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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | February 2007 
The Last Time I Saw Paris
 MexicoCityCollege.com
Part V of The Last Time I Saw Paris, as transcribed by MCC historian Joseph M. Quinn from two 1947 issues of Mexico City College's "El Conquistador."
The following night we spent in an abandoned farm house. We needed some meat, but didn't have the courage to kill the chickens we found roaming about. So in sign language (we thought it best) we asked some Germans soldiers to kill the chickens. Then we found some black bread the German Army had discarded and we were lucky to get that.
Here for the third time we saw a Czech (drafted into the German Army) trying to escape. The poor fellow wanted to become a French prisoner! We also noticed French soldiers who had been able to change into civilian clothes so as not to become prisoners of war. We saw the Germans catch one French soldier trying to change his clothes.
After days of hay, rats and mice, we finally reached Paris early on the morning of June 26. I had a little house near Cité Universitaire full of modern paintings and statuaries. Therése never saw such things before and her first impulse was to put her fancy hat on the head of one of the statues.
Paris was in a terrible state at this time. The disruption brought a cessation of all transportation and there was hardly any food available anywhere. I had no trouble getting a teaching job since so many teachers had fled Paris. (Also the French decided to reopen the schools immediately in order to prevent the Germans from occupying the buildings.)
Ordinarily boys and girls go to separate schools, but here they went together. But it was an awful job for the director - he had to enforce regulations against boys and girls conversing together.
On the other hand he had, for his own part, to keep the students from coming in contact with the German supervisors. Teaching was a terrible ordeal at that time. We were being watched by the Gestapo and we never knew if we were saying the right thing in class.
The nights were something terrible. The Germans immediately put in "war time" so that it was daylight until almost 11:00 pm. Nevertheless, we could not be on the streets between 10:00 pm. and 5:00 am. Anybody caught on the streets after 10:00 p.m. was taken to a German Army headquarters and made to shine boots of soldiers.
There was a rigid blackout and if a thin ray of light exposed itself the soldiers would shoot through the window. Then all through the quiet of the night we could hear the heavy boots of soldiers marching up and down the streets. Sleep was all but impossible because the Germans sent over planes almost scraping the roof tops in an attempt to impress the people with their power.
During all this time I had but one aim - to find my fiancé. One day I received a card (there was still mail service between the occupied and unoccupied zones,) from a place near Grenoble in the south of France, saying "I am here." I recognized the handwriting.
I had to have permission to leave Paris, so I went to the German Oberkommandantur. I spent the whole day there without any success, and a policeman suggested that I come there the next morning at dawn, which I did. I waited until 11:00 am and then was given a number and told I would be notified when I could be interviewed.
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