On the airplane now just thinking about the entire 10 days – boy they sure go fast!From the moment Jonathan met us at the Geneva airport and escorted us through customs, we were on a whirlwind tour of Switzerland and France.
What a roller coaster of emotions!
We were mostly on a high the entire time.
Of course our time spent with Denise Epstein and her daughter, Irene, was the most incredible, life-changing experience for both Jaime and me.
Denise' story is heart-wrenching.
To picture these two young girls after the war wandering in France carrying a valise hoping to find their mother or father.
All of those years, just hoping and dreaming that perhaps their parents were even alive but living elsewhere.
Denise's own book that comes out in September called Survive and Live will tell her story, the one she wants her grandchildren to learn from and remember her parents and all of those lost to the Shoah, the Holocaust.
*For anyone interested a special event will be held in the fall at the Jewish Museum at Battery Park to celebrate Irene Nemirovsky’s life.*
The official Irene Nemirovsky biography will be released in the fall in English; it is already available in French. There is an attempt to make a movie called Suite Francaise; Denise has given her permission to the French film industry and a producer has yet to be announced. If all goes well the film will be released in 2009.
As I sit here on the plane finishing this posting, Jaime is engrossed in Suite Francaise and I hope that for generations to come this book and her others will live on.
When we said good-bye to Denise in Toulouse she thanked us for finding her and said “If there is a God, he has brought my family to France and now my life is satisfied.”
And, so are we…………….signing off from Continental airlines, Diane and Jaime xoxo
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