Paris never fails us of her attractions, especially for those who love shopping. Whether the prosperity impression, luxurious living or the Bohemia life style , what people used to call; are actually a very different scenario of what Paris was experienced & had been transformed after WWII.
While writing this series, I was accidentally found a book “Left Bank - Art, Passion and the Rebirth of Paris 1940-1950” by Agnés Poirier. A book that opens my eyes wide and solve some of the queries inside me during the trip.
During the WWII, the third republic lead French into a shameful act, allow the occupied of the Nazis without defense, it might prevent major casualties as they originally thought but in fact, not to the Jews here, as mentioned in the book, over 13000 Parisian Jews (one third are children) were sent to death in Poland in 1942 & 80000 Jews were sent from France to concentration camps…this is still an ached in some of the Parisians nowadays. That explains to me why so many Jewish memorial museum were built in Paris. I feel sad, too.
The intellectuals, how they survived to face the lost of their Jewish friends each day but couldn’t say, would there be any hope to dream for their future? To continue their philosophic expression? Publication? Playwright? Artistic life? simply to live or left?
Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Beach, Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway, Jacques Jaujard, Pablo Picasso, Henri cartier-bressan…some of the characters in the book, the intellectuals who were there…their dreams didn’t vanish but transformed and camouflaged in another way to preserve the seed of hope. What they had been struggling, physically, mentally & emotionally (whether succeeded or failure) left a trace in the Café de Flore, café des Deus Magots, the Louvre and many other places in Paris.
The huge impact in the field of their specialties & their “third way” are still influencing a lot of us in the modern age. Café de Flore may be famous of it’s hot cocoa, but in depth, there’s always been the stories behind like Hôtel La Louisiane, the Shakespeare & Co., Le Tabou…that flourished.
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Dream a little Dream is the second last book of Petit Paris Series, my first draft was finished in February 2022, the moment of the 5th wave of COVID-19 in Hong Kong, should I still bring out this message to my reader? absolutely Yes, without any hesitation! the hope to end this pandemic as same as the hope to end war. If they could survive in their own ways and achieved even more in 10 years, we can, it's not only a dream!
