Once They Had a Country: Two Teenage Refugees in the Second World War

5. Lord of the Flies in Reverse

5 Lord of the Flies in Reverse The Contracting States shall apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin. —Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Article 1, 1951 The refugee children’s new home, situated at the foot of the Pyrenees, was an imposing structure surrounded by ivy-covered stone walls. A massive door led to a courtyard, framed by towers on both sides. Green hills surrounded the castle, with groves of cypresses and chestnut trees nearby. Inside was a giant dining room with a parquet floor and several dormitory rooms, each containing ten to fifteen beds.1 Along with smaller rooms housing four or five people, set aside for the oldest children, and running water and electricity, the château came with a new leader. The Swiss were not happy with Alex frank’s management and sent a nurse, recently returned to Europe after working for Albert Schweitzer in Africa, to run the home. Rösli näf was tall and thin, all sharp angles, her blonde hair pulled back in a bun to give her a no-nonsense look. She was a strict disciplinarian, almost military in her bearing, and had little understanding of the emotional needs of teenagers. Sometimes what they needed more than books or nutritious food, although those were in short supply, was underwear. The adolescent girls were mortified that they had to make do with reusable rags for sanitary napkins,hanging up their blood-stained garments to dry along with their handful of other clothes. They did not have enough underpants and had to wear the same clothes for a week. And many of them did not have brassieres, which led the boys to tease them mercilessly. Ilse felt that Rösli näf simply did not grasp the amount of emotional space occupied by underwear in the mental world of adolescents. Rösli brought order to life at the château. Every child had an assigned task: in the sexist division of labor common at the time,the girls were responsible for kitchen work,for cleaning,and for setting the table.The boys did the heavier labor: cutting wood, digging ditches, and carrying barrels of water. Ilse did not like Rösli, but she later understood that the discipline she instituted helped the children cope with daily life.She took what she learned from 66 / Chapter 5 Rösli and fashioned it into an educational philosophy—as a nursery school teacher fifteen years later, she would believe strongly in the utility of a structured day for the children in her class. Ilse also discovered that Rösli näf was not as severe and unfeeling as she appeared—but it was only later, when she risked her life for the children, that they came to understand how deeply she cared about them. Her experiences dealing with the recalcitrant Swiss authorities, like Moses asking Pharaoh to let his people go and finding, each time, that Pharaoh hardened his heart, profoundly affected her understanding of herself and the world. A few of the children found Rösli intolerable. As part of her passion for order, a relic of her nurse’s training, she insisted that the beds be made with hospital corners, whatever that meant when your bed was a pallet of clothcovered straw. If the beds were not made just so, the offender was punished— perhaps not with solitary confinement and a diet of bread and water, in the style of DeWaay, but punished nevertheless. Ruth Schütz, one of the oldest and most outspoken girls, could not stand Rösli näf. Infuriated by her obsession with bed-making etiquette, Ruth lashed out at näf. She wrote in her memoir that the world was going up in flames, the children were sick with worry about their parents—and Rösli treated them as though they were simple-minded. Ruth left the château and found work on a nearby farm.2 Alex frank and Rösli näf also proved to be incompatible. The Swiss had insisted when they took over responsibility for the group that they would have the final say about the employees. While they promised to try to retain the existing staff, the regional director of the Secours Suisse, Maurice Dubois, made it clear from the outset that he would bring in new, more suitable staff if necessary and that he had the prerogative to dismiss any employees...