Tell No One Who You Are Read Online Free Page A

you’re a member of Solidarité, you will be taken away like your friends.”
    “Don’t worry,” her father always answered. “They won’t find out.”
    Few visitors now came to the apartment on rue Van Lint.Not even Edgar Herman, her father’s best friend and also a member of Solidarité. He used to drop in regularly and Régine missed his visits, even though whenever he came, she had to guard his bicycle downstairs, because Léon’s bicycle had been stolen from that very spot.
    When the Germans closed down Jewish businesses, including the leather companies, there was no work for her father. He found a new occupation. He took off his yellow badge and traveled by train to the countryside to get meat and smuggle it into the city. Not only could he be arrested for carrying the contraband meat, but also for riding the train, since Jews were forbidden to do so by the Germans. On the days he went to the country, Régine would go to the corner of rue Van Lint and Chaussée de Mons in the late afternoon and wait anxiously for his return.
    He transformed his workroom into a butcher shop. His worktable became a butcher block and he sliced beef on it. Régine and Léon helped to wrap the meat for the women who came to buy it. Dr. Zilbershatz said her mother should have meat and her father was glad to provide it. But she had trouble digesting it and Régine often heard her vomiting in the bedroom.

Chapter Eight
    T HAT SUMMER , the terrible summer of 1942, the more the Allied bombers flew over Belgium, the worse the German orders against the Jewish people.
    The deportations had started in March. Unmarried men between the ages of sixteen and forty were singled out for the labor camps. They were to be put to work erecting German fortifications along the northern coast of occupied France.
    Léon was sixteen years old.
    The knock came early one morning. Her father answered it. Her mother was resting in bed. At first it didn’t seem too serious. The person at the door was a young man. He said he’d been sent to deliver a message to Léon Miller.
    The young man was around Léon’s age. He seemed nervous standing in her father’s shadow. Léon leaned over and whispered in Régine’s ear. “I know that guy. He went to my school.”
    “Is he your friend?” Régine asked.
    “No, but I know him.”
    The young man handed the envelope to her father and turned to leave.
    “Hold on,” her father said. “What’s this about?” He opened the envelope, took out the paper and unfolded it.
    Régine saw the look of anger spread over her father’s face. The young man, more nervous now, turned to go. Her father crumpled the paper and let it drop to the floor. He shoved theyoung man, and Régine heard him yell out as he tumbled down the stairs. Her father picked up the crumpled ball of paper and threw it down after him.
    “What’s going on?” her mother called in a weak voice from the bedroom. “Is something wrong?”
    Her father slammed the front door and marched into the bedroom. She heard him say that Léon had to report to the train station in the morning. “We’ll ignore the notice,” he said.
    “How can we ignore it?” her mother asked.
    Her father did not answer.
    A little while later there was another knock on the door. The same young man handed Mr. Miller another notice and ran quickly back down the stairs. Régine’s father closed the door slowly, reading the new notice.
    Her father again walked into the bedroom, followed by Léon. Through the open door Régine saw her father and brother sit down on the edge of the bed. Her father explained the notice to her mother. “Léon must go to the train station,” he said, his voice a whisper.
    There was no choice in the matter. If Léon didn’t go, the whole family would be taken away.

Chapter Nine
    R ÉGINE WATCHED as her mother slowly packed Léon’s rucksack. Piles of sweaters, pants and blankets lay on the bed. Mrs. Miller folded each item with precision and placed it