There is a French study group that meets Saturday at 1:30 in Building Number 3 on the Redmond COCC campus. This Saturday, for the first time, I went and was pleasantly surprised to meet a lively group of french speakers; one of them, Eve (pronounced Ev) an Alsace native who both in French and English revealed an interesting timeline dating back from World War II.
To be in Alsace during WWII would be like the pen that writes the history books, being right in between everything. Alsace, a north eastern region in France borders German and Switzerland. Her house in (or near) Strasbourg, she said, was occupied several times by officers and soldiers of Germany, America, and England during various sieges of the war.
"The Germans were the most polite," she commented. They had occupied her home near the end of the war, taking half the house to themselves and their operations. "They knew the war would be over, they were all drafted soldiers, didn't have much a stake in the war." The handsome Americans loomed tall over her and asked her mother where she slept at night. "My mother hid me. I was 14. She hid me in a room at the top of house." The Americans ruined the leather with their careless tossing about of equipment and "pissed in the flower pots."
Her whole life she wanted out of France almost marrying an attractive Brazilian man but taking to Egypt with an Arabian, quickly learning Arabian with her "bons oreilles." Ultimately, following a divorce and working as a nurse in Egypt (the second but closest tier to a prostitute she hushed to me in French and then realizing I didn't comprehend a word translated into English).
Ultimately, without telling the go-between story she ended up in America married to her own handsome American.
Eve speaks four languages; Arabian, German, French, and English. All, in most likelyhood, with absolute perfection. Did I fall in love with Eve? Yes.
To be in Alsace during WWII would be like the pen that writes the history books, being right in between everything. Alsace, a north eastern region in France borders German and Switzerland. Her house in (or near) Strasbourg, she said, was occupied several times by officers and soldiers of Germany, America, and England during various sieges of the war.
"The Germans were the most polite," she commented. They had occupied her home near the end of the war, taking half the house to themselves and their operations. "They knew the war would be over, they were all drafted soldiers, didn't have much a stake in the war." The handsome Americans loomed tall over her and asked her mother where she slept at night. "My mother hid me. I was 14. She hid me in a room at the top of house." The Americans ruined the leather with their careless tossing about of equipment and "pissed in the flower pots."
Her whole life she wanted out of France almost marrying an attractive Brazilian man but taking to Egypt with an Arabian, quickly learning Arabian with her "bons oreilles." Ultimately, following a divorce and working as a nurse in Egypt (the second but closest tier to a prostitute she hushed to me in French and then realizing I didn't comprehend a word translated into English).
Ultimately, without telling the go-between story she ended up in America married to her own handsome American.
Eve speaks four languages; Arabian, German, French, and English. All, in most likelyhood, with absolute perfection. Did I fall in love with Eve? Yes.
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