As early as the fall 1939, Irène Némirovsky placed her daughters in the Burgundian village of Issy-l'Évêque, where she joined them in May 1940. La déroute des Français inspires him with an ambitious novel, funny and bitter, provisionally entitled Panique... She is convinced to write, on this subject, her War and Peace. She then finishes for the editions Albin Michel, who continue to support her, a biography of Chekhov.
But, subject to the prohibitions of the Statute of the Jews, her husband was struck off from the bank that had employed her for fifteen years; she was forced to publish under a pseudonym in the anti-Semitic Gringoire, such as " a lacemaker in the middle of the wild ". When, In early 1942, Even Gringoire stops helping him, the French no longer inspire him except "hatred and contempt." Arrested on July 13 and taken to Pithiviers, Irène Némirovsky will be deported four days later, followed by her husband
on October 9. It is at Denise and Elisabeth, their daughters, that it will be up to them to watch over sixty years on the manuscript of French suite...
CHEKHOV’S LIFE
in Les uvres libres, no. 85, Fayard, July 1928 (under the pseudonym of Pierre Nerey).
FOLLOWING UP WITH ME
Deno l, 2004, 434 p. Pr face de Myriam Anissimov. Folio, 2006.
1939
17 f vrier: In I am everywhere, Robert Brasillach calls upon: "to deprive of nationalism, French, all Jews, half-Jews, quarter-Jews."
March 15: German troops arrive in Soviet Russia and occupy the region of the South.
April 21: The d-loi Marchandeau sanctions racist and anti-s moths remarks.
1940
June 22: The Mar chal Philippe P tain, new representative of the Council, signs an armistice with Germany. A line of demarcation will appear in the non occupied zone (south) of the occupied zone (north), where Issy-l is located.
June 25: Radio speech, from the Mar chal P tain: A new order begins. .
10 July: A constitutional law abolishes the public order, institutes the French state, and entrusts all powers to the French government, whose government is installed at Vichy (Allier).
October 24: P tain meets Hitler, Montoire. Purpose of the policy of collaboration with Germany.
1942
April 16: Professor Pierre Laval, cart in December 1940, is recalled to power.
May 29: Ordinance requiring Jews to wear a yellow cloth. Only Lisabeth, g e under six years old, will not wear it. Mom told me that I was Jewish, on the day when we have to wear the yellow canvas. (Denise Epstein)
