In 1934, at the age of fourteen, Colette Brull-Ulmann knew that she wanted to become a pediatrician. By the age of twenty-one, she was in her second year of studying medicine. By 1942, Brull-Ulman and her family had become registered Jews under the ever-increasing statutes against them enacted by Petain's government. Her father had been arrested and interned at the Drancy detention camp and Brull-Ulman had become an intern at the Rothschild Hospital, the only hospital in Paris where Jewish physicians were allowed to practice and Jewish patients could go for treatment. Under Claire Heyman, a charismatic social worker who was a leader of the hospital's secret escape network, Brull-Ulmann began working tirelessly to rescue Jewish children treated at the Rothschild. Her devotion to the protection of children, her bravery, and her imperviousness in the face of the deadly injustices of the Holocaust were always evident--whether smuggling children to safety through the Paris streets in the dead of night or defying officers and doctors who frighteningly held her fate in their hands. Ultimately, Brull-Ulmann was forced to flee the Rothschild in 1943, when she joined her father's resistance network, gathering and delivering information for De Gaulle's secret intelligence agency until the Liberation in 1945. In 1970, Brull-Ulmann finally became a licensed pediatrician. But after the war, like so many others, she sought to bury her memories. It wasn't until decades later when she finally started to speak publicly--not only about her own work and survival, but about the one child who affected her most deeply. Originally published in French in 2017, Brull-Ulmann's memoir fearlessly illustrates the horrors of Jewish life under the German Occupation and casts light on the heretofore unknown story of the Rothschild Hospital during this period. But most of all, it chronicles the life of a truly exceptional and courageous woman for whom not acting was never an option.
Colette Brull-Ulmann (1920-2021) was a French Resistance fighter who was a medical intern at the Rothschild Hospital in Paris during World War II. After the war, she worked as a pediatrician in Noisy-le-Sec (Seine-Saint-Denis). In 2019, she was made an officer of the French Legion of Honor. Jean-Christophe Portes is a French journalist, documentary filmmaker, and writer.
Preface Introduction 1. December 1943 2. Before 3. The Harp 4. Bijou 5. Student 6. Jacques 7. The Hospital 8. The Star 9. Hard Times 10. The Vel d'hiv Roundup, July 16, 1942 11. Disappearances 12. The Children 13. Going Underground 14. The Orphanage 15. Escapes 16. Danielle 17. Flights 18. Mademoiselle Lecomte 19. Liberation 20. Pediatrician 21. After The Network
"[A] gripping story...Through the Morgue Door is nonfiction, but it is so vividly written and full of suspense that it reads like a novel...Hopefully, this remarkable story of a courageous young Jewish woman in Paris during World War II will remind us all about the power of compassion and humanity." (Jewish Book Council) "Through the Morgue Door is the engaging memoir of one young Jewish woman's experience in Paris during the Nazi occupation of France...The memoir raises questions related to memory and postwar silence as well as the role of women in the Resistance. She provides a history of the Rothschild Hospital from an intern's perspective and documents a network that might otherwise remain hidden." (H-France)
