to participate in this interview, for also bringing back to life this story of brave girls & women beset all about by war.
Do catch my Review of Nancy Amis's The Orphans of Normandy - I hope it makes you go out & buy yourself a copy!
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