The above passage tells of a nervous first encounter with the enemy by French writer Leon Werth, a Parisian civilian fleeing the invading German army in June 1940. What makes the passage memorable is not only its account of searching for a universal element, as Werth attempts to make or at least imagines a common human connection between himself and the soldier, but that the reader already knows something about the author that puts this encounter in an entirely different, chilling, historical context: the author is Jewish.

Werth’s passage packs a huge amount that is worthy of reflection within just a short paragraph. First is the historical comparison. In World War I, the French halted the German lines north of Paris, and the enemy’s face was never seen in full confrontation, but only in defeat as prisoners. Here there is menace, and fear. But what is remarkable is that Werth almost immediately attempts to understand their position, and what the German soldiers must be feeling at the same time. He thinks that they must be feeling the fantastic nature of the encounter themselves, that they are as unprepared for the moment as he is, that they are operating on their military training alone without reflective thought of the situation. He thinks that they must fear a trap. His wife’s later comments that the soldiers looked more Japanese than German in their features seems to make sense in consideration of their faces being taut with worry, concentration, and the strains of anticipating danger as they fight and advance in a foreign territory, amongst an enemy people. When the soldier approaches the car, Werth’s own response is confused, as he admits that he doesn’t know whether to fear, kill, or make small talk with the man. When he realizes that there is no immediate danger to their lives, he then also imagines that he, his wife, and the soldier are sharing a bond outside of the war among themselves.
    
And this is perhaps what makes the German soldier’s face at the end so chilling. Werth sees in it the shadow of a smile. Perhaps he is correct in his suggested interpretation that the smile was the recognition of a common humanity. But for a perceptive reader aware of the historical fate of more than 330,000 French Jews that followed the Nazi conquest of France and the Final Solution, another interpretation is entirely possible at the end of this passage: The predator has caught its prey, and death is now inevitable for many people, including intelligent and open-minded people such as Leon Werth, who at that moment cannot imagine the unthinkable fate behind the clenched features.

Leon Werth survived World War II in Vichy France, and his manuscript detailing his 33 days spent fleeing the Nazis in summer 1940 was lost until 1992.  It is a remarkable account of the war from the perspective of a civilian facing an invading and occupying foe. In my next posts, I’ll present the viewpoint of the war from a German soldier’s experience, although in a very different place and time during World War II.