The Postcard

Lélia spends her first months of life with Jeanine in a luxurious hotel designated for resistance fighters. Although Lélia suffered mightily from Myriam’s neglect, Anne admits that she always pictured Lélia as a child with a silver spoon, perhaps owing to the lavish nature of the Picabia side of the family.

In 1945, the French government begins to arrange for the return of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Signboards are put up with pictures of missing relatives in the Hotel Lutetia, where Jeanine is raising Patrick and Lélia. But the returnees are in far worse condition than anyone expected. Typhus has broken out in the hotel, people are dying, and Jeanine tries to spare Myriam this truth.

The Lutetia receives more concentration camp survivors, shocking the city. Trains bring more sickly former detainees every hour. Parisians are shocked, judgmental, and rude, blaming the detainees for their horrid appearances.