When Germany Changed The Clocks

With the sun’s rays pinching her skin, Matilde turned a corner onto the Boulevard Saint-Germain on her way to the butcher’s. Paris smelled different. It looked different. She surveyed the length of the road, its buildings scarred with blood-red swastikas and its pavements clattering to the sound of German jackboots and the shrill ringing of bicycle bells. Street signs were painted in bold Germanic words and even the church clocks chimed to German time, having all been moved on two hours by the enemy. She noticed that yet another shop had been boarded up as she stepped into the road.

At this month's monthly fiction group at Nottingham Writers' Studio, I had my latest chapter critiqued. Members asked what I meant when I wrote in the paragraph above, that clocks chimed to German time, so I thought I'd explain with a blog post. They also mentioned that small facts gained from research are not only interesting but also strengthen the story and makes the imagination see more vividly.

Before the 17th Century, people in the French countryside used to time their lives by the sun – even after the invention of clocks. They got up with the sun and went to bed with the moon. Whatever the time was in Paris or other major cities had little to do with their lives. It was the coming of the railways that started the move towards standardization of time.

It became apparent that the use of solar time became inefficient and even disruptive as communication improved. In 1891, France adopted Paris Mean Time (called this to avoid using the word, Greenwich) as its standard national time. It seems comical now, but train timetables and railway clocks were set five minutes late to prevent passengers missing their trains! Naturally it didn’t take long before people realized this and allowed a few extra minutes for their journey – and occasionally missing their trains!

During the Occupation of France in World War 2, the era my latest novel is set in, German time was introduced. ‘La France à l’heure Allemande,’ – France on German time. As you can imagine this caused resentment and unrest. The Germans had not only taken their country and liberty, but now re-set their time. German time was introduced in May 1940 which was GMT plus one hour in winter and GMT plus two hours in summer.

There’s an interesting article written by Yvonne Poulle that can be found online. According to her research there was no official order at the beginning of the war about the time change. The occupying army simply arranged the time change with the local French authorities and it was later confirmed in the local press or by word of mouth. Unbelievably, for a while, the Occupied Zone of Paris and Northern France were two hours ahead of the Unoccupied Zone in the south (Vichy France). The difficulties this produced are not difficult to imagine, especially on the railways. Eventually the SNFC (the French railway authority) suggested that both zones should observe the same time. On March 9th 1942, Vichy France was required to change to GMT plus two hours to bring it into line with the rest of France and Germany.

Many French people resisted this order. As a gesture of defiance, they stubbornly refused to change their clocks at home and kept to the old French time. In Jean Anglade’s novel, La Soupe à La Fourchette, set in the south-central Cantal region of France, one of the story’s main characters insists on keeping the family clock on ‘old French time’ – two hours behind as an act of resistance. This clock is hit by a stray bullet in July 1944 during a skirmish between Germans and the Resistance.

After liberation, France returned to GMT plus one hour all year round with no seasonal change, and so it remains.

Sarah's Key - A Book Review

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay is a dual narrative containing both factual history and fiction. I found it to be a heart-wrenching, absorbing, emotional and informative book about the darkest time in France’s history - the Holocaust.

Paris, July 1942. Sarah Starzynski is ten years old when she and her parents are arrested by the French police. Before leaving, Sarah secretly locks her younger brother, Michel, in their childhood hiding place, a cupboard in the family's apartment. She pockets the key and promises him that he will be safe and she will return in a few hours to let him out. They are then taken to the Vélodrome d'Hiver as part of the Jewish roundup.

Paris, May 2002. Julia Jarmond is a journalist and on 60th anniversary of the Vel’ d’Hiv roundup, she is asked to write an article about this bleak event in France's history. Shockingly she discovers that this cruelty is mainly carried out by the French police. Through her investigations, she stumbles upon a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia is compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from the atrocity of the Vel’ d'Hiv roundup, to the camps. Julia probes into Sarah's past, travelling from France to America and Italy searching for answers. Her search for answers leads her to question her own place in France and to reassess both her marriage and her life.

Sarah's Key is a disturbing, enlightening and touching, with well-developed characters. Tatiana de Rosnay offers her readers a subtle yet compelling portrait of France under occupation during WW2 and she reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.

My Own Little Writing Retreat in Cornwall

Day 1. Easter Sunday

What a beautiful sunny day. Sunglasses a must and no need for a coat on Harlyn Bay. Brook and Harlyn love this beach – we named Harlyn after it thirteen years ago. She’s an old lady now but you wouldn't know it watching her running on the sand. Look at her smiling in this photograph!

Back to the rental cottage for a day of writing. Only 1,500 words written because I was reading through my research and plotting my next chapter. I’m writing a dual narrative called Tomorrow's Not Promised. My first protagonist is Matilde Pascal, a French woman who works at the Jeu de Paume museum in the Tuileries, in Paris during WW2. My other main character is Corporal Hans Engel, a German soldier who has been assigned to work alongside Matilde.

Day 2.

Sunshine and bare blue skies. I’ve made friends with two donkeys in the adjacent field and enjoyed a cream tea in the garden.

I read through yesterday’s writing and edited a little. I like to know my chapters are acceptable before continuing with the next chapter. (I’ll be doing two or three edits of the whole book at a later date.) 2,500 words completed today with Matilde making an unexpected decision and Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring arriving at the museum.

Day 3.

Is it really the middle of April? Where are the April’s showers and cool winds? This weather is amazing, just look at the blue sky! My hairy daughters and I are loving being here.

I had lunch in Padstow at the amazing Burgers and Fish and noticed that a bookshop had opened in town. Everyone knows I'd rather spend an hour in a bookshop than a clothes shop so I bought a book - A Country Road, A Tree. I’ve been reading as well as writing this afternoon. 2,300 words written.

Day 4.

I explored a new beach called Hawkers’ Cove. How have I been visiting this part of Cornwall for twenty years and never discovered it? It’s a beautiful small bay between Harlyn and Padstow. I collected some stones for painting when I get back home. Here are two I’ve done, but as you can see, I need practice to make the lavender feel less rigid. (See my blog about our lavender field at www.ourlavenderfield@blogspot.co.uk) I visited a wonderful farm shop on the way back from Hawkers' Cove and bought too much! If you're ever down in the south-west, it's well worth a visit. Even the hens wander in from the yard - look!

The hens are shopping - wonder if they're looking for eggs?

Almost 3,000 words written today and lots of research about Jewish art galleries being raided by the Nazis. I also made notes about the catacombs beneath Paris. (There are hundreds of miles of them with thousands of bodies buried down there.)

Day 5.

My daughter, her fiancé and my 3 year old twin granddaughters are visiting Harlyn next week, so I bought 5 x 2 gifts and buried them on Harlyn Bay, took photographs and made a map of where to find them. The treasure hunt is ready – I only hope they’re not discovered by other little fingers first!

2,800 words written this afternoon. Matilde has been evicted which came as a surprise to me! She’s now working for the Resistance as well as the Jeu de Paume museum, which is full of the enemy. I know what’s going to happen a few chapters on, but I can’t warn her!

Day 6.

The sun is still shining and my coat is still being left behind at the cottage! I took a long walk on the beach with Harlyn and Brook followed by a wander round Padstow. The buried treasure looks untouched, but it is very well hidden!

Padstow harbour

3,000 words written this afternoon helped along by Turkish delight bought this morning. It's my last day as I'm travelling home tomorrow after another morning dog walk.

Here's an excerpt from the opening chapter of Tomorrow's Not Promised. It sets the scene at the beginning of my book, but a huge amount has happened since then and where I am now, writing Chapter 17. (I know it's not set out correctly, but blogger won't enable me to indent etc.)

1.
June 1940

Paris had fallen. It was unthinkable. It was terrifying.
Matilde Pascal leant out of her second floor apartment window, the stone lintel grazing her elbows as she edged forwards to get a better view. She looked at the sky. The weather was showing its allegiance to the citizens of Paris by offering an equally cold reception to the German troops. She watched squat black tanks roll into view, grumbling along the Rue de Rivoli, followed by a line of armoured trucks and motorbikes with sidecars. Along the avenue she could see people watching in silence as the enemy paraded into their capital city. The reverberation of the slow, deliberate invasion made a knot of anxiety tighten in her stomach.
A pall of black smoke had hung over the rooftops for days. Although people spoke openly about civil servants destroying records so that the Germans didn’t have access to them, she had been told that it wasn’t the burning of paperwork that was causing the dark cloud. It came from oil depots that had been set alight by retreating French troops. If the people of France were unable to make use of the fuel, then they’d make sure the Germans wouldn’t get their hands on it either.
Matilde chewed her bottom lip and decided that the darkened skies seemed like a fitting apocalyptic note for Paris as the city prepared to receive the invaders. She felt her husband’s breath on her neck as he leant over her shoulder. Xavier had said he wouldn’t give the filthy Boches the satisfaction of an audience, but his curiosity must have proven too strong. They heard a pulse of rhythmical footfall as row upon row of soldiers marched beneath their window. Matilde swallowed hard. France was occupied by a foreign power. It was appalling, yet fascinating to watch.
She squashed an ant on the stone mullion ledge with her forefinger.

My Latest Chapter

It's may be against her will, but a sudden realisation that she's a collaborator, shocks Matilde. Things are going to change...

Matilde was late for work. She hurried along garden pathways of the Tuileries’ having lingered in Xavier’s arms a little too long before rising. As she approached the museum, she noticed yet more red and black flags adorning the building. They snapped and flicked in the wind, their cords rattling against their flagstaffs. It seemed to her that the number of banners in the city had doubled as the population diminished. It was as if the Germans were replacing each fleeing French citizen with a swastika. The Parisians that remained were forbidden to use public spaces; the same parks and squares where they had grown up. Matilde felt that the Germans had multiplied the oppressive effect of being occupied. Buildings had grown tyrannical, days longer and the Seine, blacker.
It was Monday and the beginning of her fifth week. Matilde’s shoes click-clacked along the museum’s corridors, yellowed with subdued lighting, before setting about her morning routine in her windowless office. At least she didn’t have to sit with Gertrude. Small blessings. She turned on an electric heater and heard it begin to click as the elements heated up. She knew from experience that it would be half an hour before the room was warm enough to remove her coat.
Matilde laid out a suede mat for examining each piece of jewelry, removed the cover of her typewriter and polished her magnifying glass. She breathed on the glass and rubbed it against the hem of her skirt. Just as she was about to leave and collect another box to be sifted through, Kommandant Beitel and another man walked into her office. She hadn’t seen the Kommandant since their first meeting and she silently berated herself for blushing in surprise.
He looked at her, his features showing no emotion. His back was straight and his chin was raised. ‘Good morning, Madame Guillon. I trust you are well?’
Matilde laid the magnifying glass on her desk. ‘Very well, thank you, Herr Beitel.’
The Kommandant gave a quick nod. ‘The amount of valuables we’ve received has risen significantly. This is Officer Meyer. He’s been assigned to assist you.’
She looked at the taller man at the Kommandant’s side and smiled in simple reflex. Immediately she felt ashamed. In that instant of introduction, she had been transported back to her life before war, where manners and smiles were commonplace. She had dropped her guard; lost her concentration. Officer Meyer didn’t return her smile. His hair was fair and pushed to one side at the front, like the wing of a gull. He was young, but an ageing v-shaped frown sat between his blue-grey eyes. He wore a look of resignation about him, as if working alongside her wasn’t his idea of a substantial enough contribution for the German war effort. She blinked when he suddenly bowed his head and brought his heels together. Something jangled in the worn leather bag he was holding.
‘I have a busy morning, so I will leave Officer Meyer to show you where you will both be working for the time being. Good morning, Madame Guillon.’
Matilde watched the Kommandant leave her office. His footsteps receded down the corridor, leaving an uncomfortable silence hanging in the air.
‘Well…’ began Matilde, trying to make an effort at polite conversation. Ingrained good manners were a difficult habit to break.
Officer Meyer interrupted her. ‘This way.’ He turned and left the room.
She hurried to catch up with him as he marched down the corridor in the opposite direction to the Kommandant. On reaching a staircase, he shoved the leather bag beneath his arm and took a crumpled packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, removed one and lit it. Matilde followed him downstairs. Her body was turned slightly to one side because her restrictive brown pencil skirt was making movement difficult on the steps. She held on to the handrail, sliding her fingers down the smooth wood and praying he wouldn’t look back at her because the hem of her tight skirt was riding above her knees as she descended. She inhaled the bitter smoke left in the officer’s wake. Three floors below, he paused and waited for her to catch up. She saw him pinch a speck of tobacco from his tongue with his thumb and forefinger before sucking once more on his cigarette’s diminishing length.
Despite working at the museum for over a month, Matilde still felt out of her depth. It wasn’t that she couldn’t organize an inventory, but surely she was expected to understand what she was recording. Apart from the obvious red rubies and blue sapphires, she couldn’t recognize one cut stone from another. Her mornings were spent sifting through jewelry: rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings and watches. She made use of a measuring gauge, a Zeiss Ikon camera and a book filled with photographs of gems and precious stones for ease of identification. Inevitably she would come across a stone she couldn’t find pictured on any page. These pieces were placed inside a velveteen bag that was collected daily; she had no idea where they were destined. Presumably to be examined by a more qualified eye. It didn’t stop her puzzling over where they’d come from, especially when she prized open lockets with a fingernail to reveal sepia photographs of family members. Perhaps their owners had sold them in order to feed their families.
Every afternoon she would type up the inventory that she had scribbled on sheets of paper and at the end of each day, Gertrude Loup would collect these typed lists. Occasionally Matilde would make her wait in front of her desk, as she herself had been made to wait on her first day. It amused her to see Gertrude’s jaw tighten with annoyance, her lips pursing and stretching as if she was sucking sherbet.
At the bottom of the staircase, two guards opened double doors and stood to attention, arms extended and palms straight. ‘Heil Hitler.’ They spoke in unison. Officer Meyer responded. She prayed that she wouldn’t be spending too much time with this ill-disposed German. He marched ahead, lithe and square-shouldered. His uniform fit him well and was pressed sharply, with just a frown of wrinkles puckered behind the knees of his trousers, disclosing the fact that he’d been sitting earlier.
They walked along a corridor lined with empty display cases and shelves covered in layers of dust. The walls were studded with oblong smudges of accumulated grime; ghosts of missing paintings. Eventually the passage widened into a foyer where more armed soldiers stood at intervals around the tiled space. Officer Meyer walked towards a solid mahogany desk, behind which sat a double-chinned soldier lost in his own cloud of tobacco smoke. The walrus of a soldier coughed and the two men exchanged a few sentences in German.
Officer Meyer turned and beckoned to her. She followed him to a wide, metal door. Two armed men moved aside as he removed the bag from beneath his arm and retrieved a ring of keys from inside. He inserted one in the keyhole and turned it. There was a loud click. He pushed open the door and walked inside, turning to look at her by way of asking her to follow. She stepped through the doorway. An aroma of beeswax, old books and damp material hung in the air as her eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light. Officer Meyer’s footsteps echoed with each stride, leading her to believe that this was a large room, but when he pressed several switches and light flooded the space, Matilde caught her breath. The room was vast. It was even bigger than Monsieur Lombard’s main saleroom at the auction house. It was two stories high and as wide the Vue du Jardin where she lived. Makeshift shelving and storage racks had been erected in long rows, each one laden with objects.
‘What is this place?’ she asked.
The German spread his arms wide. ‘This is one of many storage facilities ordered by the Führer.’
‘One of many?’ She took a few steps further, stopping at an ornate table with barley twist legs. A huge swastika flag had been draped over its surface, but much of its colour was hidden beneath a pile of glistening valuables: gold fountain pens, silver cutlery, goblets, watches, picture frames, candlesticks and oddly, spectacles. She turned to the German. ‘Where has all this come from?’
He gave her a look that she couldn’t decipher.
‘Your job is to log everything, not ask questions.’
‘Everything? All of it?’
‘Are we keeping you from something more important, Madame Guillon?’
Matilde picked at a cuticle with a fingernail and shook her head. ‘Of course not. I just didn’t imagine the scale of the job.’
He began walking towards one side of the room. ‘This way.’
Matilde hugged her arms against the chill and followed him. She could hear grit scrape beneath his soles. He stopped in front of different sized boxes, each draped with thick sacking. He pulled a length of hessian away with a flourish, as if wielding a bullfighter’s cloak. They weren’t boxes. They were paintings stacked against each other. Some had ornate frames of polished wood or feathered with gold leaf. Others were frameless, paint exposed on naked canvas.
Wherever would she begin?

Later that day, Matilde had been ordered to leave work early due to a last minute visit by a high-ranking member of the Gestapo. She supposed they didn’t want the possibility of a Parisian eavesdropping on their secret plans; and that was fine by her. She’d much rather escape the claustrophobic atmosphere of the museum’s basement and the hostile eyes of Herr Meyer.
Outside the sky was the colour of watered-down milk and a breeze carried scents of woodsmoke and rotting leaves. Before the war Matilde had loved autumn with its glow of streetlights reflecting on rain-drenched boulevards and the promise of Christmas; but now Paris appeared insipid and dirty. Windows wore a coat of neglect and paintwork was dulled with grime. Even the railings of the Tuileries reminded her of ribs instead of ornate metalwork. Perhaps this time next year the war would be over. Maybe festive lights would illuminate the avenues with colour once again.
Matilde wrapped her coat tightly around her body and hurried home with thoughts of Xavier and hot onion soup cheering her mood. But as she approached the entrance to the Vue du Jardin, she slowed her pace. Across the road, saw a French gendarme salute a German officer with submissive servility. Stiff and mechanical - already infused with German traits. It hadn’t taken that Frenchman long to surrender. With her next breath, a creeping realization made her stop and clutch a railing. Who was she to condemn this French policeman? Didn’t she work for the Germans? She was as bad as him. Yes, it was against her will, but she was still collaborating. France must fight back. She would fight back. If everyone relied on each other to retaliate, nothing would change. France would willingly succumb to the enemy, one person at a time. She vowed to support Xavier more actively from now on.
A shout. Her head shot up. Sharp, guttural commands were being barked nearby. The sound of an engine grew louder. She pressed her back against the railings. A truck sped past and braked sharply outside the entrance door to the building where she lived. Raised voices echoed inside the doorway. Matilde’s breath came in gasps and she could feel her heart thumping as she pressed her knuckles to her lips. The French policeman and the German officer ran across the road towards the noise. So, their meeting hadn’t been a coincidence; they were working alongside each other. She stayed where she was, partly hidden behind a large evergreen shrub and skeletal branches of an arched tree that hung over the metal fencing. What was happening inside the Vue du Jardin? Had someone run inside the building to hide and had been discovered?
She watched wide-eyed as several Germans scuffled with a man. They’d found who they were looking for. The man was hunched forwards. He stumbled despite being grasped by uniformed men. They dragged him to his feet. Blood covered his shirt. The French policeman opened the back door to the truck. Traitor! The prisoner gave one final attempt to retaliate and as he did so, he raised his head.
Xavier!