My parents had found much the same difficulty trying to reclaim our old apartment as Fred had with our store in Poitiers. Under the new despoliation laws, they won their court case, but were still unsuccessful in reclaiming it. I was appalled to find them living in my grandmother’s small apartment—stripped of everything, including my grandfather’s library—while a deputy from the prefecture squatted in theirs. It was early 1949, four years after the end of the war, and yet they were still virtually homeless.
