The Postcard

The following morning, the Nazi Party in Germany officially bans all other political parties. Emma and the children travel to Poland to see her family. In 1935, Ephraïm registers his company, listing himself as Palestinian, which earns the attention of French counterespionage services. Meanwhile, antisemitic comments grow more common as Jewish Germans flee the Nazi party and flood into Paris, causing the French to worry. Ephraïm angrily worries that their arrival might threaten his citizenship application.

The French leader Leon Blum is attacked for his Jewish-community connections; Jewish shop windows are broken, and antisemitic language increases. Ephraïm realizes their precarious their position in Paris. Still, he believes his value will be recognized and his citizenship granted.

Myriam earns an honors diploma and the top intellectual prize at her school; Noémie and Jacques do well in academics and athletics.

Ephraïm refuses to allow Jacques to celebrate a Bar Mitzvah, marking his 14th year and transition to manhood; Jacques regresses and clings to his mother. Emma is angry about this decision, seeing in Ephraïm a man divided.

Ephraïm’s fixation on French citizenship is renewed as he submits the application with promising feedback from the police. He picks out a French name for himself, Eugene Rivoche, and files patents for a baking machine he invented under his given and new French names. While awaiting the patent and their new citizenship, Ephraïm begins work on sound coils.

Emma secretly continues going to the synagogue. Emma’s father, Maurice, gifts his ancestral religious shawl, a tallit, to Jacques, but Emma hides it away, wary of persecution. She is proud of her faith but knows that displaying signs of her heritage is dangerous. For her, the exile from Russia was dramatic and frightening, and she wants to protect her children.

Their citizenship is denied. Ephraïm doubles his efforts to appear French, banning all things Jewish, German, and Russian in their household. When Nachman visits, Ephraïm is embarrassed of his Jewish appearance.

Ephraïm’s father plants a garden and busies himself tidying up Ephraïm’s dacha in France. Jacques forms a special bond with Nachman, following him around the grounds, gardening, and digging a well.

The girls study or ride bikes around town with their friend Colette. Nachman tells them that Anna, Ephraïm’s first love, lives in Berlin with her spouse and son, nearly dying in childbirth. Nachman says he will return to Palestine to die a free man within the year.

Ephraïm’s efforts to gain French citizenship are foiled as refugees from Germany stream into France. Among the refugees are Anna and her son. She invites Ephraïm to visit her at a hotel, and Emma encourages him.

At the hotel, Ephraïm sees that Anna hasn’t changed in 20 years. She says, before they fled, her husband was arrested, the Jewish business on their street was ransacked, and a local Jewish man was murdered in his home in Berlin. She tells Ephraïm to leave for America at once. Repulsed suddenly by Anna, he leaves the hotel and finally feels free from her. He tells Emma they will stay in France.

Ephraïm’s brother Boris visits with a new patent for determining the gender of chickens inside the egg. They go to the dacha in Normandy for Christmas, and Boris helps them farm. Boris returns to Czechoslovakia in time for the German invasion in March of 1939.

Emma’s family in Poland grows worried as France agrees to come to their aid if Germany invades. Paris is under threat of bombardment, and the family remains at the dacha. Though war rages in France, their dacha is safe, and they make a comfortable life for themselves on the farm. In Poland, Emma’s father’s house is overrun by Germans, as is his business and their dacha. The family is moved to a Jewish quarter. After the signing of the Armistice on June 22, 1940, Ephraïm’s family moves further west, away from Paris, to Les Forges. The children sense that their former life is lost forever.