The Signpost
As I discuss in my memoir, The Silk Factory: Finding Threads of My Family’s True Holocaust Story, I went spelunking in my basement for a photograph of a half-brother I’ve never met, in order to help out a nephew I didn’t know I had, and came across, in addition to said photos of said half-brother, a photo of a highway signpost for the village of Meillon.
Alongside that photo, I found a poem, written in German, entitled Was Ist Meillon? Which even with my very limited German I knew meant, What is Meillon?
Meillon, it turns out, was an exceptional place, a village of some 600 good souls who found it in their hearts to take in some 2,000 refugees – to rescue them from internment camps that were waystations along the road to Auschwitz.
That town was lucky enough to have as its mayor Paul Mirat, and I’m lucky enough that his grandson, also named Paul Mirat, is alive to explain not-so-ancient history – and to receive my thanks, again and again, for what his grandfather, grandmother, and countless others did for my father.
I’m here thanks to them.
Meillon is proof if proof were needed that there is no statute of limitations to man’s generosity, and that just when you think you cannot give anymore, there is more to give. There is always more room.
I cannot definitely prove that my father wrote this poem, and it was so unlike him to write poetry at all that it would be easy to dismiss the idea of his authorship. But on the other hand, it’s here in his affairs, and there is no one else to claim it as their own. And after all, what does it matter who wrote it – when what matters is that Meillon exists:
WHAT IS MEILLON
what is Meillon? a quiet little speck
near Pau
in the department of Basses Pyrenees
and yet when I look around…
I realize there’s something more.
What is Meillon? A miraculous life-raft
Which saved us from the sea of excrement that is Gurs?
That’s a comforting thought!
But what if this raft breaks apart?
What is Meillon? A slice of Eden,
Where everyone does what he likes?
No respite for hunger, but
where talk of food takes the place of food?
What is Meillon? A mere mailing address
That consumes reams of letter paper and airmail envelopes?
A telegraph outpost that receives news from abroad
Even if we ourselves are not here in spirit?
What is Meillon? A giant question mark?
a period, full-stop, after imprisonment?
A place to recover our strength?
To fight against bureaucracy and madness,
Lost letters and lost time?
What is Meillon?
A springboard to uncertainty?
a shield from grim reality?
A nest of brave and furtive souls?
What is Meillon?
This nest of farmlands
Is fatefully linked to all of our lives
And may have more to give us all
than we can recognize today.
What Meillon is?
The answer eventually becomes obvious; we'll nod as we sip our tea,
“Yes, yes, Meillon, a quiet little speck
Near Pau
in the department of Basses Pyrenees.”
And nothing more.
- Meillon, 15.8.1941.
