The most recent post in the Bullers in The Mennonite series (here) mentioned various MCC sites scattered throughout France. Several of these locations—two of the children’s homes and the MCC center at Chalon-sur-Saône—warrant further attention.
The first children’s home to highlight is the one located at “Anetz par Ancenis, a town near Nantes in western France” (the brown pin in western France on the map here). Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any further information about this home, apart from one crucial fact: this was the children’s home that Bea’s parents, Richard and Marie Rosenthal, directed and at which Bea’s younger brother Gerard worked from May/June 1945 until the three of them immigrated to the U.S. in May 1946.
How do we know this? Gerard himself recounts the story:
The Mennonite Central Committee established children’s homes in all over France, some of them in Alsace-Lorraine and one of them in the area of Nantes. We [Gerard and his parents] figured out very quickly that we weren’t going to be able to come to the United States until things quieted down. … They [the MCC] offered us employment in one of the children’s homes. My parents became directors, and I sort of became the gofer. So we … moved to this little town of Alcenis. … For a year we worked there. In the meantime my sister came back to France; they [Bea and Henry] lived in northern France in Chalon-sur-Saône. That’s where they had their headquarters. I would go there and pick up food and clothing. They taught me how to drive, and I had a Jeep to drive. I was in seventh heaven; it was glorious. We lived there for a year and functioned there for a year. Then in May of 1946 we finally got our visas [and immigrated to the United States]. (transcribed from the Shoah Foundation interview, 2 February 1996; sincere thanks to the Rosenthal family for pointing me to and providing this and other resources)
Perhaps someday we will stumble upon additional information about the children’s home and the work of the Rosenthals there. For now it is enough to know that they reconnected with Bea and Henry shortly after the end of the war.
The second children’s home worth noting is “the former Canet-Plage convalescent home [then located] at Lavercantière” (the orange pin in southwest France on the map linked above). The Canet-Plage home is the subject of ongoing interest, due to Henry’s involvement in the initial establishment of it and its later role as a safe haven for Jewish children who would otherwise have been sent to Nazi death camps (see here). When German troops took possession of the Canet-Plage house in February 1943, the children living there at the time were moved to a chateau in Lavercantière (pictured on the right).
I have been unable to determine if that chateau is still standing; I suspect it is, since there a a number of similar-looking buildings in Lavercantière today, and one in particular looks promising, if only we could view it from the same angle as the photo above.
There is no such uncertainty with the next MCC site that we will consider: the MCC center in Chalon-sur-Saône. We begin with a photo of “Alma Lehman, Alsatian Mennonite Central Committee worker at MCC headquarters at Chalon-sur-Saone ca. 1946.” Looking just at this photo, there is little that we can discern. However, the photo does contain hints that enable us to put additional pieces together. Note, for example, the stone or brick wall in front of the whitish building on the left. Notice also that the building is two-story and has tall windows apparently evenly spaced. Finally, look closely at the area between the first and second floors: it appears that there is some sort of light fixture on the outside of the building.
With all those details in mind, we are ready to take a second look at a photograph that we viewed in early January, in a post titled “Bea and Henry in Europe” (see here). The photo shows a group of MCC workers in France after World War II.
The first thing that catches my eye is the stone wall behind the workers. It looks strikingly similar to the stone wall on the left of the Alma Lehman photo above. The color of the building resembles that in the first photo as well, and the shape of the windows seems to be the same. In fact, zooming in close with the first photo reveals the same notches on the sides of the window as we see in the second photo.
Of course, knowing what we now know, that the MCC center in France was permantently located in Chalon-sur-Saône after World War II, it only seems reasonable to conclude that the group photo here was also taken in front of the center located in that city.
As is evident in the first photo, the front of the MCC center was close to the street, with access limited to foot traffic. Thus it is no surprise that the back of the center was where supplies were unloaded and loaded. That is what we see in a third photo.
Looking closely and working left to right, one can spot two jeeps, a van, an army truck in the distant background and another in the foreground, and the front end of a third jeep between the two trucks. Note also that someone is carrying a basket of something (presumably clothes or food) to one of the trucks. Finally, zooming in close one can see that the first-floor window has the same notch pattern on the side, which confirms beyond doubt that this is the same building as that in the other photos: the MCC center in Chalon-sur-Saône.
Thanks to the wonders of Google Maps and Street View, we can see that the building still stands today (to explore the building on your own, go here).
We know from MCC reports that the center was located on Impasse Du Tranche, which, it turns out, is a relatively short street in Chalon-sur-Saône, so locating the building was not that difficult. The red cross on the sign toward the right end of the building lets passers-by know that the building is associated with the Croix Rouge Française (French Red Cross). Today the building houses a day center for homeless people in the area, offering them both essential services and social support. So it is that, nearly eighty years after the MCC served the people of France out of this building, the legacy of service continues there even today.
Note: all the photographs from the 1940s were taken by MCC relief worker John L. Fretz and made available by the Mennonite Archives of Ontario on the Mennonite Archival Information Database (MAID; see here).
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