AUTUMN HAD COME. ON 2 OCTOBER, THE PARIS NEWSPAPERS published the decree obliging all Jews to register at police stations for a census. A declaration by the head of the family sufficed for all. To avoid long lines, those affected were asked to attend in alphabetical order, on the dates indicated in the table below . . . The letter B fell on 4 October. On that day, Ernest Bruder went to Clignancourt police station to fill in the census form. But he failed to register his daughter. Everybody reporting for the census was allotted a number, later attached to the “family file.” This was known as the “Jewish dossier” number. Ernest and Cécile Bruder had the Jewish dossier number 49091. But Dora had no number of any sort. Perhaps Ernest Bruder felt that she was out of harm’s way, in a free zone, at the Saint-Coeur-de-Marie boarding school, and that it was best not to draw attention to her. Then again, the classification “Jew” meant nothing to the fourteen-year-old Dora.
